State of the Union

[Starrynite120]

There's no harm in reducing tourism from HE. Even with small empires CV can be won early, demonstrating that the problem isn't just with an aggressive expansionist runaway. Though I think G is right that runaways will happen, and I don't think HE are part of it. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean HE don't need to be reduced.

 

[Starrynite120]

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.

I really like the idea of having to complete the Utopia Project. That could be a good way to force CV players to wait and prevent accidental wins.

Something interesting could be that you can't have, say, more than 75% influence over someone until you complete the utopia projecy. Not sure how feasible that would be to code, but could be an interesting idea.

 

[ElliotS]

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

Are you kidding? My trade routes are routinely worth 8000 tourism or more. That's like having 8+ concert tours on 70 turn cooldowns. (epic pace.)

 

[Funak]

Are you kidding? My trade routes are routinely worth 8000 tourism or more. That's like having 8+ concert tours on 70 turn cooldowns. (epic pace.)

This was pretty much my reaction as well.

Yeah it is only towards one civ, but most of the time you only really need to push one civ. You also get more trade-routes and their total timer go down in later eras (at least I think they are supposed to)
One thing worth mentioning however is that the worth of the trade-route tourism greatly depends on the number of civs in the game, I mean on a duel map every finished trade-route is worth 3 times as much as a HE, while on a 24player map it's worth 1/8th of a HE instead (however as mentioned earlier, you have no control over the HE tourism and a lot of it is going to be wasted, pushing tourism above influential on some civs)

 

[Stalker0]

I feel like our discussion is going around the same point. If HEs are a problem, just weaken them. It seems so simple.

 

[Txurce]

I feel like our discussion is going around the same point. If HEs are a problem, just weaken them. It seems so simple.

It is simple, and I'm sure Gazebo already has a fix in mind.

 

[CrazyG]

Are you kidding? My trade routes are routinely worth 8000 tourism or more. That's like having 8+ concert tours on 70 turn cooldowns. (epic pace.)

First of all, even when trying to get cultural victories, the musician is among the last specialist I ever work (only merchants come after), concert tours just don't do much.

If you use trade routes intentionally for toursim, explain how? I remember trying to influence Carthage via tourism in a recent game, but never being able to complete a route because of the distance and wars. I guess if some moron wants to be at peace for 70 turns I can abuse the trade route tourism, but I find it rarely happens. I actually feel pretty confident saying you could just remove the tourism from trade routes, and people would still complain about early culture wins.

Right now, I think the optimal strategy for tourism is just to spam great people, because of historical events. I've tried using tourism religion and other stuff, but great people just do it so well, especially engineers. They by far generate the most tourism just by building wonders

 

[Txurce]

Right now, I think the optimal strategy for tourism is just to spam great people. I've tried using tourism religion and other stuff, but great people just do it so well, especially engineers. They by far generate the most tourism just by building wonders

Something today's runaways have in common is a ton of Wonders. Some could be acquired, but I think they build most. But building GP is the main play for the traditional tall human culture civ. Nerfing GP for large civs is probably too complicated. That's why a simple culture nerf based on number of cities is probably the surest approach. The only players it hurts are those not likely trying for a CV, anyway.

This way, the AI can still play optimally, even becoming a runaway, but still leave players at a placd where they can compete at one difficulty level or another.

 

[Gazebo]

Plan:

Reduced the amount of tourism gained from historic events - scales based on number of cities you own (half of the policy penalty) - so if you have 3 cities, your tourism rate from HE is reduced by 10%. Caps at 75%.

Why? In general I feel like I went the wrong way with the recent 'capitals reduce tourism' penalty. It punished tourism per turn, when the real issue isn't tourism per turn, but tourism+culture via historic events and trade routes. By making the penalty related to HEs, it allows for wide empires and wide-empire tourism-per-turn, but makes the impact of HEs less important, whereas tall civs can still compete with tourism via HEs and tourism per turn.

 

[Txurce]

Plan:

Reduced the amount of tourism gained from historic events - scales based on number of cities you own (half of the policy penalty) - so if you have 3 cities, your tourism rate from HE is reduced by 10%. Caps at 75%.

Why? In general I feel like I went the wrong way with the recent 'capitals reduce tourism' penalty. It punished tourism per turn, when the real issue isn't tourism per turn, but tourism+culture via historic events and trade routes. By making the penalty related to HEs, it allows for wide empires and wide-empire tourism-per-turn, but makes the impact of HEs less important, whereas tall civs can still compete with tourism via HEs and tourism per turn.

Cannot wait to try it.

 

[ElliotS]

Plan:

Reduced the amount of tourism gained from historic events - scales based on number of cities you own (half of the policy penalty) - so if you have 3 cities, your tourism rate from HE is reduced by 10%. Caps at 75%.

Why? In general I feel like I went the wrong way with the recent 'capitals reduce tourism' penalty. It punished tourism per turn, when the real issue isn't tourism per turn, but tourism+culture via historic events and trade routes. By making the penalty related to HEs, it allows for wide empires and wide-empire tourism-per-turn, but makes the impact of HEs less important, whereas tall civs can still compete with tourism via HEs and tourism per turn.

Looking forward to it. Sounds like a step in the right direction.

