Suggestions and Requests

[1SDANi]

Speaking of the latest update's (Stability) Tooltips and the Tech Progression Thread's topic of Civics, would it be possible for Civics to have a tooltip of the immediate empire wide changes it will have? To be honest I'm still not sure when I should use Merchant Trade or Regulated Trade. I just use Merchant trade every time because it adds a Trade Route to every city and I typically play aggressively ever since Columbia conquered the United States.

 

[Tigranes]

Speaking of the latest update's (Stability) Tooltips and the Tech Progression Thread's topic of Civics, would it be possible for Civics to have a tooltip of the immediate empire wide changes it will have? To be honest I'm still not sure when I should use Merchant Trade or Regulated Trade. I just use Merchant trade every time because it adds a Trade Route to every city and I typically play aggressively ever since Columbia conquered the United States.

Merchant trade is for "wide" empires and regulated trade is for "tall" empires, empires with 3-4 cities and very strong capital. Mongolia sure needs merchant trade, and Korea needs regulated trade.

 

[Visard]

Suggestion for Expansion Stability:
Each town in core area adds +1 to the core population.

Otherwise the most stable expansion strategy would be farming the core area which doesn't really make sense historically.
If this makes expansion too easy, we could also count each town in foreign area to foreign population.

 

[Leoreth]

Speaking of the latest update's (Stability) Tooltips and the Tech Progression Thread's topic of Civics, would it be possible for Civics to have a tooltip of the immediate empire wide changes it will have? To be honest I'm still not sure when I should use Merchant Trade or Regulated Trade. I just use Merchant trade every time because it adds a Trade Route to every city and I typically play aggressively ever since Columbia conquered the United States.

You would need to implement logic that extrapolates these outcomes. That would be necessary for every civic effect, and in some cases could be very complicated (e.g. for +1 trade route, which connections would these new trade routes establish and how much commerce would it generate in each case?). Also in my opinion part of the player skill is to develop a judgement of these things. If anything else fails, save + try + reload gives you a more accurate prediction than any heuristic ever could.

Suggestion for Expansion Stability:
Each town in core area adds +1 to the core population.

Otherwise the most stable expansion strategy would be farming the core area which doesn't really make sense historically.
If this makes expansion too easy, we could also count each town in foreign area to foreign population.

That's a good idea. I agree with the concern of farming your core cities.

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

but would that mean towns outside the core area are going to be counted too?

 

[Caesar Augustus]

but would that mean towns outside the core area are going to be counted too?

I worry that would force your hand a bit much WRT what improvements to build. Like, you're gonna want to avoid farms already to keep pop on the low end. And then if towns have the same penalty you avoid them. Which leaves only +prod improvements, with maybe a FEW farms to support a basic contingent of specialists. It doesn't really leave a lot of room for interesting decisions.

 

[Leoreth]

I agree, +1 pop in core is not that much, but worth more than the +1 food you'd get by choosing a farm over a cottage.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Portugal (starting 1120 AD) only starts with a granary in Lissabon, no other buildings. I think it would make sense to add some buildings like library, market, church, harbor, perhaps even forge, monastery, wall, lighthouse.

And they start with galleys even cogs are technologicly(?) available. Intended?

A heavy galley would be nice too, as both Spain and Moors have some at this point.

 

[calad]

Stability suggestions:

Current stability system is still rather clumsy: either some anarchy, cities leaving or total collapse (most common and noticiable). Instead of none of these bad stability should give issues not from over all stability but from each categories, like:

• Expansion: anarcy, cities leaving
• Civics: anarchy, civics changing and revolution, losing research
  
• Economy: anarchy, improvements destroyed, buildings destroyed, workers leaving
• Foreign: colonial cities leaving, losing vassals
  
• Military: military units leaving, military units turning into barbarians or independent

Maya suggestion:

Right now Mayas are one of most unplayed civs, problems are really limited core, narrow goals that are more luck than skill and lack of strategies.
So to make Mayas more intresting would be to change their UP to following to present how small their are was and how many cities they had: double yield on overlapping tiles between cities on core.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Stability suggestions:

Current stability system is still rather clumsy: either some anarchy, cities leaving or total collapse (most common and noticiable). Instead of none of these bad stability should give issues not from over all stability but from each categories, like:

• Expansion: anarcy, cities leaving
• Civics: anarchy, civics changing and revolution, losing research
  
• Economy: anarchy, improvements destroyed, buildings destroyed, workers leaving
• Foreign: colonial cities leaving, losing vassals
  
• Military: military units leaving, military units turning into barbarians or independent

If I understood correctly what you said, the category of crisis (whether minor or major) a civ experiences on negative stab check already depends on the category with the lowest rating.

