Realism Invictus

Beautiful, I love the reference.

"Witness our too much memorable shame, when Crécy Battle fatefully was struck; and all our princes, haunted, by the likes of that black name: Edward Black Prince of Wales. This is a stem, of that victorious stalk, and let us fear the native mightiness, and fate of him."



This is truly bad, possibly bad enough that Civ VIII won't even happen, at least on Firaxis's dime. I halfway understand the impetus to reinvent a game whose essential premise of being well over 30 years old at this point is well-trodden, but it seems they took the undesirable things from competing titles of late and copied them, while sacrificing a lot of what was still enjoyable and fun on the basic model of the game. At the same time, I don't feel shortchanged at all from RI (which I think offers a sublime "Civ" experience) and with the graceful way that Civ IV as an engine and platform has aged, this is more of an amusement than a disappointment, for me at least. I get a sense that they don't know who to market to (the longstanding player base or new entrants who are probably teenagers accustomed to the unfortunate modern trend of pay to play endless development cycles, who never knew of a reality where expectations of quality were commercially mandatory out of the box), and if they opted towards flirting with newcomer, casual gamers who haven't played this series previously, its abysmal debut reputation itself forbids that being commercially successful, either.
At this point its pretty obvious that whatever creative philosophy Firaxis had after Civ 4 it changed.

Firaxis decided that they wanted a less immersive and less historic game.

It seems like those who wanted more immersion instead of a virtual tabletop game went to Paradox Interactive
 
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First of all, Steam isn't the only platform Civ VII is played on; Steam is no longer the default metric by which games succeed. Civ VII is multi-platform and Steam is only one platform.
Same can be said about Civ 6 - so a valid comparison between them, despite incompleteness.
Secondly steam reviews or concurrent steam players is not an accurate metric for assessing sales numbers.
The best one we have.
The funny thing all the whining and crying over "this isn't Civ" because of changes to the gameplay in Civ 7 -- gameplay changes that have become de rigueur since Civ 3 -- apply as much to Realism Invictus as it does to Civ VII.
I'd argue not quite as much. The premise of RI was always building on Civ 4 as a game rather than reinventing stuff.
These strategy gamers are not your friends.
Why, they kind of are - they're here and they're mostly my friends.
But if you think RI is so commercially viable I invite you to seek funding, get yourself a team and prove me wrong. Unity is free and a game dev college graduate should be able to whip up a 4x grid or hex-based game.
Nah, thanks, I'm fine with RI as my hobby. I would hate it to become my job. But Old World is a commercial game in mostly the same vein and reasonably successful.
Well, venting over. Now, real question : is it normal for the cultural influence to move so slowly ? Shouldn't two hundreds turns with every cultural building up and running be enough to at least secure the closest tiles to the city ?
Is it mandatory to go Artist / Culture Slider to have any hopes ?

Or am I too peaceful ? Is the game not intended to do partial war, taking a few cities but letting your opponent survives ? Should I destroy them everytime to make their culture vanish for good ?
Seems barbaric to me, but wasting dozens of turn in a war just to see it voided without any chance to keep your lands isn't a great feeling either.
Highly depends on the particular situation, but overall I'd say if going against enemy capital or most developed city culturally, it's good to have some "heavy firepower". A great work of art or at least one-two artists are quite recommended. That, or more violence.
What speed is realistic on?
The recommended one. It's probably best to at least start playing on that one, and switch only if you really feel like doing that.
 
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woah WTH is this in the SVN? Haven't seen that yet. Wow he looks really cool, love the new model, though I'm gonna miss that gigantic sword the old English knight had :lol:

edit: Finally got to check it in game, must say I already liked the old one a lot, but I don't mind this change it's actually a big improvement considering it was already great.
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That particular guy is based off the Black Prince specifically:
really cool!
Nah, thanks, I'm fine with RI as my hobby. I would hate it to become my job. But Old World is a commercial game in mostly the same vein and reasonably successful.
This leads me to make the question... why is RI run in a strictly non-commercial basis? (or whatever the loading screens said) I value a lot that you took such decision, specially considering funding for videogame mods and translations has become pretty common nowadays (not that it is negative, I think that's neat actually) but I wonder what made you remark that.
 
