Shoshone discussion

[Markal]

Regarding the ancient ruins I think maybe some polling is in order since we ultimately only bring our own opinion on the table (and maybe mine is in the minority I have no problems with that).

My view is that if you don't play with ancient ruins it means you don't like them by design. If you play with ancient ruins on, chances are (but I could be wrong) that you like the thrill of randomness they bring to early exploration. Once again I've never played without AR and yet the ability of the Shoshone has never felt good to me when playing with them. If it just come down to going for the same outcome everytime you play with them (because is just the best one in the current meta, we'll see if it changes soon eventually) I find it boring. But once again it might only be me.

 

[pineappledan]

Unimproved tiles give yields as if they were improved. Unable to use specialists if they would cause Urbanization.

but... but they have a unique improvement.

 

[Stalker0]

Just Brainstorming here

The Great Expanse:
Unimproved tiles give yields as if they were improved. Unable to use specialists if they would cause Urbanization.

maybe something like "+1 yield for every unworked tile within the city borders".

 

[pineappledan]

That creates a weird incentive to avoid growth. Especially weird for a civ with a UI that gives food.

 

[Stalker0]

That creates a weird incentive to avoid growth. Especially weird for a civ with a UI that gives food.

not really, I very much doubt 1 yield would ever replace the benefits of a full worker on a plot of land. It does weaken the benefits of growth a bit I agree, but no one would ever stop growth to get 1 yield at the expense of everything working a tile can get you.

 

[pineappledan]

this is a 4X game. If you create a civ that not just doesn’t benefit, but actively discouraged one of those X’s, then that’s not a good idea.

It’s fine to have civs that simply reward some things so that you neglect others, but A civ that rewards you for NOT growing (ie X-panding) doesn’t sound fun. Same with a civ that actively rewards you for NOT improving (ie X-ploiting). That kicks out one of the legs of the chair.

We already have a problem with how Brazil rewards delaying scouting (X-plore). It still rewards that, but at a specific time, and that’s enough of an issue.

 

[CppMaster]

It's like every civs is punished for X-panding when tech cost penalty and policy cost penalty increases with founding a city.

 

[pineappledan]

Having systems that rubberband and push back against limitless growth/expansion for all players is one thing. Giving 1 civ a reward for every city they DON’T found, every citizen they DON’T birth, every tile they DON’T improve or work, every war they DON’T win, etc. is something else entirely.

 

[Hinin]

Perhaps we could put a hard limit to the civ's ability to grow pop based on eras : 5 pops per city until Medieval, 7 until Renaissance etc ?
It would not only encourage you to create more cities in order to have population and thus exploit the more interesting tiles, but also synergizes with the ability to gain yields from unworked tiles and the bonus to border growth.

Of course, that would mean the Encampment would need to be reworked. There could also be some kind of bonus if you are at max pop (food conversion into something else).

 

[CppMaster]

Yet we do have 1 civ: Venice, who's UA prevents them from X-panding the easy, regular way. Giving a small reward for not X-panding is far lesser thing.

 

[Rick Drayson]

It's remarkable to me how many people think Soshone don't need fixing. The author of the proposal laid out the reasons behind a need to change Soshone. those are irrefutable. Yet feelz seems to rule many responses here?
Vox populi is an enormous success not least because of high intellect and logic went into balancing. <<snip>>
-Ruins bonus not applicable to AI needs addressing. It's as simple as that.
And it would be nice to play Soshone , be balanced as a civ and have ruins turned off.
Ergo the current bonus must go and be replaced AND should remain in the same flavor as the current bonus. Ergo the solution proposed has huge merit.

Can we as a community not reject rational ideas?

 

[CppMaster]

Can we as a community not reject rational ideas?

Yes we can. We can also reject some rational ideas which we don't like. Hence the congress and ability to vote.

 

[Rick Drayson]

Yes we can. We can also reject some rational ideas which we don't like. Hence the congress and ability to vote.

The collective community clearly lacked rationality because an issue was left within vox populi...
I don't think you are actually following my argument. <<snip>>

AI CANNOT USE A UA ERGO THE UA MUST CHANGE.
No argument, there is no NO to this. There is just YES as long as the voter is rational.

It is essentially a bug.

And i read the responses to why no was chosen. My goodness, talking about avoiding the issue.

