Resource Yield Balance

[Kolaris]

Are some resources supposed to be better than others? For instance Pearls and Coral are strictly worse than Crab and Whales with -1 Food and worse Monopoly bonuses. Even Fish is usually a better tile.

Salt on the other hand seems too strong, if that's a concern. Improved with a T1 tech and enables Stone Works. You can have a 3 Food 5 Production tile with just 3 Techs.

 

[Funak]

Are some resources supposed to be better than others? For instance Pearls and Coral are strictly worse than Crab and Whales with -1 Food and worse Monopoly bonuses. Even Fish is usually a better tile.

Salt on the other hand seems too strong, if that's a concern. Improved with a T1 tech and enables Stone Works. You can have a 3 Food 5 Production tile with just 3 Techs.

Luxuries are not supposed to be equal, that's correct .

I personally think CPP does a better job with the resource balance than vanilla did anyways, gold on tiles feels a lot more attractive early on here and most bonus-resources(and even good farming-locations) comes up to the same yield-value as salt does.


However, there are a few resources that I feel need some adjustment, and this is as good of a place as any for that so thanks for starting the thread.

 

[Kolaris]

Yeah the balance is better in CPP, but at the same time those small imbalances are more pronounced because you're guaranteed 8 of those resources + Monopoly bonus + Corporations bonus.

I also usually play with bonus resources visible and luxuries hidden, and some luxuries like Cotton and Incense don't get revealed until Tier 6 techs. I do enjoy trying to figure out what my luxury is but if it's one of those 2 you're in big trouble.

 

[Funak]

I also usually play with bonus resources visible and luxuries hidden, and some luxuries like Cotton and Incense don't get revealed until Tier 6 techs. I do enjoy trying to figure out what my luxury is but if it's one of those 2 you're in big trouble.

Well, that's your choice . I would never play with hidden luxuries.

 

[Gokudo01]

...

Funak or gazebo, what do you think about ivory and incense ?
I feel like it helps a little against poverty but food and production help you to get more pop and building which snowball into more food, production, science, culture or even Gold. Gold can't snowball you, it can only slow you down early.
Each time, I start with ivory and incense near my capital, I want to hit the "Restart" button. And it's worse if I have no intention to rush one of my neighbour.

 

[Funak]

Funak or gazebo, what do you think about ivory and incense ?
I feel like it helps a little against poverty but food and production help you to get more pop and building which snowball into more food, production, science, culture or even Gold. Gold can't snowball you, it can only slow you down early.
Each time, I start with ivory and incense near my capital, I want to hit the "Restart" button. And it's worse if I have no intention to rush one of my neighbour.

I think there are a few luxuries that are just straight up too bad.


Camp:
Ivory is horrible, even with the extra unit. The circus comes late and even with it the tile is still pretty awful.
Fur outside of forest is also horrible (happens really rarely however)


Fishingboat:
Coral is always horrible.
Pearls are like Coral but with a slightly better monopoly bonus
These could probably both be considered fine as they eventually get really good when you get to seaports.


Mine:
Copper, the nerf to the forge was really un-called for. Copper is now the only luxury (and iron is the only strategic resource) that only gets +1 yield from the related building. Sure, the forge also boosts mines, but it does that for all mines. It does not change the fact that copper just gets plain less yields.
Gold, Gems and to some degree silver; the bank just comes way too late, getting these resources, which aren't exactly fantastic on their own when it comes to yields, and then having to wait until renaissance era(and an expensive, fairly meh building) to get an extra +2 gold on them makes them really bleh.


Plantation:
Coffee and Tobacco suffers from the same thing the banking-resources suffer from. Bad base-yields, bad monopoly-bonus, late enhancing building (even though the building is both on a more attractive tech, is generally better as well as gives better yields to the resources). Tea suffers from this to some degree as well, but tea have a better monopoly bonus, leaving it functioning.
Out of the remaining plantation-resources there are only a few that you're actually happy to see (but that's fine) the worst remaining however are Incense and Perfume, and they should probably be mentioned as well. Bad yields and the (imho) worst monopoly bonus.

The plantation-resources spawning in jungle are also fairly annoying, but at least they are decent once you actually get around to improving them.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I think Renaissance Buildings should give 3 Yields to Resources, but maybe not because they are on good buildings like Banks and Grocers.

Copper should give +2 again, agreed. Workshops could give another +1 to Iron.

Is Gold not good enough that Gold Monopolies should be +4?

Plantations should get more Yields throughout the game to be a Viable Tile. Trading is nice but you'll need good Trading Partners.

 

[Gokudo01]

thanks

I'm fine with weak resources(more balancing would be good but it takes time ) that provide food or production because you will always find them some use.
My copper mine is not great but it's a Mine with some gold bonus ( and later some production bonus)

Ivory is just a bad village until circus comes, to make it a very bad town.

