Single Player bugs and crashes v37 plus (SVN) - After the 24th of December 2016

[raxo2222]

These global defs:
<Define>
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>150</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
in globaldefines.xml sees to be connected to unit upgrade cost.
Divide them by lets say 5, and see if unit upgrade costs are more sane.
Normal setting means 8x less time between unit upgrades than Eternity.
Standard map is also much smaller than lets say Giant map meaning much less gold income.

 

[Noriad2]

Standard map is also much smaller than lets say Giant map meaning much less gold income.

Smaller maps also means cities closer together which means much less distance-to-palace upkeep cost.

 

[Toffer90]

Maybe change:
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>150</iDefineIntVal>

to
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>100</iDefineIntVal>

Anyone disagree?

 

[Raledon]

Maybe change:
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>150</iDefineIntVal>

to
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>100</iDefineIntVal>

Anyone disagree?

Wouldn't that mean that you pay a 1:1 ratio of hammers:gold?
It allows an efficient gold->hammers conversion, which I'm not sure is a good thing. Maybe lower it to

<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>125</iDefineIntVal>

So it'll be noticeably cheaper, but not as efficient as building the units straight.

 

[raxo2222]

Wouldn't that mean that you pay a 1:1 ratio of hammers:gold?
It allows an efficient gold->hammers conversion, which I'm not sure is a good thing. Maybe lower it to

<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>125</iDefineIntVal>

So it'll be noticeably cheaper, but not as efficient as building the units straight.

I found this somewhere on forums:

Yes... in GlobalDefines.xml :
BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST and UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION

Upgrade cost = BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST + UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION *(iCost of upgraded unit - iCost of current unit)

It looks like BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST could be 0 as most likely unit you are upgrading to has higher hammer cost.
Currently it is 5 + 1.5*(iCost of upgraded unit - iCost of current unit), as UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION is now set as 150%.

Even vanilla pedia says that: http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Upgrade_(Civ4)
Assuming upgrade costs mechanics are same as in vanilla.

 

[Toffer90]

Wouldn't that mean that you pay a 1:1 ratio of hammers:gold?
It allows an efficient gold->hammers conversion, which I'm not sure is a good thing. Maybe lower it to

<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>125</iDefineIntVal>

So it'll be noticeably cheaper, but not as efficient as building the units straight.

Upgrading should imo be cheaper than building a new unit from scratch.
I haven't noticed units being too expensive to upgrade myself, I usually have more than abundant gold reserves for it, so I don't have a strong opinion regarding the change of those defines atm.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The production rate in diety-nightmare (normal, large map) feels out of whack still.
I've had a pretty good start (3 hammer tile and caves). After building one of the caves wonders,and rushing stone tool maker, it's already 40650BC.
I've already discovered theft, and the general feeling is that most of the buildings will be obsolete by the time they start returning their interest later in the game.
It feels like research has been hastened a few SVN patches ago, and now production is slower, causing it to be extremely out of sync.

On Nightmare it probably would feel that way given that the construction costs are severe there.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Maybe change:
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>150</iDefineIntVal>

to
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>100</iDefineIntVal>

Anyone disagree?

I can agree with this.

From your report Joe, I'd suggest to lower the production globals by another 20% and see how play feels.

 

[raxo2222]

On Nightmare it probably would feel that way given that the construction costs are severe there.

Yeah Deity has 150% and Nightmare has 225%, quite of step up.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Yeah Deity has 150% and Nightmare has 225%, quite of step up.

StrategyOnly wanted Nightmare Deity to be 2 steps above Deity. That's how he designed it. It has had some tweaks since he introduced it into the game.

 

[JosEPh_II]

From your report Joe, I'd suggest to lower the production globals by another 20% and see how play feels.

"production globals" please clarify. GlobalDefines settings or other modifiers in other xml files.

 

[raxo2222]

StrategyOnly wanted Nightmare Deity to be 2 steps above Deity. That's how he designed it. It has had some tweaks since he introduced it into the game.

Ah so no wonder its settings are so harsh.

 

[JosEPh_II]

So you are saying that the green part is completely disconnected with the rest of your post. It is not strange that I got confused and thought that the green part was a comment related to the rest of the post.

it should've beena separate paragraph yes. And it should've read, "And to think this all started all because......".

My 2 finger typing can not keep up with my thinking, and I have to proof read what I type several times because of typos and thoughts not typed. So yes, it's separate from the rest. A tangent thought process and a partial gripe.

So now are you going to let it go? Or do you wish to hound me some more?

