Random games with GEM mod...

[Ace of Spades]

Since I currently lack the time to play large scenarios like the GEM scenarios, but still wanted to play some civ now and then, I have taken to playing some random games using the GEM mod.

What has proven to be especially funny is using the GEM mod for one city challenges. I like to play with teams, so I get to have a partner capable of taking all the cities that I prepare for conquest. Usually, my team lags behing early in the game but takes up speed later on, when I get my city running. With Globe Theatre, National Epic and National Park the city can grow to insane population, due to the modified merchant and Great Merchant specialists of GEM which give you 1 or 3 respectively.

Combine this with Pacifism, Caste System and Representation to get a city with an insane size and science output. See for yourself, on the attached screenshot...

Best Regards,
Martin

 

[Genghis_Kai]

interesting! How did you counter the unhappiness and unhealthiness? You only have one city so you can't have that many resources.

On another matter, I am reviewing the specialist bonus at the moment, because as you pointed out, I think Merchant and Great Merchant are too good in compare to the other specialist. Since I need the +3 food for the Great Merchant so I cannot reduce the bonus of Merchant/Great Merchant. Instead, I am thinking of raising all other specialist/great specialist's bonuses. What do you think?

 

[Ace of Spades]

Well, since Globe Theatre eliminates all unhappiness and National Park eliminates all unhealthiness (from population, but the one from buildings and ressources never gets above 6 or 7 and is negligible) they no longer limit city growth in that scenario.

Personally, I think that raising the other specialist bonuses is a good idea, since at the moment, there is no point in appointing any specialist but great merchants. One simple possibility would be to add the +1 food to any specialist, and +3 food to any great person, which would probably ensure a balance much like the one before.

If you do not want to do that, you'd have to add some really strong bonuses to the other specialists to keep them competitive, my suggestion would be to triple their bonuses and see how you get along. Then again, all of this serves to facilitate a specialist economy while at the same time a cottage economy does not benefit at all. Therefore, I would probably consider buffing high-level cottages as well to re-balance both strategies.

The only problem involved is that this will require a certain amount of economic re-balancing on a larger scale, like increasing technology cost by 20%, otherwise tech progression will skyrocket even more. However, tech progression is seriously flawed on the GEM maps anyway as soon as you play for more than about 100 turns...

Best Regards,
Martin

 

[Genghis_Kai]

Well, since Globe Theatre eliminates all unhappiness and National Park eliminates all unhealthiness (from population, but the one from buildings and ressources never gets above 6 or 7 and is negligible) they no longer limit city growth in that scenario.

Oh yes, stupid me

Personally, I think that raising the other specialist bonuses is a good idea, since at the moment, there is no point in appointing any specialist but great merchants. One simple possibility would be to add the +1 food to any specialist, and +3 food to any great person, which would probably ensure a balance much like the one before.

If you do not want to do that, you'd have to add some really strong bonuses to the other specialists to keep them competitive, my suggestion would be to triple their bonuses and see how you get along. Then again, all of this serves to facilitate a specialist economy while at the same time a cottage economy does not benefit at all. Therefore, I would probably consider buffing high-level cottages as well to re-balance both strategies.

The only problem involved is that this will require a certain amount of economic re-balancing on a larger scale, like increasing technology cost by 20%, otherwise tech progression will skyrocket even more. However, tech progression is seriously flawed on the GEM maps anyway as soon as you play for more than about 100 turns...

Best Regards,
Martin

Thanks, I will consider your points. Mmm... it does sound difficult to balance.

In regards to research, the flaw in GEM is not simple. Making the science to take longer to complete will make research too unattractive, while increasing the months/turn will make the scenarios less interesting in my opinion.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Absolutely true. The problem for historical scenarios is with the scaling, I think I elaborated on research speeds in GEM somewhere in the 1860 AD thread.

In comparison, RFC (which is also a historical mod) uses research costs normalized by city number, which leads to large empires with many small cities being less inventive than small nations with a few very productive cities. However, I feel that this would not fit too well with the GEM mod concept, where you try to add many historical cities, hardly place any settlers, and usually play with city razing of - so you have only very limited control over your city placement. Similarly, in Europa Universalis 3 (which is an entirely different game, but has similar challenges to solve) research cost scales with the number of provinces (i.e. cities) owned, so to get really good research rates, you have to own rich provinces only.

Effectively, this method of calculating research cost would overly punish player for possessing unproductive cities along with productive ones. While this brings a new twist to the vassal mechanic (take productive cities and liberate all the unproductive ones surrounding it to your vassals), it seriously helps the human player, since such a strategy is too advanced for the AI to grasp.

Anyway, there is no really easy solution, and to get a good shot at realistic research times, you would probably have to modify the DLL. But first, you should try to find a good model of which factors influenced technology progression historically, and how you could represent them in the civ engine.

Best Regards,
Martin

 

[Genghis_Kai]

I think the best solution to my problem is to expand the tech tree, as it allows more incremental improvement that can happen more frequently, rather than a big jump but requires to wait a long time. That is of course beyond my ability and beyond my interest.

On the other hand, in regards to tech research rate between big and small nations, I think it is almost like changing on of the most fundamental game concept of CIV and is almost like making another game. I suspect that is not just beyond my ability, but ability of most modders

 

[Ace of Spades]

Quite frankly, I do not think it is that difficult at all, and would I not lack the time to invest in this at the moment due to having to work on my thesis, I would be willing to try.

An approximate solution would be to employ a logarithmic function to calculate the final science output. The base of the logarithm could be chosen accordingly, for example if you used a base of 2, then to quadruple your final science output, you would need 2^4 = 16 times the number of science bulbs, as seen in the following image:



Basically, this would mean that speeding up research beyond a certain point becomes much harder, which prevents large nations from skyrocketing in research compared to smaller ones, while still letting them keep a slight edge. Of course, this is far from perfect - maybe you could even do better by employing another function than the logarithm (a sigmoid curve, for instance), but I have not given the matter that much tought yet.

As to the difficulty in programming, I believe you would just have to add a single method to the DLL, which applies the chosen function to the science output to calculate the final science output. Once you have familiarized yourself with the DLL code somewhat, this should not be too hard to do...

Best Regards,
Martin