Specialists

[Ahriman]

This is why I'm confused... I already addressed this on page 1. Did I not explain this well?

I am confused as to why you are confused.

You didn't address it. You compared only the total yields with all the possible boosting factors, which is irrelevant for most of the game for most strategies.

Once again:
TBC Before: 3 GPP per specialist. A significant part of value from specialists comes from producing great people.
TBC After: 2 GPP per specialist, and higher base yields (eg: engineer went 2 hammers to 3 hammers). A small part of the value from specialists comes from producing great people, most of it comes directly from the yields.

Hence, the latest changes have shifted specialists away from being about great people (which are interesting fun and different) towards providing resource yields (which makes them basically the same as working tiles).

Unmodified yields are far more important than theoretical-maximal-possible-yields-in-the-very-late-game-if-you-happen-to-have-played-the-game-in-a-very-particular-way.

You reduced specialists from 3 GPPs to 2 GPPs.
This clearly reduces the extent to which specialists are about great people.
How is this confusing??!?

This is why I suggested reverting the 8.6.16 changes and instead increase GPP yields from 3 to 4 if you think specialists are underpowered.

Reducing policy reliance, and bringing great person availability closer to vanilla, are two separate things.

I'm not talking about "closer to vanilla" at all. You are the only one who brought that up. I'm talking about the incremenental changes from 8.6.16.
Prior to this, specialists worked pretty well in TBC. Then, you boosted them by increasing their base yields, while you nerfed many of the specialist boosting policies, and you reduced their GPP income. I oppose all three of these changes.

Even if specialist yields returned to vanilla values I'd still want to keep TBM great person generation closer to vanilla. At the current settings it's double or more the vanilla potential.

I don't understand what you're saying here. How are specialists at 2 GPPs per turn giving double the great person potential as vanilla specialists at 3 gpp per turn?

* * *

I never played Civ 4

Not trying to be offensive here at all but.... that is a big blow in terms of understanding how civ games tend to work. We learned a lot from Civ4 and modding Civ4, and it is very important to understand how Civ4 worked in order to see which things they changed for Civ5 and how and why.

To me, the capital is the best place to build just about everything, with very few exceptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

The capital doesn't have enough production to build everything. Even if the capital had an absolute advantage in building everything, it would not have a comparitive advantage, because to a significant degree (especially for Wonders which cannot be gold-purchased) building thing X means that you can't also build thing Y. You can only work on one thing at once.
And for non-wonders, the fact that you might buy everything in the capital still doesn't mean that there is no scope for for specialization in your other cities. You certainly can't/won't build everything everywhere (and it is not optimal to do so).

When playing a tall game - going for anything but conquest - every city is doing all it can to achieve that goal. There is no differentiation, other than that some may not have the hammers to construct as many buildings. By this I mean that, say in a science effort, I focus on science buildings, but add gold and production buildings as needed to balance the effort.

Then I think you are not playing Civ5 optimally.
If you are building gold-boost buildings in a city that produces very little gold (eg your military production powerhouse), then you are wasting your hammers. If you are working lots of trading post tiles in a science city (rather than farms) then you aren't maximizing the effect of your science boosters.
If you're building gardens in cities that aren't GPP farms or wonder cities, you're probably wasting them.

In short, I build everything I can everywhere, if it's feasible

But in general it isn't feasible. And if you are working so many hammer tiles that you make it feasible, then there is a big economic cost to you in terms of gold and food tiles that you are not working.

 

[Ahriman]

To clarify, here is my suggestion (if you felt that specialists were underpowered).
Each specialist gives 4 GPPs.
In addition, they give:
Engineer: 2 production
Merchant: 3 gold
Scientist: 2 science [Maybe 3 science??]
Artist: 2 culture.

Mercantilism gives +2 gold from specialists, and maybe +2 gold from customhouse.
Secularism gives +2 science from specialists.
Democracy (?) gives +1 culture from specialists, and maybe +1 from landmarks.

