Suggestions and Requests

[soul-breathing]

The US is already coded to demand Louisiana first, and other civs are encouraged to support that. What's your experience from your games? Does America never demand it, or do other civs always reject their demands?

I don't experience AI America in 1800s so don't know it do or not for AI America. When I play as America I always first demand New Orleans, but never get it. I don't know if it to do with military power or not, my military is always 0.5 or 0.6 to France.

My suggestion is, how about allow America to buy New Orleans from France with gold(some event like Trading Company, but only can choose buy or not, no war option)? After all, it's the true history. Also for Alaska, if there is AI city.

 

[Leoreth]

I don't think the event requires such a special treatment. The congress system is fine in principle to implement this. Looks like the French UP is getting in the way here, I'll investigate.

 

[Ani Taneen]

My suggestion is, how about allow America to buy New Orleans from France with gold(some event like Trading Company, but only can choose buy or not, no war option)? After all, it's the true history. Also for Alaska, if there is AI city.

Though the Luisiana purchase (New Orleans and any French colonies that didn't flip along the Mississippi River area.) would be pretty cool.

I don't think the event requires such a special treatment. The congress system is fine in principle to implement this. Looks like the French UP is getting in the way here, I'll investigate.

Heh, fair enough.

 

[hnrysml]

It seems like we need a thread for a discussing ideas for a decolonisation mechanic discrete from new civ spawns, to represent nations that retained close ties (especially military) to the colonial power, such as a Australia or South Africa to the UK, or the French-influenced nations of west Africa to France. Or perhaps instead one of the future updates could focus on restructuring the way independent civs work to be more like a kind of minor civ?

 

[Leoreth]

There's only two options here really, all independent cities are shared by 2 or more "independent" civs, or making more proper civs. If we can do the latter, "minor" is just a set of special rules for such a civ, but making it a complete civ in its own right does not come with any additional drawbacks.

As I have mentioned a couple of times before, I'm open to having various different conditions for spawns, how the spawn actually occurs (e.g. flip vs. conquest) and even what the status of the new civ would be (spawn as vassal, for example).

 

[star15389]

Minor ease of use request: could you make it easier to tell the two independent civilizations apart? I can never tell which one I need to DoW to take a city and often choose the wrong one on the score list and end up getting my improvements pillaged when my army is far away from the border with the city I accidentally DoW'd

 

[Leoreth]

You aren't really supposed to be able to tell them apart.

 

[star15389]

Would it be that bad to have the civs be named Independent 1 and Independent 2? Don't need to give them different sprites or color or anything, just enough to let me know if attacking Venice is going to put me at war with Budapest too

 

[Ani Taneen]

Minor ease of use request: could you make it easier to tell the two independent civilizations apart? I can never tell which one I need to DoW to take a city and often choose the wrong one on the score list and end up getting my improvements pillaged when my army is far away from the border with the city I accidentally DoW'd

I feel like the whole collapsed civ/independent nations should be revised whenever the civil war mechanic is introduced. Which will be also when the civ list system is remade.

Leo, is it safe to think that, based on community interest and increased discussion, after the tech tree - civics revamp the next major update will look at civilization list?

 

[merijn_v1]

I feel like the whole collapsed civ/independent nations should be revised whenever the civil war mechanic is introduced. Which will be also when the civ list system is remade.

Leo, is it safe to think that, based on community interest and increased discussion, after the tech tree - civics revamp the next major update will look at civilization list?

I seems so.

In the future it will be easy for civs to only occupy a slot when they are alive. That will free up enough slots to comfortably optimise the game or add new civs, depending on settings.

I think it's not too much to reveal that it's the goal for 1.16.

 

[Leoreth]

It's not just community interest, I've really wanted to do that for a long time now.

 

[makka]

I have often thought about reflecting ... trades routes more realistically...

Sure, the smart way to do it would be to only recalculate trade routes for every fifth/tenth city each turn by some sort of modulo arithmetic.

In case this is gonna take place someday, I'd suggest a calculation based upon two things:
- first, profit, but based on the cities' commerce instead of population, as well as distance,
- and, second, cost, also based on distance (determined by pathfinding), growing exponentially, but the increase of this distance modifier set back everytime any own city is passed en route (reduced setback for friendly cities accessible through open borders),
as that would lure naval empires like Portugal or Britain into settling one tile islands and coastal cities as trading posts, thus behaving/developing historically for an actual reason, not just being kinda forced to (with meagre success).

The AI, perhaps, once again, will have a hard time to get this right, I guess, but I don't think it takes potential trade route income into account upon settlement anyway, so, whatever...

In this regard, I'd also propose to move Madeira one tile to the west (or even NW), so Spain has a bit more space to settle the Canaries (an island feature might be added to the Atlantic archipelagos from the Azores to Cape Verde, to reflect geography and to make those cities more viable).

Speaking of Madeira, I may request to add it, as well as the Algarve (2S of Lisbon), to the Portuguese core, given that the Azores make part of it.

 

[Leoreth]

Basing trade route value on commerce is kind of circular, since trade routes also provide commerce.