As I said earlier, gold can't snowball you, even more in CBP where you can't buyout Settlers or buildings.

 

[Funak]

Plantations should get more Yields throughout the game to be a Viable Tile. Trading is nice but you'll need good Trading Partners.

I don't really think the plantation is the problem. Olives and citrus are great, chocolate and sugar are good.

The real problem is that since luxuries aren't exactly your main source of yields later on you kinda want to have a decent monopoly-bonus on your luxuries, and sadly enough the plantation resources have the most +3 happiness monopolies.

I mean other than plantation luxuries the only other resources with the plus 3 happiness monopoly are truffles and furs, and they only really stay relevant because of the double-dipping scaling of forest-tiles and camp improvements. I mean I even included the furs on my list because even with all their bonuses they still feel pretty weak, probably because of the +3 happiness.

 

[Gazebo]

I don't really think the plantation is the problem. Olives and citrus are great, chocolate and sugar are good.

The real problem is that since luxuries aren't exactly your main source of yields later on you kinda want to have a decent monopoly-bonus on your luxuries, and sadly enough the plantation resources have the most +3 happiness monopolies.

I mean other than plantation luxuries the only other resources with the plus 3 happiness monopoly are truffles and furs, and they only really stay relevant because of the double-dipping scaling of forest-tiles and camp improvements. I mean I even included the furs on my list because even with all their bonuses they still feel pretty weak, probably because of the +3 happiness.

Since other resources scale (yields), I've considered scaling happiness from monopolies a bit. Not sure about it, though, as happiness values in CBP don't inflate quite as bad as vanilla.

G

 

[Funak]

Since other resources scale (yields), I've considered scaling happiness from monopolies a bit. Not sure about it, though, as happiness values in CBP don't inflate quite as bad as vanilla.

I agree with you, this is not really a good solution.

The problem is that the 3 happiness monopoly bonus isn't really good at any part of the game, it is not like you ever think 'Man, I wish I got +3 happiness instead of +20% growth or 25% GAD'.


I can think of three semi-easy solutions one of them is pretty boring and the other one is a clear power-creep. These suggestions are both outside of the building changes that I'm going to suggest later on.

1. Remove most of the +3 happiness monopolies and replace them with better ones, leave the Indonesian ones and both the camp luxuries (You could also keep one of the plantation ones, but then you'd need to bump up the base-yields of that resource quite a bit probably). Bump up the +3 happiness to maybe +4 or +5 because honestly, +3 is just not enough.

2. Scrap the entire +3 happiness monopoly, redistribute the remaining luxuries into other monopolies. Add some happiness (between 0 and 3) to the other existing monopoly-bonuses, for example the +3 gold monopoly (being one of the weaker ones) could get +3 happiness while +3 food monopoly (being one of the stronger) could get +1. This would allow for some balancing between the monopolies but it is clearly a powercreep.

3. Combine the +3 happiness and +3 gold monopolies into one, make those monopolies add maybe +2 gold to tiles and +3 happiness globally.




Building changes.

I don't know quite how possible this is (maybe the buildings can only have that many bonuses?), but could we please consider moving the medieval/renaissance era building bonuses to ancient/classical.
By that I mean moving the bonuses to gold/silver/gems from banks, the bonus to Ivory from a circus and the bonuses to Tea/Coffee/Tobacco from the grocer to ancient/classical era buildings.
Yes this is going to create a lot less difference between luxuries, and to some degree diminish the whole point of 'More Luxuries' but being stuck with tiles that only kick in halfway into the game while others kick in in ancient era is painful.

You could still have some form of scaling involved, you could have some renaissance or industrial era building adding +1 gold to all luxuries, at that point the gold wont really matter much but it is just a fun thing.


As for which resource to place where, most of the ones I suggested moving are considered trade-goods(duh), so splitting them between the market and the caravansary would probably make the most sense. Tobacco while clearly a trade-good could also fit into the temple, being a religious thing I suppose.

 

[Gazebo]

I agree with you, this is not really a good solution.

The problem is that the 3 happiness monopoly bonus isn't really good at any part of the game, it is not like you ever think 'Man, I wish I got +3 happiness instead of +20% growth or 25% GAD'.


I can think of three semi-easy solutions one of them is pretty boring and the other one is a clear power-creep. These suggestions are both outside of the building changes that I'm going to suggest later on.

1. Remove most of the +3 happiness monopolies and replace them with better ones, leave the Indonesian ones and both the camp luxuries (You could also keep one of the plantation ones, but then you'd need to bump up the base-yields of that resource quite a bit probably). Bump up the +3 happiness to maybe +4 or +5 because honestly, +3 is just not enough.