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Highly depends on the particular situation, but overall I'd say if going against enemy capital or most developed city culturally, it's good to have some "heavy firepower". A great work of art or at least one-two artists are quite recommended. That, or more violence.

Aw, shame. It's probably another weird thing of the Huge World Map, then, as I can't really conquers in any directions without stumbling on someone's else capital.
I probably should have put a perma-artist in that city. Now it's a bit late for that, so... I guess violence it will be :ar15:


why is RI run in a strictly non-commercial basis? (or whatever the loading screens said)

I'm pretty sure monetizing a mod is the easiest way to have yourself a nice C&D letters from Firaxis's lawyers.
And after having worked so many years on R:I, I can see why Walter wouldn't want to risk it. You just have to look at how Nintendo is treating some fanmade version of it's pokemons games to see how well it usually ends.
 
It's probably another weird thing of the Huge World Map
Ah the World Map scenario is a pain in the ass when it's about culture, trust me, just slay everything in your borders and that will be enough. I like it because it forces everyone to fight for territory, but it's far away from the experience you would see in other maps it really forces you to wait patiently till the opportunities come.
You just have to look at how Nintendo is treating some fanmade version of it's pokemons games to see how well it usually ends.
Nintendo takes things too far with its private property to a point where it's just ridiculous, so a comparing it to any other brand is not good. Still, it is a good example of what happens when someone wants you off the map quickly.
I'm pretty sure monetizing a mod is the easiest way to have yourself a nice C&D letters from Firaxis's lawyers.
not monetizing but accepting donations, charging for a mod is not very nice (albeit understandable), but allowing donations is cool I guess. I know even that is a stretch but as long as you don't attract much attention it should be alright. I don't think that's the reason. Still I don't believe RI to be popular enough for people to donate so maybe it's pointless, maybe because of the several contributions to RI from other users Walter just doesn't feel like it.

Also, should I report any problems with the SVN? I know there's a disclaimer that basically says "It's a work in progress, so weird stuff WILL happen" so if not, then it's okay. This stuff is probably under work or something.

Just in case: a little example of what I refer to: Brits lack Cataphracts and Medium Cavalry (actually I can't even find the later one in the pedia) in the unit chart
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I started that game today, so there should be no problems with any sort of update (not that such thing would break the unit chart... but who knows)
 
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Finally got to check it in game, must say I already liked the old one a lot, but I don't mind this change it's actually a big improvement considering it was already great.
I was updating knights for France and Germany (they look almost the same as before; the update was more technical than visual), and thought "why don't I do the English ones while I'm at it". They looked reasonably good indeed, but heraldically, that was basically the royal family taking to the field together, and the single-handed claymore-swinging was over the top.
This leads me to make the question... why is RI run in a strictly non-commercial basis? (or whatever the loading screens said) I value a lot that you took such decision, specially considering funding for videogame mods and translations has become pretty common nowadays (not that it is negative, I think that's neat actually) but I wonder what made you remark that.
Several reasons:
1) RI has assets from dozens of other games too, and not even just games. I removed Mado Karo Mieru as the title song to avoid streamers potentially having problems, for example. So I'd like to be as clear-cut as I can with the currently accepted fair use rules.
2) I wouldn't like to create any outside incentive for myself. Monetary rewards for something I currently do strictly for my own sake would skew my priorities. What if a person who donated asks me to implement something that wasn't my original priority? At the very least, I'd feel bad for refusing. The grain of truth in what @balanceofpower wrote is that RI would be quite different if I were thinking (even just subconsciously) about what would bring in more money. It would probably affect my priorities enough for me to abandon it rather quickly, as I'd find myself doing less and less stuff I actually like doing and more of everything else, and that'd only get worse if it actually worked, as increasing popularity would create even more of a feedback loop to cater to the audience instead of doing stuff on my own.
3) I am quite good at finance, and it's easy for me to estimate how much such a project would bring in, and ultimately, it's simply nowhere near enough to be stimulating. It'd probably work for 20-something me, but at this point in my life, I am financially stable enough for the actual amounts of money that'd bring to not even serve as a meaningful positive reinforcement.
Ah the World Map scenario is a pain in the ass when it's about culture, trust me, just slay everything in your borders and that will be enough. I like it because it forces everyone to fight for territory, but it's far away from the experience you would see in other maps it really forces you to wait patiently till the opportunities come.
Yeah, another reason for me to dislike the World Map scenarios - many ratios are off there compared to regular balance, and it's very hard to meaningfully compensate.
Also, should I report any problems with the SVN? I know there's a disclaimer that basically says "It's a work in progress, so weird stuff WILL happen" so if not, then it's okay. This stuff is probably under work or something.
You absolutely should; that's why it's there in the first place. But...
Just in case: a little example of what I refer to: Brits lack Cataphracts and Medium Cavalry (actually I can't even find the later one in the pedia) in the unit chart
This specific one is already fixed, in r5491. England was unable to upgrade Cataphracts to Knights due to the intentional removal of Medium Cav on my part; they have Improved Horsemen instead of Medium Cavalry now and that messed up the upgrade route for a while. But as I said, already fixed. Which also means the game you started today is not on the latest SVN revision, as that one was almost two weeks ago. Did you update SVN before starting? There were several updates since that one.
 
