Suggestions to improve balance

[DaveMcW]

Financial in a world full of cottages is strong. (+50% commerce on rivers)
Financial in a world full of hamlets is very strong. (+50% commerce)
Financial in a world full of villages is strong. (+33% commerce)
Financial in a world full of towns is good. (+25% commerce)
Financial in a world full of fully upgraded towns is only average. (+14% commerce)

 

[Kalleyao]

Multiplayer is not for everyone. I like to take my sweet time when playing, and like to be able to leave a game and come back to it later. There's no way i would ever like multiplayer.

You're given the opportunity to play a game with same staring bonus. So why are you complaining about the starting bonus AI have on harder levels? That's what's make the level hard.

Yes it is. There's no other reason to play at Deity besides bragging rights, and if you play civ for bragging rights, you should seriously reconsider your priorities.

Ok but if I won every challenge what should I do next? And there are players enjoying deity as players enjoy noble.

So basically, you're telling me that you want Noble to be harder and Deity to be easier? I think you've lost track of what difficulty levels are for. They're not there to provide different gaming experiences. They're there so that anyone, regardless of their skills, can find a good challenge. They're difficulty levels for crying out loud, different levels of difficulty (challenge)!

When the players have found the challenge (according to you) they would just quit playing? Because there are no more chalenges, there are nothing to do any more in this game? I don't think so, I think they will improve their skills on their preferred level instead. Improvements could be milking, quick finish etc.

There needs to be an easy Noble level for people who couldn't beat anything higher, and there needs to be a Deity level for people who would be bored playing at Noble because it's too easy. Not all levels should catter to your specific skills, that would be very bad!

What I'm saying is that noble doesn't have to be easier than diety for certain players. There could be a player who is an expert on deity, know build orders, best strategy for certain victories, etc. but doesn't know any build order on noble. The expert noble player would easily beat this deity player in score, faster finish etc. if the game was on noble difficulty.

 

[DSChapin]

Make forests more attractive to keep by introducing a tile improvement before sawmills, charcoal burner say, which give +1h, sawmill +1h, railrd +1h
and/or an improvement like herbal remedies which could give +1f or +1health or +1happy (or all 3). These to be available early mid game.

I agree with Zombie that this probably isn't a good thread to suggest drastic changes in. But I do feel that you've hit on a good point: one of the big problems with the current system is that there's nothing you can do with forests in early-mid Civ, whereas almost every other tile allows an improvement.

 

[scooter]

Financial in a world full of cottages is strong. (+50% commerce on rivers)
Financial in a world full of hamlets is very strong. (+50% commerce)
Financial in a world full of villages is strong. (+33% commerce)
Financial in a world full of towns is good. (+25% commerce)
Financial in a world full of fully upgraded towns is only average. (+14% commerce)

Hmm, I never thought of it that way. That's a good point. I do think Financial is the best trait, but overpowered? I don't know.

 

[uberfish]

Well there are only two ways to get commerce production out of flatlands - cottages and specialists. Even under representation running a bio farm + specialist has less commerce output than a town, however there is a very good reason why this should be the case. That's because besides producing GPP, specialists give you the ability to tweak individual cities' gold/science/culture output as needed without using the global slider (for example running Merchants in your Wall Street city when you have a 90% science rate, or Artists in cities with cultural border conflicts.) The limits on how many specialists you can assign also suggests that you aren't really meant to run a primarily Specialist economy, and specialists are intended to complement towns rather than be an alternative to them. Still, if you can use your GPs from an early game specialist economy to get say, Chemistry early you can take a decisive advantage right there. The tradeoff is you have to spend more time working up cottages later when you convert. If representation specialists were to be competitive with cottages throughout the entire game, then the game would be unbalanced in favour of Specialists.

Conclusion - people build cottages when they need more commerce in the late game because that's what the game designers INTENDED them to do by default.

Now if people build cottages when they need *production* in the late game because it's more efficient to have Universal Suffrage towns and rush buy things than to build workshops that's a different issue. I think increasing the cost of rush buying for items that are under 50% complete as Civ2 did, and toning down the Kremlin would address this.

