Suggested Balancing Changes for upcoming Release [OBSOLETE]

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

I would suggest to give the following balancing changes a try.
Most of that is so easy to change, that I simply never bothered to discuss for the core mod.

All of this is personal taste and there is hardly any other objective reason.

• Some of them I use in my personal version and like them a lot.
• Some of that is part of my feature design concepts but I have not yet really tried in a real game.

We could discuss about immersion here and there, sometimes AI, but I mostly care about game play.
None of these changes should have side effects to other featues or technical risks, e.g. performance.

1. Increasing Europe Travel Time (by +2)
(For all 4 directions)

Europe East: 4 (new), 2 (old)
Europe West: 6 (new), 4 (old)
Europe North: 4 (new), 2 (old)
Europe South: 6 (new), 4 (old)

My reasons:

• 2 turns feels way too short, if I sometimes travel 4 turns already on the map
  
• Currently "exploiting" Europe Travel as shortcut instead of having to travel on the map is too easy.
• Currently "exploiting" Europe Travel to flee from enemies when damaged comes at almost no cost.
• I was planning to add Promotions, that shorten Europe Travel by e.g. -1 (for certain Ships only)

Yes, AI uses this to repair as well, but Humans profit from the current exploits much more.
(AI will not really suffer from it.)

Risk and Effort:
Basically none. All simple XML.

Gameplay Effect:
It is there, but once you are used to it, the current (and Vanilla) balancing feels akward.
Travelling to Europe does not feel like not having any cost anymore considering time.

Comment:
I even sometimes played with +4 and it felt good as well.
But let us take it slow and not directly overexagerate.

2. Different Pricing Scheme for Buying in Europe

This is actually something I have experimented with a lot, depending on my mood.
And it also was discussed when talking about "V's Sub Mod" (although I do not like the solution chosen there.)

It is a nogo for me completely remove price increases when buying in Europe.
This removes too much challenge and necessity for becoming self-sufficient producer of Units and Goods.

What I liked is the following:
(And I know it will be controversial.)

1. Increasing (+50%) the current Initial Buy Prices
2. Reducing (-50%) the current Price Increases for each buying action in exchange
3. For AI lower buying prices a bit more - depending on Difficulty Level (so it is not hit that hard)

To avoid all misunderstandings:

I am talking about all Units currently that can be bought. (Specialists, Ships, Military)
Africa and Port Royal may follow the same logic.

Risk and Effort:
Risk is low. Changes arer not dramatic. Effort is not dramatic. All simple XML.

Gameplay Effect:

To really understand the differences, you would need to draw the curves.
Their start point is different, their gradients are different, they have a cutting point, ...

To simplify it:

• The new system is a bit harder in early and mid-game.
• But it is also less extreme considering prices in endgame.
• Immigration gets more important in early game and mid game
  
• Education gets much more important in mid game.
• Learning by Doing gets more important in early game and midgame.
  
• Since max. Hurry Immigration Price is also limitted by current Buy Price, you will hurry Immigration less often in early and mid game.
  
• However you will not be afraid to buy or hurry later in game, when having lots of cities needing realls specific Units
  
• Python Events giving Specialists become a bit bigger reward in early game and mid game.
  
• Founding Fathers giving Units (currently often feeling week) will feel more valuable.
• AI will become stronger in comparison (because it will pay a bit lower prices) - depending on Difficulty Level
• ...

Summary:

It simply feels different. Especially in early game and mid game.
Buying will feel harder in early game and mid game, but less punishing in end game.
Negative AI effects need to be avoided and will be avoided by adjusting Handicaps (Difficulties)

3. Allow Ships with 3 Cargo Slots to carry Treasures

See, I always found it strange, that a Galleon with 6 Cargo Slots cound carry 2 Treasures (with each Treasaure taking 3 Cargo slots), but a Ship with 3 Cargo Slots cound not carry a Treasure.

The Hunt for the 1. Galleon kind of feels pointless to me. (Just saving Gold to trigger the Event.)
Yeah, maybe the first game it was interesting but after 100 games this strategy got boring.

Galleons will still stay important for trade, do not worry about that.
And it will still be the only ship capable of transporting even 2 Treasures at once.
Also, in my planned changes for overhauling Naval Promotions, Naval Combat, ... they will experience further changes and get further roles.