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Ah the World Map scenario is a pain in the ass when it's about culture, trust me, just slay everything in your borders and that will be enough. I like it because it forces everyone to fight for territory, but it's far away from the experience you would see in other maps it really forces you to wait patiently till the opportunities come.

That's a good resume of my game since the start of the Middle Age : war after war after war. Usually for no real gains, as I won't have the culture to sustains it.
But I'm learning : I just erased poor old Zara Yacob from the map, and as Taharqa is my vassal, I "should" be in the green culture-wise to have some room to expand around the conquered city.
Now I just have to avoid having the Nubians break from vassality...

Yeah, another reason for me to dislike the World Map scenarios - many ratios are off there compared to regular balance, and it's very hard to meaningfully compensate.

It was a pretty perfect map for the ancient/classical era, as all those problems weren't so obvious, but the more I advance in it, the more I find it lacking. I'm drowning in ressources making trade and expanding feeling a lot less valuable, I'm starting to seriously lag behind in Tech because of the scaling with my numbers of cities (whereas some of the leading Civ scientific-wise have only 2 cities and are doing better than me !) and the culture wars are... ugh.

Now I'm really curious about the size of the map : disregarding MAF, is there any playable world map that goes beyond Huge ? I know random map have an even bigger size possible (Giant, I think ?), do someone knows if there was ever a Giant World Map created for R:I ? It's kinda sad to see most european countries being stuck at 1-3 cities in the Renaissance only because there is no room. I know I could always try the Large Europe Map, but I'm nearing the point where I can sails the 7 seas and I'm pretty sure I would hate loosing that late discovery feeling on a map encompassing only Europe :p

To end with a bug report (or maybe not?) : when I took Zara Yacob's City, I didn't understand why it was still there in the first place. He was so backward in Tech that the place was flooded with Militia/Warbands and a few Composite Bowmen, around 30 units in total. Meanwhile in the hills nearby Massinissa had a stack of perhaps 40 late classical / early medieval units ! He would have totally crush it IF only he had a single siege unit to take down the walls. But he never bothered to build a single one ? Or never tried to bring them around, at least... Seems like Taharqa did the same as he also had a stack of units nearby with no catapults. And I saw stack uppon stack sent by Mansa Musa without even a single Ram in them.

Is there anything weird in how the IA uses the siege units against each other ? They seems to bring them just fine when they were attacking me, but it's really weird that 3 differents Civ spend the last ~700 turns in a war against a single city without ever trying to crash the walls. On the other hand I saw IA using Rams as exploration units in the early game, was a bit weird.
 
Now I'm really curious about the size of the map : disregarding MAF, is there any playable world map that goes beyond Huge ?
None that I know of. The fundamental problem (or rather one of the problems) with World Maps is as you described - trying to squeeze a dozen of civs into a rather small part of the map.
Is there anything weird in how the IA uses the siege units against each other ? They seems to bring them just fine when they were attacking me, but it's really weird that 3 differents Civ spend the last ~700 turns in a war against a single city without ever trying to crash the walls. On the other hand I saw IA using Rams as exploration units in the early game, was a bit weird.
I saw that reported before (by you?), so that should be much better in the recent SVN revisions. From what I see in hands-offs, AI consistently includes more siege units in their city attack stacks.
 
