Suggestion : City-State Yields for Great Merchant's Trade Mission

[balparmak]

There's much on agenda these days but this has been bothering me for a while. I feel GM's active ability is very underwhelming compared to others. Growth from WLTKD is nice, but not always needed (or even desired if you're limiting growth), the gold is pretty insignificant maybe except for the early game. If you don't have some strong WLTKD synergy, there's very little reason to bulb rather than to plant. I have two suggestions, I think both are very simple, fit the GM theme, and would make bulbing more desirable and fun. Since both use the existing mechanics, it wouldn't take much work to make the AI use them properly.

1) Trade Mission as Soft Tribute: TM additionally grants +x amount of relevant CS yields (e.g. faith from religious CS), scaling with era and number of towns, without any influence penalties. I think this would be easier to balance and implement. Like Tribute, this can also be boosted through policies.

2) Trade Mission starts special types of WLTKD, boosting relevant yields in addition to growth (e.g. x% food and x% faith from a religious CS): This may be harder to balance, especially at the late game. Very easy to implement though, I'm about finished with this.

What do you think?

 

[CppMaster]

Yep, GM is very underwhelming and I like both of your ideas.

 

[Erikose]

Agree on both the shortcomings and the suggestions. Other GPs have their yields augmented by the number of special improvements or great works created, but there are times I literally run out of places to put towns, as the static trade mission seems so underwhelming. My least favorite GP, at the moment.

 

[DeAnno]

I like these in that it makes it matter again what CS you send the GM to, without treading on the Diplomat's toes. Overall I think I like the simplicity of #1 better, though non-Authority tribute doesn't generally scale that well into the late game so maybe the scaling should be different. (GM gold reward could use its scaling looked at as well IMO)

The Great Engineer also has scaling issues but at least with that the advantage of being able to complete a wonder in the middle of your turn is a powerful way to invest "safely", GM doesn't have a similar trick to justify the weakening scaling.

 

[balparmak]

Glad to see people agree with me! If we can decide on the values we can open a poll and hopefully get this included in soon. I'm really not good with balancing and number crunching though, would appreciate if anyone can chime in.

A) For instant yields (soft tribute): Trade mission provides the base tribute amount, scaling with the era, and + 3% increase per Town constructed, in addition to the usual WLTKD and Gold. (no increase to WLTKD duration from Towns though)

B) For modified WLTKDs: Trade mission boosted WLTKDs provide 15% increase for the related CS yield, and WLTKD duration increases by one per Town constructed, in addition to the instant gold yield.

Questions:
For A: Should we still keep the instant Gold yield? I think it's fine for B, but for A we would have three effects (gold, CS yield and WLTKD). I still don't think this would make it overpowered, but it feels a bit crowded with three effects.
For B: How much of a % boost should we use and what should be provided by the Maritime CS which normally provides food? If we go by default tributes we don't have anyone providing a Gold modifier, so I think that could be assigned to them. There's also the case of back-to-back Trade Missions. When a player completes a trading mission before the WLTKD from the other expires, should they get both bonuses, or only the bonus of the most recent mission?

I made a test version for the second one, with a 15% bonus from missions and Maritime states providing Gold. Only the bonus from the latest trade mission is active. I'd like to make it so that the first mission gives its bonus for the duration of one WLTKD, and the second one starts when that ends, but that's harder to implement. The AI will also get these effects, but it doesn't target the city-states according to its needs yet, I'm working on it. That also brings up another question, when AI decides where to use their GM, should it try to get yields it's lacking, or should it go for the yields tied to its victory goal?

 

[balparmak]

Hate to bump my thread but I really want to get this done soon, before I have to take a break away from modding. What do you think about the following for AI logic for targeting City-States for yields

If losing money, go gold
If unhappy, go for the yield causing most unhappiness
If building a wonder or a competitive project, go production (if can reach the CS in time)
If losing a war, go production (warscore < - 10)
If there are still religions to found, go religion
If developing a religion, go religion
If behind in both techs and policies, go for the one with the larger gap (if the gap is equal, go for the AI flavor)
If behind techs, go science
If behind policies, go culture
Else, go for victory condition pursued (if not available, go for the AI flavor)

And this will apply to all of the above: If cannot find a valid target, or target CS is unreachable/enemy, try the next option

Sadly I don't see any way to implement this without the DLL, so even if I finished this, it'll have to wait for the next VP release or a custom DLL.

 

[CppMaster]

Hate to bump my thread but I really want to get this done soon, before I have to take a break away from modding. What do you think about the following for AI logic for targeting City-States for yields

If losing money, go gold
If unhappy, go for the yield causing most unhappiness
If building a wonder or a competitive project, go production (if can reach the CS in time)
If losing a war, go production (warscore < - 10)
If there are still religions to found, go religion
If developing a religion, go religion
If behind in both techs and policies, go for the one with the larger gap (if the gap is equal, go for the AI flavor)
If behind techs, go science
If behind policies, go culture
Else, go for victory condition pursued (if not available, go for the AI flavor)

And this will apply to all of the above: If cannot find a valid target, or target CS is unreachable/enemy, try the next option

Sadly I don't see any way to implement this without the DLL, so even if I finished this, it'll have to wait for the next VP release or a custom DLL.

Looks good, but I'd move gold lower, so it has lower priority. Maybe after religion.