I think to make trade more interesting it should actually reflect what the city produces, and what the target civ needs. You could associate every trade route a city has with a trade good it produces, with different values for different trade goods. Trade would go to cities within civs that do not produce that trade good themselves. Conversely, cities will try to import goods they don't have from the nearest possible city. Trade income for an exporting city would be a function of inherent trade good value plus trading distance. So for example, China would not export Silk to Japan but instead to Europe.

Trade goods do not even have to be literal resources, I think sometimes they could be a group of resources (e.g. grain = rice, wheat, corn) or other products that are produced based on tech, buildings, specialists etc.

I could also imagine an extra rule that colonies are not allowed to produce their own trade income, but instead "forward" the goods they produce to a core city or the capital.

Having such a system could even subsume the current corporation system and would neatly integrate with other aspects of the game, such as diplomacy (resource trade agreements etc.) and happiness (you only get happiness for resources a city produces itself or actively imports through trade. I really don't like how disconnected trade is from every other aspect of the game (except diplomacy, superficially). All you need to do is secure some open borders and you have flat extra income everywhere.

 

[Ani Taneen]

Trade goods do not even have to be literal resources, I think sometimes they could be a group of resources (e.g. grain = rice, wheat, corn) or other products that are produced based on tech, buildings, specialists etc.

there is an argument to be made about certain cities to naturally produce trade goods like Lacquerware, glass, even consumer electronics.

I could also imagine an extra rule that colonies are not allowed to produce their own trade income, but instead "forward" the goods they produce to a core city or the capital.

This sounds like a feature of mercantilism. I'm trying to see if it makes sense for capitalistic Hawaii to "forward" it's trade income to Washington DC.

Having such a system could even subsume the current corporation system and would neatly integrate with other aspects of the game, such as diplomacy (resource trade agreements etc.) and happiness (you only get happiness for resources a city produces itself or actively imports through trade. I really don't like how disconnected trade is from every other aspect of the game (except diplomacy, superficially). All you need to do is secure some open borders and you have flat extra income everywhere.

I like also the possibility to wage "cultural warfare" by using music, movies, & TV to increase your cultural reputation in foreign cities. Especially since this game treats modern cultural goods as trade resources.

An argument could be made for the inclusion of renowned art museums (like the Louvre) to produce an art trade good (loans to other museums) and natural history museums (Like Oxford's Ashmolean Museum) to produce an exhibition trade good.

I'd say that there should be a new victory condition for the late game that involves you becoming the center of global trade & culture. Maybe distinguish the legendary cities of the past (victory by building the amazing) with today's legendary influence (victory by being globally influential)

 

[Malchar]

I think to make trade more interesting it should actually reflect what the city produces, and what the target civ needs. You could associate every trade route a city has with a trade good it produces, with different values for different trade goods. Trade would go to cities within civs that do not produce that trade good themselves.

How do you determine what a city produces? Currently, the method is based on city population with the assumption that more population equals more valuable production. In Europa Universalis, each city/region on the map is preprogrammed to have a particular resource which is used for trade. That works nicely considering that all the cities are prebuilt at the start of the game.

Trade "production" could be tied to resources that are located within the workable area of the city.

 

[Leoreth]

This sounds like a feature of mercantilism. I'm trying to see if it makes sense for capitalistic Hawaii to "forward" it's trade income to Washington DC.

I don't think everyone would agree that Hawaii is a US colony

Trade "production" could be tied to resources that are located within the workable area of the city.

Yes!

 

[star15389]

Does it make sense for India to forward *all* of its trade income to London? I like the idea of having the financial centers of the most successful and advanced civs become super cities a step above other capitals but that might be excessive

 

[Malchar]

I don't think everyone would agree that Hawaii is a US colony


Yes!

Doesn't all of the trade income go to the capital already, in the sense that the player gets to choose how to allocate all the empire's money? What does it matter which city generates the commerce? The only thing I can think of would be for the purposes of growing the culture border. In that scenario, should France trading with their southeast Asia colony generate culture in Paris to press up against the German border? Shouldn't the trade generated by the colony increase the culture of the colony, since they're the ones experiencing interaction with the outside would? I mean, trade always has two sides, and both would be mutually exposed to each other's culture, so each side should benefit locally from the trade route, like how it is currently implemented.

 

[star15389]

It matters a lot since it's much better to have commerce be more concentrated in one city. That way a higher share of your civ's commerce is getting multiplied by scarce national wonders and you don't have to spend as many hammers on buildings to get the same science or gold output. And since it's your capital you get Bureaucracy too

 

[Ani Taneen]

I don't think everyone would agree that Hawaii is a US colony

Fair enough. So if the US captures/settles Manila, that'd be a colony. But I wonder if the US would consider Hong Kong a colony if they conquered it? What about Seoul? Will there be a "colony" layer in the map (there may already be one, and I'm just ignorant of it).

Does it make sense for India to forward *all* of its trade income to London? I like the idea of having the financial centers of the most successful and advanced civs become super cities a step above other capitals but that might be excessive

I think that is a great point. One that can be fixed by having caps.