Rebalancing Proposal

[Zaldron]

Well, rapid increases in the price of Research Agreements actually have an anti-runaway mechanic built in: if I'm an era or two ahead of everyone else, each of my RAs will cost a lot more than other Civs' will (esp since AI civs that are behind will demand Gold before signing one with me).

That said, yes, the late-game RA prices are probably a bit too high (a 50% reduction seems too big). Either way, they're definitely an improvement from pre-v131 prices though, in my opinion.



Can we turn this multiplier down then? Or maybe my experience was a one-off... has anyone else noticed a mid-game CS with very little territory to its name?


Re: the culture discussion above, I agree that culture victories still seem too fast; in my current game, India's got 28 policies filled out by turn 220. Policy costs could stand to be scaled up a bit more, at least for the later (the 20th and on, say) ones.


Also, I'm very glad to report that I'm not finding myself awash in Gold by turn 220ish in my current game! The AIs are still managing to rake it in (917 net gpt for Arabia and 353 for India by turn 220, somehow... even with reduced maint, I don't know how that's happening...), although my finances would be in better shape had I kept a few more puppets for gold purposes – I razed a few medium-sized cities to keep my Happiness up (most of my Science production is in my Capital, so I've been trying to keep that bonus high).

What strategy are you using to get two eras ahead of the AIs? I only play on king and emperor and in my two games in 131.12 the AI has completely blown me away in research (industrial before I hit ren for example). In release 131 I as able to get ahead in tech.

I agree that the RA prices are an improvement, but only as an indirect buff to the AIs for use of their extra cash. For me the strategy hasn't changed: Before it was always take RA and now it's never take RA (I'd much rather buy buildings and CSes than ~1/2 - 3/4ths of a tech over 30 turns).

Remember that due to a bug in the game, finishers count as a policy, so 28 could mean 4 finished trees. That still seems a bit fast though.

 

[Txurce]

The AIs are still managing to rake it in (917 net gpt for Arabia and 353 for India by turn 220, somehow...

As of v131.12, I don't think Thal has the AI spending their gold yet as intended.

 

[Thalassicus]

Re: the culture discussion above, I agree that culture victories still seem too fast; in my current game, India's got 28 policies filled out by turn 220.

What era do you see culture victories in? I aim for it to be the late Industrial / early Modern period. What's important is the relationship between the pace of research vs policies. I generally do not use turn numbers to balance the game, because few gameplay effects depend directly on our current turn number.

The AIs are still managing to rake it in (917 net gpt for Arabia and 353 for India by turn 220

How much gold do they have stored? I think you can check this in InfoAddict, or what maximum value is possible in a trade deal.

Remember that due to a bug in the game, finishers count as a policy, so 28 could mean 4 finished trees.

I'm relatively certain I remember seeing a fix for this included in vanilla patch notes during late summer.

 

[wobuffet]

What strategy are you using to get two eras ahead of the AIs? I only play on king and emperor and in my two games in 131.12 the AI has completely blown me away in research (industrial before I hit ren for example). In release 131 I as able to get ahead in tech.

This was just hypothetical. But there are certainly a few backwards AI Civs every game that I am typically two eras ahead of.

What era do you see culture victories in? I aim for it to be the late Industrial / early Modern period. What's important is the relationship between the pace of research vs policies. I generally do not use turn numbers to balance the game, because few gameplay effects depend directly on our current turn number.

Well, I plan to crush India before it achieves a Cultural victory, but it's at 28/36 policies at turn 227, early-mid Industrial age.

How much gold do they have stored? I think you can check this in InfoAddict, or seeing what maximum value is possible in a trade deal.

I checked on the Diplomacy Overview screen: the two leading Civs are Arabia at 33,949 and 741/turn and India at -1,432 (??) and 565/turn.

 

[Thalassicus]

Strange, it should be in the 0-3000 range. Could you attach a zip file with the stuff below? I'll do some testing when I have access to the game again.

• Savegame
• /mods folder
• /moduserdata folder
• /cache folder

 

[wobuffet]

Sure thing; here it is.

 

[Seek]

Cities

• Reduced the culture border expansion exponent to 1.3 (was 1.4).
• Reduced the cost increase per tile purchased to 8 (was 10).

Policies

• Halved the effect of Landed Elite's bonus to border expansion.

Research

• Halved the cost of research agreements.

Aside from the last, I tried these values out on my own in a game today and they are right on!

I priced RAs a little different because the early RAs seemed too cheap (300/classical, 500/medieval, 800/renaissance, 1500/industrial, 3000/modern), and they seemed to work well.

Also tested a new GS formula which worked well: ((1.1n)^2.2)+650 (though they might be *slightly* too strong now and have to be toned down a bit - I'll experiment more tomorrow).