Question for separatism:
I infiltrated one city of the Romans with my spions and caused some trouble. Riots began. In the same time I could see that other cities bacame unrest too. The separatism threshold stayed below 10% (yellow fist)
I wondered how that happen?
In the manual I only Red that other cities with a revolution Index below 10% can become independent with a revolutioning City nearby.

Can a city with riots lead to an increasing separatism by former stabile cities?

Other question:
What influences the 79% of the modifiers?
 

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Before playing the HWM, I don't recall ever having had to invest so much into Culture, or almost at all in most games.
One good thing about shared-borders vassals is that all the culturally contested tile become automatically yours, no matter the actual culture values.
So if you invade someone and conquer their capital, either destroy the whole civ or make them capitulate to you.
 
I saw that reported before (by you?), so that should be much better in the recent SVN revisions. From what I see in hands-offs, AI consistently includes more siege units in their city attack stacks.

Now that you say it, I may have already spoken of that point a few weeks earlier, my bad !
But it does show how long this bloody war stalled and not a single one of them had the ingeniosity of bringing a ram towards the sieged city :lol:

Or perhaps they did ? Truth is I don't have the patience to check the hundreds of turns they were at war at each other. The defenders at 6 units of Skirmishers, and even in Medieval Times they are still pretty strong in attack.
Perhaps every stack containing siege weapons was obliterated before managing to destroy the walls. :confused:

One good thing about shared-borders vassals is that all the culturally contested tile become automatically yours, no matter the actual culture values.

Yeah, I was confused at first as to why I gained so much territory when I accepted the Vassal requests of my neighbors.
Had to battle a long time against their ennemies in exchange, so it clearly wasn't free (they were all looking for a protector because they were invaded).

What frustrated me the most is that as soon as I finished all those fights, another one came to ask for protection. I accepted, autostarting another war, and it seems that my dears vassals, now free of their ennemies, weren't eager to follow me in that one.
So they just all dropped their vows and I loosed all the tiles which were still culturally theirs. So many workers were exhausted on improwing them :cry:

None that I know of.

Shame. As much as I love toying with the map editor, I have nowhere near the geographic culture needed to build a credible one myself, so I guess I will ressort to random maps instead.
Or perhaps the Jurassic (Triassic ?) map ? Does it have the same problem as the world map, or are the Civ starting position more spaced out (and is the map overloaded in ressources too, or normal amount ?)
 
What frustrated me the most is that as soon as I finished all those fights, another one came to ask for protection. I accepted, autostarting another war, and it seems that my dears vassals, now free of their ennemies, weren't eager to follow me in that one.
So they just all dropped their vows and I loosed all the tiles which were still culturally theirs. So many workers were exhausted on improwing them :cry:
Oh wow, so all those AIs got you to fight their wars, improve their territory, and returned independent when they didn't need you anymore :lol:
That's strategy!
 
Hello!

Is it intentional that building a cottage on andosol requires Fertilizers tech? I see no mention of such interaction in Civilopedia, v3.72c

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If you move all the assets to the BtS folder you can get around 1 minute for a 8MB save.
You lose the ability to easily switch mods, but for me is not an issue as I only play RI.
I wouldn't recommend that unless you want to be stuck with the same version forever (or until you wipe clean and reinstall BtS).
Just make a backup of the BtS asset folder before merging it with RI ;)

A few reports from the 3.72 release. I don't know if they are bugs or features, but they caught my eye:
  1. Medium cavalry upgrades to Knight, under Feudal Aristocracy. Should also Man-at-Arms upgrade to Foot Knight?
  2. Emplaced Batteries don't stack versus logistic penalty (they have a separate counter from other units).
  3. When attacking a city with a stack, cavalry is always selected to attack first, even if it has a lesser probability of success than other units.
  4. You can build Coal Plants after Hydro Plants.
  5. If enemy ships are harboring in a foreign city you have open borders with, your land troops can destroy them simply moving in the city.
  6. Tactical bombers have the icon for "Air Bomb Mode" but seems unable to do it (the same problem from the Zeppelin I reported a few ago).
  7. There seems to be something wrong in the interception probability, especially at sea (embarked air fighters and vessels)... or something I don't understand. Could you please explain again how it works when you have multiple interception units on a tile? I have a huge stack of vessels, including a carrier with 5 fighters in interception mode, and I have a single enemy bomber easily passing over and destroying my underlying sea improvement...
 