By the way, this is not an issue for AI, even thoug it has problems saving saving enough money for a Galleon.
(Because developers and modders knew this was an AI issue, AI can sell Treasures to the King for 100% gold.)

Summary:
We might get rid of uselles "Hunt for the 1. Galleon" that mathematically makes no sense and also get rid of an AI cheat which would not be needed anymore.


----
----

Until next time

Take your time to think about these 3 suggestions before I annoy you with even more.
(We should not discuss too much at once, so I stop here.)

I have more changes in my private version of course and also more ideas in my concepts.

Next time we could discuss about e.g.

• Simple changes in "GlobalDefinesAlt.xml"
• Selecting Starting Units Ingame (by Pop-Ups)
  
• ...

The ideas already rejected in the past, I will of course not suggest again.

Remember:

• All of this is pure XML. Almost no risk and almost no effort.
• Nothing is really extreme, but it will defintitely change how the game feels.
• This is mostly about "personal taste", current versions are ok as well.

By the way:

• I will not publish any of those changes as mod-mod or as file download.
  
• I am not interested to maintain it when the releases are published.
  
• I only recreate such private settings when I take a break from modding and start a long game.
• All of this is easy XML you can try for yourself anyways if we do not integrate it in the mod.

 

[Nightinggale]

3. Allow Ships with 3 Cargo Slots to carry Treasures

If we are going to brainstorm for features, I would propose adding an int to units in xml telling how many slots the unit uses in a ship. Not only would that allow treasures to fit in smaller ships, xml modders (officially or otherwise) can set wagon trains to 6 and that way transport them. Something you can't right now. Maybe it should unload all cargo while being loaded.

Setting required slots to 100 would set a unit to not being able to be transported. By using 100 the logic is easier than if it's 0 because then we can check if slots needed <= slots left when checking if a unit fits. Less complex code means lower risk of bugs.

 

[raystuttgart]

I would propose adding an int to units in xml telling how many slots the unit uses in a ship.

That XML tag already exists.
<iBerthSize>

Something you can't right now.

See above, you already can.

----

For treasures I simply also want to change this one here to 3 as well:
<iRequiredTransportSize>


To clarify again:

Nothing suggested above is a feature.
It is all absolutely trivial XML changes for balancing with absolutely no coding.

It will definitely affect gameplay
But it is 0 risk and almost no effort.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

1. Increasing Europe Travel Time (by +2)
(For all 4 directions)

until the direct travel from Europe to Africa and back is realized, I would not even want to try it.

2. Different Pricing Scheme for Buying in Europe

And it also was discussed when talking about "V's Sub Mod" (although I do not like the solution chosen there.)
It is a nogo for me completely remove price increases when buying in Europe.

Ray, you were inattentive - I wrote that this is also unacceptable to me. the price of the units should be increased.

1. Increasing (+50%) the current Initial Buy Prices
2. Reducing (-50%) the current Price Increases for each buying action in exchange

a very large percentage. in my opinion 25% is the optimal price increase.

Founding Fathers giving Units (currently often feeling week) will feel more valuable.

as I already said, the FF system has long been in need of rebalancing. and considering the changes you proposed, the FF rebalance should be included in merge_revers.

3. Allow Ships with 3 Cargo Slots to carry Treasures

in "V's Sub Mod" ships with only 4 cargo spaces could transport the Treasure. in my opinion, this decision is better than yours, since any nation will have to buy a ship in Europe. If we accept your offer, then some nations receive a bonus at the start (Spain, the Netherlands), since at the beginning of the game they have a ship with 3 cargo spaces. Portugal at the start of the game has Caracca, which has 4 cargo spaces. i propose to make 3 cargo spaces.

sorry for editing - the last changes were not saved when the page was refreshed.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ray, you were inattentive - I wrote that this is also unacceptable to me.

@Mr. ZorG :

Nothing I wrote here was related to any of your posts.
I just said that the pricing scheme was discussed / changed in V's SubMod.

Nothing less, nothing more.
So there is absolutely no need to get upset.

the FF rebalance should be included in merge_revers.

Way more than just a small balancing change.

I only want to discuss changes here, that are less than 1 hour of effort.
Only stuff with almost no risk and almost no side effects to other features.

For the FF rebalancing, please create a separate thread.
But considering our agreements it is way too big for the upcoming release.

