Realism Invictus

[Walter Hawkwood]

Could you please provide more details on how it works when the option is off? How it calculates the penalty after the point when number of cities exceeds “optimal” number?

What do you mean? If the per city research adjustment is on, it's a fixed +% to price per city, depending on the map size. If it is off, the research prices never change, they are set as if all civs always had the optimal number of cities for the given map size.

 

[tebriz]

What do you mean? If the per city research adjustment is on, it's a fixed +% to price per city, depending on the map size. If it is off, the research prices never change, they are set as if all civs always had the optimal number of cities for the given map size.

Ah, I see, it means I misunderstood you earlier, sorry.
By the way, in my current game, the pace of technological discovery has been perfectly aligned with the historical timeline during the Ancient, Classical, and Medieval eras. And the world entered the Renaissance era around turn 1000. Interestingly, though, the Industrial era was reached much earlier - around turn 1350 - significantly ahead of your reference point of turn 1500

 

[Ahnarras]

OMG where do you get that many civilizations from?

Huge World Map. It start with more than the intended number of Civ + a lot of others smaller tribal civilizations.
On top of that, you add the Revolution setting enable and spawning a looooot of new civilizations, as my game started before Walter put a 4-pop needed limit on when a city can revolt.

So the AI will settle a new city, or take a town during a war, and put maybe 2-3 units in there to protect it.
A few turns later, the revolution happens, and boum, new civilisation spawn.

I could have easily 80-100 Civ on the map by know, but there is some kind of cap where the Revolution mechanism stop spawning new civilisations and the revolting city instead just switch into a barbary camp.

The AI spamm at the beginning of each turn is real, belive me

 

[RamsesII]

Did you use "Never!" option? if only you use it (and all other civs dont) you get penalty "World consider us as villains"

Yes I did, the resolution passed but the outcome (peace) was not enforced since I had defied it. All my cities that had solely zoroastrism as a religion suffered a -5 happiness for 20 turns. No diplomatic penalty though.

 

[JDCP]

Nah, found and fixed already, stupid mistake on my part in one of the more recent revisions.

what exactly went wrong? I'm curious

I assume the latest SVN fixes this right? Haven't update or played the SVN in like an entire month

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I'll upload the fix tonight. What went wrong is I used a wrong variable in one line which made the previous line moot - the previous line being the one that applied the ahead of time cost penalty.

 

[AspiringScholar]

As I'm still playing on SVN 5524, would the bug for ahead of time penalties be applicable to my game, or was it introduced subsequently?

 

[JDCP]

nice! Will update tomorrow then, thanks Walt. So it was the classic case of a wrong input, a la CIV1 Gandhi... I'm thankful we can update games this fast these days.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

As I'm still playing on SVN 5524, would the bug for ahead of time penalties be applicable to my game, or was it introduced subsequently?

Introduced in 5525 so you're safe, but it was a close call!

 

[[Y]]

A bit of a hot take here, but recently I've been losing patience with resources that aren't visible right away but are revealed in the ancient era. While there's an enjoyable dopamine hit from having those resources become revealed, there's a much more impactful disappointment when you found a city and ten turns later finish researching Stonecutting and regret not settling that city 1 tile to the right. They're all revealed early enough that getting visibility isn't a balance issue (as may be the case with resources revealed in the classical era or later), so unfortunate placing of ancient era cities feels like being the butt of an unfunny joke. Nobody gained anything, we just lost something.

Is there any possible way to hint at tiles that have resources? Maybe tiles with copper and limestone have +1 before being revealed (and subtracted from the post-reveal hammers so the end value is the same), so that we know something is there, just not what and which technology reveals it. I imagine there isn't anything like that, or even if there is, that there isn't any intention of delivering the feature, which is understandable. I'll likely just modify my local setup to remove these resources being hidden in the first place.

 

[tebriz]

I'll upload the fix tonight. What went wrong is I used a wrong variable in one line which made the previous line moot - the previous line being the one that applied the ahead of time cost penalty.

I turned this option off a long time ago, and all my games since then have been played without the “ahead of time” penalty applied. But today I realized that this option actually makes sense for balance, so I’ll keep it on from now on.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Is there any possible way to hint at tiles that have resources? Maybe tiles with copper and limestone have +1 before being revealed (and subtracted from the post-reveal hammers so the end value is the same), so that we know something is there, just not what and which technology reveals it. I imagine there isn't anything like that, or even if there is, that there isn't any intention of delivering the feature, which is understandable. I'll likely just modify my local setup to remove these resources being hidden in the first place.