I expect the later cause you are the type that has to have the Last Word in any discussion. Even though I even said Please when I asked you to stop.

Over to you now.

 

[Toffer90]

Over to you now.

I got nothing else to say, it was a simple misunderstanding that is now cleared up.

Edit: well, perhaps...

And all because of LE units obsoleting way too soon and, again imhpo, a Percieved loophole exploit that was never proven to exist at all. Just theorized and extrapolated with questionable scenarios. But we will get it figured out sometime soon.

What "all" is it that you refer to here as having a cause in the recent can't train LE units issue. All this made me curious.

 

[strategyonly]

StrategyOnly wanted Nightmare Deity to be 2 steps above Deity. That's how he designed it. It has had some tweaks since he introduced it into the game.

Ah so no wonder its settings are so harsh.

that is correct, thx Joe . .. .

 

[raxo2222]

"production globals" please clarify. GlobalDefines settings or other modifiers in other xml files.

Globaldefines.xml is safest bet here, as reducing building/unit creation costs by next 20% (from 80% to 60%) everywhere can be done easily in that file.

Thunderbird likely will confirm that.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Upgrading should imo be cheaper than building a new unit from scratch.

Agree 100%

to
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>

<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>100</iDefineIntVal>

Anyone disagree?

As a test, for the Snail game upgrade costs I've posted, I took these values to 1 and 90 (not 100). The Slinger to Archer Upgrade cost went from 417 to 248. Which gave an ~40% reduction in upgrade cost.

So a 20% reduction would do virtually nothing for this situation of GS and Diff. In the Early Ancient era an upgrade this expensive for a str 3 unit to a str 4 unit in the same chain is horrible.

In a Normal, Immortal game the Wise Woman to Healer upgrade was 150 , with the current Global settings, With these new values I'm testing it went to 100.

So going from a 5 to a 1 for BASE_UNIT and from 150 to 90 for the UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_ only resulted in Snail GS reduction of 40% upgrade cost. And for a Normal GS Immortal a 33% reduction.

Imho it needs to go even lower still. UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_ needs to be lowered to at least 75 if not more.

I do not know if reducing the "1" for BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST to "0" would have an effect or cause problems. Will have to test.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Globaldefines.xml is safest bet here, as reducing building/unit creation costs by next 20% (from 80% to 60%) everywhere can be done easily in that file.

Confirmed. This is what I meant. I don't remember the NAME of the globals off the top of my head but the production cost adjustments for the whole game-wide are here and I recently reduced them by 20% Another 20% may be in order. Alternative is to increase the tech costs 20% to counterbalance things as they are.

As for the gold, I'd be interested in seeing if it works to have BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST go to 0.

What the value of gold is in relation to the value of production is not only very circumstantial but it's also much to do with how easy or difficult it is to generate and keep a healthy gold income and reserve. For so long it's been so difficult for us to challenge a player with gold so gold was worth a LOT LESS than production. BUT if the balance is making gold more difficult to maintain then perhaps we can consider lowering unit upgrade costs further than a 1:1 (100%) ratio. Tends to be best if we can keep them the same and just adjust the production costs on units a bit if it seems to expensive. If its too expensive for gold, perhaps its too expensive for production as well? We should consider that angle a bit before jumping into a less than 100 value for UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION imo. Not ruling it out.

It strikes me that although I don't much like differing gold income by gamespeed, differing upgrade expenses by gamespeed could be quite a reasonable reaction to things being harder to upgrade on faster speeds due to less time to hoard budget overages. Adjusting gold income by gamespeed adjusts the likelihood of having an black or red budget but adjusting upgrade costs can give a much better measured reaction to the difference the amount of turns can make. Might have to add a tag for that next cycle.

 

[JosEPh_II]

<Define>
<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

All this setting does is raise the upgrade cost by +1 Gold for each integer step taken. I took the slinger to 0 for this setting and the upgrade cost was reduced by 5 gold
EDIT:
Note: to build a settler in this Snail game, early ancient, costs 2660 Hammers! An Archer cost 475 hammers. My capital is producing 99 hammers/turn.

With
<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>75</iDefineIntVal>

The slinger upgrade cost 206 at 0 for BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST and 211 for 5 at BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST.

 

[Thunderbrd]

All this setting does is raise the upgrade cost by +1 Gold for each integer step taken. I took the slinger to 0 for this setting and the upgrade cost was reduced by 5 gold

Significant and probably quite reasonable as well to eliminate any arbitrary hike in the base value on the formula.