Realism Invictus

[Walter Hawkwood]

Despite not providing a movement benefit on flat terrain, paths have their use case for unit movement too, as they remove the terrain/feature malus - a unit with 2 moves will only spend 1 move on a forest tile if it has a path.

 

[tebriz]

I’m just curious—those of you who play on Totestra, what map settings do you usually go with? Do you play with an empty New World, or do you prefer the “Start Anywhere Reasonable” option? And do you use the “Break Pangeas” setting?
I used to play with an empty New World, but not anymore. I had hoped that smaller, more advanced civilizations would colonize it—like in real history—but in practice, it’s usually the already massive empires that end up colonizing it as well, growing even more dominant.
These days, I prefer the “Start Anywhere Reasonable” option, combined with the maximum number of civilizations (34 in my case). My maps usually have 6,500–7,000 land tiles, so there’s still plenty of space for each civ to have a fair start. I like this setup more because it leads to more centers of power by the mid-to-late game. If everyone starts in the Old World, far fewer civilizations (and potential superpowers) tend to survive into the later stages.
The only thing that bothers me with this setup is that quite a lot of civs start in isolation—on a large island or a small continent with only 2–3 civs. These isolated civs often remain out of reach until the Age of Discovery.
What has your experience been like with Totestra? Which settings do you use, and what tips or advice would you share with other players?

 

[JDCP]

I’m just curious—those of you who play on Totestra, what map settings do you usually go with? Do you play with an empty New World, or do you prefer the “Start Anywhere Reasonable” option? And do you use the “Break Pangeas” setting?

I've only completed like 2 games on that script, but I'd say it depends on what you want. Empty New World if you want a race for resources, break pangaeas if you want more separation between landmasses.

These days, I prefer the “Start Anywhere Reasonable” option, combined with the maximum number of civilizations (34 in my case). My maps usually have 6,500–7,000 land tiles, so there’s still plenty of space for each civ to have a fair start. I like this setup more because it leads to more centers of power by the mid-to-late game. If everyone starts in the Old World, far fewer civilizations (and potential superpowers) tend to survive into the later stages.

yep, I like that, but I don't recommend that setting (empty new world) if you play with so many players.

The only thing that bothers me with this setup is that quite a lot of civs start in isolation—on a large island or a small continent with only 2–3 civs. These isolated civs often remain out of reach until the Age of Discovery.

I think that's cool, I don't want to know everyone right from the get go. Is it unbalanced? yeah, but it adds good variety to my game. If you're the isolated civ though it gets pretty boring quickly.

 

[Ahnarras]

Despite not providing a movement benefit on flat terrain, paths have their use case for unit movement too, as they remove the terrain/feature malus - a unit with 2 moves will only spend 1 move on a forest tile if it has a path.

Yep, really useful on desertic tiles, as those also needs more turns to build an improvement. I usually does more paths than roads in the early game, leaving the roads only to connect cities for faster moving of my (mostly infantry) armies.
But for connecting a ressource ? Path it is, at least until my empire is somewhat settle and have a handful of workers iddling around.

I think that's cool, I don't want to know everyone right from the get go. Is it unbalanced? yeah, but it adds good variety to my game. If you're the isolated civ though it gets pretty boring quickly.

It's my favorite start
No worry about war, you can settle wherever you want without minding the cultural expansion of others Civ, and no pressure in rushing settlers if you wanna focus an early wonders, you know the lands will still be free a few turns later !

 

[TheBirdMan]

I usually does more paths than roads in the early game, leaving the roads only to connect cities for faster moving of my (mostly infantry) armies.
But for connecting a ressource ? Path it is, at least until my empire is somewhat settle and have a handful of workers iddling around.

Then we are (at least) 2, who uses paths/roads the very same way.

 

[JDCP]

Then we are (at least) 2, who uses paths/roads the very same way.

I'd go as far as to say that's the intended way and I can't see why anyone would do otherwise. At least in my games I can't spare turns to be building roads everywhere, for the entire game I only build those when it's a must for quick transport of units to strategic points (such as borderline cities). In fact, in the ancient/classical period you barely have any cities, so there is no actual frontline but your very own, included your capital... therefore being able to take your few combat units from A to B in less than 4 turns is a necessity that can't be neglected, otherwise you risk (by a large margin) defeat. I might build roads if the resource is very important yet is very far from the nearest city, which becomes a pain when you have to defend it and you only got paths.