 

[Thalassicus]

What's the typical # of turns to research a classical-era tech for you?

 

[Seek]

The classical era is one of the most volatile in terms of turn numbers, but generally I'll go in via Philosophy while building the GLib; that'll take 15+ turns but once I've got the GL or NC classical tech are more like 8-10, and with both around 5-7 turns.

But I'm not sure how this is relevant: I think 100 gold for an RA in the classical era is far too small when research is so important (sell one lux=2 RAs, sell 2 OB or 3 strategics=1 RA). While normal GPT is fairly low in that era it's neither unusual nor unreasonable to sell almost everything you have and buy RAs with the cash, and unless there's an AI rushing you there are few diplomatic issues preventing AIs from signing RAs when offered.

 

[wobuffet]

What if the AI were willing to sell an extra luxury for 240 (as now), but only willing to pay 160 to buy a luxury?


I agree with Seek that RAs shouldn't be incredibly cheap to begin with (at least 150–200 to begin with), although I'm okay with quickly escalating costs that get quite eventually because this makes RAs differentially and especially expensive for tech leaders.

What's the current RA cost formula, something linear like (raw beaker cost / 3)? Maybe it could be modified to 1.5*(raw beaker cost / 3)^a for some exponent a = 0.95 or something like that.

 

[mitsho]

What if the AI were willing to sell an extra luxury for 240 (as now), but only willing to pay 160 to buy a luxury?

That would annoy me incredibly as a casual player. They want to sell their silk for a high price, but I can only get trash for MY silk? I simply wouldn't sell anymore probably, out of pure spite.

I agree with Seek that RAs shouldn't be incredibly cheap to begin with (at least 150–200 to begin with), although I'm okay with quickly escalating costs that get quite eventually because this makes RAs differentially and especially expensive for tech leaders.

What's the current RA cost formula, something linear like (raw beaker cost / 3)? Maybe it could be modified to 1.5*(raw beaker cost / 3)^a for some exponent a = 0.95 or something like that.

If you make the early ones cheap, isolationist civs get punished double, because they don't know anyone yet to make a RA with.

 

[Dunkah]

What if the AI were willing to sell an extra luxury for 240 (as now), but only willing to pay 160 to buy a luxury?

Isn't this a circular reference?

No AI would ever buy anything ever...

 

[Aristos]

I know this sounds like an oversimplification, but I am convinced that most of the "overabundance" problems discussed here will be solved when Thal adjusts the bonuses as per our little debate in another post. Basically, the game engine is combining bonuses from its handicap table and the players handicap table for costs, food and production, and when we play say Emperor, with the vanilla-like factors in the AI handicap table, we end up with a ratio close to 2:1 or better in favor of the AI in all these factors. I proved it for myself beyond a reasonable doubt by forcing the AI to play on Prince in vanilla... no more overabundance of anything, in fact the AIs (and me) struggle in the beginning with gold, production and food because the AI handicap factors are 100% in Prince, so the only real bonuses applied are the ones coming from the Emperor table... far a better game, if you ask me... you can even "feel" the AI trading for a purpose, because it needs everything as much as the player does...

 

[Txurce]

I know this sounds like an oversimplification, but I am convinced that most of the "overabundance" problems discussed here will be solved when Thal adjusts the bonuses as per our little debate in another post. Basically, the game engine is combining bonuses from its handicap table and the players handicap table for costs, food and production, and when we play say Emperor, with the vanilla-like factors in the AI handicap table, we end up with a ratio close to 2:1 or better in favor of the AI in all these factors. I proved it for myself beyond a reasonable doubt by forcing the AI to play on Prince in vanilla... no more overabundance of anything, in fact the AIs (and me) struggle in the beginning with gold, production and food because the AI handicap factors are 100% in Prince, so the only real bonuses applied are the ones coming from the Emperor table... far a better game, if you ask me... you can even "feel" the AI trading for a purpose, because it needs everything as much as the player does...

I'm looking forward to seeing this in play,with some trepidation about the potential simultaneous balancing of:

• the above
• AI gold spending
• Opportunities
• miscellaneous nerfs

 

[Thalassicus]

The classical era is one of the most volatile in terms of turn numbers, but generally I'll go in via Philosophy while building the GLib; that'll take 15+ turns but once I've got the GL or NC classical tech are more like 8-10, and with both around 5-7 turns.

But I'm not sure how this is relevant: I think 100 gold for an RA in the classical era is far too small when research is so important (sell one lux=2 RAs, sell 2 OB or 3 strategics=1 RA). While normal GPT is fairly low in that era it's neither unusual nor unreasonable to sell almost everything you have and buy RAs with the cash, and unless there's an AI rushing you there are few diplomatic issues preventing AIs from signing RAs when offered.

