Some ideas for VP and/or modmods

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Aug 21, 2019
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Hey, guys and gals, hope you're doing well with all that's going on around the world. Just wanted to share some ideas for Vox Populi and/or modmods (in case they aren't VP material or are too consuming to code). If some or perhaps most of these aren't acceptable by default, perhaps give us an option in the setup to enable those changes to make the game more customize-able. Disclaimer: I usually play on Deity, standard, no ruins, events, research agreements or tech trading. Thanks for all the feedback.

  1. Increase the GA modifiers from monopolies to 30% . Currently 25% means 2 extra turns of GA on standard, so you lose 5% for nothing. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  2. Give great prophets more movement points, so they'd be equal to missionaries in that regard. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  3. Give one extra food to (unworked) bananas, they're currently the only bonus resource that doesn't offer any bonus on its own. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  4. Merge the tundra pantheon and the desert pantheon so you'd have one pantheon giving bonus for tundra&desert(& snow, add bonus resources on snow tiles!) tiles with resources. In VP, tundras and deserts are often fairly close to each other, so you'll often end up with not enough tiles of one type for the pantheon to work, but if it were merged, it'd be viable. To avoid making the merged pantheon too strong, we could nerf it somewhat. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  5. Make War Elephants exclusive to Authority tree (opener or one of the first policies), replace ivory requirement with horse requirement. Currently it's too random whether the game itself will have ivory at all and, if it does, whether you'll be able to get it quickly enough to matter – also it makes no sense that one ivory can build you 10 units, but you can build the weaker unit (horseman) only for 1 horse per unit. This would make Authority more appealing vs. Progress/Tradition for early conquering. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  6. Make strategic balance affect all strategic resources, not just iron and horses. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  7. Add more coal to the map, there's too few sources of coal on standard maps. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  8. Make Hagia Sophia buildable only in Holy Cities (like Borobodur). I think non-founders have no special use for a free great prophet. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  9. Change Hubble from a „more science for science leaders“ wonder to a wonder meant for other victory conditions, for example have it grant a huge sum of tourism with all civs. CERN is so late you should be granted win-now assets, for example have CERN grant you free GDRs and/or nuclear missiles. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  10. Remove free social policy from Ideology wonders, they're currently „more culture for culture leaders“, instead grant them more unique benefits like the ones they currently have. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  11. Stonehenge is too strong, it gives you a free pantheon, a free council and a free shrine's worth of faith; Terracota's culture bonus is too high and the AIs ignore the wonder for too long; Temple of Artemis' food bonus is too strong, it's basically a monopoly bonus; Borobodur is too strong with the extra missionary spread; Oracle shouldn't scale with era and should be nerfed slightly; Slater mill should lose its river requirement because you've already rewarded fresh water starts with water mills and Baths, late game wonders shouldn't have terrain requirements (also Prora and Sydney); Chichen Itza's GA modifier should be nerfed to 30% and it should get some other bonus to compensate for that; Bletchley park should come sooner; usually I already have research labs in my main cities so no need for a free research lab from certain wonders, I'd instead change it to a free medical lab or something like that; Broadway is great, it gives you plenty of culture; make Brandeburg gate a Fealty policy wonder, have Red fort be buildable by militarily weaker civs that took statecraft or artistry. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  12. If the AI you're at war with stops being an ally of a CS, you automatically make peace with that CS (prevents exploit where you intentionally stay at war with that CS so you can deal with it later when you've made peace with the AI). AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  13. If you liberate a CS from another AI/CS, you should be granted a sphere of influence with it (removable only if it's captured again, not by WC). If you liberate it from barbarians, it should be granted open doors policy. That way you'd have more incentive to liberate CS, but still less incentive to allow barbarians to capture CS and only then liberating them. New code needed, but I hope it's not too hard to code that given that we already have open doors/sphere of influence code present.

  14. Way of the Pilgrim is broken in human hands (intentionally weakening your missionaries before using them - EDIT: See more here - https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...how-would-you-change-it.663940/#post-15947254), I'd change it for example so it'd become a „wide“ GA founder, i.e. it'd give some GAP to all shrines and temples, it'd increase the GA length by 1 turn for every (2? 3?) follower city (with a cap) and give 10% or 15% extra culture or science during GA.

  15. GDs can be expended for influence only when no embassy places are available anymore. In 99% of the time it's better to expend it for embassy, so it's be better for the AI. Less code-heavy for AIs who won't have to decide whether to go for influence or embassy.

  16. Orthodoxy and churches 40% pressure are too strong, they should be changed/nerfed. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  17. Certaing corporations are still too strong, for example Firaxite or Giorgio. Also certain monopoly resources don't make sense, for example why does Ivory grant you the Centaurus corporation? AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  18. World fair should lose the free social policy and increased culture bonuses, they're way too strong compared to other WC projects. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  19. Limit buying mercenary units to 1 per turn per city. Or teach the AI how to buy 10 mercenaries in the same city one by one, sending each off via (rail)roads before buying the next.

  20. Implement a true Casus Belli system, insofar it's possible. If you're caught spying and you promise not to spy anymore, but then you do and you're caught again, or if you refuse to promise to stop spying, you should either be forced to declare war on the spied nation or the spied nation should have an option of declaring a justifiable war (with lower war weariness/warmonger penalties etc.). The same should go for missionary/GP spreading, digging artifacts, stealing territories via GGs or America's UA or declaring war/demanding tribute/attacking a protected city state. We could make it so that for a set number of turns (20? 40?) after such a DoW and/or until you've taken one city from the perpetrator/aggressor, the „victim“ should be exempted from war weariness and warmonger penalties. Remove war weariness/warmongering penalty for injurying/killing foreign troops in your own lands (unless you declared a war that wasn't „justifiable“) - if you're only defending yourself and you're not losing units, why should your people be unhappy or other civs consider you warmongers? You should be viewed as the plucky underdog (even if you're not quite that – see UK in 1940). Code: We already have some code available (for example when you drop a bomb and you touch third-party units, when you get less warmongering via Hunnic UA or policies/tenets), but that would require some new code/AI teaching.

