Suggestion: change the Cohesive Values virtue

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

One thing you fail to mention is what virtue your ahead in, if CV is rushed you will never be ahead in strong virtues because they are all deep into the trees.
If you pick CV you will get the power virtues before you would without CV which may be much better then being ahead of weak virtues.

Also many who chose knowledge will likely be heavy on culture, getting new virtues in less then 10 turns so they will eventually reach the 30+ virtues.

Getting synergies faster to is pretty good, most of them are pretty strong.

 

[GhostSalsa]

You're playing a strategy game. The long-term advantage is significantly better than your instant gratification.

No it isn't. I'm not trying to be rude or gate-keeper-y here, but have you actually played CiV? And won it? Everything that gives early game bonuses to growth, production, and science is worth more culture than actually "investing" in culture early game and giving up those other bonuses. A player who got early bonuses will get highest-yield culture buildings and wonders up and running in their cities 50 turns faster - they will tech to them faster and have the production and population capacity to build them faster.

Stronger cities give you more culture than any policy can, and a player with more culture output from strong cities will have more policies in late-game than one that wasted early policies on a discount that take 200 turns to break even.

None of this should have to argue this point or argue over this point, play the game and experience it.

One thing you fail to mention is what virtue your ahead in, if CV is rushed [I think you meant "skipped" or "delayed"?] you will never be ahead in strong virtues because they are all deep into the trees.

No they aren't. Where are we even coming up with the stuff in this thread anymore?

Study the virtues screen some more. The Prosperity opener is the best food virtue in the game, about as good as the CiV Tradition closer was. Not very deep in the tree. Eudaimonia, the indisputable best policy on the screen, can be taken as your 7th policy in the game.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I agree with this assessment, and it is essentially why I hated the Aesthetics tree in BNW.

Well BNW at least had two systems which rewarded higher culture output regardless of whether you actually had more policies or got anything good out of those policies - the first being city-state quests which essentially granted the highest culture output civ constant free bonuses, and the second being tourism defense.

In BE we no longer have either of those things. Yet we still have these really backwards culture-"boosting" policies bringing down the Knowledge tree, so yeah it's as unattractive / worse than Aesthetics was.

Further, in CiV because each tree was compact and had attractive closing bonuses, and because the game limited your tree options at every era, culture-boosting policies never really had to stand on their own. As long as the tree was balanced. All policy tuning discussion could focus on the tree as a compact unit.

We can't use that standard in BE since there are no era limits. If a policy (CV) hurts you (opportunity cost with no reward) in early game and is pointless to take in late game, it needs to go. Yes it's on the way to a synergy bonus - but that's exactly why it's bringing down the tree.

 

[Galgus]

Well BNW at least had two systems which rewarded higher culture output regardless of whether you actually had more policies or got anything good out of those policies - the first being city-state quests which essentially granted the highest culture output civ constant free bonuses, and the second being tourism defense.

In BE we no longer have either of those things. Yet we still have these really backwards culture-"boosting" policies bringing down the Knowledge tree, so yeah it's as unattractive / worse than Aesthetics was.

Further, in CiV because each tree was compact and had attractive closing bonuses, and because the game limited your tree options at every era, culture-boosting policies never really had to stand on their own. As long as the tree was balanced. All policy tuning discussion could focus on the tree as a compact unit.

We can't use that standard in BE since there are no era limits. If a policy (CV) hurts you (opportunity cost with no reward) in early game and is pointless to take in late game, it needs to go. Yes it's on the way to a synergy bonus - but that's exactly why it's bringing down the tree.

That is true, but the city-state thing only worked for the very top culture civ and tourism defense was limited to preventing a potential bad scenario in the late game rather than giving a bonus to victory.

So while I'm no fan of Aesthetics, I agree culture for culture generation makes even less sense in BE.

 

[Velasti]

No it isn't. I'm not trying to be rude or gate-keeper-y here, but have you actually played CiV? And won it? Everything that gives early game bonuses to growth, production, and science is worth more culture than actually "investing" in culture early game and giving up those other bonuses. A player who got early bonuses will get highest-yield culture buildings and wonders up and running in their cities 50 turns faster - they will tech to them faster and have the production and population capacity to build them faster.

Stronger cities give you more culture than any policy can, and a player with more culture output from strong cities will have more policies in late-game than one that wasted early policies on a discount that take 200 turns to break even.