No building gives more than a single specialist slot (including wonders and national wonders).

Keep the TBC boosts to great improvements, and to the special abilities of great scientists, merchants and artists.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'll rephrase things.

There's not enough time in the world for us to have experience with every playstyle and strategy in the game. This is why any feedback is incredibly helpful, because different people can see and want different goals in the game. It helps me broaden my perspectives. When someone points out a goal that seems like a great and logical idea to strive for, I keep it in mind when making changes.

1. You earlier stated a goal: things shouldn't require a specific policy to be useful.
2. I made several changes that follow this goal (defense buildings, specialists, coastal cities, etc).
3. You did not like these changes.

This is when I started getting confused, and realized I misunderstood your goal. I need clarification on that goal.

I do not feel specialists were underpowered.

 

[Ahriman]

You've stated before that things shouldn't require a specific policy to be useful.
I made several changes that followed this goal (defense buildings, specialists, coastal cities, etc).
You disagreed with these changes.
This is why I said I'm confused. I thought I understood your goal, but did not, so I'm asking for clarification.

I discussed this here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10707621&postcount=19

I do think that specialists are useful in pre-8.6.16 TBC even without any policies to support them, because great people are very powerful, and because the first few great people you get require relatively few GPPs.

There is a difference between:
a) Buildings that are severely underpowered without particular policies, where the buildings are never worth constructing without the policies
b) Specialists that are worth using in some circumstances without any policies, and are further enhanced by policies

There is a difference between walls (a single set of buildings) and specialists (a broad playstyle). I think it is problematic to have a set of policies that support the former; I think it is fine to have policies that support the latter.

It is also important to think about not just the value of specialists with the policies, but the marginal value of the policies, relative to the marginal value of other policies.

If merchants give +4 gold and increase to +5 gold with mercantilism, then mercantilism is pretty weak as a social policy. I'm going to use merchants anyway, but I'm probably not going to bother spending a social policy pick on Mercantilism. I'll focus on the freedom policies that halve food and unhappiness from specialists instead, or on patronage policies that boost the value of the gold I get from the specialists.

I am not absolutely certain about what is the right effect of the policies, it is possible that the +2 boosters are too strong, but I am sure that it is important that the base resource yields from the specialists be lower than those from working tiles (eg: 2 hammer engineer vs 3 hammer mine hill is appropriate). It should not be the case that a player with no specialist-boosting policies is just as well off with an engineer than a mine even if that engineer never produces a great person.

 

[Thalassicus]

Okay, so if we look at yields in particular...

If these numbers were alright --

Early game, rivers:
2 - Engineer
3 1 - Mine

Early game, dry:
n/a

Late game, rivers:
2 2 2 1 - Engineer
4 1 - Mine

Late game, dry:
2 2 2 1 - Engineer
4 - Mine



Would this be alright?

Early game, rivers:
3 - Engineer
4 1 - Mine

Early game, dry:
n/a

Late game, rivers:
3 1 1 1 - Engineer
5 1 - Mine

Late game, dry:
3 1 1 1 - Engineer
5 - Mine


(Just the specialist/tile comparisons... ignoring external things like the ratio of revenues to expenses. The reason I ask is I've been considering how to solve the 2:3 prod:gold value problem.)

 

[Ahriman]

Would this be alright?
The reason I ask is I've been considering how to solve the 2:3 prod:gold value problem.

I don't really see a problem with ~2:3 prod:gold value. Its approximate, sometimes the production is worth more, sometimes it would be worth less.

I think it is fine for a hammer to be worth more than a gold, on average.

I don't really see any need to boost mine yields.

I think you're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. The pre-8.6.16 values worked pretty well I thought.