  21. Implement a more dynamic and realistic CS diplomacy system. Currently a CS may be tributed 10 times by one civ without any long-term/permanent effects of that on their relationship. Conversely, one civ can be a CS's ally for 100 turns or it can liberate it without any long-term benefical effects of that on their relationship. Neither is realistic and seems boring because it doesn't incentivize any kind of behaviour towards CS. We already have in-game mechanics for lowering/increasing resting points of influence and increasing/lowering the decay/recovery rate. I'd propose that certain actions yield beneficial permanent effects and certain yield detrimental effects. If you liberate that CS, you'd get a sphere of influence with it that can only be removed if the CS is captured again. If you liberate another CS, you gain benefits (higher resting point and better decay/recovery rate) with all other CS in the game. You gain those benefits also every time you pledge protection, „stand up“ for a CS you've pledged protection to, fullfilled its quest, expended a GD in that CS. You'd gain those benefits for every xyz number of turns you've been their friend/ally. You'd gain big negative permanent effects if you demanded tribute, DoW-ed, stolen territory or directly attacked units/city of the CS; you'd gain smaller negative permanent effects for every time you've done that to OTHER city states (kinda mimicking the „non-aligned movement during the cold war where they were aligned in their non-alignedness:)). Negative influence shouldn't be limited to only -60, but quite lower if it's the result of your actions (GDs only lower it to -60, not further). That way you'd have more long-term/permanent incentive to „be nice“ to all/most city states. Some new code required, but we already have a lot of it through religious beliefs etc.

  22. Remove faith bonuses from monopolies. After we've lowered the bonus yields from religious CS, this is the only remaining big random factor of volatility in the religion race. The difference between starting next to incense/wine/tobacco vs. starting next to a normal resource is the same as night and day – it's the difference between founding (first) or not founding. Give those resources monopolies other bonuses, change so that temples would give all worked improved luxury resources tiles 1 or 2 faith. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  23. Disable cultural, science and gold processes upon entering the industrial era. The AI doesn't know when to switch most/all of its cities to those for the purposes of rushing a policy or a tech or a GS/GW or simply for ending the game ASAP, and doesn't know the trick of using the gold process in enough cities to bring you above zero GPT, buying what you need from the AI for GPT, then in the same turn reverting back your cities. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  24. Have the benefits from most great persons attrition over time after a grace period of 5-10 turns after its creation. That would help the AI be more competitive vs. the human player that „saves up“ their great persons for the optimal time to expend them. Some AI teaching needed, but we already have „attrition“ for missionaries, so perhaps we could use that code.

  25. Change the tourism system to a more „turn based“, wide-friendly one vs. the current (tourism event) one. Have the great musicians be the (almost – perhaps some wonders/buldings) only source of insta tourism with all civs, but otherwise give more tourism to turn based ones. For example have each current tourism event (finishing a TR, birth of a GP) grant each city a certain number of tourism yields – that way it'll be easier for big empires to compete in tourism and harder for small tradition empires.

  26. Upon declaration of war, have all trade units to enemy cities be transported back to the home cities. Currently the system is a bit wonky, sometimes they get back immediately, sometimes not, sometimes they get pillaged, sometimes not. AFAIK, no new code/AI teaching needed, just tweaks.

  27. Have more distinction between classes of units until the modern times where realistically they get more blurred. Siege units should be extremely brittle to melee combat, much more than they are now, and they should be primarily used against cities and units in cities, forts and citadels (bonuses for that). Archer units should be much less effective against cities/units in cities, forts and citadels than they are now. Melee infantry and mounted units should be much less effective against (walled) cities and units in forts&citadels.

  28. Have Pagodas be buildable exclusively by non-founders. If you capture a holy city, all pagodas in your cities disappear (for coding use existing mechanic from removal of corporation offices). That would help non-founders whose cities get stuck in „no man's land“ where their cities don't have any majority religions.

  29. Have the game be less „all or nothing“ where possible, more granular. Currently if your approval rating is 49% or 41%, you get the same combat malus. I'd prefer if it were more granular, nuanced, for example each % point under 50% you get 1% combat malus. You either steal a technology/great work or not – I'd prefer if the range of success/failure of spies was more on a spectrum/continium, with you getting more yields with more successful missions, and less (or in some cases no) yields when the opponent has more anti-spy protection. You either get a cultural bomb hidden artifact or you get a normal artifact, but the difference is huge – I'd prefer if each hidden artifact gave a small amount of instant culture and a great work/landmark.

  30. Slower unit production/more expensive purchase of units should be a function of war weariness, not of general unhappiness. It's counterproductive when you get dog-piled by AIs so you drop into unhappiness (because you lose luxuries from AIs and CSs) and then you can't produce units to defend yourself even though you don't have any war weariness (yet).

  31. Remove Kilimanjaro, Sri Pada and FoY promotions, they're too strong.

  32. Forts are currently too strong, I'd prefer if they were more useful for defensive purposes instead of getting more buffed by yields. I'd have them buildable faster, grant 5hp when healing, grant 5HP damage to adjacent enemy units, enemy units expend all movement points when entering a fort (this should also apply to citadels).

  33. Make baths universally buildable, but with a later tech for non-fresh water settlements to retain a bit of an advantage to fresh water settling locations.

  34. Range and logistics should be eliminated from the game, they're simply too strong in human hands vs. the AI, for example given 3 siege units with range I'll conquer almost any AI.

  35. City health upon capture should be standardized, it seems that sometimes it's a bit random how strong a city's health will be when you (re)capture it.

  36. City should not be capture-able until you've destroyed the unit inside it. I hate and don't understand losing my city with a nearly fully healthy advanced unit in it. Ships should contribute only one half or one third of its CS to defense of the city, to represent the limit maneouvrability of ships in ports and lack of sailors' prowess in land combat.