Started this morning a new game (with the SVN ) with Russia in the huge world map... damn it if it is hard! This discussion about paths/roads takes special consideration in my game because of how many trees are in the surroundings, building a path takes me like 20-30 turns in those tundras, much more a road, and I gotta build like 7 of those damned things! I got 4 cities (yeah I spammed those settlers lol) and one of them is still not connected to the others so that's a big pain in the ass because I got that one in the only coast I could safely reach, given the available resources (seriously as a kid I loved to settle my civs in tundras but now they all seem like deserts with trees to me), yet it's very far away to the north. So far the game is still a breeze and very peaceful considering nobody but barbarians seem interested in fighting me, but I better get everything lined up before the blizzard takes me by surprise. Those vikings to the northwest look suspicious...

Another good and well thought mechanic, once you're far enough you really don't think much about this, but in the early game it's very important... really makes you appreciate the modern age conveniencies

No worry about war, you can settle wherever you want without minding the cultural expansion of others Civ, and no pressure in rushing settlers if you wanna focus an early wonders, you know the lands will still be free a few turns later !

Yep it's a good start if you want to take it easy without resorting to a lower difficulty, AIs usually become pretty powerful when left alone so fighting them is also entertaining: "So you're the guy who's been taking all wonders away from me..." I like to feel threatened, but I can enjoy a slow start too because panicking every time I see a settler near my borders when we've just played for like 20 turns becomes annoying quickly.

@Walter Hawkwood BTW where does the Russian confederate flag come from? The one with the bear doing a salute... it's pretty cute but also pretty badass looking

 

[LeanArcticWolf]

Nah, you're golden. It's generally far easier to maintain the lead than to obtain it. You can play ahead to see more stuff, and there might be curveballs here and there, but overall, there won't be any existential threats for you, unless you get extremely lax.

Yeah, I'm afraid I'll get lax b/c of micromanagement


While playing, I saw two major sadnesses that would repeat and hinder my potential rivals. The first issue I believe will be much easier to fix and is the greater issue, while the second issue may be a bit of a mess to fix:

1) Lack of siege equipment. AI insists on using one siege engine in its invasions. This leads to horrible sieges where the AI often doesn't have the patience to whittle the walls down to 0 percent. This issue becomes very problematic with walls and doubly so with castles. Could this be due to the logistics system. The AI aims to not go above a certain lvl logistics so tries to "max" the armies potential of stacking it with non siege equipment? For assaulting cities, the AI needs to have a bare minimum of two siege equipment per army. For larger armies, at least 3. This will get worse with bombards, as my armies will be able to bombard their troops to maximum effect while they offer little counter fire.

These lack of siege equipment tends to lead to AI having much difficulty in conquering others. Prime example in my Egypt game: The Berbers, a medieval civilization has had a 4000 yr war with the Americans. The Americans at this point are a backwards tribal people struggling to research classical tech. B/c of the lack of siege equipment, this war has been so hard. It's only with having the Celts and Spaniards (both medieval civilizations) sending their own armies, are the backwards American tribes finally being whittled down. Additional siege engines would have made it much easier.

It is ultimate sadness to see a full stack army attack a city with the walls fully intact and get annihilated. Fixing this issue alone would potentially mean I would have 2-3 near rivals by my point in the game.


Now to the next issue, like I mentioned, this may be a mess to fix and deals more with human level reasoning:

2) Faraway wars-I saw on a changelog that fixes were made to reduce this but it still sadly occurs in at least Triassic. I believe the remaining issue with it is when an AI asks another AI for help in a war. The AI being asked is often too polite to say NOOOOO, you crazy why would I get involved in a faraway war when I can conquer a nearby neighbor! I believe the AI puts too much value on the potential relation boost and fears the relation malus too much. This may be radical, but maybe get rid of those? In terms of relation boost, just get rid of the immediate one that occurs. Keep the long term ones that occur. OR keep them all, but the AI for the most part doesn't regard those in its decision making
-With that said, there are benefits of wars of intervention. My own playthrough, I intervened a few times without conquering. HOWEVER, it was with neighboring countries or countries one step removed. The AI tends to go overboard in helping others. I think the AI should heavily consider distance in regard to its military strength. The stronger it is to everyone else, the more likely it will consider aiding wars that are further as it can "spare" the army. This is mainly in regards to any ways that is further than two countries away.
-Now, if it is a faraway war b/c the AI can't help itself, it doesn't need to send a whole dang army of conquest across 1000 miles. Maybe some horse archers would do? Basically, if it is a faraway war, AI should favor a mobile force for it.
-AI should focus on wars of conquests that it can easily benefit from, like attacking a neighboring country. It should not have delusions of grandeur of conquering cities that are separated by another country. Sigh
-Tbh, I'll confess, I did a couple faraway wars to farm relation boost, but I was smart enough not to send an army across the pangaea for it and didn't care one iota to tip the balance of power way over there. AI can't handle farming, so we should minimize AI trying to farm for relation points

