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

[mystikx21]

Subs and Lancers, so far as I know, are intended to have defence penalties.

It should be easy to remove if not intend and besides that subs shouldn't have two of them hitting.

Ironclad probably has a phantom promotion from promotion conversion of a few that were eliminated plus the new promotion for capital ships.

A requirement on stables wouldn't really limit most cities anyway (and doesn't sound like the easiest solution here). I agree it doesn't make more obvious sense in many cities to build them, but not all players rely on buying units. I find buying the buildings is more useful in most instances for example, as they can provide immediate benefits to a city in yields and are reasonably cheaper per production to rush. A unit only provides immediate benefits if I need to fight a war right now AND costs more to maintain than the building will. I really don't see why I'd want to rush-buy them that often.

 

[Naeven]

A requirement on stables wouldn't really limit most cities anyway (and doesn't sound like the easiest solution here). I agree it doesn't make more obvious sense in many cities to build them, but not all players rely on buying units. I find buying the buildings is more useful in most instances for example, as they can provide immediate benefits to a city in yields and are reasonably cheaper per production to rush. A unit only provides immediate benefits if I need to fight a war right now AND costs more to maintain than the building will. I really don't see why I'd want to rush-buy them that often.

If units don't make sence to purchase, why not make them cheaper?

I'm fine with the effect not treating both playstyles equally, I however don't like the livestock buffer to cost me more upkeep or less yield (compared to other resource buffers) for a situational effect, specialy for a unit type that are not used thruout the game. And as you're saying, even you who do produce units, sell them alot on conquest.

Best change IMO is still -1 maintence or +1, this makes stables on par with other resource buffers and you will get the situational(and pretty minor IMO) effect of producing horses faster "for free".

 

[skodkim]

If units don't make sence to purchase, why not make them cheaper?

I'm more in favor of making buildings more expensive as I find I purchase them most of the time now - even though I'm playing Rome and have them in my capital. Gold is pretty abundant once you make it through the earliest stages.

\Skodkim

 

[mystikx21]

I don't think it makes sense to make units cheaper to buy at all. If anything, I would agree both buildings and units after the classical era or so should be made more expensive somewhat to buy and/or that people are buying units is probably an argument that the extra cost attached to units for buying is too low. I don't know that I have ever built a factory (always buy). But I will at least build tanks.

I don't see in most cases why I would keep a stable in a conquered city most of the time. If I am building units, its going to take a while to get a new city to play that role even if it could. That's one problem. The other is that most of the time it is providing essentially only that benefit and costing money to do it. If it provides other benefits like marginal city production for other uses, I might keep it. The bonus is mostly a consideration that increases a number of cities I might get use of it if it's marginal otherwise. And not something that encourages keeping it in suboptimal locations.

Incidentally, once I solved the inflationary unit upkeep problem, I find the late game is now swimming in gold. Buying anything is probably more efficient than building it at that point.

Also I am not sure the courthouse costs were fixed. It looks to be now applying no per pop modifier at all.

 

[Naeven]

I think you both missed my point
But I don't get how purchasing units can both be a bad idea at the same time as they shouldn't be cheaper in relative to buildings? You don't think purchasing units should be a viable strategy?

If we now have to much gold, we should higher all expenses equally or lowering income.

 

[mystikx21]

I would agree we should increase purchase modifiers across the board. Or lower income somewhat.

I think purchasing units is fine early on (scouts and archers and workers) I don't see any use for it once I have cities that can produce them reasonably fast unless I am losing a war and need units at a tactical location for reinforcements or defence. Upkeep costs are higher and the benefits of units rarely need to be realised right now versus a couple turns from now. The reason they should stay higher for rush buys is precisely because otherwise you could just crank up an army as needed in one turn and never bother spending the cost of upkeep along the way. It discourages that tactic to have some use for constructing units and makes some buildings more useful.

 

[Naeven]

The reason they should stay higher for rush buys is precisely because otherwise you could just crank up an army as needed in one turn and never bother spending the cost of upkeep along the way. It discourages that tactic to have some use for constructing units and makes some buildings more useful.