  37. CS quests should be more standardized. Firstly by when they appear – sometimes a CS won't give me its first quest until T70 while another gives me one on T50, even though I've met both on T30. So I think CS quests should appear a set number of turns (maybe 5?) after the last quest has been fulfilled or has expired. Also all CS expect hostile ones should give two CS quests at all times, with one extra appearing if you've gone the Statecraft route. All CS quests should expire after a while (maybe sooner for some, later for others) to prevent you being stuck with for example „connect porcelain“ or „build 7 hotels“ for 140 turns as the solitary CS quest from Milan. Certain quests should only start appearing from the Medieval era onwards (for example for mercantile luxuries – glass, porcelain, jewelry or to capture an enemy city).

  38. Have a „non-aggression“ pact as alternative to defensive pacts – sometimes I'll want to make sure I have a „safe front“ with my neighbour without wanting to commit to a joint war if either of us gets attacked. Also, have a „embargo“ alternative to „denounce“, where by embargoing you prevent you and your allied CS from trading (TR routes and trade screen deals) with an AI and its allied CS. Have to option of asking and be asked to make those deals/actions (denounce, embargo, …) with third party AIs. All would allow for a more realistic and nuanced diplomatic game. But I imagine there might be too much new code needed.
  39. Have GAs also serve as medics, because they're not that useful at the moment compared to GGs that can make citadels.

  40. Edited to add: Have cities heal much more quickly when there's no enemy unit within 3 tiles of the city. It's not realistic nor fun game-wise when your city almost under siege heals at the same rate as when you're at peace or all enemies have been driven away. Often a city won't fully heal in the 10 or 15 turns between the previous war and the new war and to me 10 turns of "peace" should be enough for a city to fully heal, post WW2 Marshall plan style.
  41. Have the AI trade their luxury only for one of your copy of luxury (if you have it). Currently it's too easy to deny the AI your luxuries (and with it WLTKD, happiness, ...) while buying theirs for 3 or 5 gpt. If I were the AI, I'd stop selling my luxuries to a player that only bought my luxuries and never sold me any.
  42. Change positive diplo modifiers with WC to whether you voted for/against an AI's interests regardless of the outcome. I think it matters when you voted for an AI's resolution or presidency of the WC even if ultimately it wasn't successful - have the strength of the modifier be weighted against how many (of your total?) votes you gave for/against them.
  43. Hardcode that the AI will always be angry with you if you've proposed certain resolutions that directly impact them at the time you proposed them: Sanctions, Decolonizations, World religion that isn't theirs, Ban luxury which they have a monopoly on; Open doors/Sphere of influence where they've been the ally at least one turn in the last xyt turns; World ideology that isn't theirs; Sanction a player with whom they have a DoF or a DP etc.
  44. Clear up the AI trade logic that will sometimes accept a trade for them to vote FOR a certain a proposal AND a trade for them to vote AGAINST a certain proposal - it makes no sense that they can be bribed either way, they should have a strong preference either way. That is especially problematic when you can sometimes bribe them to vote against their own proposal, that shouldn't be possible imo.
  45. Have the holy cities be immune to other religions (like the Spanish UA).
  46. Give fealty more bonuses AGAINST other religions (against the active and passive spread of other religions in your cities) to reward those that go the fealty route.
  47. Hardcode so the great diplomat can only be expended for influence once all known CSs have had embassies established.
  48. New UI for religion - show what the accumulated pressure for each religion in your city is and show how many new supporters you need to start the reformation building. Also, if possible, have the reformation building be buildable even if after you've started building it you dip below the threshold.
  49. EDIT to add: Have the pioneer & colonist the option of settling as a puppet city (like the Venice UA), that way you'll be able to claim additional land & resources without incurring extra science and culture cost.
  50. If the other suggestions for religion aren't suitable, perhaps we could&should limit the number of missionaries you can have at any given moment like we did with archeologist, that way we could slow/limit the missionary spam. Have it be increased with wonders, religious buildings and/or Fealty to incentivize religious civs going for those.
  51. Edit to add: Some ideas for the happiness system, where I tried to be as non-radical as possible :)
    - Remove unhappiness from urbanization - you're already penalized for using specialists with the evergrowing food consumption by specialists. Alternatively, limit the urbanization the same way other sources of unhappiness and introduce a few more buildings/options to reduce unhappiness from specialists, I think there are too few at the moment.
    - Remove religious distress/unhappiness or add more ways to reduce it -> you're already losing yields (and/or the AI is gaining them) by having fewer and fewer followers of your religion in your cities, not sure why you'd have to be doubly penalized by this unhappiness as well?
    - Increase the base happiness effects of luxuries in the late game
    - Increase the unhappiness removal effect of mid-late game buildings (so have them remove not one, but two or more unhappiness from illiteracy, distress, poverty, ...)
    - Not sure how the median works at the moment, but in my last game as Indonesia all my 7 cities had all the scientific buildings and medical labs, with all the science specialists working and full Rationalism tree, but with a population of around 160, I still had around 80 unhappiness from illiteracy. Perhaps that was because two of the civs were the Maya and Korea, but the other AIs were normal non-science civs. Not sure how that's possible, but if runaways cause a big increase in the thresholds, perhaps we could make an adjustment that the top 2 civs' (by score) yields are, for threshold purposes, replaced by the 3rd civ's values? So if for example Arabia and Songhai are the runaways by score with Portugal as the 3rd civ by score, we would calculate as if Arabia and Songhai had the same yields as Portugal. On larger maps we'd do the same for the top 3 or more civs, depending on the number of civs.
  52. EDIT TO ADD:
    - In one of my games, I wanted to sell my vote in favour of making Carthage's religion the dominant one (resolution proposed by Carthage), only for Carthage saying the trade value would be around -300 -> so I'd have to pay them to vote in favour of their religion. The other two proposals were Global Peace Accord and an open door resolution, so it's not like they switched their priority to wanting me to vote against sanctioning them. Are some WC proposals given extra weight (hard code) when the AI looks at it? I think some should, like the Sanction one or the world religion one when the AI's religions is propoes. I'd also considering introducing a seperate diplo modifier for some WC proposal, so the AI would get seperately angry/happy if you proposed repealing their sanction or if you proposed introducing sanctions against them etc.
  53. AI is too willing to sell luxury resources to the Netherlands even if that means they lose their monopoly,I think this code could benefit from being looked at.
  54. the AI is too willing to sell coal -> even the AIs that denounced me were still willing to sell their coal to me for 8-10 gpt. I think the AI would benefit more from denying me coal to build factories etc. than having some extra gold, especially because they're usually already swimming in gold. So that's something that I hope will be looked at.
  55. - I think you should be able to buy great persons even in cities with no majority religion, I don't understand why that's a prerequisite. Given the current state of the religious game and non-founders not being able to buy inquisitors, it can leave a civ, especially non-founding, without the option of buying great persons in the late game. In my game, 5 of my 6 cities didn't have a majority religion, but luckily the smallest city had it, so I could buy my great scientists there. But I still had to spend a lot of faith on buying up a few missionaries just in case that city lost its majority religion so I could then bring it back via missionaries.
  56. Some ideas for inquisitors:
    - have holy cities be immune to conversion (Spanish UA code),
    - have inquisitors be significantly cheaper than missionaries even without the Inquisition enhancer (for example have them cost 125 faith vs. 200 faith for missionaries in the beginning), with the latter further decreasing the costs,
    - have inquisitors be purchasable with gold (as an alternative to being purchasable by faith - Zealotry code, that way they'll be easier to use because you won't need to spend faith on it, which is crucial both early on and later in the industrial era onwards),
    - remove the 1 turn of revolt when using inquisitors, but have them increase the city maintenance by xyz gold per turn, scaling with era, every time they're used, or have them increase the unhappiness of the city (perhaps only temporary if permanent would be too harsh or to hard to code),
    - have the holy city spawn 1 free inquisitor per owned city at the start of every era,
    - eliminate religious division as a source of unhappiness completely
  57. Edit to add: Let's say you're allied to Singapore (or any City State) and you're at war with Siam. Siam attacks Singapore and your units help Singapore repel the attack. Or perhaps you're not allied to Singapore, but Siam is attacking Singapore and you happen to be at war with Siam, so you kill some Siamese units in or next to Singapore territory. In any case, I think you should get influence every time you kill a CS's AI enemy the same way you get influence when you kill a barbarian unit threatening the CS. That would incentivize and reward you for actively defending your CS allies and reduce the probability that you work hard on defending it while your influence level lowers, only to have some other AI swoop in and become its ally a few turn after the war is over. I see no rationale behind giving influence for killed barbarians and not for AI enemy units.
  58. Edited to add: I think to avoid abuse, the system should be changed so that if you sold something to your DoF for a lump sum of gold instead of for gold per turn and the deal ends prematurely (either because one side declared a war or lost access to that resource), you should lose the amount of lump sum gold received that is proportionate to the number of turns left on the deal when it ended prematurely.