Consider it from the perspective that RAs convert a set amount of gold into a set amount of science, as Zaldron and orangecape pointed out. From that angle the value depends on our science income. I hadn't thought about this perspective until recently. I want to thoroughly discuss and test it, which is why I've been experimenting with RA costs proportional to science income.

This graph shows the income and cost from a research agreement. It assumes our science is equal to the AI's. If we have the GL/NC, our personal science is higher but not the AI's, so the values on the left side of the scale are lower in practice.



Consider a game where it's taking 15 turns to earn classical techs and we do not have a DoF. We could spend gold on:

• +5/turn from five RAs costing 500 over 30 turns.
• +5/turn from a Library in a 5 pop city for 490* over 30 turns.
• +9/turn from friendship with a cultural CS for 500.

If we earn the CS's friendship for 17 turns, that's 150 from the citystate, 150 from the RAs, or 150 from the Library. Is this a good setup? I honestly don't know, which is why I want to discuss and test it.


-----------
* I believe a Library costs 430 + 2/turn... but I had to calculate this manually and can't verify it, since I'm unable to log into the game right now.

 

[wobuffet]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but B (the Library) would be much better than A (the RA) because it doesn't benefit any other Civ and, more importantly, generates beakers that are affected by city- and empire-wide multipliers.

Also, is Culture still subject to bonuses? I strongly think they shouldn't be; nobody else is sufficiently incentivized to steal Cultural CS Allies from Culture victory-seeking Civs.

 

[Txurce]

Also, is Culture still subject to bonuses? I strongly think they shouldn't be; nobody else is sufficiently incentivized to steal Cultural CS Allies from Culture victory-seeking Civs.

The AI is probably doesn't have the same incentive to do anything as much as a motivated human player; that's why it gets bonuses. Taking away these active bonuses from a player makes the game less fun. If the human player needs further nerfing - something impossible to say as of today - then I'd recommend nerfing the more passive aspects of the game.

 

[wobuffet]

Well, I think things are more interesting the more situational they are. At present, buying from most if not all of the cultural CSs is a no-brainer when pursuing a Cultural victory. Yes, this might be the case even without multipliers affecting CSs' culture contributions, but their existence makes it far too extreme.

As a result, it's much, much less (comparatively speaking) worth it for a player not pursuing a Cultural victory to buy cultural CSs' favor. I find, for example, that having a Militaristic CS Ally or two is great when I'm playing a peaceful game. When I'm playing a Cultural game, my capital has ridiculous multipliers that it seems unfair to apply to culture incoming from CSs. (On a related note, I'd like to see more base and smaller/no multipliers on Culture buildings [or at least NWs and GWs], to make the "Culture = small/tall empire" dynamic less extreme and offer the player more flexibility.)

 

[Txurce]

Well, I think things are more interesting the more situational they are. At present, buying from most if not all of the cultural CSs is a no-brainer when pursuing a Cultural victory. Yes, this might be the case even without multipliers affecting CSs' culture contributions, but their existence makes it far too extreme.

I agree that it's a no-brainer when pursuing a cultural victory, regardless of multipliers. I don't know why the multipliers make it "far too extreme," unless you think this particular factor makes CV's too easy compared to other VC's.

As a result, it's much, much less (comparatively speaking) worth it for a player not pursuing a Cultural victory to buy cultural CSs' favor. I find, for example, that having a Militaristic CS Ally or two is great when I'm playing a peaceful game. When I'm playing a Cultural game, my capital has ridiculous multipliers that it seems unfair to apply to culture incoming from CSs.

That's interesting. I only play for Science or Conquest wins, and focus on Cultural CS for my culture, because all my cities are usually building something else (science and pop buildings, or military stuff). If I spring for a multiplier, I am counting on the rewards, so I don't fall too far behind making my way through the policy trees.

 

[Thalassicus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but B (the Library) would be much better than A (the RA) because it doesn't benefit any other Civ and, more importantly, generates beakers that are affected by city- and empire-wide multipliers.

That's my point - I think the early cost of RAs is probably okay, because the alternatives appear better/equal to RAs. However, a declaration of friendship does make RAs dramatically better, so if we can get a DoF then the RA is certainly valuable. It's also worth pointing out Seek's point is primarily aimed at the early game, when we don't have modifiers yet.

Food from citystates has always benefited from modifiers in cities (such as We Love the King Day). If culture from citystates is too strong, I'd prefer to reduce the effect rather than reverting to a situation where the two yields operate under different rules.

Something else to mention is the word "multiplier" can be confusing, since they add and multiply. The word "modifier" is common in the files. Similar mods add together (+20% great general and +20% shock promotion) while different mods multiply (surplus food with base food). It's very confusing and counter-intuitive, but Civ has strangely stuck with this oddball system for decades.