 

[atreas]

Financial in a world full of cottages is strong. (+50% commerce on rivers)
Financial in a world full of hamlets is very strong. (+50% commerce)
Financial in a world full of villages is strong. (+33% commerce)
Financial in a world full of towns is good. (+25% commerce)
Financial in a world full of fully upgraded towns is only average. (+14% commerce)

As they teached me in the statistics class, percentages can become the most misleading thing in the world (btw, that's why politicians love them). The reason is that the percentage is getting smaller, but the raw number of commerce benefit is just getting bigger and bigger (as more commercial tiles pile up) - and techs aren't discovered with percentages, but with raw numbers of commerce -> beakers. On the other hand, even this 14% percentage is better than any other trait - in raw numbers of commerce yield, since the cottaged tiles are so many.

To look at it in another way, do you think that if we somehow allowed only cottages and hamlets the Financial advantage would get bigger? Of course not - because in that case nobody would build cottages (it would be a suboptimal strategy). Thus the Financial advantage would turn almost to a disadvantage, even though the "percentage benefit" would be bigger.

 

[Zombie69]

What I'm saying is that noble doesn't have to be easier than diety for certain players.

If Noble isn't easier than Deity, there's something very wrong with the difficulty levels. A higher difficulty level is supposed to be more difficult, by definition.

 

[Zombie69]

As they teached me in the statistics class, percentages can become the most misleading thing in the world (btw, that's why politicians love them). The reason is that the percentage is getting smaller, but the raw number of commerce benefit is just getting bigger and bigger (as more commercial tiles pile up) - and techs aren't discovered with percentages, but with raw numbers of commerce -> beakers. On the other hand, even this 14% percentage is better than any other trait - in raw numbers of commerce yield, since the cottaged tiles are so many.

I completely disagree. Percentages are much more telling than raw numbers, if only because tech prices go up as you climb the tech tree. This means that raw numbers lose power over time, while percentages remain the same. 14% means getting a tech in 7 turns instead of 8, no matter where you are in the tech tree and how much the tech costs.

It's true that the further you go into the game, the less financial is worth for your civ. The same is also true for organized, unless you expand like crazy in the late game. Creative becomes useless in the late game. Philosophical loses value even more rapidly than financial does, because of the increasing cost of GP. Industrious loses value quite a lot too, because you've got extra production bonuses in your cities, which means you don't get an actual 50% increase in production like you did in the early game.

Aggressive remains just as good all game long. Expansive has good times and bad times, depending on your health vs happiness situation. In the late game, it can give you 2 more food, which translates into 1 more cottage instead of a farm with biology. If the city has 7 or fewer towns, this can actually be stronger than financial.

The one trait that really shines in the late game is spiritual. This is because with more (or all) civics discovered, you've got more choices to choose from when switching back and forth between different civic groups. The spiritual trait becomes more powerful the further you go into the game.

To look at it in another way, do you think that if we somehow allowed only cottages and hamlets the Financial advantage would get bigger? Of course not - because in that case nobody would build cottages (it would be a suboptimal strategy). Thus the Financial advantage would turn almost to a disadvantage, even though the "percentage benefit" would be bigger.

If we were limited to hamlets, the financial trait would be uber powerful. There would be no way to keep up in tech without it and financial civs could crush the other civs with more advanced units anytime they wanted. All you'd have to do is settle as many coastal cities as possible, use as many coastal tiles as you can, and cruise to victory.

 

[atreas]

I completely disagree. Percentages are much more telling than raw numbers, if only because tech prices go up as you climb the tech tree. This means that raw numbers lose power over time, while percentages remain the same. 14% means getting a tech in 7 turns instead of 8, no matter where you are in the tech tree and how much the tech costs.

Of course, you know better than my teacher in the university (whose words I just said) - be it that way (as usual). I can't really disagree with you in obvious facts - as the fact that it doesn't matter how much is the percentage of the difference when there is still an always increasing difference. The real point is that the difference for Fin is getting more in numbers when for all the others it's getting less (as you yourself proved after stating your disagreement). Even Expansive and Spiritual don't really benefit more (usually the cap by that time is so high that it doesn't matter and also you don't need to make so many tunings at the late game) - as for Aggressive, if Tanks had a bonus you would have a point; now you haven't.