    So let's say I'm England and I have a DoF with Sweden. 5 turns before our DoF ends, we make a deal where I sell 2 horses or 1 copy of cocoa (for the duration of the deal - 50 turns on standard speed) for a total of 700 gold (lump sum). If for example 20 turns later Sweden declares war on me (we didn't renew our DoF, Sweden became pissed at me and eventually was bribed to DoW me) or I declare war on Sweden or if my horse/cocoa tiles are pillaged by barbarians or enemy units, the deal will end immediately, I will keep all the 700 gold for only 20 turns of giving 2 horses to Sweden.

    This could be severely exploited by the human player if he/she wanted to and even if not intentionally exploited, it can still happen unintentionally because the AI doesn't seem to take this into consideration when declaring war and because sometimes the barbarians will spawn next to a CS adjacent to your only source of cocoa, pillaging it. The AI is also very happy to give you lump sum gold and very happy to take payment in GPT, so this situation really only hurts the AI, not the human player.

    I think it should be addressed, two possible options are:
    - have treasury run a deficit (with automatic selling of buildings or units after a certain limit),
    - have the money immediately deducted from your treasury and if it's not enough, then your buildings in your cities (let's say there would be an order from least important to most important, starting with buildings such as gardens in the smallest of puppet cities etc.) would immediately & automatically get sold so it could cover the deficit.

    I know it may seem like a minor thing, but in my Deity games I'm usually selling my resources for lump sum of gold because I need the extra income for upgrading my units, rushing wonders etc., so I'll often unintentionally benefit from this. Thanks for your thoughts!
  59. Edited to add:
    1. When your unit, stationed in a city, fort or citadel, attacks an enemy unit that has a "chance to withdraw from melee attack", it will leave the fort/citadel/city if the enemy unit retreats. That's very unfriendly for defenders and contrary to otherwise behaviour of units in citadels/cities/forts, where the unit never leaves its space when destroying an enemy military unit. I'd recommend we change this so that even if the enemy unit withdraws from melee, the attacking unit doesn't leave its place.