None of this should have to argue this point or argue over this point, play the game and experience it.


No they aren't. Where are we even coming up with the stuff in this thread anymore?

Study the virtues screen some more. The Prosperity opener is the best food virtue in the game, about as good as the CiV Tradition closer was. Not very deep in the tree. Eudaimonia, the indisputable best policy on the screen, can be taken as your 7th policy in the game.

1. Eudaimonia can only be taken as your 8th policy in the game.

2. You are disagreeing with any sensible definition of break-even. It doesn't take 200 turns to break even. Have you even watched a stream of Civ BE yet? It takes 5 virtues to recoup the culture cost.

3. After Homesteading and before Eudaimonia, there are three virtues that give you bonuses to growth, production and science, and one synergy.

After Homesteading and before free-virtue Cohesive Values, there are three virtues that give you bonuses to growth, production and science, one virtue that allows you to get the 6th virtue and every virtue thereafter quicker, and a synergy bonuses that means you get a free virtue at the same time as your 6th.

I really fail to see the problem.

At this point, I get my 6th, 7th and 8th virtues before you get yours. Thanks to the tier one synergy bonus, I'm already a virtue ahead. My 6th, 7th and 8th virtues can all benefit science, growth and production early game.

Oh and you have to be able to beat my population by 25% to exceed the science generation, my production by 10%, my wonder production by 15% in the same time-frame.

Further we know from Madjinn's streams how many virtues there are in the early-game, and all my virtue combination is doing is pushing even more into the early-game.

 

[Zet]

1. Eudaimonia can only be taken as your 8th policy in the game.

2. You are disagreeing with any sensible definition of break-even. It doesn't take 200 turns to break even. Have you even watched a stream of Civ BE yet? It takes 5 virtues to recoup the culture cost.

Your definition of break even isn't sensible. Recouping culture cost doesn't mean anything when that culture is ONLY useful for the purpose of gaining virtues. And the break even point where you actually gain an extra virtue is 30+ virtues in the most optimistic scenario.

Also, arguing that CV is bad isn't the same as arguing that it's useless. It's not useless, but still a terrible virtue.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Your definition of break even isn't sensible. Recouping culture cost doesn't mean anything when that culture is ONLY useful for the purpose of gaining virtues. And the break even point where you actually gain an extra virtue is 30+ virtues in the most optimistic scenario.

No you gain a number of other benefits (synergies) earlier as well.
As a matter of fact you will get the knowledge and tier 2 synergies earlier as soon as you get them.

its probably a little UP (15% would be better)
But you don't need to get it immediately (earlier is better, but that is true for All virtues) and the 'break even' point doesn't change much unless you take it really late (because the culture cost is weighted towards the later ones)

Just like Eudamonia is OP (15% would be better there as well)

 

[Velasti]

Your definition of break even isn't sensible. Recouping culture cost doesn't mean anything when that culture is ONLY useful for the purpose of gaining virtues. And the break even point where you actually gain an extra virtue is 30+ virtues in the most optimistic scenario.

Also, arguing that CV is bad isn't the same as arguing that it's useless. It's not useless, but still a terrible virtue.

My definition of break-even recognises the fact that this is a turn-based strategy game.

When I get my 7th virtue, you will still only have 6 virtues for a number of turns. You'll be constantly playing catch-up the entire game, and you will never catch-up. If I allow you to catch-up, I'm playing the culture game incorrectly.


You aren't thinking of the game as a turn-based game. If you get your 8 virtues from prosperity, and I get 8 virtues from p and k, I'll finish virtue trees sooner than you will. I'll get synergy bonuses sooner than you will.

Breaking even is NOT getting one virtue ahead. By that definition, I break even EVERY TIME I beat you to the next virtue.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

My definition of break-even recognises the fact that this is a turn-based strategy game.

When I get my 7th virtue, you will still only have 6 virtues for a number of turns. You'll be constantly playing catch-up the entire game, and you will never catch-up. If I allow you to catch-up, I'm playing the culture game incorrectly.


You aren't thinking of the game as a turn-based game. If you get your 8 virtues from prosperity, and I get 8 virtues from p and k, I'll finish virtue trees sooner than you will. I'll get synergy bonuses sooner than you will.