----

Let us simply get back to finishing "river_merge".
Wasting days with arguing about small differences in numbers is not worth our time.

----

@Community:

You may have gotten some inspiration for your personal settings.
Simply try for your own what you like best.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
1. Increasing Europe Travel Time (by +2)
(For all 4 directions)

Europe East: 4 (new), 2 (old)
Europe West: 6 (new), 4 (old)
Europe North: 4 (new), 2 (old)
Europe South: 6 (new), 4 (old)

My reasons:

• 2 turns feels way too short, if I sometimes travel 4 turns already on the map
  
• Currently "exploiting" Europe Travel as shortcut instead of having to travel on the map is too easy.
• Currently "exploiting" Europe Travel to flee from enemies when damaged comes at almost no cost.
• I was planning to add Promotions, that shorten Europe Travel by e.g. -1 (for certain Ships only)

Yes, AI uses this to repair as well, but Humans profit from the current exploits much more.
(AI will not really suffer from it.)

Risk and Effort:
Basically none. All simple XML.

Gameplay Effect:
It is there, but once you are used to it, the current (and Vanilla) balancing feels akward.
Travelling to Europe does not feel like not having any cost anymore considering time.

Comment:
I even sometimes played with +4 and it felt good as well.
But let us take it slow and not directly overexagerate.

There are several ways to look at the time needed to travel.
Historically, e.g. Columbus - not sailing the fastest route but exploring without a clue about the trade winds and water currents that later ships could take advantage of and later ship designs being faster than his caravels.

Crossing 1 - 6 September 1492 - 12 October 1492 (37 days) Azores to Bahamas or Turks and Caicos
Crossing 2 - 15 January 1493 - 17 February 1493 (34 days) Hispanola to Azores
Crossing 3 - 24 September 1493 - 3 November 1493 (45 days) Cádiz, Spain to Dominica.
Crossing 4 - 10 March 1496 - 11 June 1496 (87 days - no explanation why it took so long) Hispanola to Cadiz, Spain
Crossing 5 - 30 May 1498 - 31 July 1498 (45 days) Cape Verde to Trinidad

So even if we don´t take an average but the highest duration the travel across the Atlantic on the route Spain-Carribean would be around 3 months.

If a game turn - 1 of only 300 in a normal game - simulates a whole year or half a year, then a ship would have to cross the Atlantic in 1 turn.

Even if a ship is loaded to the brim and sailing in a convoy of other ships slowing the speed down to the slowest ship and then some to hold formation and not loose eye contact and would need 4 months to make the voyage and should take 4 turns ingame, then a turn would rather have to be only a season and not a year. Which would need a game with far more turns, which however as far as I understood Ray Epic and Marathon games are not exactly.

...
It is a nogo for me completely remove price increases when buying in Europe.
This removes too much challenge and necessity for becoming self-sufficient producer of Units and Goods.

Agree completely.

What I liked is the following:
(And I know it will be controversial.)

1. Increasing (+50%) the current Initial Buy Prices
2. Reducing (-50%) the current Price Increases for each buying action in exchange
3. For AI lower buying prices a bit more - depending on Difficulty Level (so it is not hit that hard)

I fear that this is harsh in the early game. The player established the first colony and slowly produces and trades to gain goods for sale to gain cash and has to pay far more for the goods he needs and can´t yet produce himself. That is unless you mean to increase ALL buy prices at the start - including the prices that Europe buys goods from the player.

In the later game cash becomes less and less of an issue so lower price raises are not as critical as the higher price at the start while still poor.

3. Allow Ships with 3 Cargo Slots to carry Treasures

See, I always found it strange, that a Galleon with 6 Cargo Slots cound carry 2 Treasures (with each Treasaure taking 3 Cargo slots), but a Ship with 3 Cargo Slots cound not carry a Treasure.

The Hunt for the 1. Galleon kind of feels pointless to me. (Just saving Gold to trigger the Event.)
Yeah, maybe the first game it was interesting but after 100 games this strategy got boring.

Galleons will still stay important for trade, do not worry about that.
And it will still be the only ship capable of transporting even 2 Treasures at once.
Also, in my planned changes for overhauling Naval Promotions, Naval Combat, ... they will experience further changes and get further roles.