    2. Embassies from eliminated civs - when an AI gets eliminated, its embassies serve no purposes and they just block the surviving civs from making embassies in those city states. I'd recommend a change where upon destruction of a civ its embassies either get removed from CS OR the civ that holds the capital gets the votes from those embassies.
  60. I think we should get a triplane/fighter version of land/naval units that don't require any strategic resources or require iron, as some have suggested. Honestly I can't remember the last time I built any triplanes/fighters because I use my oil for landships/tanks or bombers, with the AA units doing the job of stopping enemy air units. The AA units are way too strong, both against air units and against being attacked directly, they should be extremely brittle to being attacked by melee land units, but as it stands now, they can be used basically instead of infantry units with the added bonus of being great against air units.
  61. EDITED TO ADD: For the missionary AI spam when you're a founder as well, could we get a system that once you've founded a religion, that any missionary/GP that wants to enter your lands cannot do so unless you're giving open borders or the AI declares war on you (kind of like now with military units). That way religions could still be spread to non-founders without their consent, but to founders only through their consent (via open borders) and through passive spread/pressure.
  62. I'd propose changing the rebel system so that it doesn't appear the first turn of you having lower happiness, but giving you a grace period of a few turns, for example 3 turns. I'll sometimes be hovering around 45% happiness and then I'll use an inquisitor on my capital, which brings my happiness below the threshold and then immediately rebel barbarians appear. If we have a grace period for cities flipping, we ought to have a grace period (shorter) for rebels appearing.
  63. EDITED TO ADD:
  64. I'd propose changing four things related to warfare:
    - when you're at war with an AI and you liberate a city, currently all your enemy's units in the city's territory get expelled, even if the liberated city is your ally (for example your ally AII or a city state), which means the defeated civ is at a disadvantage that seems unrealistic (why would they get automatically magically transported away from their enemies, giving them breathing space?),
    - when you conquer a city and liberate it, the unit with which you took the city loses all its movement points and gets transported to a random tile, often closer to the enemy's borders, leaving them to be destroyed the same turn - it'd be better if your units were returned to the same tile from which they launched the winning attack on the city
    - when you conquer a city with a mounted melee unit/unit that can attack twice (like kris swordsmen), that unit should not lose all it movement points if you decided to liberate the city, but it should keep the remaining,
    - when your open borders agreement ends and your troops magically get transported away, they should be transported to the closest friendly/neutral/owned territory where there's at least 6 tiles between that tile and an enemy unit - it's very bothersome when your troops get transported away to your enemy's lands only to get destroyed immediately before you have a chance to do anything with them
66. A few ideas to add:
- currently if you use a citadel to take a tile or two next to a city, then a while later conquer the city, then liberate it (or have it re-captured), the city will reclaim those tiles, meaning you basically wasted a citadel. That happened to me twice in my current game, once when I decided to liberate a city and once when I took a Swedish city, which was recaptured a few turns later, making it harder for me to keep attacking it. I don't see much point in this nerf of citadels, so I'd propose changing it so that the citadel-ed tiles remain with the citadel regardless of what happens with the city

- conscripted units should appear with all movement points available, to avoid having the appear close to the enemy, leaving them to their mercy

- if my idea of having faster city healing when there are no nearby enemy units is too process-power-heavy, we could try a solution that if you are at peace with all civs, the healing rate vastly increases. It's not perfect, but still much better than the current system.

67. Two things:
God of the Sun (giving 3 faith to granaries) is too strong, it's the single best pantheon for founding if you don't have other faith bonuses/monopoly, there's no other pantheon that can consistently give you so much faith so quickly. I'd recommend reducing faith to two, removing gold and replacing it with 2 or 3 golden age points.

Lebensraum tenet, the one that gives double citadel radius, is completely bonkers. In my last game I was up against a runaway tradition Poland with 6 cities, I was Authority Austria. After vassalizing Sweden and Zulus and after buying up 4-5 great generals, I conquered a city state next to Poland (they were on the other side of the map), then proceeded to use 10-11 great generals with Lebensraum to take away almost all land tiles away from Poland, leaving them basically without any land tiles to work, so their yields plummeted and they would probably wither away had I not used my new tiles surrounding them to position my armies there, then launch an attack on them wiping them out in a matter of turns. I can post pictures if needed, but I can consistently abuse Lebensraum against AIs, whereas I never see the AI use a chain of Lebensraum great generals against their opponents. So I'd recommend changing this tenet to something else or at least teaching the AI to abuse it, if possible.

68. Another thought on how to setup faster healing by your cities, if there are no enemy units present within your borders, all your cities heal faster. As far as I understand, the game already checks for "enemies" within your borders (that's how you get the notification at the start of your turn). That would ensure your cities could still heal faster even if you were engaged in a proxy/distance war with the enemy not attacking. A more simple solution would be that the cities heal faster if you are at peace with everyone.

69.
I've been trying lately to play without founding a religion, focusing on eventually capturing a holy city. Is there any specific reason for the faith-reset-to-0 function applies to late-era captures of holy cities in the same way as a capture in the classical era? Some possible changes:
- change from faith-reset-to-0 to "faith reduced to 750, scaling with era",
- leaving the reset to 0, but discarding this once you hit the industrial era together with setting a minimum amount of faith needed to buy a great prophet from industrial era onward,
- don't have a reset, but change the minimum amount of faith needed to buy a great prophet for each era (maybe 1500 faith, scaling with era?)

It's extremely frustrating finally capturing a holy city/capital late in the game and losing all the faith you've accumulated up to that point and I'm not sure I see the reason why you should lose all the faith instead of perhaps just some.

Edit to add:

70. Terracota army is in my opinion too strong, i.e. it gives too much culture per kill, so I'd nerf it to 10 culture, scaling with era, but I'd instead supplement this with some other yield per kill, for example either 10 tourism per kill or 10 food in capital per kill, scaling with era. AFAIK, no other mechanic in the game gives tourism/food per killed enemy unit, so that would be unique, but not too strong.

71. Unrelated thing: I'd absolutely love if we could give Industry a more clear niche by making it more appealing to those going for a cultural victory (Rationalism is great for SV, Imperialism for domination victory), so I'd give the opener or one of the first two policies the ability to get golden age points for every unit purchase or investment, and I'd have each Industry policy increase the golden age length).

72. Another unrelated thing: I'm miffed that you can advance multiple eras without researching the whole old era's technologies, it seems counterintuitive and better for humans who can beeline as opposed to the AI who, I suppose, is more geared towards researching the whole era. I don't like how you can get to the Medieval era before researching all of Ancient era's technologies, and the same problem is present throughout the game. So I'd make a change that you can't advance two eras ahead, so for example you couldn't get into the Medieval era without having researched all of ancient era technologies.

73. Regarding strategic and global monopolies on strategic resources, I'd be in favour of flipping bonuses, i.e. have the "combat" bonuses apply to global monopolies as they are stronger and should be harder to attain, but I'd buff the bonuses to strategic monopolies by a little bit to make them a bit more worthwhile.