That's not something I'm interested in doing, I'm afraid. But it is definitely simple enough to implement on your own.

I turned this option off a long time ago, and all my games since then have been played without the “ahead of time” penalty applied. But today I realized that this option actually makes sense for balance, so I’ll keep it on from now on.

Unfortunately it's important enough to ensure that the tech progress speed balance that I thought I finally got right in the recent revisions after lots of testing is now completely out of whack again!

 

[tebriz]

That's not something I'm interested in doing, I'm afraid. But it is definitely simple enough to implement on your own.

Unfortunately it's important enough to ensure that the tech progress speed balance that I thought I finally got right in the recent revisions after lots of testing is now completely out of whack again!

Could you please explain in more detail why you think the technology cost isn’t working as intended?

I’m now considering keeping the “ahead of time” penalty enabled, but since I’ve already increased the overall technology cost, this penalty shouldn’t trigger very often (this is how I think it should work - to punish only in very limited exceptional cases).

I’d still recommend raising the general tech cost a bit more - early-game progression feels a little too fast to me.

By the way, you previously mentioned turn 1500 as a reference point for entering the Industrial Era. Are you sure about that? It seems to me that the Industrial Era usually begins somewhat earlier in the game.

 

[AspiringScholar]

A bit of a hot take here, but recently I've been losing patience with resources that aren't visible right away but are revealed in the ancient era. While there's an enjoyable dopamine hit from having those resources become revealed, there's a much more impactful disappointment when you found a city and ten turns later finish researching Stonecutting and regret not settling that city 1 tile to the right. They're all revealed early enough that getting visibility isn't a balance issue (as may be the case with resources revealed in the classical era or later), so unfortunate placing of ancient era cities feels like being the butt of an unfunny joke. Nobody gained anything, we just lost something.

To each their own, but for what it's worth, I actually rather like this dynamic. It forces an opportunity cost of revealed resources via technologies that normally aren't as practical or immediately useful as those which don't, and in certain situations, it's more or less feasible to detour beelining something else for this. Perhaps this is less relevant on the highest difficulties, however, where the requirement of strict optimization somewhat nullifies this.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Could you please explain in more detail why you think the technology cost isn’t working as intended?

Because I'm running hands-off test games with ahead of time penalty working now, and get results that are not consistent with what I was getting several revisions ago.

I’d still recommend raising the general tech cost a bit more - early-game progression feels a little too fast to me.

By far the most often-sounded criticism of RI is that early game feels too slow.

By the way, you previously mentioned turn 1500 as a reference point for entering the Industrial Era. Are you sure about that? It seems to me that the Industrial Era usually begins somewhat earlier in the game.

At this point, I'm prepared to shrug my shoulders and give up on balancing the tech pacing. It seems that factors like difficulty level (which I cannot control for in hands-offs) and player personality have a very major impact on the overall world tech pace.

 

[[Y]]

To each their own, but for what it's worth, I actually rather like this dynamic. It forces an opportunity cost of revealed resources via technologies that normally aren't as practical or immediately useful as those which don't, and in certain situations, it's more or less feasible to detour beelining something else for this. Perhaps this is less relevant on the highest difficulties, however, where the requirement of strict optimization somewhat nullifies this.

It's not so much a difficulty thing as it is a roleplaying/intentional playing thing. For those that like the feeling of an organic, true historic development it makes sense to keep it hidden and play things as they fall. But for people that enjoy being deliberate (regardless of whether it's a high difficulty, or if they're optimizing), it's a negative experience, especially since you have to stare at it for the next 2000 turns/22 hours of gameplay.

By far the most often-sounded criticism of RI is that early game feels too slow.

For what it's worth, there are two aspects to that: Whether the early game takes too long, and whether the early game moves too slow. I find it frustrating when the early game moves too slow (such as about a year ago, when you were rejigging tech costs in the early game), but I would love a longer early game, since it always feels like the ancient era ends before it actually begins.

At this point, I'm prepared to shrug my shoulders and give up on balancing the tech pacing. It seems that factors like difficulty level (which I cannot control for in hands-offs) and player personality have a very major impact on the overall world tech pace.

I can attest to that. It's the AI personalities as well. If you get a lot of war mongerers in a game, then it can slow down tech research. If you get a lot of progressive leaders that prioritize research output, it's a faster game. I wonder what it's like when the leaders randomize with each era, and whether that yields more consistent numbers than games where one leader can push things in a certain direction for the whole game.