Moderator Action: Do not make posts that belittle others or insult their intelligence. You are welcome to express your views in a manner that is respectful to others. In addition, please keep in mind that you are in a community. Your personal opinion is not the law. - Recursive
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[ma_kuh]

"AI CANNOT USE A UA ..." is far from absolute. Off the top of my head I can think of several outcomes to such an assertion.

1. You can teach the AI to use the ability. Give a sponsor a priority order and it can happen. It's not black and white that it has to be removed.
2. Even if it's destined to be removed, what replaces it is as much a reason to vote against it as the ability being "broken" is to vote for it. Just because the cost/benefit is clear in your mind doesn't mean other voters' cost/benefit is the same.

As another example, AI cannot track units outside their field of view between turns very well. The solution was to give them bonus sight range (as I understand it); the human does not likewise get bonus sight range "to compensate". Balance and fairness is about more than having the exact same rules for AI and human.

Also, I don't think a single respondent has said they think Shoshone are fine as-is. Not sure where you're getting that from. We're all trying to solve the issue together.

Moderator Action: Edited post as part of moderation action. - Recursive

 

[pineappledan]

Yet we do have 1 civ: Venice, who's UA prevents them from X-panding the easy, regular way. Giving a small reward for not X-panding is far lesser thing.

A vanilla idea which has effectively been repealed at this point now that the UU settles cities. All that boils down to now is that Venice builds settlers using specialists instead of production. And you see how much of a headache venice causes with constantly having to be adjusted and rebalanced because if this. Not something we need to reproduce.

Perhaps we could put a hard limit to the civ's ability to grow pop based on eras : 5 pops per city until Medieval, 7 until Renaissance etc ?
It would not only encourage you to create more cities in order to have population and thus exploit the more interesting tiles, but also synergizes with the ability to gain yields from unworked tiles and the bonus to border growth.

Of course, that would mean the Encampment would need to be reworked. There could also be some kind of bonus if you are at max pop (food conversion into something else).

It’s an interesting idea, sort of a hard de-urbanization. Rather than an outlet food, it could also just give a large bonus for something else.

Great Expanse
Cities cannot exceed 4 Population.
When City borders expand naturally, claims all adjacent land tiles of the same terrain type.
Excess Food is converted intoBorder Growth (1:1 conversion)
Land Units gain 20% Combat Strength in your territory.

Encampment:
Must be built on flat land not adjacent to another encampment
+1
20% tile defense
Deals 5 damage to adjacent enemy units
Citizens working an encampment do not contribute to your city’s population cap.

That would give you 4 pop to do everything else you want to do, like work specialists or non-encampment tiles

 

[ma_kuh]

So every encampment is worked "for free", and most of the rest of your terrain is empty? That seems odd. Maybe not bad, but... Every specialist, resource, and natural wonder would be competing for the same 4 slots.


I'll offer an alternative that maybe preserves the essence of the change but keeps it more similar to existing mechanics:
Population Growth (net food) reduced by 50%. Population Growth added to Border Growth. (Could also read: "50% of Population Growth converted to Border Growth")

But you'd need an actual incentive that makes use of the border growth I guess. TBD

 

[pineappledan]

Yeah I’ll post some iterations. This idea of a pop cap has my gears turning. You would need some powerful tools to compensate for how that basically removes specialists, GPTI, and intensive land improvement/management. Need an outlet for those energies somewhere else in the kit

 

[hokath]

There are many things that scale with pop too, from buildings to beliefs. Sounds like a bit of a nightmare.

I thought the "Death Valley" idea was cute, but it does look a bit feast-or-famine. Not to mention you need the AI to play along. Oh, and the events that pillage tiles would interact with it strongly.

It seems to me that if "having lots of land" is the theme then the most important thing to get down is what the benefit of that will be.
Right now, it's sorta just a military benefit.
Perhaps the code that allows cities to have +working radius could be used here? I like border growth a lot more if I can snag those unfortunately placed, but really good, tiles in that 4th ring (or 5th for the capital with tradition).

 

[pineappledan]

Oh yeah, it’s a Pandora’s box of balancing issues. It would also create a massive burden for AI teaching, I’m sure.

 

[stii]

That is a pretty wild ability, might be terrible or broken. But certainly interesting.