Breaking even is NOT getting one virtue ahead. By that definition, I break even EVERY TIME I beat you to the next virtue.

Except the issue is that you are one behind (for everything except synergy you will get Virtue X Later than he does because you took CV first)

 

[Velasti]

Except the issue is that you are one behind (for everything except synergy you will get Virtue X Later than he does because you took CV first)

Krikkit that is blatantly factually incorrect.

I do my 8 virtues. He does his 8 virtues. Both of us open industry or might

I will open industry/might sooner than he does, and I will finish industry/might before he does. Because my 9th, 10th, 11th virtues etc. are all received sooner than his.

Look at the maths. You can see it very clearly.

Number of Virtues|Culture Cost Without CV|Culture Cost With CV
8|720|662
9|996|910

I receive my 9th virtue 86/C turns before he does, where C is my culture.

I'm 3 virtues behind on Prosperity. So I'll always finish prosperity later than him

But I'll finish prosperity and knowledge sooner than him.


In fact, given that I have CV as my 6th virtue, I can get 2 more virtues from Prosperity, so I'm 3 virtues behind in prosperity. I'll "catch-up" those 3 virtues sooner than he would catch-up to get CV.

I will get nature's bounty, gift economy/settler clans and joy from variety sooner than he will.

The virtue he will be "ahead of me on" is Ecoscaping.
However, I will have been able to get Networked Datalinks or Community Medicine as the "equivalent" virtue to Ecoscaping.

And hey... Surprise surprise, sooner than ecoscaping.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Velasti, you do understand that a player who takes cohesive values has to get more virtues than other players excluding cohesive values - before they are receiving any benefit yet?

This is intuitive and simple - yet when math is presented using this assumption you call it blatantly incorrect?

If the only benefit of cohesive values is "get more virtues," then when the player who takes CV reaches 10 virtues (including CV), some few turns before a player who skipped it gets 9, what is actually happening is they are just now catching up to the same amount of non-CV virtues. And in a few turns, when the CV-skipping player reaches 10, the CV taker is behind once again because they only have 9 non-CV virtues.

So the player who took a virtue billed as "get more virtues" has less other virtues for most of the game. Most. of. the. game. It's astounding how bad CV is.

I'm confused about something else. Why does your analysis of CV focus so much on finishing trees? Tier-3 bonuses aren't very significant given how many policies they require and how late in the game they will come. Do you have an argument for us on why hitting the knowledge tier-3 bonus earlier would confer a meaningful benefit over a player who took virtues that benefited the game on the ground from the start? The game vision presented by your posts in these thread is incoherent. What do you see a player as actually getting out of finishing knowledge faster that would beat having more non-CV virtues for most of the game? Virtues aren't a currency. Completed trees aren't a victory condition. If your other systems arent receiving a benefit from a virtue, you've wasted your culture.

 

[Velasti]

Velasti, you do understand that a player who takes cohesive values has to get more virtues than other players excluding cohesive values - before they are receiving any benefit yet?

This is intuitive and simple - yet when math is presented using this assumption you call it blatantly incorrect?

It is incorrect because it is a poor assumption, and it ignores the limited resource of time or turns.

As Maddjinn said, the conclusion is flawed because the model is flawed.

Also as MadDjinn says,

The focus seems to be entirely on 'how many' not 'what are you getting and when'.

Now let's be very clear about what the advantage of Eudaimonia actually means

+20 or more: +10% science and culture

On turn 194 of the MadDjinn KP stream, he selects Eudaimonia. His positive health goes from +10 to +47.

There is no benefit for having a surplus of health above +20. He doesn't have Creative Class, and it will be many turns before his unhealth increases by 27 points.

The focus from the model is on an absolute advantage, not a comparative advantage.

If the only benefit of cohesive values is "get more virtues,"

The only benefit from cohesive values is NOT get more virtues, it is get virtues sooner.

Let's compare two virtue paths.

You'll notice that CV is not selected. Because Synergy Tier1a allows me to get a free virtue.

Let's say I want to beat you to a wonder.

I'll beat you to Scalable Infrastructure. And that might mean I get the virtue at a time that allows me to contribute it to production.

It's not about absolute advantage. It's about comparative advantage.

I'm confused about something else. Why does your analysis of CV focus so much on finishing trees? Tier-3 bonuses aren't very significant given how many policies they require and how late in the game they will come.

