Some ideas for balancing and further development

[Infixo]

Late game on Epic speed I can build any unit in 3 turns in my cities with good production; investing to cut down the number of turns by one or two wouldn't be very satisfying. :3

Yes, there's always an example to counter anything, I know. And when you get first planes or cruisers it takes more than 3 turns to build them, right?
I'm asking in general, as gameplay logic.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

As mentioned earlier, in my opinion, the specialists are the main surce of yield overflow, which enable us to buy everything we need.

Iam playing on a small map, immortal, standard speed, as germany.
Iam in modern era, and its 1780.
My merchant specialists are producing 11 hammer, 7.75 gold, 1.3 science.
My engineer specialists are producing 13.2 hammer, 3.2 gold, 2.6 science.
Even my writer produce 4.4 hammer and 3.9 science.

Yeah, I play progress and have already finished industry. I have a gold surplus of 1.6k gold (even I spend 300 gold to japan, cause they asked for help and they are my allies.) Also, i recieve over 900 gold by events per turn.
Without paying japan simply for good relations, I earn 2.8k gold per turn. Enables me to buy 5 riflemen or field guns (both 500 gold) per turn. Ive produced one diplomatic unit in whole game and iam allied with 10 of the 12 remaining CS.

Ok, who thinks, reducing xp for purchased units will solve this giant overflow from gold? And who thinks it is a good sign, my cities prefer working merchants and ignore complety tiles with GE improvements?

 

[Infixo]

As mentioned earlier, in my opinion, the specialists are the main surce of yield overflow, which enable us to buy everything we need.

Can you check banks, customs and caravansaries? How many you have and how much gold they produce (on average).

 

[BiteInTheMark]

8 cities, makes 128 gold from the bank ability.
7 of my cities are now hard building units, cause I can affort to buy every new building, if its unlocked and nothing else is to build. Even with purchasing units nearby, iam bouncing between 5k and 15k money.
Last city is a one tile island city with over 300 production. Hanse rocks the house.

 

[Deadstarre]

My merchant specialists are producing 11 hammer, 7.75 gold, 1.3 science.
My engineer specialists are producing 13.2 hammer, 3.2 gold, 2.6 science.
Even my writer produce 4.4 hammer and 3.9 science.

if youre comparing those numbers to your terrain those are not actually the correct numbers at all. I made the same mistake recently, but the numbers youre looking at are all yield modified, your terrain isnt showing its modified state.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hydro-plant-wind-plant.624831/page-2#post-14927674

 

[BiteInTheMark]

if youre comparing those numbers to your terrain those are not actually the correct numbers at all. I made the same mistake recently, but the numbers youre looking at are all yield modified, your terrain isnt showing its modified state.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hydro-plant-wind-plant.624831/page-2#post-14927674

Even if they are not the base values, who cares, there is no game, where you have no modifers to any yields. Even if everything is pumped up by 20%, the values are still rising, cause there are more techs to unlock, which gives benefits.
Compare the shown values with an GE improved plains tile. 1 food and 11 hammer at the moment. The merchand and engineer is still prefered, cause it gives science and gold too.

 

[CrazyG]

Compare the shown values with an GE improved plains tile. 1 food and 11 hammer at the moment

You missed the point. It provides more than 11 hammers, because multipliers. You cannot compare pre-multiplier yields to post multiplier. Unwork the manufactory and watch your hammers drop, it will fall by more than 11

 

[BiteInTheMark]

You missed the point. It provides more than 11 hammers, because multipliers. You cannot compare pre-multiplier yields to post multiplier. Unwork the manufactory and watch your hammers drop, it will fall by more than 11

The information from specialists is already multiplied by all modifers and the value from GE improved tile is not? In that case, the tile would produce more than 22 hammer, still the specialist is prefered.
Iam also asking me, why sometimes the specialists are worked, even they are only producing 3 or 4 gold by merchand, even iam in gold surplus. Is the code valuing specialists more, only by default?

 

[CrazyG]

Iam also asking me, why sometimes the specialists are worked, even they are only producing 3 or 4 gold by merchand, even iam in gold surplus. Is the code valuing specialists more, only by default?

Remember the thread about how manufactories are terrible? Also, that engineer specialist is eating like 5 or 6 food, keep that in mind

I don't know why the AI does this. I usually do manual specialists in all cities, its a good idea in at least once city to get a merchant but otherwise its a weak use of a citizen

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Hamburg, my second strongest city need only working 8 tiles, to feed that 28 population with specialists, i think i have enough food
But I think, this is also a part of the problem. The giant amount of food you get by buildings, making it unnecessary to work tiles for food.

