Some Feedback on CivUP v2.3 & GEM V1.12

[Torvald]

These two mods are really great, and I'm glad to see the most obvious display bugs have recently been corrected. That being said, there appear to be a few minor issues that still need attention:

1. I was seeing the message that my people were 20 points unhappy and that rebels would soon appear (and they did), even though my actual displayed unhappiness was only 17, 18 or 19.

2. Random events would sometimes occur for my puppeted cities, but no matter what choice I selected, it did not seem to increase my overall civilzation happiness, gold income, or culture production. The affected hexes would show an increase, it's just that the civ totals didn't seem to change.

3. The Eiffel tower was greyed out in the upper left-hand corner screen display, but it was not greyed out when viewed on the expanded technology tree.

Happy New Year!

 

[mystikx21]

The displayed happiness UI issue seems to be related to events that provide happiness so far as I can tell. The game isn't including them while the top bar is (check the culture from happiness when you're positive or the economy screen for happiness to verify the difference). I've been responding to that by ignoring happiness related events for the time being and taking extra science/culture/gold instead.

 

[mitsho]

Events/Opportunities seem bugged right now generally. The Scout-to-Archer opportunity didn't work either, but it still subtracted the gold anyways...

EDIT: wrong alarm, I looked to my other scout

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm aware of the happiness problem and plan to fix it once I have some free time.

The greying out of unavailable world wonders does not work on the tech tree because Firaxis loads the tech tree once at the start of the game. This does make the game run a little faster, but makes it difficult to update after loading. The tech tree code is huge and disorganized, so it would probably take hours to fix. It's a minor display issue so I've focused my efforts on other priorities.

I wish G&K didn't add that behavior which forcibly selects units. It moves the camera away from events! I'd like to change that, but don't know how.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Some bugs I found during my actual Korea game:

At least canon, h'wacha and artillery still have -50 % strength against land. The civipedia shows +50% on cities.
(I really like the new siege units with +off and def against cities and no.)
H'wacha has strength 30 and costs 10 maintenance (looks like a cannon).

Gatling gun cost only 5 maintenance. Intended?

In civipedia Subs have +25 and +50% attack.

Railroadstation in capital gives +25% to all yields and two times +25% production (one from city, one from RR-connection).

Should Traditon finisher be +25% (shown in city-screen) or +50% (SP-screen). I think +25% would be enough.

The game starts in turn 0 not 1.

Strangely no one tried to spy on me, even though Seoul was a 5-star city all game and I was tech leader. Never happened before. AIs rigged CS very actively.



Some ideas/suggestions:
Deactivate pop-ups for civ x protects or stops to protect CS y, if possible. If players want to bully a CS they will see who proctects it anyways.

Make animals a requirement for stable again. AI had build them in nearly every city I have conquered even if they are nearly useless (only give the cav-bonus).
(I observed this in an older version, pre-christmas, not the actual.)

Is it possible to see how long a DoF still lasts? If not it would be nice to add this to the excellent trade screen.

 

[mystikx21]

Gatling/MGs have 50% upkeep cost.

The sub 25/50% looks like a promo bug.

Tradition promo was updated to 50% but not in the xml (it has since been fixed). This was because the cost of GPs was raised and specialists provide more GP income.

AI still tried to spy on me my last couple games, but was more active with CS.

Agreed on stable with requirement. AI builds them everywhere, waste of money+free money when conquering.

 

[Ahriman]

I have mixed feelings on stables. On the one hand, they're just a money drag for civs without horses and once horses are obsolete.
On the other hand, they're the only way to get a bonus from deer, sheep, cows etc.
Adding a requirement for horse or cow or sheep or deer nearby would probably be fine. Another possibility would be to make them zero maintenance.

I think bonus resources (deer, sheep, cows, stone, etc.) are underpowered; they aren't actually bonuses, because regular improvements get boosted by tech fairly quickly, but the bonus resource improvements don't.
I think we need to have pastures, hunting camps and quarries get the same bonuses to yield that farms/mines/trading posts etc. do, so that bonus resources stay as actual bonuses that are better than regular tiles.