2. Scrap the entire +3 happiness monopoly, redistribute the remaining luxuries into other monopolies. Add some happiness (between 0 and 3) to the other existing monopoly-bonuses, for example the +3 gold monopoly (being one of the weaker ones) could get +3 happiness while +3 food monopoly (being one of the stronger) could get +1. This would allow for some balancing between the monopolies but it is clearly a powercreep.

3. Combine the +3 happiness and +3 gold monopolies into one, make those monopolies add maybe +2 gold to tiles and +3 happiness globally.




Building changes.

I don't know quite how possible this is (maybe the buildings can only have that many bonuses?), but could we please consider moving the medieval/renaissance era building bonuses to ancient/classical.
By that I mean moving the bonuses to gold/silver/gems from banks, the bonus to Ivory from a circus and the bonuses to Tea/Coffee/Tobacco from the grocer to ancient/classical era buildings.
Yes this is going to create a lot less difference between luxuries, and to some degree diminish the whole point of 'More Luxuries' but being stuck with tiles that only kick in halfway into the game while others kick in in ancient era is painful.

You could still have some form of scaling involved, you could have some renaissance or industrial era building adding +1 gold to all luxuries, at that point the gold wont really matter much but it is just a fun thing.


As for which resource to place where, most of the ones I suggested moving are considered trade-goods(duh), so splitting them between the market and the caravansary would probably make the most sense. Tobacco while clearly a trade-good could also fit into the temple, being a religious thing I suppose.

Some resources and monopolies are simply going to be weaker than others. As long as the balance difference isn't extreme (i.e. vanilla salt versus all other resources), it is working as intended. If a particular resource is vastly under-performing, we can adjust it, but I don't see the need for sweeping changes. We need to be very precise here, as resource/tile yields can cause problems if changed too dramatically.

G

 

[Funak]

Some resources and monopolies are simply going to be weaker than others. As long as the balance difference isn't extreme (i.e. vanilla salt versus all other resources), it is working as intended. If a particular resource is vastly under-performing, we can adjust it, but I don't see the need for sweeping changes. We need to be very precise here, as resource/tile yields can cause problems if changed too dramatically.

Again, that's exactly my point, my suggested changes wouldn't balance anything out, it would just be a small step in that direction. The +3 happiness monopoly is really weak, the majority of the plantation resources are pretty weak. The combination of +3 happiness on plantation resources is devastating.

 

[Kolaris]

We need to be very precise here, as resource/tile yields can cause problems if changed too dramatically.

G

That's kind of the point though. One player starting with a Salt Monopoly vs an Ivory one, or a Crab vs a Coral, has enormous impact.

 

[Gazebo]

Again, that's exactly my point, my suggested changes wouldn't balance anything out, it would just be a small step in that direction. The +3 happiness monopoly is really weak, the majority of the plantation resources are pretty weak. The combination of +3 happiness on plantation resources is devastating.

Plantation resources tend to 'clump' the most, though, and they are generally your first monopoly. They also have the most corporations, and gain quite a bit from certain beliefs and policies.

It is not so cut-and-dry as you make it out to be.
G

 

[Funak]

Plantation resources tend to 'clump' the most, though, and they are generally your first monopoly. They also have the most corporations, and gain quite a bit from certain beliefs and policies.

Aren't both Tobacco and Coffee from the absolute worst corporation?

I'm not making it out to be cut-and-dry I'm just trying to help you here. I don't think I've ever seen a tobacco/coffee start and been happy about it. I mean the same goes for Incense as well, but at least that one gets improved from a classic era building.

 

[Gazebo]

Aren't both Tobacco and Coffee from the absolute worst corporation?

I'm not making it out to be cut-and-dry I'm just trying to help you here. I don't think I've ever seen a tobacco/coffee start and been happy about it. I mean the same goes for Incense as well, but at least that one gets improved from a classic era building.

Possibly. We need a bit more data (actual numbers and player reports).

G

 

[Funak]

Possibly. We need a bit more data (actual numbers and player reports).

You know as well as anyone that I'm the only one that actually cares about anything enough to bring it up

 

[Gazebo]

You know as well as anyone that I'm the only one that actually cares about anything enough to bring it up

I don't think so - I do think that this sub-subforum is a bit of a graveyard because it it easy to ignore. I'd make a post, perhaps a poll even, related to resources in the main thread. You have my blessing.

G

 

[Funak]

I don't think so - I do think that this sub-subforum is a bit of a graveyard because it it easy to ignore. I'd make a post, perhaps a poll even, related to resources in the main thread. You have my blessing.

Which main-thread?


Also if you want numbers I could just write them down. The big question is if you're going to accept my claim that the +3 happiness monopoly is by far the worst in the game.