3) Bonus Sadness-Naval invasions
As the world is a Pangaea, it's not that big of an issue, but it does affect certain countries more than others, like the Aztecs, Romans, and Chinese. It seems that the AI struggles with transporting armies. Certainly better than before, but it still struggles. Aztecs only have 2 cities in my game. And the second city was only recently founded...
-Having faraway wars b/c of navy would be more doable and especially so with advancing naval tech. Think the Romans invading the Greeks/Turks by sea (in Triassic game) in classical/medieval era. Or the Chinese invading the Romans in industrial era by sea. Aztecs would be a prime example of forming a costal empire. I may try them after Rome...

It'll be quite computationally heavy, unless we opt to not provide the players the feedback on the actual lump sums they get (it'll have to loop through all your cities and calculate distances to them every time we need to know the payout amount. Maybe they should be nerfed or limited in some other way, though. Or maybe not - you found a fun strategy that works well, why take it away?

Thinking it over, I agree. It's a very specific strategy that I found and needs all the stars to align for it to work. And it is fun Forget I ever mention it
-I think it potentially gets OP with a large empire, so I'm not sure if this was intentional for Judaism. And potential drawback is that it still takes time to build them; I was just very intentional in setting up my flood plain cities to be productive.

I always treated Egypt as the "tutorial civ" - I always recommend it to newcomers to get the hang of all the mechanics, as it's very "front-loaded" and a bit OP, especially in the right starting conditions.

Yeah, when I saw the Triassic world map, I realized that Egypt could potentially do very well if it unites the desert (all those flood plain tiles!). Mehmet complements Egypt really well in Triassic. My next playthrough, I think I'll try Rome out.

I would like to present an article on inequality in ancient times, maybe it will help to develop this modification.

I feel like this is an attack against my Egyptian empire lol . The inequality in my empire must be so bad. Most of the wealth has been concentrated in two cities (though I am getting a string of middle class cities). While the rest of my core cities are starting to gain wealth, I think the gap will widen remarkable with the advent of industrialization with factories multiplying the wealth of my top 2 money cities. As a theocracy now, my empire leans more toward centralization. So, I do think there would be more rebellions in the periphery (if this was real life); I realize it would be really hard to model this kind of thing in the civ iv engine and even if possible, AI would have no hope in managing it.

This is, and pardon my language, a completely bullfeathers analogy. In a service- and non-tangible-goods-based economy, the wealth inequality has a completely different cause than in a classical empire. California doesn't extract resources from the Midwest; it simply generates a lot of value - and likewise, I highly doubt anyone will say that Kent plunders Northuberland... The parallels drawn here are disingenuous at best and most probably deliberately manipulative.

This is really interesting! Never thought of it like that before in such concrete terms. If you were to ask me does California extract Midwest, I would say no, but this spells it out pretty well. Though, California's wealth is built on big tech, so technically it plunders the poor regions of the globe for rare earth minerals but I get your point.

Don't worry, another one is coming your way as you will moves into Renaissance. I won't spoil it for you, but the Age of Discovery hit HARD on separatism.

I better buckle up then! My conquering armies may have to turn inward! Funny thing was when I conquered the Turkish capital, it had 126% separatism (and that was with the -500% from provisional government). Thankfully, converting it to my religion and dumping a stack of doom (skirmishers), I was able to hold it. But for a hot second, I was terrified. I can't wait for Renaissance

Also I think declaring war on friends (people you are pleased with) should be a -2 penalty to relations instead of -1. Feel like declaring war on a friend and upsetting the balance of power should influence relationship more.

Interesting. Though, I think the AI does when the power imbalance gets too great? But having the AI treat "Friendly" more seriously would be better as it entails a great friendship being ruined in the name of greed
-Pleased can be a little too easy to attain so -1 may be appropriate

Should cart path be removed? I feel like the ai doesn't quite know how to use it and treats it like regular roads - building it everywhere when it makes no sense and wasting workers at the critical moments of the early game. I also don't really see much of a need for it as by the time you really need to connect a resource, roadbuilding will already have been researched.