Then that's our disagreement right there. I think of gold as empire wide hammers. Not panic rush buyers. The gold I spend on it can't be used on the building you buy, is that not punishment enough? I think both tactics should be equally supported by general buildings. I never said purchasing was better, I said I mostly do it. I could crank up an army in 1 turn, but not optimized from my military city with all buffs. But I don't see how this differs from buildings, they to get benefits from buying directly, why should unit purchasing be less encouraged? Also, not having a big standing army encourages invasions from AI.

That said, I think building VS unit cost are fine as they are.

 

[skodkim]

Incidentally, once I solved the inflationary unit upkeep problem, I find the late game is now swimming in gold. Buying anything is probably more efficient than building it at that point.

Hmm - so it gets even worse...

I almost only play the early bages (until medieval) so thats not the problem for me then. I guess I just find that hunting barbarians combined with my (I have to admit) tendency to give myself good starting positions (e.g river sides) makes purchasing of buildings much more viable than actually producing them.

I would really like a small increase in building hurry cost modifiers.

\Skodkim

 

[mystikx21]

Thal sounds like he wants to increase later tier building upkeep and possibly unit upkeep as well to soak up some of the inflation reduction.

It snowballs yes. Later game buildings are even more efficient per gold to buy (more expensive, but closer to 1-1) and you likely have both Big Ben and the commerce tree later on and your cities get more per pop gold, specialist use or villages/coastlines to pad income. With inflation reduced, income goes way up later on when stock exchanges arrive on top of all that.

Naeven. With enough gold, it isn't hard to put up a barracks-armory in any city on top of then a unit if you don't have them beforehand. It's also possible that you might have several military production cities resulting from cities having most of the infrastructure you would want if you just buy buildings. The panic buy strategy is if you are losing a war/battle. This is different, as you could have a small army except when fighting a war and buy it up on a DoW. I wouldn't consider that a panic buy if you are setup for it as part of a strategy to save money on units. It was possible for me to buy factories and workshops in every city I wanted most games for example. I consider that to be a problem just as much as being able to rush buy a military.

 

[skodkim]

So how do you feel about increasing early building hurry cost modifiers?

On Marathon speed I can rush buy a monument for ~400 gold and just one barbarian camp clearing gives ~180 gold (amounts from memory). I like barb hunting but its just way better too hunt barbarian camps and rush buy buildings in stead og actually building them.

If this is not changed, maybe someone could point me to the spot where hurrycostmodifiers are set and I can experiment with changing them with a modmod..?
\Skodkim

 

[mystikx21]

Gives 300 on marathon. Monument I think is 360 to buy. Hurry costs are set in one of the building sql files except for a few individual ones like monuments are cheaper and then military buildings cost more.

Reducing camp income would be a big help too, particularly since it isn't hard to get gold from the unit kill too.
I would be fine increasing rush buys by 20-25% at least, for starters. It should be possible early to give you something to do and allow you to get an army into existence. It should be possible later to found a city and rapidly get tier one done. It should not be possible to have the industrial revolution in one turn (unless you saved like crazy or have very little coal).

 

[skodkim]

This is in GEM\Cities\GEC_Start.sql:

UPDATE Buildings
SET HurryCostModifier = 0
WHERE HurryCostModifier > 0;

UPDATE Buildings
SET HurryCostModifier = 25
WHERE BuildingClass IN (
	'BUILDINGCLASS_WALLS',
	'BUILDINGCLASS_CASTLE',
	'BUILDINGCLASS_ARSENAL',
	'BUILDINGCLASS_MILITARY_BASE'
);

The latter is for the special cases you describe.

What I don't understand is how the first one works. It seems to set HurryCostModifier = 0 for all buildings that have a HurryCostModifier (which I suppose normal buildings do), but IIRC there is a gold to hammer ratio now right?

\skodkim

 

[mystikx21]

Correct. It doesn't change it to 1-1. What it does is reduce a modifier in the hurry formula the game then uses I believe. Increasing to.the 25 like military buildings ought to be fairly noticeable right away as I almost never rush those because of the higher cost. I believe units are set at 20.

Pretty sure it scales such that more expensive things will always be slightly more efficient to buy (unless you set the modifier manually to adjust), but that's okay as it will cost several hundred or thousand gold for whatever it is.

 

[mystikx21]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9816385&postcount=1

There's the formula. The hurry modifier is under a higher exponent, so it is noticeable. I believe a number of those are changed in GEM on top of the general changes. So ignore the bottom of that post for this discussion. But items one and two matter here.