By the way, this is not an issue for AI, even thoug it has problems saving saving enough money for a Galleon.
(Because developers and modders knew this was an AI issue, AI can sell Treasures to the King for 100% gold.)

Summary:
We might get rid of uselles "Hunt for the 1. Galleon" that mathematically makes no sense and also get rid of an AI cheat which would not be needed anymore.

That is an immersion issue for me more than a historical or gameplay one.
Hass anyone played "Pirates!"? And succeeded to locate the silver train / treasure fleet of spanish galleons overflowing with treasure? That picture in my mind, and the stories about the english pirates plundering spanish galleons have made the galleon the iconic spanish ship that carries the treasures of the New World to Spain. Let Merchantman and other trading ships carry boring wool, cotton or trade goods - but treasures limit to the Galleons.

When loading ships before nowadays cargo containers one has to remember that the treasures of the New World are not just nicely stackable.
Chests of gold coins won´t work if stapled up 3 over each other due to the weight or the chest not being flat on top but rounded. And then not everything is spanish dubloons.
Most of the freight would be bulky - large aztekan, incan or maya statues of gods or ceremonial objects made from gold. So heavy and large that they would make lesser ships than Galleons flounder and unstable and taking water in even slightly troubled waters on the voyage home. Gold and silver bars to be shipped to spain to mint coins out of.
So a freight that is not only very valuable, but also has a high density - let one of those statues fall from a crane onto a lesser ship and it could crash right through the ships hull... Then if the freight is loaded without securing it - like it is displayed in some pirate movies where they board a ship to find piles of gold freely sitting in the hold of the spanish ship - it would mean that at every heave and riding of the next wave the freitght would be in danger of shifting place and moving it´s heavy weight from one side to the other making the ship unstable and raise the danger to topple over and sink.

The ideas already rejected in the past, I will of course not suggest again.

I would not be upset if you do - after all opinions and taste can change over time and some old suggestions that appeared strange back then might fit to the game after quite a lot of other things has changed.

 

[Schmiddie]

1. Increasing Europe Travel Time
I do not like the increase of travel time. If this would be done movement on the map per turn should be heavily increased (I'm talking about +5 or +10) to reflect movement in combination with time per turn.

2. Different Pricing Scheme for Buying in Europe
I could live with +25%/-25% as well but +50%/-50% are definetely too much for me, unless the whole pricing system would be revised:

General price fluctuations for goods should be higher and maybe more often then. Simultaneously prices for goods produced in the New World shoould be higher and the difference between raw materials should be higher as well so that it is more interesting for the player to start processing of raw materials. I know AI cannot handle this...

3. Allow Ships with 3 Cargo Slots to carry Treasures
I could live with that and have no preference.

 

[Nightinggale]

General price fluctuations for goods should be higher and maybe more often then. Simultaneously prices for goods produced in the New World shoould be higher and the difference between raw materials should be higher as well so that it is more interesting for the player to start processing of raw materials. I know AI cannot handle this...

There is currently code for ensuring that output yields are more expensive than input yields, like cigars being more expensive than tobacco. I think the minimum price difference is hardcoded, but we could change that to an xml value and let people experiment with different values.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

Let us simply get back to finishing "river_merge".
Wasting days with arguing about small differences in numbers is not worth our time.

then this topic is not relevant.
but if you want to make any of these changes already in river_merge, then it is better to vote.

 

[nci]

• Currently "exploiting" Europe Travel as shortcut instead of having to travel on the map is too easy.
• Currently "exploiting" Europe Travel to flee from enemies when damaged comes at almost no cost.

Wholeheartedly agree! Although you should take into account how it will affect the situation on slower game speeds, since some of us play on Marathon exclusively.

Different Pricing Scheme for Buying in Europe

Again, this might affect Marathon gameplay dramatically.

Allow Ships with 3 Cargo Slots to carry Treasures

Yes! Will it include fully upgraded Privateers and Pirate Frigates, though?

And it will still be the only ship capable of transporting even 2 Treasures at once.

Why shouldn't upgraded West Indiaman carry 2 treasures at once? Without this ability, it doesn't really have a saving grace against Galleon.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Regarding balance, my biggest issue is with buying ships.

Regardless of whether V's submod is incorporated, it correctly identified the imbalance between building and buying ships. To make ship building viable; an increase in the cost of buying ships from Europe is essential, and I agree with the methodology of calculating the raw materials and then adding more cost for labour.