 

[CrazyG]

Hamburg, my second strongest city need only working 8 tiles, to feed that 28 population with specialists, i think i have enough food
But I think, this is also a part of the problem. The giant amount of food you get by buildings, making it unnecessary to work tiles for food.

Wait, do you have 8 tiles that are stronger than manufactory?

I agree its part of the problem though. I've actually had a city work just specialists and no tiles before (granted it had a food trade route)

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Wait, do you have 8 tiles that are stronger than manufactory?

I agree its part of the problem though. I've actually had a city work just specialists and no tiles before (granted it had a food trade route)

Haha, no, I simply wanted to know, how many tiles are necessary to feed my big city population.
But in my opinion, this is going away from the base of the civilization game, if you didnt need to work any tile to feed big amounts of citizen.

 

[Gidoza]

As mentioned earlier, in my opinion, the specialists are the main surce of yield overflow, which enable us to buy everything we need.

Iam playing on a small map, immortal, standard speed, as germany.
Iam in modern era, and its 1780.
My merchant specialists are producing 11 hammer, 7.75 gold, 1.3 science.
My engineer specialists are producing 13.2 hammer, 3.2 gold, 2.6 science.
Even my writer produce 4.4 hammer and 3.9 science.

Yeah, I play progress and have already finished industry. I have a gold surplus of 1.6k gold (even I spend 300 gold to japan, cause they asked for help and they are my allies.) Also, i recieve over 900 gold by events per turn.
Without paying japan simply for good relations, I earn 2.8k gold per turn. Enables me to buy 5 riflemen or field guns (both 500 gold) per turn. Ive produced one diplomatic unit in whole game and iam allied with 10 of the 12 remaining CS.

Ok, who thinks, reducing xp for purchased units will solve this giant overflow from gold? And who thinks it is a good sign, my cities prefer working merchants and ignore complety tiles with GE improvements?

What I don't get is why a writer would ever be producing hammers, or science...these numbers just seem like they're dancing everywhere to get lots of bonuses. More of a focus of nice: writer is Culture. End. Merchant is Gold. End. Engineer is production. End. That doesn't mean there can't be a little crossover, but to really specialize you can't have both Engineers and Merchants producing almost exactly the same amount of hammers. The differentials should be fairly drastic.

 

[Deadstarre]

What I don't get is why a writer would ever be producing hammers, or science...these numbers just seem like they're dancing everywhere to get lots of bonuses.

I dont know about science but I get why artists or writers should be producing hammers at some point; working that guild for the empire really has the effect of gimping that city at the local level.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Resurrecting this thread cause I don't want to create another and the descriptions fits.

Here's my personal VOX POPULI wishlist for 2020:

• Faith buildings can be bought in puppets (if not possible, maybe the automatic faith purchase can be used to do this)
• Tourism from trade routes gets greatly nerfed. The value should go down, and the spread to other civs reduced to 20/25%
• Passiv tourism slightly nerfed (zoo only 1 tourism from 2 forests/jungles and Broadcast tower only 1 tourism by 3 population)
• Active tourism greatly increased (GW, Wonders, GP birth, winning wars, beliefs,... )
• Germany gets better tools to achieve its goals instead only getting benefits if those are achieved (for example: Hanse modifier also decrease civilian unit cost (mainly for diplomats), trade routes cannot be blocked by world congress, votes modifier for CS alliances 2 instead of 3, trade route modifier (friend/ally) for CS increased by one (like normal routes in previous versions).
• Huns war weariness modifier halfed to 25/25%
• Mounted skirmisher promotion values changed to +20% for open terrain and - 15% in rough terrain
• Rebalancing of corporations. All corporation trade route modifiers changed to a modifier for the starting city (no modifiers for trade route yields). Hexxon Refinery need a greater buff instead only some strategics, else it's worthless for non-warmongers. Twokay Food franchise yield increased from 3 to 4, possible additional ability: gain yields for citizen birth like Goddess of love Or gain all yields for citizen numbers like God-king.
• Slight nerf of civilized jewelers numbers

Edit:

• Remove medic I & II from scout promotion lines, because it's too powerful in player hands.
  
• Limit Austria's number of active marriages or make them scale A LOT heavier gold wise. The AI is always doing above average in my games, and in a test game as Austria myself I was powerstomping the game with all CS married and allied permanently. To the point where I had absolute majority already in the very first congress session and onwards..