If we were limited to hamlets, the financial trait would be uber powerful. There would be no way to keep up in tech without it and financial civs could crush the other civs with more advanced units anytime they wanted. All you'd have to do is settle as many coastal cities as possible, use as many coastal tiles as you can, and cruise to victory.

Dreams. I can propose to you such a game, and I state beforehand that I will not build a single cottage all along, plus I can give you at least two techs as starting handicap (but I will take Philosophical of course). You are simply not going to make it against a specialists economy. But (as usual) you are only thinking about building cottages.

 

[Zombie69]

The real point is that the difference for Fin is getting more in numbers when for all the others it's getting less.

The number of beakers is totally meaningless. Ultimately, the number of turns gained is what counts. And the number of turns gained per tech from financial goes down as the game progresses.

Dreams. I can propose to you such a game, and I state beforehand that I will not build a single cottage all along, plus I can give you at least two techs as starting handicap (but I will take Philosophical of course). You are simply not going to make it against a specialists economy. But (as usual) you are only thinking about building cottages.

If you fail to build the Pyramids first, you'll lose.

If you make the Pyramids first and then lose that city, you'll lose.

You will not be able to break out of Representation to use warmongering government civics.

Even if you do get the Pyramids, your scientists in the late game will barely break even with my coasts and hamlets, even after biology. 1 grassland farm + 1 scientist = 6 commerce, while 2 grassland hamlets or coasts = 6 commerce.

Before biology, it's not even close. I do 9 commerce with 3 hamlets while you do 6 commerce with 2 farms + 1 scientist.

Depending on how much water there is on the map, financial could completely leave you behind wondering what happened. On archipelago maps, you won't be able to make farms, because about 80% of usable tiles are water tiles, and because there is no fresh water most of the time to make farms with. So you'll be left with a mere 50% (or less) GPP bonus while i have a huge 50% commerce bonus.

 

[atreas]

My mistake - I shouldn't have answered you in the first place. This way you would feed your hyper-ego by telling lies to the others - like the false statements you made here about your desire to balance the game while in the next thread you stated that you really play only what is overpowered. I wonder, isn't it a DE FACTO desire for (how did you say it) bragging rights?

Your whole answer is a monument of bad arithmetic combined with bad knowledgement of some game mechanics (how could it be differently - you never read what others say but only say your own stuff, and you only know one play style). I will not even bother to say anything for your second quote (it's very amusing, especially the 80% of water tiles that a few pages ago it was 1/3, plus the totally incorrect maths on specialists and GPP - couldn't you just read my post a few pages ago to see how off-reality you are?), because it doesn't have anything to do with the topic (I have done this mistake once, and will not repeat it again). I will just explain (because I think it's useful, at least for the others) the reason why your "percentages" argument is wrong.

By comparing only the final slope (that's the percentage meaning), and not the total raw numbers, you distort the data - your method forgets past, which is wrong. Even a rookie in statistics knows that. If you want to use percentages, you have to weight them across all time - very tough in this case, because each tile grows separately. If the final slope was negative then the others might have a chance to catch-up their previous (proven) disadvantage; it suffices to show that the slope is bigger than the others to prove that not only they will not catch up, but the difference will continue to be increasing.

The second reason why it's wrong is because you do the statistics not to compare Fin with its previous self (Fin an era ago) but with other traits at the same time. The percentage says nothing about that, unless you have also a similar percentage for each of the other traits (which you haven't). Additionally, exactly in the last phase (Towns) you also get an extra benefit from Universal Suffrage, which really makes the trait to shine (something you of course ommitted). The reason is that the only problem you had to exploit your advantage was hammers - and now the problem is solved.

But still I am losing my time - you are a hopeless case.

 

[Zombie69]

like the false statements you made here about your desire to balance the game while in the next thread you stated that you really play only what is overpowered

There's nothing false about it. Civ 4 is a strategy game. In a strategy game, the point is to be able to always choose the best path towards victory. Those choices are what make it a game. I happen to start playing the game before 4000 BC, when choosing my leader.

