Reversed difficulty bonuses?

[elitetroops]

I posted about this in another thread, but figured I'd put it here as well.

I noticed in all my games, Emperor-Deity, military production was behaving strangely. I kept getting way more production every turn than I should get. After some investigation I found there's some weird bonus that kicks in immediately when Craftmanship is learned, no matter if the policy Agoge is used or not.

Here's my Deity capital, 1 turn before I reach Craftmanship, production has behaved normally so far. I've tested both slingers and warriors.

Spoiler :

19/40 into warrior.
I've set it to work only food tiles, +4/turn. Warrior shown to be completed in 6 turns, as expected.

Next turn:

Spoiler :

I've researched Craftmanship. Production invested went up to 26/40. That's +7, not +4. I did not switch to Agoge. I micro to keep working only food tiles and 4 production/turn, Rome keeps making 7 production/turn into warrior, without any policy bonus.

I also tested this on Prince. It did NOT work. Which is why I'm wondering if the higher difficulties right now are getting bonuses reserved for the lower difficulties. Or are we getting AI bonuses?

 

[Jaybe]

Overflow from previous production?

 

[elitetroops]

Guaranteed no overflow. The previous turn I was building the slinger which still has 3 turns left. Switched mid build. And the bonus production is there every turn, for every type of military unit. And it's present in every single game, at least on emperor+.

 

[elitetroops]

Update: it appears this production bonus only applies to ancient and classical era military units. It has been confirmed by several other players. I also tested settler difficulty, does NOT apply there (nor on Prince, as mentioned). It's only for the higher difficulties, at least emperor+.

Is this a bug or a feature?

 

[ichbinsehselber]

I am ready to fall into the trap of answering a rhetorical question: This clearly looks like a bug. So you are positive that the only difference is the difficulty level?

 

[mikeg]

I can verify what elitetroops is saying, the bug doesn't happen on Settler but certainly happens on King, Emporer and Deity (I haven't tested all the others). I tested it a few times, building nothing other than Warriors and picking non-production related policies etc.
Seems to happen roughly 30 turns in, though I suspect the actual trigger is most likely when the first Civ reaches the Classical Era. From then on the time taken to produce any Ancient/Classical unit is half what it should be (based on the stated production cost).

 

[elitetroops]

Seems to happen roughly 30 turns in, though I suspect the actual trigger is most likely when the first Civ reaches the Classical Era.

Oh, that's interesting! In my tests it was always when I reached Craftmanship. Maybe that was just a coincidence.

If it depends on when the first civ reaches the classical era, then perhaps it just comes later on Prince and below, since the AI is slower?

 

[mikeg]

Yeah I wondered that, when I tried on Settler/Duel I waited for about 70 turns for it to happen but didn't see it occur, so it could be that the other AI hadn't reached Classical by then.

I'm a bit confused to be honest why not more people are picking this up, it seems so obviously wrong to me and has such clear knock-on effects, for instance Military Tradition (Pikemen tech) being utterly useless and best actively avoided due to the extreme ramp up in build time (6x) between Spearman and Pikemen.

 

[elitetroops]

I didn't pay attention to it in my first game either, though when I look at old saves I notice I got this bonus there as well. There's so many bonuses from policies, governments, city states and so on, that when you're new to the game it's hard to keep up with everything.

This leads to some really weird dynamics indeed. I certainly hope this is a bug, not some intended feature.

 

[skallben]

The same applies to building boats, and cavalry. A double 100% bonus is just beyond silly. I just avoid these policies because it feels like cheating.

 

[Lion King]

Another example of this issue, now with the gruelling speed mod (+125%): Norway, Emperor difficulty, 12 players. By the time I reached Berseker and crossbowman tech, each of them costs me about 17 turns to produce. These numbers are in line with production costs (~400 cost/22ppt). However, swordsman (which is just a little weaker than Berseker) costs just 4-5 turns to produce. I checked it's production costs - it is 202, so production time should be 9 turns at least (!). I don't have any policy atm which would boost it, so there is something wrong in the production formula. Such an amazing map just got completely broken...(

20161030221351_1

• Lion King
• Oct 30, 2016