 

[Kozzie]

i may not post much on this forums but i followe them closely since i started playing civ games (civ 4 and now civ 5)
what strikes me is the fact that all people here forget about 1 important thing
Specialists DO NOT get bonuses to their yield from +xy% buildings

merchants dont get +25% yield from markets
Engie does not get +10% from smithy and other similar buildings etc etc

Lets consider a simple example

8 mines vs 8 engie with a smithy (only 10% bonus )

8 worked mines with smithy = 24 Hammers * 1.1 = 26.4 hammers
adding engeneering/ dynamite
8 mines with smithy and tech advance = 8 x 4 = 32 *1.1 = 35 hammers
And
8 Engies = 24 hammers + 16 gpp -> only increase is possible from statue of liberty from what i remeber and you have to first build all those buildings

i did not consider such modificators like 20% wonder prod for egypt or tradition policy, nor did i include 25% prod for units from satraps court or 25% from glory of rome that can be gained

the overall income from specialists will not be higher than income from working tiles cosidering the bigger picture.

imo specialists are good now the way they are

i think i am right about these facts?

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
There's other problems... it also ties in to ICS (developed vs undeveloped), small discrete units of yields (0 vs 1)... that's beside the point though.

What I'm asking is just looking at those particular numbers (like 3 Engineer -vs- 41 Mine), what would you think?

@Kozzie
Each source of a yield works the same as other sources (in TBM at least... not sure about vanilla). In a city, hover over the yield values on the top-left side to see a tooltip showing each step of how this works:

1. Terrain, buildings, policies, and so on combine to form "base yield" value for each city.
2. This base yield then gets altered by modifiers, like from Markets.

 

[Zaldron]

I am confused as to why you are confused.

You didn't address it. You compared only the total yields with all the possible boosting factors, which is irrelevant for most of the game for most strategies.

Once again:
TBC Before: 3 GPP per specialist. A significant part of value from specialists comes from producing great people.
TBC After: 2 GPP per specialist, and higher base yields (eg: engineer went 2 hammers to 3 hammers). A small part of the value from specialists comes from producing great people, most of it comes directly from the yields.

Let me just comment here that (as far as I can understand) due to the way great people are created in Civ5, in most non-capital cities you'll have few enough specialists of any given type that they *never* produce a great person the entire game (possibly one if you're running enough of that type). Thus the GPP is effectively zero for that specialist and whatever you change the GPP to just won't matter. Certainly you can't make the argument that for a specialist or two in isolation the GPP was a significantly higher part of its value: The GPP were worth nothing before and after.

 

[Txurce]

1. Not trying to be offensive here at all but.... that is a big blow in terms of understanding how civ games tend to work. We learned a lot from Civ4 and modding Civ4, and it is very important to understand how Civ4 worked in order to see which things they changed for Civ5 and how and why.

2. The capital doesn't have enough production to build everything. Even if the capital had an absolute advantage in building everything, it would not have a comparitive advantage, because to a significant degree (especially for Wonders which cannot be gold-purchased) building thing X means that you can't also build thing Y. You can only work on one thing at once.
And for non-wonders, the fact that you might buy everything in the capital still doesn't mean that there is no scope for for specialization in your other cities. You certainly can't/won't build everything everywhere (and it is not optimal to do so).

3. Then I think you are not playing Civ5 optimally.
If you are building gold-boost buildings in a city that produces very little gold (eg your military production powerhouse), then you are wasting your hammers. If you are working lots of trading post tiles in a science city (rather than farms) then you aren't maximizing the effect of your science boosters.
If you're building gardens in cities that aren't GPP farms or wonder cities, you're probably wasting them.

4. But in general (building as much as possible everywhere) isn't feasible. And if you are working so many hammer tiles that you make it feasible, then there is a big economic cost to you in terms of gold and food tiles that you are not working.

1. No, it's a big blow in terms of my understanding how Civ 4 works, so whenever you or anyone else digresses in that direction, I tend not to comment. But since most discussions here (including this one) have to do with how to balance and improve the TBC version of Civ 5, and I'm playing Civ 5 successfully at a high level, I feel qualified to put in my two cents, and to have it be taken seriously by Thal (as he does).