However, a strategy game that isn't balanced is no fun, because the best choice is always the same, so once you've figured out what it is, there's no thinking involved; you just apply the same strategy over and over mindlessly. Therefore, to make civ a better strategy game, we must balance it.

Once the game is properly balanced, i'll be free to choose other traits (than financial) and other openings (than chop rushing). This will make me think more, therefore it will be more fun - a better game. I can't do this now because it will feel like not given it my best, which goes against the spirit of strategy games (plus i'm a perfectionist). I will not resort to choosing what i know to be an inferior strategy just to add variety. But i will work towards making the game more balanced so that i can then play it with more variety while still giving it my best.

(it's very amusing, especially the 80% of water tiles that a few pages ago it was 1/3

Two completely different numbers :

- 1/3 of tiles with 2+ base commerce in a typical map are tiles with exactly 2 base commerce and no more (and this includes cottages on rivers and hamlets not on rivers)

- 80% of tiles worked (including those with 0 or 1 commerce) are water tiles in an archipelago map

Those two statements are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they talk about two completely different things in two completely different settings.

By comparing only the final slope (that's the percentage meaning), and not the total raw numbers, you distort the data - your method forgets past, which is wrong. Even a rookie in statistics knows that. If you want to use percentages, you have to weight them across all time - very tough in this case, because each tile grows separately. If the final slope was negative then the others might have a chance to catch-up their previous (proven) disadvantage; it suffices to show that the slope is bigger than the others to prove that not only they will not catch up, but the difference will continue to be increasing.

The second reason why it's wrong is because you do the statistics not to compare Fin with its previous self (Fin an era ago) but with other traits at the same time. The percentage says nothing about that, unless you have also a similar percentage for each of the other traits (which you haven't). Additionally, exactly in the last phase (Towns) you also get an extra benefit from Universal Suffrage, which really makes the trait to shine (something you of course ommitted). The reason is that the only problem you had to exploit your advantage was hammers - and now the problem is solved.

Here's the scenario. I'm somewhere along the tech chart. Choose any point you want. Because of trading, because of bonuses from other civs knowing a tech you research, and because techs gradually cost more and more, you're at the same point too, or very close. This applies to any point along the chart. This is why the past can mostly be ignored. Experience playing the game shows that this is almost always the case (civs being relatively close in tech level throughout the entire game).

The advantage of having more total commerce doesn't give someone an ever-increasing tech lead. You can only be so many techs ahead, and after that, you can't pull away anymore. Everybody is usually pretty close in tech. The advantages of having more commerce are :
- being able to be the first to techs that give bonuses to the first civ to reach them
- getting all techs a few turns sooner, which means being able to use them sooner, increasing your advantage (note i didn't say increasing your tech advantage; like i said, it remains pretty much constant after a certain point)
- getting military techs before someone else and using them to attack him while you have the advantage.

All this is taken advantage of despite the fact that you can't pull ahead more after a while.

So taking this into account, the past is irrelevant, the slope is irrelevant, and all that matters is how fast you can research a specific tech compared to how fast i can research the same tech. And to remain general and not specific to a certain tech or a certain time period, the best way to express this is through percentages.


I will not reply to your personal attacks because that's counter-productive and adds nothing to the argument. I only replied to the logical statements that you made.

 

[atreas]

What else will I listen - how many games of mine do you want posted where I have Tanks and the others Rifles to understand that this beautiful "equality" scenario of yours says nothing? Not to mention that, even if in the first tech you finish 1 turn ahead out of 8, in the second tech the difference will be 2 out of 8 and so on - past will be there whether you like it or not.

And if you don't want personal attacks please don't EVER again change a post you made (in fact, it was the quoted part of a post) without even making a notice. It just feels so wrong to see it, especially when your post is making a point that (accidentally?) was also noted in the part you deleted afterwords.

