merijn_v1
Black Belt
Adjusting modifiers can be integrated with the new period system.
Thanks for taking the time to test out some possible solutions. I'd like to hear back on how your fix works out, and your post on why the Americans get so far ahead in tech. I suspect it's just their abundance of , coupled with the best tech modifier in the game, but maybe there's more to it than that. I'm a marathon player as well, and I've also thought that maybe the British/American (B/A) tech lead can be attributed to the fact they are able to settle their cities faster than they are on Normal/Epic speed, but I have yet to play these civilizations, or play on any other gamespeed, so I really can't say.I have decided to try testing some solutions to the runaway science issue. I went ahead and changed the English UP (which was hidden away in CvCity.cpp, I couldn't find it ) as well as bumping the science modifier for the Americans up to 100 (temporary fix).
English UP: instead of capping the distance at 10 for calculating maintenance, the "Distance from Palace" maintenance cost is simply halved. I will report back some results after I have made some test play-throughs, to see if anything has changed. Additionally, something I forgot to mention: I play on marathon, and have my balance expectations calibrated for that. I know a lot of people prefer to play on Normal, so any solution I find might be inconsequential if it only addresses the problem on Marathon speed. I suspect that some of the runaway science lead may be associated with the English having more time to settle cities, but I am unsure.
If anyone else has any balance suggestions for me to test that may address the problem, please share. Coronavirus has given me plenty of time.
I will say though, in my own opinion, the problem isn't necessarily that the B/A are too runaway in technology (but that is part of the problem), it's more that the rest of the world struggles to keep up. Maybe your experience is different, but in my Japanese games I played, the B/A were more or less where they should be at historically, researching the end of the Industrial era/beginning of the Global era around 1880/1890 (probably a decade or two too fast), while the rest of Europe is roughly two whole tech columns behind. I'd like to see the Global era be entered by the world around 1900, so I think the problem lies more with every other civilization...
If you are taking ideas on possible balance solutions, I'd suggest letting the "tech spread" research bonus be applied more liberally, at least in the Industrial era and up. I don't 100% know how this function works,
There is no tech diffusion of that kind, instead there is an overall rubber banding effect that is based on the overall amount of beakers researched by each civ. The top 25% get a penalty (scaling with rank, so the full effect only applies to the tech leader) and the bottom 25% get a discount (with scaling in inverse). The effect also scales up with game era, but it could certainly be more pronounced. I was fairly conservative, since it applies to the player too.
There also was a time where America was struggling a lot with tech, and I'm pretty sure I buffed them at some point to help. Looks like they don't have as many problems anymore and could be nerfed a little. I'm looking forward to your results. England is a little bit trickier because they need to be balanced in such a way that they are competitive early on with their small territory but do not get out of control once their empire has expanded.
Could be AI only modifiers.
Apologies for so many questions, perhaps I should move this to some other thread... but where can I find those? I could not find them in the Python assets. AI only modifiers would help explain why the Americans and English tech so incredibly quickly, compounding the already low cost of 12600 (~25% reduction due to civ modifier) with an additional ~35% AI only reduction (12600→8100). Unless, of course, AI only modifiers are the same for all civs, which would mean that we would have to exclude from mechanisms to slow AME/ENG tech speeds.
Right, it would mainly be the difficulties defined in CIV4HandicapInfos.xml, but there may also be some code in the DLL that only applies to AIs.I've long been wondering about the AI-only research modifier too. Haven't located it yet either in Python or in the DLL. I guess it's the difficulty level? I usually play on Monarch and I notice the difference.
I suggest keeping America's research cost modifier to 75 (or bump it up to 80, at the most), but increasing the maintenance or civic upkeep modifiers a bit further, for testing. Bumping up the research cost modifier itself may prevent America from catching up in its early years, unless that is the intended behavior.
Yes, yes it should.shouldn't Taiwan count as part of China
Taiwan is only historical part of China not core for good reason. Taiwan was not part of China for most of its history. It shouldn't be in anyone's core but in China and Japan's historical, perhaps Dutch/Spanish but that is an even more insignificant period of time than Japan and China. Also, I think it's kind of a moot point about it being considered China for Japan's UHV as AI China NEVER settles Taiwan anyway. If Japan controls the Eastern coast that extends cultural influence over Taiwan (which it must to fulfill the goal) then it controls Taiwan.On a more serious note, IIRC most of these "conquer X civ" goals are about controlling the core of that civ, and Taiwan is only Historical for China.
Yes, yes it should.
On a more serious note, IIRC most of these "conquer X civ" goals are about controlling the core of that civ, and Taiwan is only Historical for China.
Taiwan is only historical part of China not core for good reason. Taiwan was not part of China for most of its history. It shouldn't be in anyone's core but in China and Japan's historical, perhaps Dutch/Spanish but that is an even more insignificant period of time than Japan and China. Also, I think it's kind of a moot point about it being considered China for Japan's UHV as AI China NEVER settles Taiwan anyway. If Japan controls the Eastern coast that extends cultural influence over Taiwan (which it must to fulfill the goal) then it controls Taiwan.
AI China 'settled' it in this 600 AD start so it's not impossible for it to exist.