74. Link to my idea about border growth tile selection - https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...code-tile-selection-for-border-growth.666126/

75. One idea I had was to address the problem of capitals not being able to build baths without fresh water, which to me is a problem for all capitals, not just tradition capitals. That's why I wanted to propose that the palace "unlocks" building a baths regardless of fresh water or not. Is that feasible code-wise? Alternatively we could give the palace all the benefits of the baths and make baths unbuildable in the capital.

76. If a vassals (original) capital is captured, then the vassalage automatically discontinues. -> I hate fighting against a master and a vassal, conquering a lot of vassal's cities, including their capital, and being unable to make separate deal with them, especially forcing them into capitulation. If the master cannot stop the vassal's capital from falling, then what's the point of the vassalage between the two civs?

77. Have inquisitors show immediately (without having to hover with the cursor on the unit) to which religion the unit belongs to, similar to what's currently the deal with missionaries. Just a QoL change.
 
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Increase the GA modifiers from monopolies to 30%
I would decrease it to 20% instead rising it to 30%. Strategies around GA stacking are a bit too powerful.
Merge the tundra pantheon and the desert pantheon
They are both fine now. An in my eyes interesting option would be to split the yields for both. Half the yields from ressources and half the yields if you have improved it.
Make Hagia Sophia buildable only in Holy Cities
Iam against it. There's still the option that the gained prophet is able to found the last religion. And a holy site from a prophet is a very good tile for a tradition/tourism civ.

Agree with 2+3+7

Change Hubble from a „more science for science leaders“ wonder
Fully agree. A tech leader will be always there first and simply improve its lead or at least make it for other victory types more difficult to stop the tech leader.

Both last wonders should improve other victory types, or be at least an universal wonder good for everyone. But not a steroid for an already leading tech civ.
 
Wow.. that is a long list...

I would love to see a mod that makes victories "do something" and allow multiple victories to be achieved.

What I mean is if you complete the science victory for example, your civ gains a large bonus, and you can keep playing. Other civs or the same civs can achieve victories, gain a large bonus from it, but can keep playing.

It's probably more for roleplaying, but I think it would be cool.
 
Bananas are currently getting two building buffs unlike all other resources, and one of them you always build in every city (Granary), so it's merely a delayed yield for the early game.

AIs can pick and use Range and Logistics now.
 
Thanks for the replies, everyone!

BiteInTheMark, sure, I'm ok with decreasing it to 20%, it's just that 5% doing nothing bothers my OCD :D Ah, ok, agree to disagree, I find it frustrating when I have two desert cities and two tundra cities so I can't really make either of the pantheons work. Hmm, I've never ever had a game where Hagia Sophia was built before all religions were already founded? Yes, a holy site is good for a tradition/tourism civ, but not nearly as useful as a GP for a founder - I imagine the same rationale applies for Borobodur. How would you specifically change Hubble and Cern, if it were up to you?

Zanteogo, that would be an interesting option! Maybe introduce a "two non-domination victories required to win" mode/option, so you'd have to win two peaceful types of victories to really win the game?

Andersw, sure, diplomacy should be the #1 priority.

Azum4roll, granaries also buff deers and bisons, both of which get the first buff from the get-go, the second from granaries and the the third buff with herbalist. Bananas get their third buff from grocers, which are much later. There's no question in my mind I'd rather start with deers & bisons than with bananas. Hmm, perhaps, but I've never seen the AI use three siege units with range protected by two lines of shielding units just hammering the city, I think the AI is much worse in using ranged promotion?

Another idea: Have the AI trade their luxury only for one of your copy of luxury (if you have it). Currently it's too easy to deny the AI your luxuries (and with it WLTKD, happiness, ...) while buying theirs for 3 or 5 gpt. If I were the AI, I'd stop selling my luxuries to a player that only bought my luxuries and never sold me any.
 
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3. bananas are fine. I love jungle starts and if they got food initially you'd have to take something away later on for balance :).

4. How would that work thematically? Tundra and desert are so extremely different. I like that they have seperate pantheons, I think it makes a lot of sense role-play wise.

5. No thanks lol. I love my war elephants as Progress or Tradition. Also, war elephants requiring horses seems kind of odd.

6. This one I can agree with. I assumed that was what strategic balance was supposed to do.

7. Agreed, and you may want to mention this in the map thread in general balance. I've been making a case for it there!

8. Disagree. Holy sites are awesome even as a non-founder, and tradition tourism civs will happily build Hagia Sophia as well!

10. I would rather keep them. The free social policy is my favourite thing about the Ideology wonders. Wouldn't feel nearly as meaningful or exciting to build the Statue of Liberty without it.

11. Stonehenge seems OK to me. Giving you a pantheon is kind of the intention? I agree it is very strong but the idea is that it's a risk/reward situation - you're not guaranteed to build it first. Temple of Artemis is perfect IMO, I haven't heard anyone else arguing that it's too strong. The food bonus is definitely one of the weaker monopoly bonuses, so I don't think that's a good comparison. Imagine if an early-game wonder gave +10% production instead for example. Why should late-game wonders not have terrain requirements? As an Australian I would laught pretty hard if Syndey Harbour Opera House was buildable inland lol.

17. Ivory grants you the Centaurus corporation because it's themed around exploiting natural resources - especially animals. That's why the image is a centaur (actually a chimera) made of different animal parts. Compare Ivory and Whales for example, lots of parallels IRL.

18, 23, 24. These seem like examples of humans exploiting the system, not intended game design. I don't do any of them and I don't feel there's an urgent need to change them, at least compared to other stuff. Also I am generally iffy about stuff that's fun for me being taken away because someone has figured out how to use it to break the game.

22. Intended and I like it that way. The Zulus would never be able to found in my game excepting that they got a wine monopoly and I like that. Otherwise things become too predicatable, the same civs always found religions.

27. Please no. I would rather the game remain playable without needing an extremely specialised combat system. Things seem fine to me as they are.