I have a different definition of finishing than you do.

Finishing means you've selected all of the virtues that you think will be of use, and then you move on. It's not about completing the trees (In prosperity, the settler virtue would not be as useful late game as it would early-midgame, neither would the free-worker). It's about finishing the tree.

I'm not saying that the trees would be finished linearly.

Also intuition is not a good metric to use. You need to understand the law of comparative advantage to understand my argument.

The pure and simple truth is the truth is rarely pure, and never simple.

 

[Zet]

Synergy bonuses are not unique to CV. Every virtue gives a point towards some synergy bonus. Citing synergy bonuses as reasons for CV not being bad is a really poor argument. Even a virtue that did nothing at all would do this. It does increase the speed at which you get synergy bonuses slightly, but I think people are way overestimating this effect (feel free to do the math if you think otherwise).

 

[Seek]

This reminds me of one time when I got into a discussion with someone who never built the hydroplant in Civ5, because it "wouldn't pay itself back" before the game is over. While that might be technically true, if spending the resources to build it meant that every building or unit he built after it took one turn less than what it would have otherwise, then it was a good investment, because turns are a currency, as Valasti is arguing. I see CV the same - if every virtue is one turn "cheaper" and each virtue comes approximately every ten turns then the virtue pays for itself by the 11th virtue after it. Could it and should it be stronger so that it's less situational (ie, rush it or forget it)? Sure, but it's not as bad as folks are making it out to be imo, because it is available early - this isn't Cristo Redentor.

Something else to bear in mind is that CV is the only way to unlock Community Medicine (1 health per 6 pop) and Network Datalinks (-40% science cost per city), which are certainly valuable virtues.

 

[GhostSalsa]

It is incorrect because it is a poor assumption, and it ignores the limited resource of time or turns.

No, you're ignoring timing and turn limits by assuming 0 opportunity cost to a virtue that takes over 100 turns to pay itself back. That is literally the definition of ignoring the importance of timing.

You quote my arguments and then take the CV-dislikes' side about benefit timing being more important than eventual total number of benefits - how is this an argument for CV? We are discussing CV. I don't see confusing misdirection in your posts on other threads so I'm not sure why you're putting so much effort into defending CV with contradictory and incomprehensible posts here. Tell us what you believe is valuable in the game and why CV would support it.

And the opposite of intuition isn't, charts.

 

[GhostSalsa]

This reminds me of one time when I got into a discussion with someone who never built the hydroplant in Civ5, because it "wouldn't pay itself back" before the game is over. While that might be technically true, if spending the resources to build it meant that every building or unit he built after it took one turn less than what it would have otherwise, then it was a good investment, because turns are a currency, as Valasti is arguing. I see CV the same - if every virtue is one turn "cheaper" and each virtue comes approximately every ten turns then the virtue pays for itself by the 11th virtue after it. Could it and should it be stronger so that it's less situational (ie, rush it or forget it)? Sure, but it's not as bad as folks are making it out to be imo, because it is available early - this isn't Cristo Redentor.

Something else to bear in mind is that CV is the only way to unlock Community Medicine (1 health per 6 pop) and Network Datalinks (-40% science cost per city), which are certainly valuable virtues.

Yes, a bad virtue can unlock good ones. That still means it is bad. And we will be here 3 years from now complaining that there are too few real choices in the game because Knowledge is an underperforming tree and infrastructure still trumps specialization.

It doesn't take 10 virtues to pay itself back. At ten virtues, you have not saved "the culture cost of that 10th virtue," you've saved 1/10 of the cost of the previous, much cheaper 10 virtues. 1/10 of a penny plus 1/10 of a nickel plus 1/10 of a dollar is 11 cents, not a dollar. You still have a long way to go, brother.

The hydroplant is an very good analogy! Production buildings in CiV had an incredibly long turnaround time. Your factory might, very optimistically, add 8 or 9 hammers per turn to a strong city when you build it circa turn 200 (in most cities just 6). At a cost of 360 hammers, that means 40 turns to pay itself back - a huge fraction of the remaining game - at the very best. Yet we still build factories. Why?

Because we don't unlock other things to build until later.

What your city can build changes over time based on tech - it makes sense to sink production into a hydroplant now because your city's current other build choices are less valuable than your future build choices will be. This was especially true for time-race-based wonders including the spaceship and the world congress projects.