 

[mitsho]

I don't think we can add OR requirements (if we can, all is ok) and making it require only one ressource defeats the purpose. Making it zero maintenance is probably the easiest quick fix to the problem since it is not that overpowered as a building for the human player to build everywhere.

Bonus tiles have an interesting trade-off. If we improve them like mines/etc., they will always be better than the other tiles and since you will never use all your tiles (due to specialists and the 3 tiles radius), it encourages building cities close to each other. Otherwise I am always using the bonus tiles first... So any buff imho should be light.

Bonus Ressources are underpowered in civ 5 but that is due to the lack of a health concept in civ 5. The best way imho would be to make them tradeable and attach a number ("5 wheats") and assignable to cities where they improve population/food/growth. So if you got a city with all bonus ressources, it'd grow like hell, simulating the food trade (and not require New York to have a super wheat farm on Long Island and Fishing Boats in front of the Statue of Liberty... ). But that's for civ 6 since we can't teach the AI

 

[Ahriman]

I don't think we can add OR requirements (if we can, all is ok)

Doesn't the circus require ivory OR horses?

If we improve them like mines/etc., they will always be better than the other tiles
...
Otherwise I am always using the bonus tiles first

I don't see a problem here. You should always use the bonus tiles first.
I'm not sure that it even encourages crowding; just the opposite. If bonuses are better, that encourages me to spread cities out to cover more terrain, to make sure I'm getting more bonus tiles and fewer regular tiles. If my cities are close, they get fewer bonus tiles because they cover a smaller area.

I don't think all bonuses are underpowered; wheat is good because the farm gets farm bonuses. Fish is good, because it gets fishing boat bonuses. But camps and pastures and quarries don't get the regular bonuses.

 

[mitsho]

Right, I see your point on fishing boats/farms vs. camps/pastures (why are they different again?) and quarries. Quarries do get improved by Dynamite, no? In any case, bonuses such as this are the perfect opportunity to balance out a weak tech we have in the middle-to-late tech tree, no? (regardless of historical realism )

What's your normal distance between cities? I do 3 tiles optimally and there's plenty of bonus ressources, opportunity changed tiles, Great Person Improvements and Specialist slots around for me before turning towards villages/farms and so on.

 

[Ahriman]

Quarries do get improved by Dynamite, no?

Pastures and quarries and such get boosted by the late-game techs (fertilizer, dynamite) but not by the early game techs (civil service, etc.).

So a wheat by a river is boosted, but a cow by a river is not.

What's your normal distance between cities?

Even in a Wide empire, I mostly only put cities in good city spots.

and Specialist slots around for me before turning towards villages/farms and so on.

If specialist slots are unambiguously better than villages/farms, then specialists are too strong.

 

[mystikx21]

Circus is an or. I think the stable can be limited to any livestock resource. This would limit it to a city with at least one tile of use, which would still be most cities, but not all. The AI builds the things everywhere and just gives me free gold when I conquer them while costing them money the entire time.

Agreed camps and quarries, and some plantations, are weak. Oil wells also (on land). Not sure pastures are. You get food and production in decent amounts, plus maybe some gold. They're not as good as fish, bananas, or wheat and coal/iron/alum mines, but they're still better than anything up to late game specialists.

I don't follow how it would encourage building cities close together at all. (Powerful) cities with numerous bonus tiles are more likely if you have max space between them. I always try to max out distance, to minimize unhappiness from # of cities and allow the cities to grow and use up the best tiles.

 

[Ahriman]

Not sure pastures are. You get food and production in decent amounts, plus maybe some gold.

For much of the game, a freshwater farm grassland gives 4 food, while a freshwater pasture cow grassland gives 3 food and 1 production, while a freshwater plains wheat gives 4 food and 1 production. Freshwater hills sheep gives 2 food 2 production.
[ignoring river bonus.]

And the wheat is boosted by the generically-useful granary, while the cow and sheep is boosted only by the sometimes-useful stable.

 

[Stalker0]

I've don't have any issue with the current bonus resources.

The stable works fine for me. I don't build it everywhere but its a pretty common building to get more production if I have the livestock nearby.

Most of my city planning revolves around bonus resources, especially in the early game (coastal, river locations are also a big factor).