 

[tebriz]

At this point, I'm prepared to shrug my shoulders and give up on balancing the tech pacing. It seems that factors like difficulty level (which I cannot control for in hands-offs) and player personality have a very major impact on the overall world tech pace.

I agree that situations can vary a lot from one game to another - and I’m not even playing myself, it’s an AI autotest
I’ll run a few more tests and share my feedback afterward. This time, I think it will be more relevant since I’ll have the “ahead of time” penalty enabled (I’m trying to stay as close to standard settings as possible).

That said, I’d like to note that for me the main imbalance used to be that the early game was too fast while the late game was too slow. I’ve already fixed the early game on my side - now the Renaissance era starts just around turn 1000. I also noticed that in recent SVN updates, the cost of late-game technologies was reduced, so I hope the late game will now also be more balanced (will not be that slow).

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

The early game is FAR too variable at this point, so generally I just ignore anything that happens before turn 1000, which is roughly when games "settle" into some semblance of normalcy.

 

[JDCP]

A bit of a hot take here, but recently I've been losing patience with resources that aren't visible right away but are revealed in the ancient era. While there's an enjoyable dopamine hit from having those resources become revealed, there's a much more impactful disappointment when you found a city and ten turns later finish researching Stonecutting and regret not settling that city 1 tile to the right. They're all revealed early enough that getting visibility isn't a balance issue (as may be the case with resources revealed in the classical era or later), so unfortunate placing of ancient era cities feels like being the butt of an unfunny joke. Nobody gained anything, we just lost something.

Hottest take I've heard all week, but I feel you in this, it's very disappointing. Sadly I think this is for the best... It's fine as it is, you only need one mineral resources and there's plenty of other sources for hammers besides them.

If you miss a spot and can't access one, there's always another in some corner of the world waiting for you, and I like how RI gives to some units a failsafe for their requirements with the bronze/iron dynamic (although only some, there's quite a lot who don't follow this).

idk I hate it too but I think it makes the game more exciting, I'm with the Scholar in this one. I also feel I'm too use to this system that I would probably pass from inspecting all tiles (though you can always turn the visibility of hammers/food in the map, but that looks ugly) and just leave it at luck, but honestly I like your idea even as a novelty I'd be fun to scan the playing field in search of the best land to settle!

By far the most often-sounded criticism of RI is that early game feels too slow.

Doesn't it heavily depend on the game's speed though? When I play on 0.5 it's pretty slow but STILL enjoyable (those games have tend to extend for far too long so it might not be suited for me though), when I play in realistic or higher speeds (haven't played the fastest though) it's cool and not what I'd exactly call "slow" either, and the pace between techs feels good as well as the time at which I get them, same for AIs.

Personally I think early game is as varied as middle and late game, I think they just have so different scopes/approaches that it might seem that they're very different, and they are different, but equally enjoyable.

since it always feels like the ancient era ends before it actually begins.

ho oh holy **** now THIS is a hot take! I'd consider ancient and early to mid classical age part of the ancient era as a whole, as upon entering the classical age your Civilization is still VERY green, and up to the middle you probably still don't know what iron is (although that might be an strategic fault on me for not prioritizing the iron tech enough). So for me it's not that short, as even though the era ended some of it remains. Yeah I know you could say the same of literally every other era BUT I feel this is amplified here to the point it is worth noting because of the limitations that persist between those parts of the game... I can link this to what we talked before about those resources that get discovered, if you didn't manage to find them during the ancient era (pretty hard, but possible) or just had a pretty bad placement due to uncertainty, then it's highly likely even if you're in late classical age you're struggling so much that we could consider you mid ancient by power and score, in some cases at least.

I think it would be for the worst if the ancient era would take longer, I think it's fair already... extending it more would make it cumbersome in my opinion.

But you know, I'd actually like to try this extended ancient era it could be fun.

About the ahead of time setting, I will admit it... I've never played without it I like to use it as an indication that I'm going way too far from where I should with techs, and that maybe I should step down and look into more important matters. I can't be so certain but I'm sure it also brings some sort of balance to the game too (no ****).

 

[tebriz]

It’s so interesting how a single change can lead to the most unexpected results in this game
In my very first test after enabling the “ahead of time” penalty, Christianity is finally founded before Islam! I think that never happened in my like last 20 games when this option was off - Islam was always founded first.

Still, it’s not entirely historically accurate - there was only about a one-century gap between their founding dates in this run (Christianity in the 5th century, Islam in the 6th).