Siam

[Hinin]

How do you change the starting bias for Siam, @Mad Madigan ? I would like to see ingame how having a jungle/forest start improves Siamese gameplay.

 

[Mad Madigan]

I can't remember off the top of my head what the script to change in the VanillaLeaders file is, but I can post it here later today once I get home. But if you want to play with it yourself, I took the code that changes the Maya starting bias to Jungle and just changed the variables so that it overwrote the Siam starting bias from the vanilla value.

 

[black213]

How do you change the starting bias for Siam, @Mad Madigan ? I would like to see ingame how having a jungle/forest start improves Siamese gameplay.

You can also change your start bias to whatever you like through Really Advanced Setup. Siam with jungle is pretty fun to play.

 

[crdvis16]

The yields from the different types of CS friends feel somewhat imbalanced.

Currently, meeting a religious CS in the opening turns of the game is like hitting the lottery as it can give you a pantheon faster than most other civs can manage (I believe friendly status gives 5 faith per turn). The raw faith and the earlier pantheon also likely speed up founding a religion by 5+ turns which can easily be the difference between founding or not founding and maybe getting to choose optimal beliefs. Dropping the faith to 3 or 4 per turn would at least force the player to build a shrine to get their pantheon.

Maritime (~6 food per turn) and Militaristic (1 science per turn and potentially a gifted unit) feel worthwhile, especially early when that food quickly adds population and the unit is a big boost. These could probably stay as they are. Maybe boost the science to 2/turn to account for the fact that you don't always get a unit gift?

Mercantile (2 happy, 1 gold per turn) and Culture (1 culture per turn) generally feel underwhelming. Finding a culture CS early can speed up your first policy slightly but I'd probably rather have the other stronger bonuses. Finding a mercantile CS is almost always disappointing. I think both of these bonuses should be increased- something like 3 culture/turn and 4 gold/turn would probably be better and feel more in line with the other yields.

I'm not sure if how these yields scale in later eras needs to be looked at as well. Siam's UA is especially relevant early game so that was my focus here.

 

[CrazyG]

The yields from the different types of CS friends feel somewhat imbalanced.

You are right, but I think to an extent it's a feature, not an imbalance.

 

[crdvis16]

You are right, but I think to an extent it's a feature, not an imbalance.

It tends to make Siam even more high variance which I think is bad.

As it is, there is high variance in Siam's start based on how many CSs happen to be nearby- I've found you sometimes only have 2-3 nearby or you can have like 7-8 (standard size, etc). Add on top of that 2 CS types that aren't very useful when friended and 1 CS type that is pretty overpowered and you get a really big range in your start. The difference between finding an early religious CS as well as a few maritime/militaristic vs only finding mercantile/cultural is really big. At least if they were all roughly equal in impact the variance would go down somewhat.

 

[ElliotS]

If I was in charge of designing their power I might give them +1 in capital for each city state friend, and +1 for each ally, scaling with era. (You get both for allies, and this replaces the +75% yields.) That would reduce variance quite a bit. Not sure if that might be too strong or weak. Also could make it in each city, but not scale with era. Maybe even both if it proved weaker than it is now.

Still, not sure the change is worth making now, even if everyone loved my idea.

 

[pineappledan]

Wouldn’t that basically be Germany though?

 

[InkAxis]

If I was in charge of designing their power I might give them +1 in capital for each city state friend, and +1 for each ally, scaling with era. (You get both for allies, and this replaces the +75% yields.) That would reduce variance quite a bit. Not sure if that might be too strong or weak. Also could make it in each city, but not scale with era. Maybe even both if it proved weaker than it is now.

Still, not sure the change is worth making now, even if everyone loved my idea.

I definitely agree with pdan that this bonus would basically make them a different Germany. Siam has a really unique playstyle and I like that.

BUT, I definitely agree that Siam can be inconsistent. But this is not a problem with Siam, this is a problem with CS yields.
If I am playing as any civ in the early game, I value faith CS so much more than most other CS, especially Mercantile. I think there needs to be some buffs/nerfs to CS yields in general, across the board.

 

[crdvis16]

I don't think this is a problem with Siam, this is a problem with CS in general. If I find a faith CS as any civ, a

I definitely agree with pdan that this bonus would basically make them a different Germany. Siam has a really unique playstyle and I like that.

BUT, I definitely agree that Siam can be inconsistent. But this is not a problem with Siam, this is a problem with CS yields.
If I am playing as any civ in the early game, I value faith CS so much more than most other CS, especially Mercantile. I think there needs to be some buffs/nerfs to CS yields in general, across the board.

It's exacerbated for Siam. Siam is supposed to get extra yields from CS friends but still gets just 1 culture/gold/science when friends with culture/mercantile/militaristic CSs. Compared to 5 faith and 6 food from religious/maritime CSs where the increase seems to work.

 

[CrazyG]

A weird thing about Siam is how CS yields round. You usually won't collect 75% more than other civs, usually it's less than 75% (but occasionally it's more!).

