Settler cost scaling

[Psikus]

I was wondering if it would be a good idea to increase the production cost of settlers, possibly through some sort of scaling. In my experience, the initial settler is costed just about right (i.e. it's a significant investment), the second one comes out more easily, and after that point production cost is no longer a limiting factor for getting new cities - I'm more concerned about suitable locations, happiness, and my ability to defend the new settlements. Personally, I would like each new settler to take a while to produce, no matter what stage of the game we are in.

Possible scaling factors to increase the cost of settlers could be number of cities, happiness and era. If it wasn't too hard to implement, counting active settlers as additional cities could be a way to prevent players from gaming the system. Ideally, costs would scale so that, by the time you get colonists/pioneers, the cost of a regular settler is the same as a current upgraded settler - that way, colonists and pioneers could be a strict upgrade without increasing unit cost.

What do you think?

 

[Moi Magnus]

I tend to agree that "quickly settling a lot of cities" may a little too strong compared to "progressively settling a lot of cities".
(Which make upgraded settlers useless in a lot of map scripts)
Increasing settler cost with the number of cities you have would be an interesting way of countering this. So I'm not against the change.

However, I'm not sure if we want to change this part of the gameplay. It may have a lot of indirect consequences on early game balance:
+ Expensive settlers would be even more interesting to capture/destroy with a surprise war, and it would be even more punishing to lose a settler to barbarians, ...
+ Balance of pantheons may be strongly altered.
+ Balance between tradition and progress will be changed too.
etc

 

[CrazyG]

I think the constant settler price is alright.

If you settle too many cities in quick order, you do get a big negative diplomatic modifier with any AI you've met.

 

[tu_79]

The sooner you settle a city, the better it can be. Your 5th settler might be less expensive in terms of expended turns, but also that 6th city of yours will be probably worse than the others, so there is already a trade off. You are then limited by whatever happiness you might manage, so it's almost impossible to settle more than 10 cities in the early game, and once you recover your happiness, you should not settle any city with a settler for economic reasons, they will always be a drag. This means that you have to wait until pioneers if you want to cover all the territory. So far, this mechanic works well.

I have more doubts about colonists, since I never find them useful. But maybe it's me.

 

[Cat-du-fromage]

Agree, even unhappiness is not a limit (for me) if I have to create 20 cities i made them fast, because the sooner you create them, the sooner they will be productive a cost modifier will totally change the way you play and maybe give some interesting tweak to progress

 

[azum4roll]

I think the constant settler price is alright.

If you settle too many cities in quick order, you do get a big negative diplomatic modifier with any AI you've met.

I hate how the AI does the same thing but hates you for doing so. Such hypocrites.

 

[tu_79]

I hate how the AI does the same thing but hates you for doing so. Such hypocrites.

Feel free to hate your neighboring AI too.

 

[superschokokeks]

because this is fun:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....594/89F990A0D93C102E6D3818F276F530302D656CC6/

 

[Moi Magnus]

because this is fun:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....594/89F990A0D93C102E6D3818F276F530302D656CC6/

This is an unclaimed natural wonder in the middle of your empire, isn't it?
Sure, it is in range of Akkad, but two tiles away from your borders so the AI will settle nearby without too much hesitation if they don't fear your army.

 

[superschokokeks]

yes that brown mountain is a natural wonder.
But this picture shows more than this. Aggresive expanding of the ai, which gives him more units to mantain and then beeing hostile towards me - for no reason. Even with superior units (Babylons Bowmen) I struggled against the sheer power of Rome.
This is something I noticed throughout the mod... Very aggressive expanding of the AI and then attacking me. On Emporer it is very hard to keep up the pace - to me it looks unfair.
Unfair because I am not capable of having so much cities in so less time without getting into trouble in terms civlization stability. Not to mention other nations getting angry and want war.
I need put more hours into the mod though before I can really complain about anything. Especially since I saw the AI modifiers, which are the same of vanilla.

It is said Vox popoli is balanced around Emperor and everything standard, but it doesn't feel that way. Again I need to play more and get a better understanding of this mod before I'm sure about that

 

[Gazebo]

yes that brown mountain is a natural wonder.
But this picture shows more than this. Aggresive expanding of the ai, which gives him more units to mantain and then beeing hostile towards me - for no reason. Even with superior units (Babylons Bowmen) I struggled against the sheer power of Rome.
This is something I noticed throughout the mod... Very aggressive expanding of the AI and then attacking me. On Emporer it is very hard to keep up the pace - to me it looks unfair.
Unfair because I am not capable of having so much cities in so less time without getting into trouble in terms civlization stability. Not to mention other nations getting angry and want war.
I need put more hours into the mod though before I can really complain about anything. Especially since I saw the AI modifiers, which are the same of vanilla.

It is said Vox popoli is balanced around Emperor and everything standard, but it doesn't feel that way. Again I need to play more and get a better understanding of this mod before I'm sure about that

It is not balanced around Emperor, whoever said this made it up. It's balance around King at best (I do a lot of testing at King), but really it's balanced around whatever handicap you feel is appropriate to your playing skill. These are handicaps - complaining about them being unfair or too challenging means you should step down a handicap and perfect your strategies, then bump back up when you want a challenge.


G

 

[Moi Magnus]

It is not balanced around Emperor, whoever said this made it up.
G

I think that a remaining of an old debate, when there was a lot of (not really fructfull) arguments about "should VP be balanced toward Deity or not?", and someone probably said "let us just agree it is balanced around Emperor, so that everybody is happy".
(And since that's a quite a long time ago, Emperor then was probably easier than now. I think the AI improvement largely compensate for the fiew lost bonuses)

 

[superschokokeks]

Well, then, please take a look at your FAQ and adjust it accordingly. And yes, I finally step down to King today. I'm a very stubborn person.

 

[Gazebo]

Well, then, please take a look at your FAQ and adjust it accordingly. And yes, I finally step down to King today. I'm a very stubborn person.

I don't run the Wiki, nor do I have a FAQ.

G

 

[glider1]

The way the happiness system has changed, I think there is a case to be made to unlock colonists earlier in the tech tree.