Stalker0's State of the Mod - 1/11/2022

[Stalker0]

Is there a way to make tourism more impactful, without making culture more important? It won't be easy, because those are very tied up.

to a degree you are right. But i think there is a difference between “have x culture or your opponent gets a bonus” and “have x culture or suffer a large penalty to science”

 

[pineappledan]

I agree that CV is too fast and easy right now.
If tourism numbers are going to be made lower overall to slow down cultural influence progress, I see nothing wrong with tying a larger secondary reward to influence. That just sounds fair to me.

 

[Hinin]

I think the current problem with CV is a contextual problem. It has been here for too long, I agree, but at its core it's a matter of numbers and tweaking, not design (at least we don't put enough efforts into correcting this problem to begin to say that it is a design problem).

On the other hand, giving tourism more utility outside of CVictory seems great to me. I have three elements in mind in particular :

• Augment granularity (1 or 2 more steps in the influence scale, allowing for a more progressive bonuses)
• Increase variety (what pineappledan proposed seems a step in the good direction)
• Make it so you can gain value from tourism in a city (thus, having ways to make cities with a lot of tourism concentrated worth more, since they are the "most stunning cities", as said in ingame reports) => one problem with that idea is that tall tourism is already easier than wide tourism, so this is a point that has to be discussed

 

[pineappledan]

Make it so you can gain value from tourism in a city (thus, having ways to make cities with a lot of tourism concentrated worth more, since they are the "most stunning cities", as said in ingame reports) => one problem with that idea is that tall tourism is already easier than wide tourism, so this is a point that has to be discussed

One of the things pointed out by @Gazebo last time this came up was that Trade Routes and Spies don't scale with empire size, which makes them better places to put secondary influence bonuses if you don't want highly variable tourism play over different map sizes, etc.

 

[smorgasborgas]

What about reducing warmonger penalties faster with civs you have high tourism with?

For example, Italy has high tourism and we barely think of it as an Axis power anymore. Whereas Mongolia hasn't been warlike for like 800 years, but I still think of it as a 'warmonger' since tourism is low.

 

[Rekk]

Is there a way to make tourism more impactful, without making culture more important? It won't be easy, because those are very tied up.

You can make tourism defend against tourism by basing effects off of tourism/influence differential.

This is what ideological pressure works off of.

 

[Recursive]

What about reducing warmonger penalties faster with civs you have high tourism with?

For example, Italy has high tourism and we barely think of it as an Axis power anymore. Whereas Mongolia hasn't been warlike for like 800 years, but I still think of it as a 'warmonger' since tourism is low.

The AI has a special check in place to apply a threat level of Severe or Critical if you've conquered enough, even if your penalty score is low or zero. Also this would make the AI play dumber; not a fan.

 

[CppMaster]

The AI has a special check in place to apply a threat level of Severe or Critical if you've conquered enough, even if your penalty score is low or zero. Also this would make the AI play dumber; not a fan.

Yeah, also, it would only work vs AI. It wouldn't matter at all in multiplayer games.

 

[Recursive]

Yeah, also, it would only work vs AI. It wouldn't matter at all in multiplayer games.

Anti-warmonger fervor still applies in multiplayer.

 

[CppMaster]

Oh, ok. I though he meant penalty to opinion.

 

[Grassland Farm]

On the topic of spies I'm also very confused how in most of my games, all rival cities have maxxed out Security for almost all of the game, even when I'm behind. Then sometimes all a sudden I see a handful of rival cities where Security is reasonably low, and I can snatch a few levels off my spies.

I think it might be that these Security values are because too many Spy Events occur and thus security maxxes out almost everywhere and doesn't have time to fall back down until a new batch of Spies arrive.

 

[Recursive]

Oh, ok. I though he meant penalty to opinion.

They're both based on the same value (GetOtherPlayerWarmongerAmount).

 

[Basilius]

Casual VP player here with my 2 cents:

• I preferred the old spy system.
• I play with victory conditions off as VP does a good job at conferring benefits to whatever playstyle you like to dominate others, which is what geopolitics is all about. Going for a victory type is often a formality anyways.
• In this vein, the only boring spot for me late game is when there are no more buildings to make and a city just sits on a process. The biggest choices left are in unit management (at its best late game anyways).
• I sometimes play with random victory if I want to have a late game scramble, and suggest others try it.

 

[wabab]

One thing I've definitely noticed is that the AI almost never suffers from unhappiness.

In my current game, I've used great generals (with Lebensbraum) to steal a bunch of Siam's territory, completely cutting off some of their cities. I then went and sanctioned them in the WC for good measure. I installed spies in them to see if they were hurting, and nope—even with a only a few tiles in a 24 population city, they're chugging along completely fine.

So, a few suggestions:

1. I would say that happiness needs to be an issue for the AI, but thinking about it, why is happiness even an "issue"? Having high happiness, middling happiness, low happiness—all of it is just a gameplay mechanic that should have play styles available to deal with. For instance, middling happiness empire but decent military strength: garrisoned units could act like inquisitors do "purge" the unhappiness. With low happiness but high military strength: a city rebels but you quash the rebellion, that city should be "made happy" for a decent number of turns afterwards. Further, putting down a rebellion should give additional benefits that help that play style. On the flip side, if you're playing diplomacy or culture and don't have the military strength, there should be different tools available. Public Works is in the right direction, but that's something that could be expanded on: different types of Public Works that give certain benefits when completed, or that are based on cultural/scientific output. Alternatively, if you have high income, "buying" happiness could be another option (and there is some real world precedent for this—oil-rich countries have been doing this for a while).