This is also how social policies operated in CiV! There were situations when it made sense to buy cost-discount policies in the early game - because the policies in the late game would be more valuable than any of your other current choices. Policies unlocked based on tech.

In BE there are no tech requirements for virtues. If you want Eudomonia just go straight for it! (down the left side of Prosperity). Just generate as much culture as you can and shoot for every virtue you want - and you will get them. Nothing's stopping you. There's no reason to spend culture in a discount virtue that will hurt your progress.

 

[Seek]

It doesn't take 10 virtues to pay itself back. At ten virtues, you have not saved "the culture cost of that 10th virtue," you've saved 1/10 of the cost of the previous, much cheaper 10 virtues. 1/10 of a penny plus 1/10 of a nickel plus 1/10 of a dollar is 11 cents, not a dollar. You still have a long way to go, brother.

Um, I didn't say that and I don't think anyone else did either - I'm not disagreeing with the math that I've seen. I'm saying that in ten virtues you will have made up the time cost in virtues, and that, to me, is a much more accurate and telling representation of it's value - that means CV is not nearly as bad as the math makes it sound (30 virtues). I fear that perhaps you aren't getting our point here?

The hydroplant is an very good analogy! Production buildings in CiV had an incredibly long turnaround time. Your factory might, very optimistically, add 8 or 9 hammers per turn to a strong city when you build it circa turn 200 (in most cities just 6). At a cost of 360 hammers, that means 40 turns to pay itself back - a huge fraction of the remaining game - at the very best. Yet we still build factories. Why?

Because we don't unlock other things to build until later.

Not exactly, one builds the factory and the hydroplant so that later, more expensive buildings and units can be built in a reasonable timeframe. I don't care whether the hammers will be paid back soon or not if it allows me to build research labs in 5 turns instead of 10. Costs scale quite dramatically in Civ games, so getting infrastructure that might not "pay itself back" for a very long time in terms of raw hammers (or culture) is still valuable because it easily pays itself back much earlier in terms of time/# of turns - which is more important in my eyes.

Please note, I am not disagreeing that CV is not a great virtue, I'm just arguing that it's not as bad as you and others are saying.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I'm saying that in ten virtues you will have made up the time cost in virtues

But this is wrong as well. I've already disputed the "9-turn argument" on page 1 of this thread.

If I, the player, am acquiring virtues every 9 turns instead of every 10, then regardless of whether I've got CV we have assumed I am stepping up my output to the next virtue scale 1.11 times as fast. The 9-turn argument pretends to assume that output is the same for the CV taker - only stepping up every 10 turns. But then says they are acquiring cultures every 9 turns - thus generating "non-discounted next culture cost / 10" every 9 turns instead of every 10.

Great for the CV taker! But wait. If a player who does not take CV also steps up their culture generation to "non-discounted next culture cost / 10" every nine turns, they will also acquire cultures a bit faster than every 10 turns! So 100 turns later, the CV taker still does not have +1 non-CV virtues than the CV-skipper. Culture costs are the only way to look at this coherently.

 

[Seek]

The non-CV taker will have to invest more in their cultural infrastructure (which may not even be immediately available, thus forcing certain tech patterns) to keep up with the CV taker, though. In both cases there is an opportunity cost. I suppose we will have to agree to disagree, here.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

But this is wrong as well. I've already disputed the "9-turn argument" on page 1 of this thread.

If I, the player, am acquiring virtues every 9 turns instead of every 10, then regardless of whether I've got CV we have assumed I am stepping up my output to the next virtue scale 1.11 times as fast. The 9-turn argument pretends to assume that output is the same for the CV taker - only stepping up every 10 turns. But then says they are acquiring cultures every 9 turns - thus generating "non-discounted next culture cost / 10" every 9 turns instead of every 10.

Great for the CV taker! But wait. If a player who does not take CV also steps up their culture generation to "non-discounted next culture cost / 10" every nine turns, they will also acquire cultures a bit faster than every 10 turns! So 100 turns later, the CV taker still does not have +1 non-CV virtues than the CV-skipper. Culture costs are the only way to look at this coherently.

And that argument is still far more closer to the reality of the game then only looking at the total cost.
And it could be asked, what do I gain instead of CV.