My main gripe with it is that AI chooses to build road when a cart path makes more sense. Good example is if a resource is out of the way and not leading to anywhere where your armies need to travel. So, it wastes time constructing roads to an isolated resource when it could have just built a cart path. Not sure if this can be fixed as this requires more spatial and general reasoning?

 

[TheBirdMan]

'd go as far as to say that's the intended way and I can't see why anyone would do otherwise.

Showing we are humans and not AIs

Because the AIs does this:

Spoiler Roads-Roads and more Roads. :

 

[JDCP]

2) Faraway wars

Korea once declared war on me when I was playing the French, in the huge world map... in the classical age... it's funny and pretty much harmless so I don't mind it. Although I remember it happening once in a situation I was surrounded by players who had their borders closed to my enemy so... I dunno what was he even planning to do.

Because the AIs does this:

haha yeah they're weird, but I don't think it's anything important considering the AI plays by it's own rules. Strategy? Who needs that?

BTW that map looks... interesting to say the leastPreviously I asked you about your maps and I think you missed it, will I ever get my hands on them? I wanna play that crazy stuff.

 

[Ahnarras]

This discussion about paths/roads takes special consideration in my game because of how many trees are in the surroundings, building a path takes me like 20-30 turns in those tundras, much more a road, and I gotta build like 7 of those damned things!

Funny how, even while playing on the same map, our location makes so much difference to such a basic thing as workers management.
As I've have no forest in my empire and my first 3 settling cities where coastal (thus not really "needing" a road, except for units movements), I'm perfectly happy with 1 worker per 2 cities. And even with that low ratio, they had a few time where they were just iddling around.

The only time when I had to do a mine of a forest hill, deep in middle Africa, I was shocked by how many turns it would take !
And I wasn't even in slavery or pastoral nomadism anymore...

These lack of siege equipment tends to lead to AI having much difficulty in conquering others.

Agree. I've got the same case in my game, where Zara Yacob is holding between 3 and 5 others civilization since middle classical till now, entering Renaissance... They are sending stack uppon stack of soldiers but I guess they just mass suicide on his walls and the defenders must by now have a brazzillion city garnison promotions.

Funny thing is that it's not always like that : when Rome invaded me, they always came with 1 or 2 siege weapon per stack. Perhaps it's something specific against the player ... ?

The AI tends to go overboard in helping others. I think the AI should heavily consider distance in regard to its military strength.

Right. I'm a bit tired of having eastern asia or north europe asking me for military help, then hitting me with diplomacy malus for refusing.
"No, I can't invade Ireland right now, nor can I send an army to Korea. I'm a bit busy with, you know, MY NEIGHBOR !"

My main gripe with it is that AI chooses to build road when a cart path makes more sense. Good example is if a resource is out of the way and not leading to anywhere where your armies need to travel. So, it wastes time constructing roads to an isolated resource when it could have just built a cart path.

Is it wasted, truely ? Every AI around me seems to LOVES slavery, and also seems to keep their slaves around (instead of killing them for production boost on building).
I can see them walking around, a big stack of 5-8 slaves, roaming the countryside, looking in despair, hoping to find something, anything, to work on !

Perhaps it's more a case of "AI favors tiles improvements much more than sacrifice for production, and they ends with too much workers".

Korea once declared war on me when I was playing the French, in the huge world map... in the classical age...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all funny and silly... until you see a huge stack of Koreans soldiers dusting their boots after having walked accross half the world "just because"

 

[TheBirdMan]

I think you missed it,

No I didn't. I just do not know what to answer. Some of my.... let's call them strange ideas have also found their ways into the maps and the setup of the scenarios....
But you can try with the one I already have uploaded (then we also will know if it actually works).

See my spinn-off, page 7 posts #11 and post #12.

 

[[Y]]

I’m just curious—those of you who play on Totestra, what map settings do you usually go with? Do you play with an empty New World, or do you prefer the “Start Anywhere Reasonable” option? And do you use the “Break Pangeas” setting?
I used to play with an empty New World, but not anymore. I had hoped that smaller, more advanced civilizations would colonize it—like in real history—but in practice, it’s usually the already massive empires that end up colonizing it as well, growing even more dominant.
These days, I prefer the “Start Anywhere Reasonable” option, combined with the maximum number of civilizations (34 in my case). My maps usually have 6,500–7,000 land tiles, so there’s still plenty of space for each civ to have a fair start. I like this setup more because it leads to more centers of power by the mid-to-late game. If everyone starts in the Old World, far fewer civilizations (and potential superpowers) tend to survive into the later stages.
The only thing that bothers me with this setup is that quite a lot of civs start in isolation—on a large island or a small continent with only 2–3 civs. These isolated civs often remain out of reach until the Age of Discovery.
What has your experience been like with Totestra? Which settings do you use, and what tips or advice would you share with other players?