2. Tourism needs not really an overall or rework, but an expansion of its mechanics. It's weird because it feels like a raw resource (similar to gold, faith, culture, science, etc.), but the player never really gets to distribute it or "spend" it. I still advocate for a way to peacefully conquer or flip cities (I know this is technically possible but I've never seen it in game), and tourism seems like a good candidate to implement this. This doesn't have to be the only use for it, but it's just an example of how a military/expansionist focused civ can use this resource as a new tool instead of units/settlers. Diplomacy focused civs could use tourism to negotiate better deals with the AI or have their WC proposals be more liked by other civs.

3. Warfare is weird in Civ 5, you start with a very low military supply cap and early battles are usually the most fun. At some point though, the sheer amount of units makes war a boring task of chipping away at enough enemy units while not particularly caring about positioning or tactical placement. While a lowered supply cap is part of this solution, having artillery units (or range units as well) deal splash damage by default would help. I'd also consider having later game ranged units be capable of an overwatch mechanic, similar to air units ability to intercept. In any event, units seem to die too quickly to earn enough promotions to be valuable, or have too many promotions and be unstoppable. Some type of forced retreat ability, or an ability that Naval warfare and city sieges always felt strange, because you can usually capture cities but are defenseless at holding them. An unintended effect of this is that it's a great way to raze cities—every time you capture a city, you can move your melee naval unit out, have the city be recaptured (lowering its population), then recapture it again (further lowering the population), etc. until you can raze it in a turn or two. Either naval units and land units need to be merged somehow or allow them to switch between different unit types.

 

[Closed Sky]

One thing I've definitely noticed is that the AI almost never suffers from unhappiness.

Not true. It suffers, sometimes heavy, it's visible in tourism screen, and can be influenced by the player denying them trade and by ideologies. I've seen twenty cities Carthage suffering from chronic unhappiness or France flipping ideologies recently. Warmongers pay very good for resources when unhappy. Not sure how difficulty affects that.

Tourism needs not really an overall or rework, but an expansion of its mechanics

I agree. I don't pretend I know what to do with it though.

I agree totally with point three. I would add no peace treaty two turns after city capture mechanic to this. It creates those idiotic recaptures if even one city AI still have navy that reduce cities to one pop, no buildings and is making wars endless. But last time it was changed it was Gazebo territory so we will need to wait. I think making cities able to be taken by land melee only instantly cures both OP melee warships promotions, without a need to change them, and these recaptures. It requires more finesse from players performing naval invasions which is good. You can cripple a city economically if it works many coastal tiles but not cheese it anymore. Simple solutions to real problems VP have aren't popular though (plethora of longstanding issues people report every month, naval city sieges included, and all what was done was -1 gold to stars and sky completely ignoring it is instant +5 culture in capital on turn 20 on average) so probably it won't gain momentum saddly.

 

[CppMaster]

I think making cities able to be taken by land melee only instantly cures both OP melee warships promotions, without a need to change them, and these recaptures. It requires more finesse from players performing naval invasions which is good. You can cripple a city economically if it works many coastal tiles but not cheese it anymore. Simple solutions to real problems VP have aren't popular though (plethora of longstanding issues people report every month, naval city sieges included, and all what was done was -1 gold to stars and sky completely ignoring it is instant +5 culture in capital on turn 20 on average) so probably it won't gain momentum saddly.

That's a terrible idea. That would make island cities much harder to take and it'd be impossible to take a city surrounded with only mountains and a coast. The latter is very rare, though.

 

[wabab]

That's a terrible idea. That would make island cities much harder to take and it'd be impossible to take a city surrounded with only mountains and a coast. The latter is very rare, though.

You could still take them, have a land unit along with the naval melee. Of course, some civs could make this super tedious and buy units while sieging down the city.

I'd go the opposite route, instead (either all, one, or any combination of these):

-Military unit(s) spawn when capturing a city via naval unit
-If a naval unit takes a city, it can ranged strike
-Cities heal 75% to 100% of their health upon naval capture
-Cities gain vastly increased defense for several turns upon naval capture

Personally, I think the first option isn't as OP as it sounds; coastal cities have higher health, higher defense, and can have two units garrisoned. They're also more difficult to blockade and have a brutal ranged strike against embarked land units. I realize there are reasons for this, but it only takes one coastal tile to provide these benefits. Given the high cost of taking these cities via land or naval units, and having a unit (or several) spawn on naval capture not only makes it worth having a navy to capture cities, but also increase the risks for having one (coastal cities do have access to more buildings and resources, not to mention trade routes).

 

[Closed Sky]

That's a terrible idea. That would make island cities much harder to take and it'd be impossible to take a city surrounded with only mountains and a coast. The latter is very rare, though.

That can be included in not understanding the game I mentioned. Land units can embark... You can even stack under naval units but no multiple land units. I'm not sure if you know, so I will to be sure Civ 5 is explained: melee can attack land from embarked while ranged not.

 

[JLazeZ]

I have a feeling they misread your post in the same way I did.

I think making cities able to be taken by land melee only instantly cures both OP melee warships promotions

This could be interpreted as melee units on land only. A clearer way to say it would be "melee land units" so there's no confusion.

 

[Closed Sky]

Fair enough but that would make no sense as one island city are common.