[POLL] Monopoly percentage fix

[Infixo]

Something that boggled my mind from the first day of using VP: having >100% of resources.

Ofc I know why it is like that in terms of mechanics, but imho they should be corrected. Unless there is some deep logic and meaning that I don't see. As an experiment I managed to change it to work as it should imho: percentage is calculated against all "activated" resources in the world (like "the market size"). Example. We have 8 on the map of which 6 are connected and 5 from other means (GA, CS, bonuses, etc.). The percentage will be calculated not against 8 but against 11. It wil never be >100%.

Consequences:
- Allows for a real fight about monopoly, since the percentage may change as more copies appear in the world. It means that you can actually loose one if other civ will "generate" more of a given resource.
- You will not know how many resources are there still to be found / improved. The tooltip will only show the current "market size".
- EIC will not get you over 100%. However, you can secure monopoly by going >50%.
<will add more from discussion>

 

[Moi Magnus]

Does it mean that when improving the first ressource of one kind, you will get a monopoly (100%) ? Except if an unknown Civ at the other side of the map happen to have the same ressource near its capital ?

This would lead to a rebalance of every monopoly, so I'm not completely sold on that.

If I were to implement a new rule on monopolies it would be :
+If you sell a luxury to half of the other civs, you have a monopoly bonus.
(Maybe counting only known civs ?)

 

[Enginseer]

What I feel strongly against the fix is:

The >100% system just displays who has a stronger monopoly despite 50% monopoly in the world. I think of this >100% system as the natural monopoly where you can naturally gather the resources. So I know that there are 5 amber resources in the world that can exist and 5 amber that I can reasonably get. I can always clone and duplicate this. Very easy to understand.

The =100% system just displays the resources that you once held are getting weaker and weaker because of some random Dutch East Indies Company or some various unique abilities and events. These are artificial monopolies. As there are events that increase your amber resources out of nowhere. You suddenly realize achieving a monopoly might not be possible because you thought there were 5 amber in the world, but in reality were inflated to have 20 amber in the world. You don't know the exact numbers. If I destroy a Dutch East Indies colony with 3 amber. They lose 6 amber. Should they? Maybe the Dutch received a random event of a free Amber for 30 turns in this city and you can't fathom why they lose 7 now. It's all a big mess behind the stage.

 

[Infixo]

Does it mean that when improving the first ressource of one kind, you will get a monopoly (100%) ? Except if an unknown Civ at the other side of the map happen to have the same ressource near its capital ?

Yup. "A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity." (wiki)
But don't worry, not for long. If somebody else will connect it - you will lose it.
I am not talking about rebalancing (some nerfing probably would be required) but about setting in place a sane, logical mechanism. Standard Oil was not a monopolist because they owned 50% of entire world oil - they really needed a super-micro-fraction of that...

 

[Infixo]

What I feel strongly against the fix is:
The >100% system just displays who has a stronger monopoly despite 50% monopoly in the world. I think of this >100% system as the natural monopoly where you can naturally gather the resources. So I know that there are 5 amber resources in the world that can exist and 5 amber that I can reasonably get. I can always clone and duplicate this. Very easy to understand.

Why do you think you should actually know how many resources are there if you have not even revealed the tiles where they are? This is simply too much info, that shouldn't be available for the player in the first place.

 

[Infixo]

The =100% system just displays the resources that you once held are getting weaker and weaker because of some random Dutch East Indies Company or some various unique abilities and events. These are artificial monopolies. As there are events that increase your amber resources out of nowhere. You suddenly realize achieving a monopoly might not be possible because you thought there were 5 amber in the world, but in reality were inflated to have 20 amber in the world. You don't know the exact numbers. If I destroy a Dutch East Indies colony with 3 amber. They lose 6 amber. Should they? Maybe the Dutch received a random event of a free Amber for 30 turns in this city and you can't fathom why they lose 7 now. It's all a big mess behind the stage.

Thank you. That is exactly how RL works - it's dynamic, you fight for market share using every possible means.
Events are random by default. It's only natural that they can affect your game in a random way. That's their purpose. If somebody created an event that "increase your amber resources out of nowhere" then well, you have more resources, right? You can sell, etc. If this is a stupid event, then it should be removed.