 

[Teholb]

• Faith buildings can be bought in puppets (if not possible, maybe the automatic faith purchase can be used to do this)

I will sacrifice 50 captives to celebrate this great event!

 

[azum4roll]

Tourism from trade routes gets greatly nerfed. The value should go down, and the spread to other civs reduced to 20/25%

All instant tourism sources should factor more on tourism per turn and less on culture per turn. I propose 90%/10% or even more extreme. Trade routes are fine this way, except tourism to all other civs should still be reduced.

Passiv tourism slightly nerfed (zoo only 1 tourism from 2 forests/jungles and Broadcast tower only 1 tourism by 3 population)

This is late game enough I don't think this matters much? And you still have to focus on these buildings, unlike trade routes which you always use anyway.

Active tourism greatly increased (GW, Wonders, GP birth, winning wars, beliefs,... )

GP birth tourism is good enough. Great Works are also fine, but theming bonuses, especially those from wonders, need to be raised now that they're much harder to fulfill.

Huns war weariness modifier halfed to 25/25%

What about no more WW reduction for the Huns but they keep the +50% WW to enemies?

Mounted skirmisher promotion values changed to +20% for open terrain and - 15% in rough terrain

I still like logistics solution more, but if the existing skirmishers are kept, terrain shouldn't affect their defensive capabilities. They should get -33% RCS when attacking in rough terrain only. And no more rough terrain movement penalties.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

This is late game enough I don't think this matters much? And you still have to focus on these buildings, unlike trade routes which you always use anyway.

If it wouldnt matter, then the tourism could be completly removed, or? No, gaining tourism from those buildings is ok, but not that amounts which places GW and Wonders into the shadow.
You also forgot, those buildings fight boredom and some player may really need those buildings for happiness.

hat about no more WW reduction for the Huns but they keep the +50% WW to enemies?

Also a possible solution, but I would prefer lower modifiers in total, like 20 or 25% for both and then test it. Important for me is, something has to be done to this UA. War weariness is in my eyes a crappy mechanic. Especially in higgher difficulties you have to face endless waves of enemies and if your not able to bombard an enemy city from turn 1 of war and take it, AI bonuses and war weariness eats you. It also doesnt make that much sense for me to give with the authority tree a war weariness reduction, even this mechanic is there to reduce the effectiveness of warmongering.

I still like logistics solution more, but if the existing skirmishers are kept, terrain shouldn't affect their defensive capabilities. They should get -33% RCS when attacking in rough terrain only. And no more rough terrain movement penalties.

I find that promotion a creative solution, but simply the numbers were chosen wrong. Maybe going to +30% RCS in open terrain and -15% RCS in tough terrain? (so always 100% CS, no matter which terrain).
Going logistics and giving skirmishers 5 points of movement would make them imbalanced, especially in human hands. Melee units would never have a chance to catch them and normal archers would have to push forward to attack and bring them greatly in danger.

 

[Arbi]

Playing epic, immortal mostly.. some thoughts that come up regularly:

• Earlier open border treaty option (why is it so late, it makes no sense..) Particularly, having to declare war to get stuck units out is so idiotic..
  
  
• I would love some earlier access to deep sea tiles, maybe in the form of a malus promotion.. like '50% chance to take 34 damage if ending turns on sea tiles'.
  Maybe that's too player geared/hard to implement for the AI.. but I'd like it.. It makes sense to me as well.. explorer spirit and all.
  
  
• Earlier advanced settlers (probably adjusted slightly). Seriously, when I am at banking I have no need ever to get a pioneer..let alone that other unit which I only ever built once to see what it starts with.
  Basically all decent cities will have been settled and the niche area of razing a city and rebuilding with a pioneer is so not needed and super unrealistic (no?).
  
  
• Remove medic I & II from scout promotion lines, because it's too powerful in player hands.
  
  
• Limit Austria's number of active marriages or make them scale A LOT heavier gold wise. The AI is always doing above average in my games, and in a test game as Austria myself I was powerstomping the game with all CS married and allied permanently. To the point where I had absolute majority already in the very first congress session and onwards..

Cheers.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Earlier open border treaty option (why is it so late, it makes no sense..) Particularly, having to declare war to get stuck units out is so idiotic..

The other proposals I could give or take, but I’ll give a hard agree on this one. There being no way to negotiate safe passage through another country’s borders prior to the late medieval era is both thematically nonsensical and frustrating in gameplay.