I think (this might be outdated, I'm going just by memory) you get 3.5 food in the capital for a CS friend in ancient era, and 0.5 in other cities.
This relationship is weirdest with food, because normally you can get fractional values for food, but city states apply directly to the city's tile, and don't give fractions there.
So a normal civ gets 3.5 in the capital, rounded down to 3 (but if you get two friends, you will get 7)
Other cities get 0.5, rounded down, for 0 (but you do get 1 if you have two friends)

For Siam, it becomes 6.125 in the capital, (rounded down to 6), functionally +100%.
Siam's other cities get 0.875, which rounds down to 0, so functionally +0%.

By the late game if you have a lot of allies it should be getting close to a true 75%.
This isn't a balance suggestion or anything, just an interesting observation.

 

[ElliotS]

Wouldn’t that basically be Germany though?

I'll be honest: I always forget Germany. They often die much before they come online in my games. If they got +1 in each city for each state friend and +1 for each ally, not scaling with era, it might make them different enough. Still I don't think the change is worth it at this point. (To be fair I'd probably give Germany something to get them to the late game in 1 piece, at the cost of some power later.)

Maybe finding a way to make the bonus give minimum 1 of the correct yield would be a good change though?

 

[Stalker0]

So my thing with Siam is...yes they are random, but they are early game random which to me is the "right kind of random".

Within a handful of turns, I am going to know what kind of immediate CS position I'm in. If its good, I can stay the course. If its bad, I can either start a new game or just accept a more challenging game. I think that's fine for certain civs, its what you sign up for when you play them.

I don't feel that Siam is so UP/OP that they need changing, and certainly not in any fundamental way.

 

[crdvis16]

So my thing with Siam is...yes they are random, but they are early game random which to me is the "right kind of random".

Within a handful of turns, I am going to know what kind of immediate CS position I'm in. If its good, I can stay the course. If its bad, I can either start a new game or just accept a more challenging game. I think that's fine for certain civs, its what you sign up for when you play them.

I don't feel that Siam is so UP/OP that they need changing, and certainly not in any fundamental way.

You could probably make them less random with some fairly small tweaks though. It also just feels bad when certain CS yields are just way worse than others.

 

[CrazyG]

After playing another game, I think the bigger problem is the base CS yields.

Culture gives 1 and 3 in ancient era, which means that Siam's +75% bonus doesn't even do anything (it just rounds down).
Meanwhile faith give 5 for friend and 10 for ally, that's crazy.

 

[andersw]

After playing another game, I think the bigger problem is the base CS yields.

Culture gives 1 and 3 in ancient era, which means that Siam's +75% bonus doesn't even do anything (it just rounds down).
Meanwhile faith give 5 for friend and 10 for ally, that's crazy.

So I guess thats the explanation why he sometimes gets a pantheon or even found extremely fast?

 

[Omen of Peace]

So what do people think of Siam after the CS yield adjustments?

I'm going to start a game with them soon, but my gut feeling is that they are now underpowered. +75% of early yield might well be meaningless (due to rounding down in part).
If so, we could consider raising it to +100%, or start with a gentler touch and raise their initial influence level, so they get a few more rounds of initial yields and have an easier time becomeing allies if they chance out a quest / kill barbarians / gift some units.

 

[andersw]

So what do people think of Siam after the CS yield adjustments?

I'm going to start a game with them soon, but my gut feeling is that they are now underpowered. +75% of early yield might well be meaningless (due to rounding down in part).
If so, we could consider raising it to +100%, or start with a gentler touch and raise their initial influence level, so they get a few more rounds of initial yields and have an easier time becomeing allies if they chance out a quest / kill barbarians / gift some units.

Its the "influence starts at 40" that is the strong part, it means you get "friend yields" for quite some time from every CS that you find.
As noted in posts above, this can really speed up religion but culture and military are also very nice.
But otoh I dont think I've played them since ... when did CS yields change?

 

[Omen of Peace]

Well, it's the combination of the two, since you get improved friend yields during that time.
But changing the starting level impacts the start of the game only, while changing the % impacts the whole game.

I think the yields changed around the summer? Probably after the discussion above. I wasn't playing nor active on the forum at that time.

Religious CS used to give +3 faith, hence +5 to Siam.

Now:
- Cultural +1 culture
- Mercantile +1 gold and + 2 happiness
- Miltiaristic +1 science
- Religious +1 faith
so all of these are still +1 for Siam due to the rounding down.

I think we could safely raise starting influence by 5 to 45.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

A long pause from gaming CIV5, I started yesterday a game with Siam on a Donut Map. I thought it might be a good first game after some pause, cause.... the Donut map offers an easy option to meet all 16 CS very fast and do a great start but....
God was that terrible.
Meeting all the 16 CS, which isnt possible on more normal maps, gives you a total amount of 160 yields as maximum (Standard size). Thats only a bit more than the founding bonus from Carthago with +125 Gold, which you get instant after 1 turn.
The two other bonuses are extremly neglegible, +25% more strength of CS allies and +10 experience for gifted units. Who cares about that?

Former, Siam was a strong starter, able to collect a lot of yields very early on and construct some way of lead with military units or wonders. Now, all you get is in average 10 yields per city, which is far from something that can change your game.
Like already said, +75% modifier for yields is useless, if everything is rounded down.

A change atleast to +100% and 45 influence at start could help a bit, but I am still convinced, its still crappy with the current low yields per CS.