2. I already said the capital can't build everything. What I want to build that it can't, I build someplace else. That's not specialization, since it never remotely reaches the point where a city is focused only on x, while another city is focused on y.

Your arguments about the poor value of, for example, building gold buildings in a military powerhouse are inherently flawed because they presume the very specialization that I don't employ. Again, if a city has nothing else to build, I will do something other than put it on "gold" or "research." And that is why I often wind up with a lot of different types of buildings in a lot of my cities. About the only times I don't do this is when the gain isn't worth the maintenance cost. And again, not doing this is not an example of specialization.

3. I have little doubt that you don't think I play Civ as optimally as you. Since you have never posted any of your game results here, I have no idea whether you're right or not.

4. It's obviously feasible for me, but I'm not hamstrung by a bias toward city specialization.

 

[Txurce]

Let me just comment here that (as far as I can understand) due to the way great people are created in Civ5, in most non-capital cities you'll have few enough specialists of any given type that they *never* produce a great person the entire game (possibly one if you're running enough of that type). Thus the GPP is effectively zero for that specialist and whatever you change the GPP to just won't matter. Certainly you can't make the argument that for a specialist or two in isolation the GPP was a significantly higher part of its value: The GPP were worth nothing before and after.

Talk about cutting to the heart of the matter... or one of the hearts, anyway. An excellent real-world point.

 

[Ahriman]

Specialists DO NOT get bonuses to their yield from +xy% buildings

Yes they do. +3 gold from a merchant is identical to +3 gold from working a tile.

What I'm asking is just looking at those particular numbers, what would you think?

I think that I don't see a need for mines to give +2 hammers, I think that you don't give enough information to answer because you don't list the GPP yields of the engineer, but I am guessing that you are still making the engineer too much about the production yield and not enough about the great engineer generation.

I prefer 2 hammer + 3 (or 4) GPP engineers with 3 hammer mines to 3 hammer mines with 2 (or 3) GPP engineers.

The question is not just about engineer vs mine in resource yields, it about engineer vs mine including the GPP yields.

In my ideal situation, approximately:
Engineer in city that is producing great engineers > mine > engineer in city that is not going to produce a great engineer.

With differences depending on hammer yield multipliers (make the mine more valuable) GPP modifiers (make the engineer more valuable) or river tiles (make the mine more valuable).

n most non-capital cities you'll have few enough specialists of any given type that they *never* produce a great person the entire game (possibly one if you're running enough of that type). Thus the GPP is effectively zero for that specialist and whatever you change the GPP to just won't matter.

I agree with your general point that for a city that never produces a great person, the GPP value is zero. But my argument is, if the GPP value is zero, then in most circumstances you should be worse off with the specialist than you would be with working the tile; you should want to use the specialist instead of the tile only if no such tile is available (eg there are no nearby hills to mine within your cultural borders).
I disagree that "most non-capital cities" will never produce a great person (well, it depends on "most" and depends on how wide your strategy is).
The fact that if you only have a single specialist you won't produce a GPP isn't an argument that says: boost the yields of the specialist. It is an argument that says: don't use specialists only one at a time, beyond the early game, or beyond special circumstances.

 

[Ahriman]

1. No, it's a big blow in terms of my understanding how Civ 4 works

I think it is more than that. But that is neither here nor there.

2. I already said the capital can't build everything. What I want to build that it can't, I build someplace else. That's not specialization, since it never remotely reaches the point where a city is focused only on x, while another city is focused on y.

Your arguments about the poor value of, for example, building gold buildings in a military powerhouse are inherently flawed because they presume the very specialization that I don't employ. Again, if a city has nothing else to build, I will do something other than put it on "gold" or "research." And that is why I often wind up with a lot of different types of buildings in a lot of my cities. About the only times I don't do this is when the gain isn't worth the maintenance cost. And again, not doing this is not an example of specialization.

