Stability Guide v1.12

[Shadow Merc]

In regards to stability, I know that not everything is currently labeled in the columns when you're looking at +/-. For example, I think you get +1 in foreign for every open border, but that's not listed as a positive/negative in the column so a new player would have no idea why they're getting a bonus. I think Economy has some unnamed bonuses as well, but I haven't figured out what those are.

 

[FinalLegendZero]

A couple of things I have questions on.

1. In the Foreign category, I often have a penalty labeled "Bad Relations". What exactly is the cause of this? As far as I can tell, I'm doing everything right (open borders with over half civs within contact, higher ranking and/or not worst enemy of other civs, no collapsing neighbors, etc.)

2. According to this guide, a stagnant economy leads to the Economy category to drift towards 0. But in my games, a stagnant economy creates a -5 penalty. Is this a bug, or is the guide wrong?

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

''Has it grown by more than 5%, the score increases, has it shrunk by more than 5%, it decreases. Otherwise the score slowly moves towards 0 again.''
and unless you are running environmentalism, economic stagnation hurts your stability

 

[FinalLegendZero]

Yet the line that you quoted states that stagnation only moves it back towards 0, not penalize it further.

 

[Leoreth]

Sorry, that part of the guide is out of date. Economic, happiness and war success stability now all work on the "trend score" principle. That is, in all of these categories a trend for the last ten checks (30 turns on normal) is stored as either positive, neutral or negative.

What constitutes any of these categories depends on the stability type but for the economic category positive is more than 5% growth and negative is any negative rate, everything else is neutral.

The positive, negative and neutral entries are counted and the resulting score is calculated as follows:
- if positive > negative: score = positive - negative - (neutral / 2)
- if negative > positive: score = positive - negative + (neutral / 2)

Both of these are capped at 0, resulting in a score between -10 and +10.

 

[FinalLegendZero]

Ah, okay. What would happen if the number of positive entries and negative entries are equal then?

Also, is the Foreign guide out of date now?

 

[Leoreth]

Nothing, your score is 0.

As for the foreign stability, I think so, I should probably get around to update this at some point.

 

[Stazro]

Do the same rules apply to the player and the AI? Does the difficulty level influence the AI civs stability? I'm wondering because of something I experienced in a recent game.

Tired of failing tech or tech related UHV goals I went down to Heir difficulty (don't judge ). I started a 1700 AD scenario Marathon game as Prussia and with time I noticed overall terrible stability - I think by around 1860 more civs have collapsed than not (England, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Moors, Ottomans, Sweden, China, Korea, Mughals, Congo, Colombia iirc; personally I can take credit only for France, NL and Italy)!

Perhaps it's just coincidence, but it did seem noteworthy. I'm aware the mod isn't balanced for Marathon speed, but I've played plenty of Marathon games without witnessing this phenomenon, so I doubt it's the reason.

Edit: Oh, it's not a 1.12 game, but with a recent svn update.

 

[Leoreth]

Most rules are the same, but a few special rules apply to the human player alone. Off the top of my head, that is:
- only humans receive a penalty for razing cities
- declarations of war by humans can never trigger a collapse
- vassalization to the human player doesn't trigger a stability check

Unlike in Rhye's mechanic, difficulty has no impact on the stability mechanic at all, at least directly. Some factors like happiness however do depend on the difficulty so it might have an indirect effect.

 

[Publicola]

A question regarding religious stability: it appears from the first posts that the 'heathen' penalty still applies when you do not have a state religion. Does that still hold if you're running the pantheon civic?

I started a game as China, and popped a religious tech from a goody hut. However, my plan was to run Pantheon to build the classical wonders, so I declined to make it my state religion. Since I only have the one city so far, that makes my 'heathen' ratio 100%, so I'm penalized -7 immediately. Given it's so early in the game, I don't have any other bonuses to offset it, so this pushed me to the verge of a 'moderate domestic crisis.'

I haven't played enough turns on 1.12 to know how well the religious stability modifiers work in the mid- and late-game, but my experience so far hasn't been good. It's still the early game, but then, to have such severe penalties incurred automatically so early in the game strikes me as problematic. Anyone else experienced this?

 

[Visard]

In the original BtS it was not possible to pop technologies that would found a religion.
Implementing this rule again would solve this kind of problem.
Also preventing Astronomy pops from goody huts could be good idea.

Here is a list of available technologies from goody huts in BtS:
mysticism
priesthood
monarchy
literature
drama
music
fishing
the wheel
agriculture
pottery
aesthetics
sailing
writing
mathematics
calendar
currency
astronomy
hunting
mining
archery
masonry
animal husbandry
bronze working
horseback riding
iron working
metal casting
compass
construction

 

[Chep]

I think finding techs in goody huts should either be completely removed OR be limited to Ancient (maybe Classical) ones, they are just too huge of a random factor, imho (and encourage save-loading which is annoying for everyone^^).

Instead those civs that could usually pop goody huts could start with a little more gold for example as a compensation.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm kind of unhappy with the general idea of "tech founds religion" as a whole, actually.

 

[Novicenoble]

Do you prefer condition or quest based one?

 

[Leoreth]

I honestly have no idea how to replace this rule, which is why I have left it as is so far.

 

[Novicenoble]

I like current Buddhism method, but still that cannot be applied to every Religions in the game

 

[ales_]

I honestly have no idea how to replace this rule, which is why I have left it as is so far.

Have you seen History Rewritten's method?

 

[citis]

Why should it change?

 

[Leoreth]

Have you seen History Rewritten's method?

It requires a GP doesn't it?

 

[ales_]

It requires a GP doesn't it?

Indeed.