28. No. Don't take my pagodas away from me lol. I appreciate the value of having something for non-founders but you can often get buildings from other people's religions anyway. Not to mention monasteries via Fealty. Also would feel strange for pagodas to be univeral - they are specific to certain countries, cultures, and indeed religions.

31. No. Natural wonders are one of the few things that makes every game truly different. Also, what did Sri Pada do to hurt you? I understand the combat bonuses but Sri Pada is my favourite, it's not like it makes anything unbalanced.

37. Disagree. City-state quests are already strong, them giving multiple quests at a time would be overkill. Also, why would you want all quests to expire? Imagine having built 8 out of 9 aqueducts and then all of a sudden it expires and you've wasted your time. Especially with the tech rate so fast I want time to actually get the production needed to build the stuff. Also Statecraft is plently strong, it doesn't need a buff.

40. Interesting! GA do seem less fun than GGs for sure. Would be happy to test this!
 
11. Stonehenge seems OK to me. Giving you a pantheon is kind of the intention? I agree it is very strong but the idea is that it's a risk/reward situation - you're not guaranteed to build it first. Temple of Artemis is perfect IMO, I haven't heard anyone else arguing that it's too strong. The food bonus is definitely one of the weaker monopoly bonuses, so I don't think that's a good comparison. Imagine if an early-game wonder gave +10% production instead for example. Why should late-game wonders not have terrain requirements? As an Australian I would laught pretty hard if Syndey Harbour Opera House was buildable inland lol.
I think Stonehenge is fine as it is. Its nothing that grow into the lategame. And yes.... dont touch my Artemis temple. :crazyeye: I love growing, and it stays relevant even till late game, but without beeing generating overpowered yields. Its fine.
James, I live 500km away from the coast, but my city have a harbar, cause of a big nearby river, so that shouldnt be a problem. :)
How would you specifically change Hubble and Cern, if it were up to you?
I think it doesnt have to be CERN and Hubble, I am sure it isnt that difficult for the developers to replace the "wonders" with something else.
Someone who is targeting a science victory will lead in techs and unlock those wonders first. Constructing thorease the lead of the tech leader even more, like a positive feedback. This shouldnt be the target.
CERN and Hubble, or a replacement, should help mainly other victory types.
CERN is working on elemantal physics, the secrets of the smallest parts of the universe. I could imagine, that CERN is providing strategic ressources. Those you would need to build late game military units or power plants, like
"gives +5 uranium, +5 coal, +5 oil an +5 aluminium. Power plants receive a production bonus of +5%
Hubble delivers information about extraterrestrical objects. This could deliver also a "feeling" about our own destiny and melt us more, making the Hubble maybe to a CV or DV orientated wonder. Something like this:
"Gain Tourism with every civilization, whenever you finish a research. +2 Votes for every civilization you are not at war, up to 6 votes."
 
"gives +5 uranium, +5 coal, +5 oil an +5 aluminium
I'm sorry, but there is no reason for CERN to be a military wonder. It's not like it produces any resources so it doesn't really make sense. Also that late in the game I'm not sure it would matter.
Also I want to clarify, these wonders do have a policy requirement right? Perhaps that could be raised in addition to changing the ability slightly. I would probably make CERN even more DV focused and give Hubble a slight CV focus.
 
Azum4roll, granaries also buff deers and bisons, both of which get the first buff from the get-go, the second from granaries and the the third buff with herbalist. Bananas get their third buff from grocers, which are much later. There's no question in my mind I'd rather start with deers & bisons than with bananas.
Plantations also get +1p from the herbalist. We're talking about specific resource buffs, which every resource gets only one from buildings, except bananas.
 
I'm sorry, but there is no reason for CERN to be a military wonder. It's not like it produces any resources so it doesn't really make sense. Also that late in the game I'm not sure it would matter.
Also I want to clarify, these wonders do have a policy requirement right? Perhaps that could be raised in addition to changing the ability slightly. I would probably make CERN even more DV focused and give Hubble a slight CV focus.
The most time I have problems cause of policy requirements is in medieval, later on, there's absolutely no problem to reach the required policy number. This doesn't mean I want to see the requirement increased. Locking wonders behind policy numbers isn't a good mechanic, it's only annoying and feels extremely arteficial.

The proposed effect of CERN was only an idea to show better what I mean. I don't think it's a good idea to place SV wonders on a spot where SV targeting civs are before anybody else is there. Has anyone else who is heading to an other victory type, a chance to get that wonder? Not really.

Other civs will unlock those wonders when a SV civ is very close to a win. So those wonders are the last options for other victory types to turn the tide. A SV heading civ can build those too, but at least they wouldnt benefit that extremely by their lead.
 
The most time I have problems cause of policy requirements is in medieval, later on, there's absolutely no problem to reach the required policy number. This doesn't mean I want to see the requirement increased. Locking wonders behind policy numbers isn't a good mechanic, it's only annoying and feels extremely arteficial.

The proposed effect of CERN was only an idea to show better what I mean. I don't think it's a good idea to place SV wonders on a spot where SV targeting civs are before anybody else is there. Has anyone else who is heading to an other victory type, a chance to get that wonder? Not really.

Other civs will unlock those wonders when a SV civ is very close to a win. So those wonders are the last options for other victory types to turn the tide. A SV heading civ can build those too, but at least they wouldnt benefit that extremely by their lead.

There are games where its tough to get the policy requirement for Hubble or CERN. A lot depends on getting the free policies from World Congress, etc.
 
Perhaps it depends on science vs. culture focus? If you rush through techs there can be a lot of things you don't have the policy requirements for. I usually have enough policies, but only just.
 
I'm sorry, but there is no reason for CERN to be a military wonder. It's not like it produces any resources so it doesn't really make sense. Also that late in the game I'm not sure it would matter.

The whole purpose of the RL CERN is to produce new particles.

Having it produce two techs as it is currently is weak gameplay wise though for reasons brought up already.
 