 

[Leoreth]

Currently crises have been removed entirely. The only consequences of bad stability right now are complete collapse and collapse to core.

But there is still a difference, because previously the overall stability level would determine if a crisis occurs and then decide which crisis type happens based on the category. If I understood the suggestion correctly, now a single bad category can cause a crisis even if the overall stability is good. I don't really like this approach, because it should be possible to balance negative stability in one category with positive stability in another.

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

A small aesthetic suggestion: Add the Catholic religious Icon from the Sword of Islam.

I tried editing it myself but for some reason the Assets\Art folders seem to be hidden for SOI and Civ IV in general.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm already using it.

 

[calad]

Currently crises have been removed entirely. The only consequences of bad stability right now are complete collapse and collapse to core.

But there is still a difference, because previously the overall stability level would determine if a crisis occurs and then decide which crisis type happens based on the category. If I understood the suggestion correctly, now a single bad category can cause a crisis even if the overall stability is good. I don't really like this approach, because it should be possible to balance negative stability in one category with positive stability in another.

That is a valid point. Then how about overall stability would cause crise/crisis only on those stability sections that are negative? Further this would be random, for example if you have expansion stability -1, economy -2 and military -1 there would be 25% chance on expansion or military crise and 50% on economy.

 

[Leoreth]

With crises removed it's sort of a moot point.

 

[Tigranes]

I think Viking's initial civics deserve some changes. Monarchy was not there in place in 6th century, some chiefdoms at best. There was some slavery going on already. So starting with Despotism and Slavery is not unthinkable. Vassalage is a pretty complex form applicable to feudalism, but in our mod Vikings already have nobility when they start and somehow their civic is set on Vassalage. Too early in my opinion...

 

[Ogi123]

Suggestion for Expansion Stability:
Each town in core area adds +1 to the core population.

Otherwise the most stable expansion strategy would be farming the core area which doesn't really make sense historically.
If this makes expansion too easy, we could also count each town in foreign area to foreign population.

I agree, +1 pop in core is not that much, but worth more than the +1 food you'd get by choosing a farm over a cottage.

Disagree with both of those. Farming core is still superior option.

- Towns cause , how much you can afford it depends on spare , farms are clean.
- Farms allow you to quickly grow back population from whip or plague.
- After chemistry farms also are +1 population.
- You don't need to build park or public transportation, witch are late anyway.
- More is more specialist and egalitarianism in large empires combined with democracy is crazy good.

That not means that +1pop from town should go away. I simply view it as inferior fluff option, and well somebody was wrong on internet so I needed to correct that...

 

[Leoreth]

somebody was wrong on internet so I needed to correct that...

yeah ...

 

[need my speed]

yeah ...

I liked the post precisely for that. It made me smile.

 

[Vectors]

So I think I posted about this before but I want talk a bit about resources, colonialism and trade.

Problem: resources are everything, thanks to them you can grow you cities larger, witch means more , and thanks to that more ,, buildings and units.
Problem 2: Trading resources is useless, if you are larger empire (so always) trading demands are ridiculous. No I will not give you 8 of mine resources +, for single of yours just because I have 20 cities and AI has 3. I will rather conquer or colonise to get access to those.
Problem 3: I cannot trade even if I wanted for animal and seafood resources before refrigeration. Again I need to conquer or colonise.

Those three taken together mean that there is never reason to decolonise or grant independence. Loss of / means that my cities productivity will fall sharply and with it all of my civ efforts.

Solution:
1)A lot more resources should obsolete, especially around industrial era, and in they place there should be buildings witch grant flat bonuses to /. This will allow me to let go of colonies at some date to improve my and . I guess higher instability and upkeep in colonies wouldn't hurt either.
Example: dyes obsolete at chemistry - artificial dyes. Sugar obsoletes at biology - beet sugar. Spices obsoletes at refrigeration - no need to mask spoiled food taste.

2) Here solution is simple. Improve trade, I'm perfectly willing to pay 2-3 of my surplus resources for single needed one. This will of course also need improvements to AI to be willing to trade and stop building cottages, workshops or farms on its resources.

3) Also not complicated solution: allow trade of those resources as any other. If I can as Rome trade for rice with China in classical era I can as well trade those.

1) Most sugar is still from sugarcane, spices aren't for masking spoiled food taste and they are still valuable.

3) Dried rice ships fairly well, seafood and meats don't ship very well