Is it intentional that building a cottage on andosol requires Fertilizers tech? I see no mention of such interaction in Civilopedia, v3.72c
Yes. Basically, cottages can't be built on fertile soil until cultivation, to prevent both AI and players from doing things they'll regret later.
Medium cavalry upgrades to Knight, under Feudal Aristocracy. Should also Man-at-Arms upgrade to Foot Knight?
Wrong unit line; swordsmen and late swordsmen do.
Emplaced Batteries don't stack versus logistic penalty (they have a separate counter from other units).
Intentional. They aren't counted as a land unit for most purposes.
When attacking a city with a stack, cavalry is always selected to attack first, even if it has a lesser probability of success than other units.
Wouldn't be able to say for sure, but my guess would be the internal logic prioritises units with collateral damage.
You can build Coal Plants after Hydro Plants.
I think I fixed this one post-3.72
If enemy ships are harboring in a foreign city you have open borders with, your land troops can destroy them simply moving in the city.
That's a vanilla thing, always was like that.
Tactical bombers have the icon for "Air Bomb Mode" but seems unable to do it (the same problem from the Zeppelin I reported a few ago).
Tactical bombers can use air bombing to reduce city defences, same as always. Bombing routes and improvements, though, is only for strategic bombers.
There seems to be something wrong in the interception probability, especially at sea (embarked air fighters and vessels)... or something I don't understand. Could you please explain again how it works when you have multiple interception units on a tile? I have a huge stack of vessels, including a carrier with 5 fighters in interception mode, and I have a single enemy bomber easily passing over and destroying my underlying sea improvement...
From what I recall, the game selects the best possible interceptor and does a single intercept check. So the number of intercepting units doesn't really matter for a single bomber - it's just their evasion vs the interception of the best interceptor.
 
Nah, I mean put the ideas out there. I just don't want to see a 5-page discussion on whether some specific value should be 5 or 7%.
No particularly thought provoking ideas. Mostly was thinking about two things:
  • More niche bonuses. Right now most bonuses are just +% STR and +X First Strike/Chances. It would be nice if spearmen and pikemen provided a bonus against mounted units, etc. This helps alleviate the "aid outdoes stack penalties" problem, since it would reduce the general STR bonuses from melee and cavalry units, which are the cause of that problem, and add more situational aid, which you might not want in that particular stack.
  • Units that provided unique bonuses. There's some of that at the moment, with national units that provide fear or inspiration, but there's a lot of room for national units or limited units that provide specific or interesting bonuses. For example, the Gulyay Gorod, instead of being a unit that defends strong itself, can be a unit that provides a defense bonus aid and immunity to first strikes aid. Helepolis, instead of having massive bonuses to city attack, can give units 5% collateral damage when attacking cities (if it's possible to limit it in that way--I don't think I've actually seen that before). I don't actually think these would be good examples to follow through on, but they're practical illustrations of what I mean.

Well, venting over. Now, real question : is it normal for the cultural influence to move so slowly ? Shouldn't two hundreds turns with every cultural building up and running be enough to at least secure the closest tiles to the city ?
Is it mandatory to go Artist / Culture Slider to have any hopes ?
If you get the chance, check out the new Carthaginean city the world builder, or with spies, to see what it has. AI is very good as using artists and great artists to push culture. It's very likely Elissa settled a great artist there. I usually see this happen once or twice a game.
What frustrated me the most is that as soon as I finished all those fights, another one came to ask for protection. I accepted, autostarting another war, and it seems that my dears vassals, now free of their ennemies, weren't eager to follow me in that one.
So they just all dropped their vows and I loosed all the tiles which were still culturally theirs. So many workers were exhausted on improwing them
It would certainly be nice if vassal civs considered the power ratio and threat of war when deciding whether or not to end the vassalage. Typically in my games there's a civ abandoning one master civ in favor of another every turn. Makes the whole system feel very inconsequential. But that's more a vanilla problem than RI, I think.