 

[Ziad]

I like this Infixo. You really live up to your name lol.

Just throwing an idea out there.

We already have a system for Netherlands that identifies where they get their resources from.

Can just have it affect all civs. Then expand it to show where they get a resource count from it if you have vision of the resource. Either on the map or via a spy in an appropriate city to reveal other bonuses from events or wonders.

Maybe a huge undertaking (probably better fit for a modmod tbh) but would accompany your suggested fix nicely. Thematic with Statecraft and England too.

 

[Gazebo]

This falls beyond the scope of ‘fix’ and is a balance concern. Balance changes are my demesne. The system exists as-is because it is more clear for the player and the AI knows how it works as well. This should be left alone.

There’s quite a fad for polls around here lately that feel like they’re designed to force my hand on balance changes. I always appreciate feedback and criticism/advice but, just a reminder, I get the final say on what goes in or out of the mod balance-wise. Without that final step the mod would be too difficult for me to manage.

G

 

[Gidoza]

Funny - I was thinking about this this morning as well, but in a different manner.

I'm simply wondering why resources of a single type appear in a single localized place on the map. This is unrealistic nonsense. You can find whales in all oceans - they're not localized.


I'm thinking that one way to deal with the matter would be that monopolies cannot be generated based on your own home area. Rather, all resources that can become monopolies (non-strategic) are separated into three domains: one area of the map has 40% of them, another area of the map has another 40% of them, and the last area of the map has the remaining 20%. This means you can't magically get a monopoly right of the bat of the game (something that isn't realistic), and secondly that you need to engage in some kind of work to get a monopoly, whether it's adding a new colony, fighting, or trading for a city - and there will be a legit battle for them. I don't know if we need to have new resources spawn on the map, just separating the resources out into three locations will do just fine.

 

[tu_79]

Funny - I was thinking about this this morning as well, but in a different manner.

I'm simply wondering why resources of a single type appear in a single localized place on the map. This is unrealistic nonsense. You can find whales in all oceans - they're not localized.


I'm thinking that one way to deal with the matter would be that monopolies cannot be generated based on your own home area. Rather, all resources that can become monopolies (non-strategic) are separated into three domains: one area of the map has 40% of them, another area of the map has another 40% of them, and the last area of the map has the remaining 20%. This means you can't magically get a monopoly right of the bat of the game (something that isn't realistic), and secondly that you need to engage in some kind of work to get a monopoly, whether it's adding a new colony, fighting, or trading for a city - and there will be a legit battle for them. I don't know if we need to have new resources spawn on the map, just separating the resources out into three locations will do just fine.

This is made on purpose for making sure each civ has access to a monopoly. I think is a More Luxuries thing.

 

[Ziad]

I think every civ having a monopoly and then contesting others for their theirs is a fine system as is.

 

[Rekk]

Funny - I was thinking about this this morning as well, but in a different manner.

I'm simply wondering why resources of a single type appear in a single localized place on the map. This is unrealistic nonsense. You can find whales in all oceans - they're not localized.


I'm thinking that one way to deal with the matter would be that monopolies cannot be generated based on your own home area. Rather, all resources that can become monopolies (non-strategic) are separated into three domains: one area of the map has 40% of them, another area of the map has another 40% of them, and the last area of the map has the remaining 20%. This means you can't magically get a monopoly right of the bat of the game (something that isn't realistic), and secondly that you need to engage in some kind of work to get a monopoly, whether it's adding a new colony, fighting, or trading for a city - and there will be a legit battle for them. I don't know if we need to have new resources spawn on the map, just separating the resources out into three locations will do just fine.

What you are describing is a map script, isn't it?

 

[Gidoza]

This is made on purpose for making sure each civ has access to a monopoly. I think is a More Luxuries thing.

What I'm asking is why it is necessary for every civ to have easy access to a monopoly.

 

[Ziad]

What I'm asking is why it is necessary for every civ to have easy access to a monopoly.

Map scripts handle resource placement by the way. You can probably craft one that spreads them out.

Sometimes I play YAEMP and they're all spread out.

 

[Vortok]

Having the monopoly % accurately display the % of the ones that matter would be nice. Had a game where I was over 25% on the counter but didn't have the bonus due to the current way it counts on the % screen but not towards actually obtaining a monopoly.