Ok, you aren't using specialization. Fine, that isn't your preferred playstyle. That doesn't mean that specialization isn't useful.
I bet I will get higher yields with a group of specialized cities than you will with your generic cities.
If you are really managing to build every structure in every city, then I think you are playing suboptimally because you are focusing too much on hammer production and not enough on other yields. But that is just my opinion and my experience.

As in Civ4, you could play without any significant specialization if you wanted to, and you could still win on most difficulty levels. That doesn't mean that there weren't significant rewards for specialization.

My core point is: the simple fact that there are some advantages in the capital from the palace yields and some tradition policies does not mean that there is no scope for specialization.

 

[Txurce]

1. I think it is more than that. But that is neither here nor there.

2. Ok, you aren't using specialization. Fine, that isn't your preferred playstyle. That doesn't mean that specialization isn't useful.
I bet I will get higher yields with a group of specialized cities than you will with your generic cities.
If you are really managing to build every structure in every city, then I think you are playing suboptimally because you are focusing too much on hammer production and not enough on other yields. But that is just my opinion and my experience.

As in Civ4, you could play without any significant specialization if you wanted to, and you could still win on most difficulty levels. That doesn't mean that there weren't significant rewards for specialization.

1. It was "here" enough for you to bring it up, but I'm happy to give you both the first and last word.

2. Prove it.

 

[Seek]

I'm with Ahriman on this one. If we want a civ4-style specon, then I would argue boosting late game policies in Freedom. From my understanding of civ4, the specon wasn't viable until late game with a certain set of civics so why take such a different tack here? In addition to the arguments Ahriman has made, I'd also point out that RL "specons" didn't exist before the last couple hundred years at best (more like the last fifty years) making it immersion-breaking as well.

 

[Txurce]

1. I'm with Ahriman on this one. If we want a civ4-style specon, then I would argue boosting late game policies in Freedom. From my understanding of civ4, the specon wasn't viable until late game with a certain set of civics so why take such a different tack here?

2. In addition to the arguments Ahriman has made, I'd also point out that RL "specons" didn't exist before the last couple hundred years at best (more like the last fifty years) making it immersion-breaking as well.

1. Because this isn't Civ 4, and it offers an alternative?

2. This is technically true, but what we've been calling a "specon" for the last 24 hours could be redefined to fit the realities of earlier eras - especially in a game where so much is generalized, and dates in particular don't come close to matching up to historical ones.

 

[Seek]

1. Because this isn't Civ 4, and it offers an alternative?

There are infinite alternatives, but that does not that mean they are all something that should be done. The fun in specons with civ4 was the buildup and payoff of it, it was a goal to work toward that led to a viable playstyle and led to more variety between games. By simply making specialists better from the beginning doesn't seem as fun to me.

2. This is technically true, but what we've been calling a "specon" for the last 24 hours could be redefined to fit the realities of earlier eras - especially in a game where so much is generalized, and dates in particular don't come close to matching up to historical ones.

Yes, but it should be a serious consideration imo.

 

[Kozzie]

@Ahriman
There's other problems... it also ties in to ICS (developed vs undeveloped), small discrete units of yields (0 vs 1)... that's beside the point though.

What I'm asking is just looking at those particular numbers (like 3 Engineer -vs- 41 Mine), what would you think?

@Kozzie
Each source of a yield works the same as other sources (in TBM at least... not sure about vanilla). In a city, hover over the yield values on the top-left side to see a tooltip showing each step of how this works:

1. Terrain, buildings, policies, and so on combine to form "base yield" value for each city.
2. This base yield then gets altered by modifiers, like from Markets.

hmm maybe i was doing something wrong but from my tests the specialists yield is not modded

here's how i did it (i accept i can be wrong but i rather where i make mistakes)
i got a city Istanbul
giving me 55 Science with 3 sci specialist and 14 population
my dispaly says
12 from buildings
12 from specialists
21 from population


37 base - with 50% modifier displayed i get 55 sci total from that city

now i remove those 3 scientists and i get:
42 science produced
and 28 is displayed as base
so the diffrences are 13 sci total and 11 base sci points
if the 50% modifier would work the decrease in science after removing the scientits should be way higher
thats why i conclude that the modifiers do not apply to specialists
(i am not using any other mod altering game rules in a way similar to your mod)

but reading this discussion makes me feel that im missing a game mechanic or display bug?