 

[pthmix]

[...]

Bonus Ressources are underpowered in civ 5 but that is due to the lack of a health concept in civ 5. The best way imho would be to make them tradeable and attach a number ("5 wheats") and assignable to cities where they improve population/food/growth. So if you got a city with all bonus ressources, it'd grow like hell, simulating the food trade (and not require New York to have a super wheat farm on Long Island and Fishing Boats in front of the Statue of Liberty... ). But that's for civ 6 since we can't teach the AI

The Empire Enhanced Mod (EEM) for VEM did this. It added buildable bonus buildings which would consume bonus resources (i.e. "Stone Mason", consumes 1 stone, adds +2 production to the city it is build in). These buildings were quite cheap to build and gave only a small bonus, but they allowed you to specialize cities (i.e. you could build 5 +2 food buildings in one city (deer, wheat, sheep, banana, fish) and that city would grow like crazy, even if it was in area where food is scarce).

Also I remember that someone made a health mod for CiV in the way you describe... I'll take a look around, maybe I can find the mod.
[hm... can't find it now ]

 

[mystikx21]

For much of the game, a freshwater farm grassland gives 4 food, while a freshwater pasture cow grassland gives 3 food and 1 production, while a freshwater plains wheat gives 4 food and 1 production. Freshwater hills sheep gives 2 food 2 production.
[ignoring river bonus.]

And the wheat is boosted by the generically-useful granary, while the cow and sheep is boosted only by the sometimes-useful stable.

The regular farm is not improved by the generically useful granary, just the wheat/spices/sugar tiles. Wheat goes to 5-1 and cow to 3-2, sheep to 2-3 when boosted by a building. I could follow how cows/sheep are sort of weak here until fertilizer shows up (or with a city with only one or two such tiles making the stable less effective and much lower priority). Versus the generically useful circus as well to boost ivory/horses.

It's possible we could put more tech or policy benefits on pastures or plantations in particular: +1-2 gold on plantations somewhere in addition to the later food bonus, +1 food earlier or +1 production for pastures. Camps also could benefit somewhere aside from the gold bonus they get. Quarries I think should get a +2 gold bump somewhere.

I wouldn't see a need for freshwater splits like generic improvements, just another boost that could be added to a weaker tech.

 

[Ahriman]

The reason why I would tend to favor freshwater bonuses is because that is how regular improvements work. In my view, bonus resources should continue to provide one extra yield greater than regular improvements throughout the game, plus the extra bonus from structures. so the simplest solution it seems to me is to have Civil Service boost freshwater pastures at the same time as it boosts freshwater farms, thus keeping parity.
And similarly for other non-standard resources (camps, quarries, plantations).

This still doesn't fix the fact that the granary boost is more useful than the stables boost, but I can live with that.

 

[mitsho]

The Empire Enhanced Mod (EEM) for VEM did this. It added buildable bonus buildings which would consume bonus resources (i.e. "Stone Mason", consumes 1 stone, adds +2 production to the city it is build in). These buildings were quite cheap to build and gave only a small bonus, but they allowed you to specialize cities (i.e. you could build 5 +2 food buildings in one city (deer, wheat, sheep, banana, fish) and that city would grow like crazy, even if it was in area where food is scarce).

Also I remember that someone made a health mod for CiV in the way you describe... I'll take a look around, maybe I can find the mod.
[hm... can't find it now ]

I'd even lose the buildings, that's just another layer of micromanagment. No need to look for the mod, it'd feel cheating to me if I knew that I can use the mod, but the AI doesn't know how to.

 

[SlothACID]

Some improvements get boosted by tech while other improvements get buffed by religion.
I think the current balance of bonus resources is good right now. bonus resources are placed in low quality areas to improve food/production. That said, I don't think camps and pastures should be buffed. Fishing boats and farms are fine. Quarries are good too because they give you access to 1 happiness from the stone works.

 

[Ahriman]

Some improvements get boosted by tech while other improvements get buffed by religion.

But everyone gets tech, while only a handful of civs, if any, will get particular Pantheon beliefs that buff a particular tile improvement.

So I don't really think that works.