 

[Zombie69]

Given two civs that don't increase in size, and don't increase in total commerce, even if one civ has more commerce than the other, after a point the gap will remain constant. It's a mathematical fact based on the game's mechanics. Of course, if one civ then grows bigger, the gap will increase. But as soon as it stops growing (and the new gap has adjusted to the new difference in commerce), then this new gap will remain constant again.

If your gap is increasing compared to the AI, it's probably because your total commerce has increased more than theirs. Otherwise the gap wouldn't have increased. There is no slope based on total commerce, only a slope based on increasing commerce. This is because of the game mechanics which i've already mentioned in my last post, namely :

- trading helps keep everyone fairly equal
- a backwards civ gets bigger research bonuses from other civs already knowing the tech it's researching
- techs gradually cost more, so even with less commerce you can research techs just as fast because the techs you're researching are cheaper than the opponent's

As for editing posts, check the time of the edit. You'll see that it was perfectly legit. I don't think i've ever edited a post after someone else had already posted something else after it. Well, actually i remember doing it once a day later, but it was only to fix an ugly typo. I don't remember having ever done it except for that one instance.

 

[opensilo]

Zombie, atreas: You are both much better players than I am. I've improved my game immensely from reading your posts. So take the following with my respect. I hope I don't irritate either of you because I value your inputs here.

Zombie, you can come across as a bit...abrupt. That said, I must confess that I've nearly come to tears laughing at a couple of your lambastings of other posters. You are right that financial is the optimal trait, especially on higher levels.

On the point of questioning why you always choose financial, I think atreas' reasoning is correct. If you are interested in playing the strategy game optimally, you would always play settler level because that allows you to crush the AI by the greatest margin. Or you'd play for score and try to improve on A_Turkish_Guy's massive warlord level (and other levels too, I guess) points strategies.

Choosing deity gives your opponents advantages relative to you that you accept because you want the challenge. Similarly, choosing (or randomly getting) a non-financial civ can be viewed as giving your opponents an advantage relative to you because you force yourself to use the non-optimal financial trait and find/implement other strategies. If you're willing to accept the challenge of deity, why not accept the challenge of not using the financial trait every once in a while.

Just trying to play peacemaker. Don't shoot! If unwelcome, I withdraw these comments.

 

[opensilo]

Back on topic. I don't know if this is implementable or not in a mod, but what if the bonus of the financial trait was capped at something like +4 or +5 commerce per city? Count the number of tiles that are receiving a bonus from the financial trait. Subtract five (or whatever the max bonus would be). The resulting difference is subtracted from your net commerce for this city before the split into gold/beakers/culture.

This way, financial would still be of value to small cities, but wouldn't get overpowered in large cities where you're working 15 tiles that get the bonus commerce.

Edit: I guess you could implement it as a penalty to commerce (for the financial trait civs) of:

FinPenalty=Max(0, CitySize-5)

Low commerce, high production cities won't be producing much commerce and under this penalty will produce zero. High commerce cities will probably be working mostly bonus tiles anyway, and so it'll work out to about what I initially suggested.

 

[Zombie69]

On the point of questioning why you always choose financial, I think atreas' reasoning is correct. If you are interested in playing the strategy game optimally, you would always play settler level because that allows you to crush the AI by the greatest margin. Or you'd play for score and try to improve on A_Turkish_Guy's massive warlord level (and other levels too, I guess) points strategies.

Choosing deity gives your opponents advantages relative to you that you accept because you want the challenge. Similarly, choosing (or randomly getting) a non-financial civ can be viewed as giving your opponents an advantage relative to you because you force yourself to use the non-optimal financial trait and find/implement other strategies. If you're willing to accept the challenge of deity, why not accept the challenge of not using the financial trait every once in a while.

Good point. I guess, as hinted by me earlier, this has to do with where you draw the line at where the game begins. For me, it begins after choosing a map type and difficulty level, and before choosing the leader that would best perform in this situation. For example, when i started a game on archipelago, i chose Washington (and retrospectively i think that was indeed the best choice).

