Stability proposals

[blizzrd]

my suggestion is this:

Instead of giving (minor) stability bonus here and there, the expansion civic should be more decisive and more influential in how stability is calculated:

Good suggestion zuraffo.

I have always wondered why the explanation of the expansion civics in the F2 screen can give detail such as "+4 stability points for each vassal", yet no other stability modifier has this level of detail.

What does a stability point actually mean?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Just a thought: the only 5 star civics I had was in the middle ages (with HR/vassalage/bureaucracy/theocracy with a single religion/Slavery). Every other time I only get 3 stars, at best 4 stars with lots of vassals and viceroyalty. How about, with the appropriate number of cities and religions, a stability boost for getting to at least 4 stars with:

Renaissance:
HR or Representation
Bureaucracy
mercantilism
OR or Pacifism but NOT theocracy
Caste system or serfdom but NOT slavery

Industrial:
representation
emancipation
NOT theocracy or paganism
free speech or bureaucracy
free economy (Adam Smith)
commonwealth

Modern:
EITHER the Western liberal ideal society:
US/Free religion/free speech/free economy or environmentalism/emancipation

OR the fascist/communist state:
Police state/communism/nationhood/NOT free speech/mercantilism or environmentalism

 

[chococid]

Universal Suffrage + State Property actually works well, given the Marxist ideology that everyone is equal. The Police State + Nationalism combination should probably be thought of separately.
I don't think it's wise to conflate the ideology of Marx with the dictatorial implementation of Stalin, Mao, etc.

 

[chococid]

Doubleposted.

 

[wolfigor]

Frankly, the two worst parts of the stability system are:
- All the information being hidden
- The massive anarchy penalties

...Actually, I'll go ahead and say that my biggest problem with stability from a gameplay perspective is that it tends to penalize things that were already being penalized.
Overexpansion is penalized by way of killing your finances
[...snip...]
"your empire is descending into civil war!" just because they did a better job of things than real-world India.
[...snip...]
So I simply ask for the actual values to be made more transparent instead of hidden away and making the game less user-friendly because people just flip to wikis and sourcedive instead of just clicking the civilopedia or highlighting and seeing "jail: +2 {stability icon}" or having the anarchy window show "1 turn of anarchy, -15 {stability icon}".
Even simply putting the icon to show that it affects stability in SOME way without having a number would be useful.

Good post.
I agree on some points and not on others.
I take you post as a starting point for my own ideas.

In first, transparency of stability parameters.
The fact is that stability is not just a simple equation of a couple of parameters, it's many variables interacting with each other.
I don't think we should treat is showing in-game every single point... even if that is making life hell for all those players that do not read this forum or the wiki.

I agree that the penalty for expansion is painful ...
However it reflects the problems of managing large empires without the necessaries social structures or techs.
For example to create a pan european empire in ancient or middle age time will lead to huge instability: this is very historical.
The roman empire was plagued by civil wars and ended up split in two pieces.
The frankish empire was broken into 3 parts immediately after the dead of Charles.
There are many other examples... expanding your state outside your core area should lead to stability penalties.
Later on in the game you do have some techs that will help you.

One important point is that the stability cost of changing civic is too punishing, so it gets really difficoult to leverage all your options.
Maybe changing Expansion civic should be "free of charge".
And maybe making them a bit more strong in their effect.

 

[Dabur]

Having played BTS quite a bit, I got the impression that stability of AI civs in BTS is worse then in Warlords (I've never seen Enland in Warlords collapsing with no visible reason, while I see it in BTS). Maybe it has something to do with flaws of BTS AI worker code, combined with the fact that the AI is less cottage-happy? (and often replaces cottages with other improvements).


Here's the state of collapsed England. Note the absence of cottages. (The workshop south of London was a cottage some turns ago - the BTS AI workers are suffering from indesisiveness, noted in the thread of Bhruic's patch discussion: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246057&page=47

Hi ,

often the Ai adapts to what it needs , it could very well be they just wanted extra hamers , .... ? it could be they aim for a specific building and replace the cottages afterwards with an other building , .... in some cities and during some times the AI builds those cottages even over resources , mainly in china and spain , .....

Have a nice day

 

[Lone Wolf]

often the Ai adapts to what it needs , it could very well be they just wanted extra hamers , .... ? it could be they aim for a specific building and replace the cottages afterwards with an other building ,

Pulling down hamlets, then building workshops, then building cottages which take a long time to mature back to hamlets is not "adaptive". I've not seen a good human player who does that stuff.