I play with Start Anywhere Reasonable, Allow Pangeas, and 16 starting civs on Giant maps with low sea levels. I like giving each civ plenty of space in which to expand to without forcing wars, and room for barbarian cities to spawn and eventually convert to civs. I also like knowing all the civs from relatively early on, especially with tech transfer as a mechanic. Not knowing civs in RI is a handicap. In maps where one continent has 5 civs and another has 20 civs, that 20 civ continent is going to research way faster.

"Keep New World" empty also feels very... colonialist to me. It's an exciting gameplay experience, but I'd rather find elements of the game to be excited about other than treating the native population of a continent as savage and just waiting for me to colonize it.

The low sea levels helps prevent the isolation, since it's just a tad easier for landmasses to share traversable coasts. I've also modded the script itself to avoid having far away landmasses, though it does still happen some.

Yep, really useful on desertic tiles, as those also needs more turns to build an improvement. I usually does more paths than roads in the early game, leaving the roads only to connect cities for faster moving of my (mostly infantry) armies.
But for connecting a ressource ? Path it is, at least until my empire is somewhat settle and have a handful of workers iddling around.

Then we are (at least) 2, who uses paths/roads the very same way.

I'd go as far as to say that's the intended way and I can't see why anyone would do otherwise.

I stop building paths as soon as I research Roadbuilding. I build paths as needed beforehand, but once I get RB, It's all roads from then on out, and I have my workers add a road to any tile after they build an improvement in that tile.

Typically I want these things:

1. Being able to quickly move units around during an invasion.
2. Being able to quickly deploy units to defend a resource tile before it's pillaged (and to quickly move from that resource tile back to a defense point or other resource tile)
3. Being able to quickly attack enemy units standing in a resource tile to pillage it, since that usually leaves them vulnerable.

How many workers do you guys usually keep around in each era of the game?

---

Walter, have you ever considered having tech transfer scale with city/population count? That way, if a civ experiences a revolution and splits into 2, other civs with open borders to both sides don't suddenly get double the transfer bonus from them. And it would also be an interesting drawback for expansion, since expansion means your allies now get more benefit from you.

It's probably too complicated an idea at face value, but I wonder if there's something adjacent to it that might be viable.

Edit:

Or maybe even inverting how it currently works. Right now the transfer bonus has diminishing returns. What if instead the first transfer bonus was very small, but it increases with each transferring civ? That would help keep transfer as a catch-up bonus as it offers the least value to the civs in the lead, but immense value to civs that are lagging on it.

 

[JDCP]

How many workers do you guys usually keep around in each era of the game?

After medieval I get as much as I want, by the later half of the game I will have the enough amount of cities to guarantee a good defense so I can lay down the guns and produce some folks, but from ancient to classical I don't think I've ever had more than 5 workers.

I stop building paths as soon as I research Roadbuilding. I build paths as needed beforehand, but once I get RB, It's all roads from then on out, and I have my workers add a road to any tile after they build an improvement in that tile.

I can see your reasons, but I couldn't keep at that pace with two workers, which is what I usually (not really, the usual is just one, but I will be generous) have by the time I get roadbuilding. I also tend to have an average of 3-5 cities in the early game, so I really can't spend much time into roads when I've got a long list of things to fulfill so those cities can develop. In this game I'll be making a few new workers once I get to the end of the classical age because I plan to expand to the east and what can I say, Siberia is a frozen jungle that's hard to settle in, so it's gonna take one hell of a work.

Maybe I should change my plans and expand to Europe and Africa lol.

No I didn't. I just do not know what to answer. Some of my.... let's call them strange ideas have also found their ways into the maps and the setup of the scenarios....
But you can try with the one I already have uploaded (then we also will know if it actually works).

See my spinn-off, page 7 posts #11 and post #12.

... alright, I'll check it out. But don't hesitate again, I'm always open to new experiences

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all funny and silly... until you see a huge stack of Koreans soldiers dusting their boots after having walked accross half the world "just because"

They got balls I gotta admit it.