I removed Mado Karo Mieru as the title song to avoid streamers potentially having problems, for example.
Funnily enough, I recently put that back in for my local RI. :) Or rather, I thought I did. But what I actually downloaded, from Christopher Tin's own website, were the "Rehearsal Instructions" for Mado. So when I started RI, the main menu soundtrack was an audio recording of Japanese rehearsal instructions :lol:



Been a busy few weeks and I haven't played RI in a bit, and I don't think I'm returning to my previous game. It was the first time I've hit the industrial era in a long time, so I thought I'd share my thoughts. Bear in mind that my impressions might change with repeated play and these are just initial impressions ("initial" in that I may have deeper impressions if I get to this stage again, which a poor bet :lol:)

My most dominant thought throughout the late renaissance and the early industrial was that it felt like I had a lot of homework. Stuff I had to do for the sake of doing, not for the sake of gameplay or enjoyment. Although accessing new resources like clothes and steel, it largely felt like I was just playing a game of upkeep. I researched Bessemer Converter! Now I get to build the Foundry, something that's a slight improvement on the blast furnace. I researched Labor Movement! Now I get to build something that's a slight improvement on the Print Shop. I researched Civil Industry! Now I get to build something that's a slight improvement over the Trading Post. None of these upgrades make for interesting gameplay. Upgrading to the new building is just a chore.

In general, it felt like this stage of the game was largely just "do more of what you've been doing". Entering into the industrial gives you more happiness resources/buildings and more food with mechanized farms, but the gameplay is still the same, you're just hitting bigger numbers. There's nothing that really changes the shape of the game or makes you feel like you're entering into a new phase of history. Just art upgrades that cost hammers.

For comparison, earlier eras all have elements that will reshape the game or open up new avenues of play. Trade opening up in the mid/late ancient era, expanding your borders in classical, chopping down jungles, discovering gems and iron, initial wars of expansion, exploring the ocean and finding new continents/islands, being able to settle and trade across the ocean... All of these have an exciting element where they shape things about your gameplay that were previously unavailable.

But there isn't much of that in the later game. New resources like oil and bauxite are revealed, but they don't have the impact of earlier resources. Iron is revealed at a time where you might only have 5 cities with 5 population each, and getting +3:hammers: hammers to a tile or two in your empire is a big difference. And if it's not in your empire, it's probabyl in a place you can settle. That's interesting and fun! Bauxite is revealed at a time where you may have 15-20 cities with 15-20 population. The production bonuses from the tile and Foundry are more fun fact than interesting and fun. And if it's not in your empire, you have to go to war for it... which means the game will slow to a crawl with all the unit management and combat animations, and those are on top of the already lengthened time between turns.

I know that a lot of that is just the nature of Civ 4, but it feels like RI's content in the late game exaggerates what Civ4 introduced. The industrial is already a very long time period with more techs than any other era, and it has the least to offer for it. If that's unavoidable, then there's a big part of me that would rather do away with all the ceremony of upgrading buildings and incremental boosts and just automatically get access to the benefits so that I can concentrate my time and energy onto the aspects of the game that are more engaging.

For the sake of not turning this into a novel, here's what else I took notes on during the game, in plain, unelaborated note form:
  • Consistent happiness too abundant
    • Every happiness early on is a win
    • Later on it’s an “oh that’s nice”
      • happiness gain outweighs growth gain
    • Buildings that provide happiness don’t obsolete until way after discontinued
      • More buildings going obsolete earlier on and requiring replacements puts more pressure on building choices and priorities
      • Feels like doing a Windows update rather than sustaining an empire
  • Could be more interesting if there were more ephemeral happiness bonuses that vanished after an era or two, and fewere consistent sources of happiness, requiring constant look out for next sources of happiness
    • Buildings like Bread and Circuses
    • Temporary tradable resource generation (eg glasswork if glasswork only lasted 200 turns)
      • Allows different civs to have the resource throughout the game
      • Encourages more trade and diplomacy connections
    • Resources that obsolete fast (like Whales, which currently aren’t worth it, but would be if there were much fewer happiness resources and knowledge that there would be more temp resource later).
Opportunity to remove the unhappiness/unhealthiness from era progression and instead obsolete baseline happiness resources as they become normalized by society through tech research.
 
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