 

[Dabur]

Pulling down hamlets, then building workshops, then building cottages which take a long time to mature back to hamlets is not "adaptive". I've not seen a good human player who does that stuff.

Hi ,

hey AI logic goes a long way , ....

see what happens when a civ restarts , a hundred years before they build a watermill , after that it became a hamlet when they restart , in fact over 75 % of what was build earlier by them was well lets say ' recontracted ' to a different contractor who had lost the plans it seems

see what the AI does after a piece of land goes to it thanks to culture , 9 out of 10 they will change the improvement


Have a nice day

 

[Lone Wolf]

Dabur, please stop writing "Hi,...Have a nice day" in every post, it's annoying.

 

[Virdrago]

But I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I read it...

 

[jessiecat]

But I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I read it...

I thought only Yanks talked like that anymore. Anyway you're a Canuck, just
like me. Pull yourself together man. (slap, slap) Get a grip. Jeeez!

 

[Virdrago]

Sorry... I'm better now.

 

[Dabur]

And yet some would swear that Germany is all-powerful in their games...at least I know I'm not hallucinating.
I don't know what's wrong with them, their civics look OK to me, but maybe it's the culture from the Dutch (but even in my Spanish/Dutch squat game when my Utrecht had no culture to start, they were STILL unstable/collapsing).

goodmorning,


hmmm , well the french and russian also , just played a game inwhere in no less then six turns half of germany was carved up between them , next round what was left belonged to two native civs , maybe they will pull themselfs out of the ashes again , ....

but is everyone seeing a weak germany now

have a wonderfull day



ps ; thanks Virdrago

 

[Lone Wolf]

The times I played with 3000BC start, Germany is usually quite strong. The fact that Roman Vindobona (Wien) flipped to them played a part here, as well that I have modified the Stabilty.py to make Germany's stability less negatively affected by opponents' culture.

 

[Dabur]

The times I played with 3000BC start, Germany is usually quite strong. The fact that Roman Vindobona (Wien) flipped to them played a part here, as well that I have modified the Stabilty.py to make Germany's stability less negatively affected by opponents' culture.

hmmm , sounds nice

okay anything that can make them focus on getting more culture true for example building certain buildings ?


on one game ever they actuallly went to Jerusalem and got all to the spanish border , and surprise surprise , christian temples everywhere , however five turns later the human player gets victory

same again

 

[mushyman]

On the subject of Germany, there is a really stark contrast in its performance between the 3000BC and 600AD starts. I almost always play from 3000BC and Germany is usually a high-score superpower well into the industrial age at least, although admittedly often hovering around shaky/unstable. For example, in my French spaceship win I have just completed Germany were within the top 5 for pretty much the entire game and sufficiently stable for the most part, despite building Hamburg.

On the few 600AD starts I've tried recently I've been shocked at the stability hit to Germany from the Dutch spawn. It just doesn't seem to happen in the 3000BC start.

 

[blizzrd]

Dabur, please stop writing "Hi,...Have a nice day" in every post, it's annoying.

hmmm , sounds nice

okay anything that can make them focus on getting more culture true for example building certain buildings ?


on one game ever they actuallly went to Jerusalem and got all to the spanish border , and surprise surprise , christian temples everywhere , however five turns later the human player gets victory

same again

goodmorning,

have a wonderfull day

Dabur, are you blind, obstinate, ignorant or all of the above?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Dabur, are you blind, obstinate, ignorant or all of the above?

No, he's not - I gave him permission to write what he wants in a Private Message.

 

[blizzrd]

On the subject of Germany, there is a really stark contrast in its performance between the 3000BC and 600AD starts.

I've noticed the same thing too. I think the extra stability may often be attributed to Germany flipping usually flipping a Roman city around the area of Vienna.

But I can't really explain why Germany's stability is usually so poor in the 600AD start.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I'm not trying to bump this thread, but it didn't warrant a new thread IMHO.

I think golden ages are too weak in the current version as a stability buffer (plus the fact you can't switch civics without anarchy penalties which cancel out the GA stability bonus). I usually have to prepare way ahead for the end of the golden age due to the marked downturn in economy right after it, by building culture/science/military during the beginning of the GA and economy buildings timed to finish just after the GA, which isn't the most optimal. Invariably I go down 1 stability category after a GA, which hurts a lot, and most of it is due to the economy downturn. (I even had to sacrifice 2 great people to get another GA to go back to stable). Obviously, if you stick to the UHV you won't have any problems, but for domination games it sucks a lot.

Can we lessen the economic penalties for golden ages?