Funny how, even while playing on the same map, our location makes so much difference to such a basic thing as workers management.

Yep, location completely changes the way you play the game, it's impressive how that works.

 

[LeanArcticWolf]

I've been playing around with ideas to help the smaller nations out there (that tend to be are poor AI buddies), to help small nations become proud tall nations— something that really rewards players and AI for building up a few strong cities instead of spamming settlers all over the map. The challenge, as many of you know, is that most buildings and wonders scale really well with wide empires. So I started thinking: what if we had a set of buildings and wonders that actually get worse the more cities you have?


To make that work, every entry in this list uses one of two mechanics:

• Production cost increases by X% per city
• Maintenance cost increases by +X gold per city

That way, tall empires can afford to build these and benefit, but wide empires will find them too expensive or inefficient to use everywhere. I also included an Era column so they slot into a normal tech progression, from Ancient to Modern.


This is just a brainstorm — just getting ideas out and seeing what you all think. I think there's a lot of potential for AI tuning too: the AI should be smart enough to avoid these buildings when it's playing wide, and only prioritize them when it's got a small, dense empire or a super-developed capital.


Would love to hear thoughts! Balancing ideas, name suggestions, better real-world wonder fits.

Please note for when it is +1 GPT per city that maintenance cost is based on the number of cities you control when the building or wonder is completed. This value is locked in and does not change if your empire grows or shrinks later. This is to prevent you or the AI from accidentally bankrupting themselves later. Basically, cost scales with empire size at time of construction. Locked once built.

The full table is below
Buildings:

Name	Effect	Scaling Mechanic	Era
Astral Observatory	+2 Science per Specialist; +25% Science	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Renaissance
Sanitation Gardens	+3 Health; +1 Food from Aqueduct	+1 GPT per city	Classical
Civic Forum	+25% GP rate; +1 GP point for active golden age specialist	Production cost increases by 10% per city	Renaissance
Trade Consulate	+2 Trade Routes; +1 Gold per foreign route	+1 GPT per city	Renaissance
Cultural Archive	+50% Culture; +3 Culture per Wonder in city	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Medieval
Fortress Foundry	+25% Military Unit Production; +1 XP	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Wardspire Bastion	+50% City Defense; bombard immunity; +2 Strength	+1 GPT per city	Medieval
Elite Academy	Units start with Drill I or Combat I; +2 XP from Barracks & Stable	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Medieval
Ironwall Garrison	+3 Happiness at war; +1 Production per garrisoned unit (up to 5)	+1 GPT per city	Renaissance
Aeronautics Bay	+50% Air Unit Production; Fighters start with Interception I	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Modern
Skywatch Tower	+2 Air Defense; +1 Interception per stationed Fighter	+1 GPT per city	Modern
Shadow Bureau	+50% Espionage; +2 Espionage per Specialist	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Industrial
Cipher Keep	+25% Espionage Defense; -20% enemy spy effectiveness	+1 GPT per city	Classical
Encrypted Archives	+1 Espionage per culture level; +2 Culture	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Industrial

National Wonders:

Name	Effect	Scaling Mechanic	Era
Hall of Minds	+50% Science; +2 Science per Specialist; +1 Great Scientist point	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Classical
Engineer’s Guildhall	+2 Hammers per Specialist; +25% Wonder production	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Sanctum of Solace	+4 Happiness; removes unhealthiness from population	+1 GPT per city	Renaissance
War Council Hall	+2 XP to all units in city; enables unique elite unit line	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Ministry of Secrets	+100% Espionage; +4 Spy points; unlocks unique spy missions	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Industrial

World Wonders:

Name	Effect	Scaling Mechanic	Era
Nalanda Mahavihara	+2 Research per Wonder; +1 Culture per 2 population in city	+2 GPT per city	Classical
Geghard Monastery	Specialists consume no food in this city; +2 Culture	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Museo del Prado	+3 Artist/Musician/Scientist points; +50% GP rate in city	+2 GPT per city	Industrial
Schönbrunn Palace	+1 Happiness per 5 pop; +1 Culture per 10 pop empire-wide	Production cost increases by 10% per city	Industrial
Krak des Chevaliers	+20% Defense in all cities; culture flip immunity; CG1 to new units	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Medieval
War Ministry of Tokyo	Units trained in city exceed XP cap; +1 XP per Wonder in city	+2 GPT per city	Modern
Grand Place, Brussels	+1 Unit per turn; +25% Unit Production in city	Production cost increases by 25% per city	Industrial
Royal Shipyards of Seville	+1 Naval Unit per turn; +25% Naval Production; units start with Nav I	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Renaissance
Fanar Islamic Cultural Center	+2 Trade Routes in coastal cities; +2 Gold and Culture per water tile	+2 GPT per city	Modern
Nieuport Aviation Hall	Enables stealth aircraft; +3 XP to all air units	Production cost increases by 25% per city	Modern
Chain Home Radar	+1 Interception globally; +50% Air Range from this city	+2 GPT per city	Modern
Knossos Palace	+3 Gold per Specialist; +1 Happiness per Wonder in city	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Ancient
Sanssouci Palace	View city screens of top espionage target; +3 Espionage per Wonder	+2 GPT per city	Industrial
Spy Museum	+15% enemy mission cost; +2 Espionage per foreign trade route	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Modern
Temple of Heaven	Spies trained here get unique promotion	Production cost increases by 25% per city	Ancient
Skellig Michael	+1 Espionage per 2 population; +1 Spy point per 10 population	+1 GPT per city	Medieval

 

[Ahnarras]

How many workers do you guys usually keep around in each era of the game?

I don't really mind the Era, I'm usually going for 1 Worker per 2 cities so I will build one when needed depending on how my expansion goes.
But that's on the huge world map / egyptia, and I'm turtling hard in ancient era, so by the time my second city is settled my first worker as usually improves almost all goods tiles around my capital.

From my (very old) memories of trying random map a few years ago, I had to go with 1 worker per city on most start if there was a bit of forest around. I had even considered 1.5 Worker per City for the most "deep into the woods" starts I had.

 

[tebriz]

I play with Start Anywhere Reasonable, Allow Pangeas, and 16 starting civs on Giant maps with low sea levels. I like giving each civ plenty of space in which to expand to without forcing wars, and room for barbarian cities to spawn and eventually convert to civs. I also like knowing all the civs from relatively early on, especially with tech transfer as a mechanic. Not knowing civs in RI is a handicap. In maps where one continent has 5 civs and another has 20 civs, that 20 civ continent is going to research way faster.

"Keep New World" empty also feels very... colonialist to me. It's an exciting gameplay experience, but I'd rather find elements of the game to be excited about other than treating the native population of a continent as savage and just waiting for me to colonize it.

The low sea levels helps prevent the isolation, since it's just a tad easier for landmasses to share traversable coasts. I've also modded the script itself to avoid having far away landmasses, though it does still happen some.

That’s a good setup if you’re playing with the Barbarian Civ option enabled.

I’ve noticed in recent games that isolated-start civilizations no longer fall behind in research like they used to, especially since the changes to tech transfer mechanics. This trend began ALREADY with the introduction of the trade connection requirement. For example, I ran a test game where Casimir started completely alone on an isolated continent—and by the time he contacted other civs in the Age of Discovery, he was far ahead of anyone else in the world. In my current game, Korea and the Aztecs—both of whom started isolated on separate continents—are currently ranked as the top two civilizations globally (I am in the 16th century now).

I also used to prefer low sea level maps to maximize land area on the same world size. But after switching to medium sea level, I can’t go back. Medium sea level maps look far more natural, resembling Earth more closely—with enclosed seas like the Mediterranean and distinct subcontinents. I hadn’t really considered how this change in sea level could also lead to more isolated starts, but it makes sense now.

 

[tebriz]

I've been playing around with ideas to help the smaller nations out there (that tend to be are poor AI buddies), to help small nations become proud tall nations— something that really rewards players and AI for building up a few strong cities instead of spamming settlers all over the map. The challenge, as many of you know, is that most buildings and wonders scale really well with wide empires. So I started thinking: what if we had a set of buildings and wonders that actually get worse the more cities you have?


To make that work, every entry in this list uses one of two mechanics:

• Production cost increases by X% per city
• Maintenance cost increases by +X gold per city

That way, tall empires can afford to build these and benefit, but wide empires will find them too expensive or inefficient to use everywhere. I also included an Era column so they slot into a normal tech progression, from Ancient to Modern.


This is just a brainstorm — just getting ideas out and seeing what you all think. I think there's a lot of potential for AI tuning too: the AI should be smart enough to avoid these buildings when it's playing wide, and only prioritize them when it's got a small, dense empire or a super-developed capital.


Would love to hear thoughts! Balancing ideas, name suggestions, better real-world wonder fits.