This has been an area that has bugged me for a while. It may require rebalancing of raw materials as well, but we should be working towards making shipbuilding important. It would be a huge step forward if the best ships are actually something we need to create infrastructure to build, and the cost of buying them becomes prohibitive.

 

[raystuttgart]

Thus let s simply end here.
I figured out all I needed to figure out.

More than the actual changes I was just interested how the team would react on first giving changes a try before directly butchering them ...

I would suggest to give the following balancing changes a try.

I really do not care about these specific changes getting into the core mod.
(So do not worry about me being disappointed that those specific changes were rejected.)

I have and always will create a "private taste config" anyways before actually playing a long real "fun game".
(For real testing purposes of a release I do not do that of course and play WTP standard balancing.)

Changing some small XML settings that have no side effects on other features is a piece of cake without risk.
Thus it is not worth wasting more time to discuss because we do not need to find a consense.

All I wanted to see:
How open minded is the team for trying something new without risk and effort?

----

And general question:
(Just because we feel we need to discuss balancing before any feature exists.)

Spoiler :

Before Publishing:

Since when is and was it necessary for a team member to discuss XML balancing to death before actual test phase?
It does not really affect the feature concept in itself and in test phase you can try it and give feedback.

Balancing is easy to change XML - totally different story than actual feature logic - which is massive effort sometimes to change again.
Every balancing can and will be changed during test phase by feedback of team members and partners and by consense. That is normal!

After Publishing:

All I hate is to have constant discussions about just for personal taste after a feature was implemented and published.
Sometimes even 10 years later again and again and again and ...

Accept at some point the actual implementation or at least the answer you get.
We modders are not stupid, we understand your points but we also implement things a certain way because we actually like it that way.

--------

Comment:

We are not paid by anybody. The only thing that keeps us modding is fun.
Thus we should at least have some right to actually implement what we like without constantly having to defend it for the next 10 years.
(Even if majority of players says, that they love it we again and again have such discussions ...)

Summary:

• Before features are published discussions are fine. Team members are involved in balancing during test phase anyways.
• After features are published, at least sometimes accept the answer you get to your request. Community may simply have at least a little trust, that modders give their best to balance reasonably.

----

but if you want to make any of these changes already in river_merge

No, I was not requesting to have it become part of the core mod in terms of a decision without giving you guys the chance to try it first.
All I really suggested is you guys to try and make real game play experience and then maybe have it become part of the mod.

See, we could simply have simply tried their impact on gameplay and then decide.
(Less than 1h for changing all of them, thus less than 1h of efffort for reverting all of them.)

The first release of "river_merge" is just a test release anyways.
And we will test and discuss it intensively in test phase.
Nobody said that any of those balancing changes need to stay final.

But even for that our personal tastes are too divergent.

----

I hope at least some of that was a bit interesting and inspired some community member to experiment a bit considering their private taste.
In the end this is what motivates us modders to start modding on your own.

----

The only thing that really counts is to focus on "river_merge" and finally publish a release for the community.
(The things that come after it, can be clarified after it.)

 

[Mr. ZorG]

No, I was not requesting to have it become part of the core mod in terms of a decision without giving you guys the chance to try it first.
All I really suggested is you guys to try and make real game play experience and then maybe have it become part of the mod.

Ray, I understand what this is about. I played with Increasing Europe Travel Time. that's why I said that it will be possible to test and evaluate this to the proper extent after the possibility of traveling from Europe to Africa bypassing the New World is realized.
this will be a disaster for many at the moment. in my opinion.

in any case, this topic was created too early. you're right, first we need to release an LR.

 

[raystuttgart]

... first we need to release an LR.

Fully agree.

 

[Nightinggale]

There is currently code for ensuring that output yields are more expensive than input yields, like cigars being more expensive than tobacco. I think the minimum price difference is hardcoded, but we could change that to an xml value and let people experiment with different values.

No need to do anything. This setting is PRICE_DIFF_MAN_TO_RAW and it's set in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.

 

[raystuttgart]

PRICE_DIFF_MAN_TO_RAW ... in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.

That is another of those many small changes and bugfixes I implemented in TAC already.
(Acutally it is one of the first pieces of code I ever wrote because e.g. Cigars got sometimes cheaper than Tobacco in Vanilla.)

