State of the Union

Much easier solution is to decrease tourism from events.
Just throwing out an idea, could you remove the 2nd historic event if you build a wonder that grants a free great person? I think this already happens with artists and golden ages (you get one for the artist, but not the golden age)
 
Just throwing out an idea, could you remove the 2nd historic event if you build a wonder that grants a free great person? I think this already happens with artists and golden ages (you get one for the artist, but not the golden age)

Hardcoding gets odd that way. Also most of the wonders that have free GPs are on the weaker end of the spectrum, thus this hurts them quite a bit.
 
Hardcoding gets odd that way. Also most of the wonders that have free GPs are on the weaker end of the spectrum, thus this hurts them quite a bit.
Are Himeji and Leaning Tower really considered weaker? With leaning tower I usually pick an engineer and build another wonder. Couldn't you just hardcode Himeji not to fire the event, but the great person would? (might be a dumb question)
 
Are Himeji and Leaning Tower really considered weaker? With leaning tower I usually pick an engineer and build another wonder. Couldn't you just hardcode Himeji not to fire the event, but the great person would? (might be a dumb question)
I don't like hardcoding effects like that.
 
I don't like hardcoding effects like that.
That is understandable.

The thing is right now, if a wonder which provides a great person is available, great engineers are effectively worth a lot more burst tourism than musicians are.
 
How much would we need to decrease tourism from events to bring culture in line with other VCs? I'm just worried that we would need to remove event tourism all together in order to balance it out. (Or make it so small it doesn't matter or feel fun.)

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't play for culture often. I just know that culture wins happen can super fast with almost no commitment whatsoever. (Case in point, winning via culture accidentally today when 1 civ away from domination and having done NOTHING tourism related all game.)
 
The key factor is size, because that's exactly what you don't associate with a CV. HE's come with size, so they're the likely culprit. But why now, and not last patch? Gazebo, did something change that would affect the performance of metastasizing civs?
 
The key factor is size, because that's exactly what you don't associate with a CV. HE's come with size, so they're the likely culprit. But why now, and not last patch? Gazebo, did something change that would affect the performance of metastasizing civs?
The key factor has always been size. It's strictly your tourism versus their culture. Sure there's a tourism modifier for having less cities, but honestly I think the fact that a large civ can produce many times more than a small civ still gives them a huge lead.

My ending totals for my Deity game were 11k science and culture per turn. I don't care how much Tourism you get, you're not beating 11k culture per turn.

Mind you that was with 50 cities in modern era, but it wasn't that much smaller competitively to what's expected since I finished off my 2nd opponent.

Killing civs mean you get access to not only a bunch of free great works, but also more historic events. Historic events which are partially based on total culture output, favoring big civs AFAIK. Though I'm not sure if Historic events get modified by things like open borders and 'less cities.'

I don't however think the problem is really with wide civs. I've won culture with Arabia and France recently before modern era, both times with 5 cities. I think culture wins too early with too little interaction/ability to stop it and too little commitment.
 
What if historic events weren't
Enabled until a certain era? We could also change the way it calculates tourism to be disassociated with culture. The problem to me seems that civs with big culture and little tourism can still generate a lot of tourism.
 
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The change was to consider culture+tourism in the last 10-15 turns for historical events. (I've noticed my first GP born only yielded 2 tourism as HE. Maybe the tourism from last HE is accounted for next HE, so a little investment in tourism could grow exponentially if several events occur in a few turns. I wasn't able to last so many turns to notice how strong is HE in middle game.

There were several proposals, from 'simply reduce total tourism' to 'make tourism downscale with number of cities/capitals'.
 
Perhaps it could just be a flat bonus? So in ancient era it gives 25 tourism, classical 50, and so on. Maybe every historic event adds 1% tourism to future events to make a historic event strategy possible. Idk if people would like the flat bonus though.
 
The key factor has always been size. It's strictly your tourism versus their culture. Sure there's a tourism modifier for having less cities, but honestly I think the fact that a large civ can produce many times more than a small civ still gives them a huge lead.

My ending totals for my Deity game were 11k science and culture per turn. I don't care how much Tourism you get, you're not beating 11k culture per turn.

Mind you that was with 50 cities in modern era, but it wasn't that much smaller competitively to what's expected since I finished off my 2nd opponent.

Killing civs mean you get access to not only a bunch of free great works, but also more historic events. Historic events which are partially based on total culture output, favoring big civs AFAIK. Though I'm not sure if Historic events get modified by things like open borders and 'less cities.'

I don't however think the problem is really with wide civs. I've won culture with Arabia and France recently before modern era, both times with 5 cities. I think culture wins too early with too little interaction/ability to stop it and too little commitment.

That's pretty much what I said. In Continents game now there are consistent runaways, and they are winning earlier than ever due to HEs. But the tipping point was reached in this patch, so Gazebo may have a sense as to what's going on.
 
Historic Events aren't the cause of runaways - there are runaways because the AI is, frankly, really really good at capitalizing on weakness now. If one AI makes a mistake or falls behind, they're very likely to be eaten now. And better diplomacy means the runaway is doing a better job of managing its friends/enemies. So, all in all, the AI is performing exactly as I want it, however it is now running up against the core problem of the Civ series as a whole: conquest and land ownership are king. Big conquerors are going to win, always. That's just the nature of civ.
 
Historic Events aren't the cause of runaways - there are runaways because the AI is, frankly, really really good at capitalizing on weakness now.

I was saying that runaways are the cause of HE's, and the HE's contribute to early CV's. That said, your main point is worrisome, because a lot of players like to play smaller, more peaceful games. Shouldn't the game be balanced away from a single dominant approach?
 
I agree with G's view. Runaways are only natural. In my opinion, the only thing that requires debate is how everyone else performs with such a big force in the world.
 
Here is how I see runaways:

1. They are not going to win by domination.
2. They can be stopped trying for a DV.
3. You have a shot at beating them to thr spaceship.
4. You don't have much of a chance at stopping them culturally, unless you go for a CV yourself (and are excellent at it).

So what I think is needed is a nerf to culture for large civs.
 
Just some thoughts on cultural victories

-trade routes aren't worth enough tourism to be relevant, compared to historical events. My last culture win I never completed a trade route to the last civ
-Historical events are worth enough tourism to pursue a historical event solely for the tourism. If I'm close to winning via culture I'll just build wonders I don't care about to get the tourism
-Engineers are by far the most important great person. Engineering a wonder, especially if it provides an additional great person, is worth is far more tourism than a great work or concert tour. As a result world science intitiave giving -33% to writers/artists musicans doesn't actually hurt a cultural win, I suspect that it might even be faster than getting the arts funding or whatever its called. Also science initiative is usually popular with almost every AI, arts funding is often unpopular with all.
 
My problem is that culture victories happen too quickly and with no commitment whatsoever. You can't get a DP victory without competing for the competitive WC. You can't win Domination without going through all your opponents. You cant win science without preventing every other victory, as it takes the longest.

Culture is something that just happens more often than not when you get strong. It's almost absurd with how easy it is to do without trying whatsoever.

Last game I would have needed to go significantly out of my way to AVOID a culture victory.

There needs to be some requirement to win culture victories that comes later than industrial era. You can't win science before late information, and diplo only a bit sooner. I also don't think anyone has an issue with domination.

How about adding this requirement:
"One of the following:
Following the world religion.
Completed Utopia Project. (Unlocked at Internet, similar to Apollo program.)
Dominant with 75% of civs rounded up."

This gives Culture a number of ways to win without making WC too important, but also delays the victory in a fairly elegant way that's not too dependent on any other VC.
 
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