Please note for when it is +1 GPT per city that maintenance cost is based on the number of cities you control when the building or wonder is completed. This value is locked in and does not change if your empire grows or shrinks later. This is to prevent you or the AI from accidentally bankrupting themselves later. Basically, cost scales with empire size at time of construction. Locked once built.

The full table is below
Buildings:

Name	Effect	Scaling Mechanic	Era
Astral Observatory	+2 Science per Specialist; +25% Science	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Renaissance
Sanitation Gardens	+3 Health; +1 Food from Aqueduct	+1 GPT per city	Classical
Civic Forum	+25% GP rate; +1 GP point for active golden age specialist	Production cost increases by 10% per city	Renaissance
Trade Consulate	+2 Trade Routes; +1 Gold per foreign route	+1 GPT per city	Renaissance
Cultural Archive	+50% Culture; +3 Culture per Wonder in city	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Medieval
Fortress Foundry	+25% Military Unit Production; +1 XP	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Wardspire Bastion	+50% City Defense; bombard immunity; +2 Strength	+1 GPT per city	Medieval
Elite Academy	Units start with Drill I or Combat I; +2 XP from Barracks & Stable	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Medieval
Ironwall Garrison	+3 Happiness at war; +1 Production per garrisoned unit (up to 5)	+1 GPT per city	Renaissance
Aeronautics Bay	+50% Air Unit Production; Fighters start with Interception I	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Modern
Skywatch Tower	+2 Air Defense; +1 Interception per stationed Fighter	+1 GPT per city	Modern
Shadow Bureau	+50% Espionage; +2 Espionage per Specialist	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Industrial
Cipher Keep	+25% Espionage Defense; -20% enemy spy effectiveness	+1 GPT per city	Classical
Encrypted Archives	+1 Espionage per culture level; +2 Culture	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Industrial

National Wonders:

Name	Effect	Scaling Mechanic	Era
Hall of Minds	+50% Science; +2 Science per Specialist; +1 Great Scientist point	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Classical
Engineer’s Guildhall	+2 Hammers per Specialist; +25% Wonder production	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Sanctum of Solace	+4 Happiness; removes unhealthiness from population	+1 GPT per city	Renaissance
War Council Hall	+2 XP to all units in city; enables unique elite unit line	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Ministry of Secrets	+100% Espionage; +4 Spy points; unlocks unique spy missions	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Industrial

World Wonders:

Name	Effect	Scaling Mechanic	Era
Nalanda Mahavihara	+2 Research per Wonder; +1 Culture per 2 population in city	+2 GPT per city	Classical
Geghard Monastery	Specialists consume no food in this city; +2 Culture	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Medieval
Museo del Prado	+3 Artist/Musician/Scientist points; +50% GP rate in city	+2 GPT per city	Industrial
Schönbrunn Palace	+1 Happiness per 5 pop; +1 Culture per 10 pop empire-wide	Production cost increases by 10% per city	Industrial
Krak des Chevaliers	+20% Defense in all cities; culture flip immunity; CG1 to new units	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Medieval
War Ministry of Tokyo	Units trained in city exceed XP cap; +1 XP per Wonder in city	+2 GPT per city	Modern
Grand Place, Brussels	+1 Unit per turn; +25% Unit Production in city	Production cost increases by 25% per city	Industrial
Royal Shipyards of Seville	+1 Naval Unit per turn; +25% Naval Production; units start with Nav I	Production cost increases by 20% per city	Renaissance
Fanar Islamic Cultural Center	+2 Trade Routes in coastal cities; +2 Gold and Culture per water tile	+2 GPT per city	Modern
Nieuport Aviation Hall	Enables stealth aircraft; +3 XP to all air units	Production cost increases by 25% per city	Modern
Chain Home Radar	+1 Interception globally; +50% Air Range from this city	+2 GPT per city	Modern
Knossos Palace	+3 Gold per Specialist; +1 Happiness per Wonder in city	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Ancient
Sanssouci Palace	View city screens of top espionage target; +3 Espionage per Wonder	+2 GPT per city	Industrial
Spy Museum	+15% enemy mission cost; +2 Espionage per foreign trade route	Production cost increases by 15% per city	Modern
Temple of Heaven	Spies trained here get unique promotion	Production cost increases by 25% per city	Ancient
Skellig Michael	+1 Espionage per 2 population; +1 Spy point per 10 population	+1 GPT per city	Medievalhave

I haven’t digested this info yet, but I really like the idea about tall play being rewarded even more