 

[Funak]

Plan:

Reduced the amount of tourism gained from historic events - scales based on number of cities you own (half of the policy penalty) - so if you have 3 cities, your tourism rate from HE is reduced by 10%. Caps at 75%.

Why? In general I feel like I went the wrong way with the recent 'capitals reduce tourism' penalty. It punished tourism per turn, when the real issue isn't tourism per turn, but tourism+culture via historic events and trade routes. By making the penalty related to HEs, it allows for wide empires and wide-empire tourism-per-turn, but makes the impact of HEs less important, whereas tall civs can still compete with tourism via HEs and tourism per turn.

Wait a second, HE's aren't affected by the normal number of cities penalties?

 

[Gazebo]

Wait a second, HE's aren't affected by the normal number of cities penalties?

They weren't, no, as that code scales up costs (normally), whereas we're looking at scaling down.

 

[Braum]

conquest and land ownership are king. Big conquerors are going to win, always. That's just the nature of civ.

I don't mind run away civs. They always existed in Civ games and sometimes make for the most memorable games. But in this current game, you actually can't even fight them if they are on another continent. You get stuck in unhappiness and can do nothing but build buildings and envoys to dig out, usually to no avail. That's new to the Civ series. It doesn't seem to make much sense for an otherwise healthy nation with good science, trade, and military to go dysfunctional because the arts and culture of a rival. Can you scale back unhappiness caused by other nations influence on you? Or make that kick in later?

The happiness of my empire is still a mystery to me. My recent game I'm at +30 to +60 for a long time and my play style did not improve from the last game where I was struggling to keep positive. The only difference was I went Tradition and kept decent culture and built the majority of wonders; playing as Babylon on level 5 difficulty.

 

[Txurce]

I don't mind run away civs. They always existed in Civ games and sometimes make for the most memorable games. But in this current game, you actually can't even fight them if they are on another continent. You get stuck in unhappiness and can do nothing but build buildings and envoys to dig out, usually to no avail. That's new to the Civ series. It doesn't seem to make much sense for an otherwise healthy nation with good science, trade, and military to go dysfunctional because the arts and culture of a rival. Can you scale back unhappiness caused by other nations influence on you? Or make that kick in later?

This is the issue I've been referring to. It kicks in at the same time it always has. It's just stronger now, in Continents games, because of the size of the runaways, and the factors that Gazebo has said he's addressing. So we should be in much better shape soon.

 

[Funak]

They weren't, no, as that code scales up costs (normally), whereas we're looking at scaling down.

Oh, if I had any idea I could have told you that from the start, just figured all the tourism %modifiers actually applied normally to HE's somehow.
Anyways, great solution in that case, just make sure to keep the scaling reasonable, expanding should definitely not be the be-all end-all of culture victory, but expansion should never really be seen as a weakness (assuming your new cities produce yields like your old cities)

 

[Infixo]

Here are my two cents. I'm quite new to the mod, kind of testing it and must say – enjoying it incredibly. I also notice odd things... or at least odd until someone explains that it’s working as designed

In my last game I wanted to play with CSD and go for a DV. Result: ended up with VC halfway through @T340. And only because I deliberately postponed it – switched off all specialists except science ones. I didn’t want to get any GPs. Otherwise I would had won @T300. I got Influential with 6/7 civs @T240 only from Historic Events and Trade Routes tourism. Great Works were insignificant. The 7th civ was Austria – the only one with culture pool comparable to mine.

So, yes – as a first resort – PLEASE turn down tourism from HE & TR, at least half or even more. As for now - getting e.g. 60-70 "normal" TPT and at the same time 2000+ from HE & TR - it's totally unbalanced.

 

[tu_79]

Here are my two cents. I'm quite new to the mod, kind of testing it and must say – enjoying it incredibly. I also notice odd things... or at least odd until someone explains that it’s working as designed

In my last game I wanted to play with CSD and go for a DV. Result: ended up with VC halfway through @T340. And only because I deliberately postponed it – switched off all specialists except science ones. I didn’t want to get any GPs. Otherwise I would had won @T300. I got Influential with 6/7 civs @T240 only from Historic Events and Trade Routes tourism. Great Works were insignificant. The 7th civ was Austria – the only one with culture pool comparable to mine.

So, yes – as a first resort – PLEASE turn down tourism from HE & TR, at least half or even more. As for now - getting e.g. 60-70 "normal" TPT and at the same time 2000+ from HE & TR - it's totally unbalanced.

Just a note. Your great works aren't worthless. They raise your culture and tourism, and makes you achieve theming bonuses, which by the bigger part raises your culture and tourism even more. Historical Events will use your base culture+tourism, so if you don't have a good culture and tourism to begin with, your Historical Events won't be too strong. They might be too strong right now, but that's another issue.

 

[ElliotS]

Hey G, any idea when the next version will come out? If it's going to be next few days I'll wait to start a new game, considering they can take me a while.

 

[Zanteogo]

Myself, I'm not a massive fan on how quickly the AI declares certain trade items "impossible". I understand it's required to some degree to keep humans from gaming the AI, but it's to the point that certain diplo options have been basically removed to the player. Speaking of, what ever happened to the player challenging the AI troop build up? I don't see that option any more.

It was brought up earlier in the thread, but the AI still way over values paper.