Just to explain however:

I never hard-coded real balancing values in my changes and features.
(I am and was always perfectly aware that new features may require to change balancing of others.)

The only things I hardcoded was "feature logic rules" - e.g. which Unit could do something under certain condition.
(I never expected that any player would want to change aspects of logic rules like e.g. Peaks or Roads or Missioning or ....)

Check "GlobalDefinesAlt.xml" there are massive amounts of balancing value.
But anything that can be considerred "feature logic rules" of my old features is most likely still hardcoded.

 

[Nightinggale]

I never hard-coded real balancing values in my changes and features.
(I am and was always perfectly aware that new features may require to change balancing of others.)

That's the way to do it.

The only things I hardcoded was "feature logic rules" - e.g. which Unit could do something under certain condition.
(I never expected that any player would want to change aspects of logic rules like e.g. Peaks or Roads or Missioning or ....)

I can imagine multiple cases though as we have encountered a few. It's tricky though because while hardcoding is bad, it's impossible to avoid and/or it could easily take longer to code and result in a slower gameplay. In a sense game logic is always hardcoded, but it depends on your definition of game logic.

What's important isn't what's hardcoded and what isn't. The important part is how we deal with it and if something is hardcoded and it makes sense to move it to xml, then we should do so. Once in a while I propose new xml layouts. They aren't meant for us to rush to make it like that, but rather as end goals and as such know where to place something in xml if something should be added to xml. Such a plan might consider issues like runtime performance and automatic detection of invalid xml values.

Contrary to common knowledge, not hardcoding can in some cases be faster because the DLL will end up with less data to check at runtime. Xml can however also be way slower, which is why I sometimes propose xml designs. I try to take this into account.

However I'm not that concerned with hardcoding right now. I'm mostly concerned with finishing up what's left before the next release. Hardcoding issues are generally irrelevant for that.

 

[Kaskarn]

I have been increasingly playing with ocean movement cost set to 2, and all ship speeds increased by 1 or 2.

Like the travel changes discussed here, this makes travel to Europe a bit longer; however, it does so by prolonging navigation to the safe tiles, rather than by increasing time spent safely off map. It also doesn’t reduce the logistical usefulness of navies in the new world (since they travel very fast down coastal tiles), and it makes controlling the coastline more important. All changes I’ve liked a lot so far, and maybe worth a play test if you’re thinking a lot about naval trade and gameplay.

Obviously though it’s a little awkward to describe realistically. I tell myself that ocean tiles are ‘larger’ than coastal ones, but it’s best not to think too hard about it ^^

 

[Diegozubi]

Maybe instead of setting longer times to travel to Europe something more complex can be coded in future.. If a ship has certain percentage of damage, it will not be able to travel to europe (as it is not "able to travel long distances".. it will reduce the use of the exploit when getting attacked. Or maybe ship should not be able to fly away if it is on a certain distance of the enemy until the next turn (as "the enemy is still able to catch it"). Longer times will actually affect the gameplay in early games as immigration and trading are very dependant on that.

The treasure in other ships than galleons is something I do. I change it to use the West Indiamen as well and actually decrease its price, as it has 1 less cargo spot. I works better for me (it would be great being able to re-order it in Europe before the galleon).

Finally, I also change the increase price of units in Europe by more than 50%. I always felt that that was not balanced. I do not usually increase the base price, because I like to be able to quicjly populate cities with the experts, but it will be more balanced in that way for sure.

Regards!

 

[solvito]

My recommendations would be to lower the sell price for gold from 40 to 30. Make silver resell price drop faster. And increase the price in Europe for all other finished goods.

We need to limit the "power win" of going Gold/silver into tools and then muskets. At the moment it makes no sense to sell any finished goods because by the time they are efficient enough their price is not good, this is what makes the Gold/Silver strategy so dominating. While Gold/silver takes almost no time to setup and start selling, setting up industry takes way too many turns. Another way to balance this out would be to keep the price of gold/silver but greatly reduce the output from the tiles + increase the price of the expert that mines it (can't remember the name). At the minute you can just buy a hardy pioneer (2K) + the expert (900G) and be producing a ton of gold/silver basically on Turn 30 of the game, from there you just snowball.

Make War Ships cheaper and add a lot more pirates to the game. Also add more pirate ship types usable by the players and increase their strength so we have more naval warfare.