JamesNineLives, thanks for the detailed reply.

Bananas are worse than deers or bisons, I'd simply prefer if they were comparable. I'm ok with taking away their late-game bonuses and instead giving them plus 1 food from the get-to (like deers and bisons).

Yes, tundra and deserts are very different in real life, but their common theme is that they're very inhospitable (also snow tiles) so this would be a "hospitality" pantheon meant to make the worst settling locations the best.

Haha, yeah, I too love them when I'm facing Shaka or Genghis, but that's the point - they should be a weapon for warmongers that go Authority, not for warmongers that are "cheating" by going Progress/Tradition or for peaceful players to withstand the Authority hordes. We can pretend horses are elephants needed for the units.

Thanks, I'll mention it in that thread as well!

Sure, but they're much less awesome than getting a free GP as a founder.

I'd be ok with a significant increase in other bonuses, but the free social policy is just too strong both on its own as well as in terms of getting to enough social policies for late-game wonders.

Stonehenge is no risk - in the last 3 or 4 versions I build it first whenever I go for it, even as Progress. I build a monument, then immediately go for Stonenhenge and I build it every single time. Ok, agree to disagree, I think Artemis is one of the strongest wonders in the game. Late-game wonders because at that point what purpose do terrain requirements for wonders serve? To penalize you for settling a non-coastal city 4000-6000 years ago/300 turns ago? I mean, Statue of Liberty is famous for being built on an island, but it doesn't have a terrain requirement like Prora or Sydney, why not?

Sure, but often ivory starts are non-coastal starts, where the benefits of centaurus corporations get lost quite a bit? Why not give centaurus all sea resouce monopolies?

Ok, I guess that's a fair point re: breaking the game.

I can consistenly found with a non-religious civ by rushing shrines etc. If the Zulus want to found, they should have a higher religion flavour and not bank on handouts :D from wine monopolies. Joke aside, it makes it an unfun game where you invest heavily in getting a religion only to be sniped by a 4-city Shaka that started near wine who is also busy attacking you, while the IGE shows he's built a shrine only in the capital.

It wouldn't be extremely specialised, but I can understand why you got that impresson.

Well, we can introduce another religious building (maybe "atheist centers", heh) for non-founders, but just something to make non-founders benefit from non-founding when their cities don't have a dominant religion. Maybe it could give some yields whenever the city DOESN'T have a dominant religion.,

Haha, nothing, it just makes missionaries really fast :) Ok, well, at least combat bonuses, then? I mean Gustavus Adolphus and Shaka are strong enough without getting those bonuses.

Ok, but why do some city states give multiple quests and some only one? You'd get a timer before expiration (like now) so you'd know how long you have to build 9 aqueducts, so the only question would be how long each type of quests would last.
 
Azum4roll, bananas don't get the starting bonus bisons and deers get, while their last bonus comes very late. I'd always prefer to start next to deer (2f2p or 3f1p) compared to bananas (2f1p), because they too get buffed by herbalists and granaries like bananas, so after that they're still stronger than bananas. Only later on (much later) do bananas get strong enough compared to other bonus resources, when plantations get enough buffs from techs.
 
The whole purpose of the RL CERN is to produce new particles.

Having it produce two techs as it is currently is weak gameplay wise though for reasons brought up already.
CERN produces a couple atoms at most of a substance. That's not comparable to the amount of uranium/iron/oil it takes to make a military vehicle. And regardless it doesn't produce iron, oil, or uranium. I do agree with you about the gameplay, it should be changed somehow.

I like the idea of changing those wonders but overall I'm not going to lie, other than the minor changes like coal or GPh movement and some others I would say no to most of these. One of the ones I do like is the sphere of influence/open door after conquering a CS. It is actually a part of enginseer's enhanced world Congress mod and I liked it so a while ago I actually made a mod with all the other features removed, just the CS open door/sphere of influence after liberation. I can't get it now but I will post it in a bit maybe.


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I found the modified CS liberation thing. Keep in mind it is all from Enginseer's Wold Congress Reformation Mod. All credit to him, this is just with the other features removed. I'm also not sure if it works completely, the Sphere of Influence/Open Door works, but I think it is meant to add a diplo penalty and I am not sure if that works.
 

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Brian, I appreciate your responses as well! I still disagree on some points.

Bananas are better than deer and bison as soon as you improve the tile. Is that really so long to wait?

I'm not really talking about facing Elephants from warmongers, I'm talking about having access to elephants as a peaceful civ. Elephants being linked to ivory is something that rewards trade and good relations. I don't think they should be exclusive to warmongers at all - whether it be those with Authority or those without.

If Stonehenge is no risk that's a seperate issue. Wonders are designed to be a risk vs. reward proposition, not a certainty.

I actually like building wonders outside my capital. If feels a bit boring to me when one city can build everything, and coastal cities can be pretty terrible sometimes so it's good that they have nice things. I do think Ideology wonders should be buildable anywhere though. They are more important in terms of gameplay.

I honestly wouldn't mind Centaurus being based on slightly different resouces, I'm just pointing out that there is a decent reason for Ivory to be associated with them in terms of flavour. Also, while I love the bonuses that Centaurus gives I'm not a huge fan of the what the theme seems to be (exploiting nature) so I kind of like that some coastal luxuries lead to something else.

I'm a bit confused about what you've said with regards to founding religion. If it's easy to found by building shrines early, how is Shaka stealing it from you with only a shrine in his capital? I don't think I've ever seen a civ found purely on the monopoly bonus from faith - it tends to kick in too late. Also if you're joking about handouts be careful lol. I am currently applying for a disability pension and there's a lot of stigma around that already.

I think the not having a dominant religion issue is something that should be resolved by adjusting religion. In previous versions, practically all cities had a dominant religion. I think one of the factors that has changed is passive pressure. So I'm hoping that things will be a bit better for non-founders in coming versions.

I assume all city-states will give multiple quests if you wait long enough without completing their first quest. I've never had a city-state give two quests on the same turn?
 
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