Why i draw the line at that specific point is not apparently obvious to me. The only thing i can think of to come close to explaining it is another game that i play, a board game called Blood Bowl. It's basically a violent parody of american football in a fantasy setting (orcs, elves, etc.) It's a strategy game, not an RPG, despite the fantasy setting. There are currently about 20 races to choose from, all with their relative strengths and weaknesses. When starting a new season, or entering a new tournament, i'll look at all the parameters (is the season long or short, what house rules are used, etc.) and select a race which i believe to be strong in this setting. So in a sense, i start the game before the season starts. Indeed, a lot of Blood Bowl "coaches" do the same thing (from reading forums, i'd wager maybe about 50%). Some would term this attitude as "powergamer". Personally, i believe that powergamer is a term that only makes sense in RPGs, and is negative in that setting. I believe that to be good at strategy games, to play them properly, as they were meant to be played, you must be a powergamer, and avoid basing any decision on role-playing. You must simply try to win at all costs. Indeed, my favorite opponents are those who do just that.

But let's go back to the concept of where you draw the line at where the game begins. I accept that other people will draw the line elsewhere. For atreas, the choice of a leader is part of the pre-game setup like the choice of a map or a difficulty level. I accept that as a completely valid approach. However, i also ask that you accept mine as a valid approach as well. Indeed, you could theoretically draw the line at any point, and it would be a valid approach. How you define the game, and what it encompasses, is a personal choice best left to the individual.

 

[Zombie69]

FinPenalty=Max(0, CitySize-5)

This doesn't work because you need to replace "CitySize" with "Number of tiles being worked at any one time which produce 2+ base commerce", and i don't know how you'd go about finding that variable!

As for your suggestion, assuming it could be implemented. Roland and i believe that Financial is strongest at the beginning of the game, and that's where it most needs toning down, which is the opposite of what you propose.

Of course, atreas will disagree, because he believes all percentages are misrepresentative!

 

[malekithe]

The more I look at the "3 commerce theshold for financial" mod, the more I like the numbers I'm seeing.

The benefit from Financial currently, I summarize as follows: Total increase in commerce generated over the course of the game will assymptotically appproach ~20%. In real game numbers, this would approach a tech lead of about .5 techs per commerce city by the middle rennaissance. That number would slowly climb to about .6 techs per commerce city in the late industrial age before slowly falling back down. All tech costs assume noble difficulty; these advantages would be considerably smaller on higher difficulties. It's hard to quantify the early game advantage except to say the average percent increase in commerce per turn in the era of cottages and hamlets is between 36 and 50%.

The modded version would have the following characteristics: Total increase in commerce will assymptotically approach ~12%. Tech lead per commerce city will be around .33 in the mid rennaissance, up to .4 in the industrial age, and falling off after that (in total, a 33% reduction in tech lead). In the early game, the commerce per turn advantage is delayed by a considerable margin and never grows above the ~25% advantage when villages start appearing.

Most of the loss in potency actually comes from the loss on coastal tiles. In fact, all of the noticably long-term losses comes from coastal tiles. The average cottage will only generate 20 fewer commerce over its lifetime with this change, whereas a coastal tile will generate 1 fewer per turn worked. That's my one big fear with this mod, it really removes most of the incentive for financial civs to be on the coast (or rather, equalizes it to other civs).

 

[atreas]

This doesn't work because you need to replace "CitySize" with "Number of tiles being worked at any one time which produce 2+ base commerce", and i don't know how you'd go about finding that variable!

As for your suggestion, assuming it could be implemented. Roland and i believe that Financial is strongest at the beginning of the game, and that's where it most needs toning down, which is the opposite of what you propose.

Of course, atreas will disagree, because he believes all percentages are misrepresentative!

I generally don't disagree to correct thoughts - and in almost all this you are right. It's true that this method (which is similar to what I have proposed earlier) slows down Fin in the end, and not in the start, and that's a good reason for supporting the other method. But still (as Roland also noted) you need something more to achieve balance.

Having passed, Zombie, all my small life dealing with percentages, both in professional and in hobby level, I have learnt to respect them and not abuse them - and I certainly didn't say what you said. This is different from your views in many parts - but I will take opensilo's word and let it go having you with the last word. I can live with that.