 

[Txurce]

There are infinite alternatives, but that does not that mean they are all something that should be done. The fun in specons with civ4 was the buildup and payoff of it, it was a goal to work toward that led to a viable playstyle and led to more variety between games. By simply making specialists better from the beginning doesn't seem as fun to me.



Yes, but it should be a serious consideration imo.

Agreed on the last point, and on the opening one. But since we're not playing Civ 4, I'd just say that the question isn't whether the TBM approach is "as fun" - just simply fun and offering more choice. It's delivered on both so far, and I don't think the last changes will create a noticeably worse game-playing experience.

 

[Thalassicus]

The great thing about discussions like this is it helps me figure out better ways to explain things.

I think of city specialization as this:

• One city has a huge amount of , and National Wonders that support production
• Another city has tons of and supporting NWs
• A third city has lots of and supporting NWs
• All other cities have a lower mix of the three, leaning towards one depending on circumstances.

We had to do this in Civ 4 for the simple fact we were limited to two NWs per city. In Civ 5 this limit isn't there. We can concentrate huge amounts of food in our capital, grow it to a massive population, and drop NWs there for a super mega-city.

• Map generation places most capitals near good terrain with extra resource bonuses.
• The the Palace increases these bonuses further, and cannot be moved.
• With Legalism the capital provides half unhappiness.

As a result of all the bonuses the Capital gets, it's hard for any other city to justify getting a or National Wonder. I do have a production-focused military city in my conquest games. Other than that, NWs simply give more yield in the capital than any other city. Shifting national wonders from % to flat yields would improve the option to specialize cities, but also reduce the power of tall empires, so that's a debatable tradeoff I'm okay with either way.

Let me just comment here that (as far as I can understand) due to the way great people are created in Civ5, in most non-capital cities you'll have few enough specialists of any given type that they *never* produce a great person the entire game (possibly one if you're running enough of that type). Thus the GPP is effectively zero for that specialist and whatever you change the GPP to just won't matter. Certainly you can't make the argument that for a specialist or two in isolation the GPP was a significantly higher part of its value: The GPP were worth nothing before and after.

This is what I've been getting at too. Most specialists have no GPP value, which is one reason why a specon is not viable in vanilla.

Here's how I think of economies:

Gold Economy

• Specialists contribute significantly to 0-2 cities
• Villages have priority
• Farms only when necessary
• Commerce tree filled

Production Economy

• Specialists contribute significantly to 0-2 cities
• Mines and mills have priority
• Farms only when necessary
• Skips villages and Commerce

Specialist Economy

• Specialists contribute in some way to every city
• Farms have priority
• Mines/mills only when necessary
• Picks out specialist policies from each tree

I'd like all three of these choices to be about equally interesting and useful, in different circumstances, depending on playstyle and terrain. A gold economy is definitely best for conquest games. I'm not sure about the other two, since I don't play tall or peaceful-expansionist games often.

In economy #3 the priority is food, so after Civil Service I'd put the order as something like...

1. 41 River grassland
2. 311 River plains
3. 31 Coast
4. Specialists contributing to great people
5. 3 Dry grassland
6. 21 Dry plains | 22 Jungle
7. Specialists who will never make a great person
8. Forest, hills, river tundra
9. Desert, snow, dry tundra

#4 might move up or down depending on circumstances. The main difference between a tile and specialist economy is that in a tile economy, #7 and #8 are reversed (specialists are useless in most cities). If you do not want my interpretation a specialist economy to be viable, it's easy to customize the mod to suit your personal preferences, or even create a modmod. Most of the stuff is in this file:

TBM - Thals Balance Mod\City Development\BCD - Specialists and GP.xml