This would significantly boost civs/policies that give extra copies. Oil/Aluminum are very strong strategic (25%) monopolies. There's a Statescraft policy that gives a few (mild impact on lower count stuff).

Russia producing double quantity strategic would basically hinder the attempts of all other civs in the game to obtain those monopolies. There's certainly an argument for enjoying the diversity/impact their presence in a game can have, but I think it might skew things a bit too much.

In regards to basing a monopoly on the activated amount - I like the incentive to improve multiple copies of the same resource, even with no plans to trade it. You can even get a monopoly bonus without ever meeting another civ, so the "market share" argument runs into immersion trouble as well. Also means that some expansion is required to activate a monopoly, which delays when they come online by a little bit. Small consideration.

I could get behind a % based bonus for having enough of the activated resources, like say 2% culture working up towards the full 10% bonus. Gets messier on the +2 to resource tile monopolies. It could be interesting for the few resources that are spread around the world, but that's some extra coding for little real gain.

 

[Infixo]

Map scripts usually place civs around places with 6-8 resources for the monopoly. It means that you can’t get a monopoly until having improved at least 3-4. To ratain balance and in general remove cases where monopoly is granted with single resource or 2, etc. It is easy to just put a minimum resources that you need to own to trigger this mechanism, like 3-4. Below that you would not be eligible for „monopoly calculations”.

 

[Vortok]

What I'm asking is why it is necessary for every civ to have easy access to a monopoly.

I'd have to imagine the base map scripts (aka, not VP related) were set that way to promote trading/place greater importance on diplomatic relations. If you have most/all copies of a luxury, and everybody wanted 1 of each for happiness, there's reasons for them to trade with you/you to trade with others. Significant geographical luxury resource diversity would frontload the happiness benefits, lowering the incentive to expand/trade/etc. Trading for luxuries is just less vital in VP. The focus shifted more towards being able to handle most unhappiness with an inward, infrastructure focus (I rather like how unhappiness was reworked, tbh). It significantly lowered how much each civ needs to look outside its own borders to resolve issues. Which is basically a result of personality types (certain types making up a good portion of the vocal community/VP devs) favoring one style over another, when formulating solutions.

/tangent

 

[Stalker0]

First, I want to be clear that we are truly talking about a balance change. At first I thought this was just a UI adjustment, but its clearly more than that.

Ultimately I think the system works fine as is. Its true you don't have a true "monopoly" per say, but it still reflects RL very well.

In real life, you don't need a true monopoly to eek out a strong economic advantage. Even a large portion of the market is sufficient. There are many markerts were the top 2-3 major players hold a lot of influence...and gain profit as a result.

The system reflect this very well. Sometimes 1 person holds all of the cards and gains the benefit. Sometimes 1 other person can get a claim (through east india or something like that), and shares in the benefit. Both work well, both occur in RL.

 

[Infixo]

In real life, you don't need a true monopoly to eek out a strong economic advantage. Even a large portion of the market is sufficient. There are many markerts were the top 2-3 major players hold a lot of influence...and gain profit as a result.

1. The game allows to set a different treshold for each monopoly type.
2. What company has 137% of market share?
3. 2-3 are usually dominant players. Strategic monopoly in game simulates that, i think.

 

[Ziad]

How about a middle ground. Just dynamically reduce the amount you need to obtain a monopoly, to avoid exceeding 100%.

Let's say you have 10 of a resource at the start. To get a monopoly you'd need 6, so the starting amount is calculated as 60% with base 6 requiremnet.

Say someone gets an event and now 11 of the resource exist. To get a monopoly you need 6/11 = 55%

Someone constructs EIC and gets 2 additional copies. 13 exist. To get a monopoly you need 6/13 = 46%.

Of course you'd have to show the amount you need to reach a monopoly for a resource. Tabs already exist for that. Just add a column. Can even get rid of the % altogether and just use constant values. I'm sure the AI can understand that.

It would be the SAME exact system, except none of the 100%+ overflow.

And if you're feeling generous, make a toggle for "Interactive Monopolies" or whatever that makes it so that you need to get > 50% no matter what. (Infixo's idea).