So, to clarify, the Science from TR via influence should only be generated if you are already gaining science?
G
Test Version - October 8th (10/8)
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So, to clarify, the Science from TR via influence should only be generated if you are already gaining science?
G
There are too many variables. The science/gold might be fine if you didn't get to influential that quickly or it could still be too much. Initial thought when you posted it list was that I would have halved it.
The growth still feels stupid to me, so I can't really make a accurate assessment but it does make all other growthbonuses feel worse.
This feels like a pretty weird mechanic to be honest.
Another thing I really don't like about the new tourism system is that it feels like it merges too much with the trade-route system. I mean trade is supposed to be one aspect of the game, not the main path for tourism..
By the way, completely off topic, but would it be possible that incoming traderoutes reveals their origin city? I mean it would make sense that you got some idea of where visiting merchants comes from? as well as possibilities to have your people travel with them.
While on that topic, how about traderoutes having a 'per turn' chance to reveal undiscovered cities(for either side). It would make sense that traveling merchants discuss the lay of the land, or spy or whatever.
I'll tone the TR bonuses down.
Re: plot reveal stuff: not sure about that - seems kinda odd, as you wouldn't necessarily be able to figure out their precise location because of a caravan/cargo ship. The latter bonus comes from a corporation - no poaching of unique things.
G
If religion(ideas) manages to spread over the traderoutes I don't see why some limited geography shouldn't spread as well. And as mentioned before, local merchants traveling with the foreign caravans wouldn't be unlikely by any means.
The second thing was just for city-locations, to be able to establish more/different traderoutes without open borders/direct borders. It makes perfect sense for me, and even if that's a corporation feature(which I had no idea of to be honest) corporations becomes available too late in the tech-tree for that purpose imho.
yes, this way influence can be used as a comeback mechanism, instead of snowballing mechanism, as in the game of Funak.
Takagi Hiro
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Unfortunately, I don't make much of a tester, since my patience isn't the best for when I just want to play that one more turn. I just want to say that I'm looking forward to the next stable version. You do some great work to this game, Gazebo. Keep up the great work! 
There is already a traderoute comback mechanic in place, doubling up on it feels weird, especially if the tourism one just requires you to be somewhat behind but doesn't actually scale with how behind you are, it's going to lead to weird situations where you research 90% on all available techs without actually finishing them just to benefit more from your culture.
Also, I've noticed a thing for the last few versions and figured it was just a graphical bug, but I never actually got around to testing it myself.
Anyways is it intended that constructing an improvement (any improvement) on an Arabian road/TR (tile benefitting from the UA) doubles the yields provided by the UA? I mean it is a pretty cool feature, but I don't remember actually reading about it.
By the way, the 'snowball' I'm seeing is really just a consequence of increased tourism levels way too fast, in my last game Siam would have won a tourismvictory at turn 110(standard speed) if it wasn't for a mapbug spawning one of the AI on an ocean island.
Anyways, the story goes that around turn 90 all civs except the undiscovered one and Siam declared war on me, so I couldn't get any culture going, and 20 turns later Siam was influential with the last on of them (and dominating with 2) It just goes way too fast.
That's a bug (the arabia issue). Other issue is a matter of scaling. I'll drop the values a little.
G
Not to sound pessimistic, but how about we take a step back and ask ourselves, what was actually wrong with the old tourism-system(other than woddhan not liking it)?
CunningGabe
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The endgame was boring as hell; it takes forever to become influential with the last civ or two, which is usually the ones with a ton of cities. And this is when you decide from the beginning to go Tourism. I haven't had a chance to try the test version, but I absolutely support a tourism buff.Not to sound pessimistic, but how about we take a step back and ask ourselves, what was actually wrong with the old tourism-system(other than woddhan not liking it)?
Not to sound pessimistic, but how about we take a step back and ask ourselves, what was actually wrong with the old tourism-system(other than woddhan not liking it)?
Quite a bit - it was on my to-do list of 'balance things' quite some time ago, and I just never got around to it. The fact that it is irrelevant for 75% of the game is quite dull.
Ultimately, I probably should not have released a test version, because it seems there's a misconception floating about that an untested set of values (i.e. values I did not stress test with the AI) reflect some kind of finished or reliable product. Generally, this kind of version never sees the light of day.
Anyways, I've done some more work with the system re: balance and quirk-fixing. Hope to post something soon. Ilteroi intends to complete his merge on sunday, so actual new version will not drop until then.
G
Got some play-testing done with the test version. I've got a few things on my list:
1. Culture to tourism conversion ratio definitely isn't 20%. When I finished building the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus I had +2 culture per turn, but turned out I got +10 tourism with all known civs. Later on I got about +8 tourism for completing a city quest while having +6 culture per turn. At some point I got +81 tourism for completing two CS quests simultaneously while generating +13 culture per turn. It seems that the tourism gains right now aren't following any specific rules or conversion ratios.
2. I noticed that free great people that are obtained by the Mayan UA don't generate instant tourism. That's fine if it's intentional. However, after completing two or three cycles, great people born in a natural way stopped generating instant tourism, too. Neither my first great prophet, nor a naturally born great merchant as well as writer raised the tourism count (all were born after the second Mayan calendar cycle, I think). Not sure if the Mayan UA is to blame, but I'd call it.
3. Player is mostly oblivious to tourism level fluctuations. This is more of a UI issue that stems from the vanilla UI design that's associated with tourism. It's really clunky - I've always hated how you could easily see how much influence a certain civ had over others, but couldn't see how much a certain civ was already influenced by others. For example, if I wanted to see who had the most influence on me, I'd have to click through every civ in the 'Cultural Influence' (or whatever it's called) window to get that information. There's no easy way of finding out who's exotic/familiar/influential etc. over you until ideologies kick in.
Here's where I'm leading this to: could we possibly have a popup that notifies you when somebody has achieved/surpassed one of the stages of cultural influence over you? Similar to the notifications that inform you about your cities' spy potentials when they hit a high level of vulnerability.
Also, is it possible to have these instant lump amounts of tourism show up as popup yields over the player's capital? Similar to how the amount of culture gained per researched technology if Progress is adopted is briefly shown (as well as many, if not all, other instant yields per something effects). Right now it is a chore to go into the culture/tourism overview to see how much tourism you gained every time you build a wonder/complete a CS quest/generate a GP.
I'm sorry if this isn't your area, Gazebo, as you generally don't do UI work. It would be naive of me to think that these changes are easily implementable.
Gameplay feedback aside now:
As long as there's somebody willing to help with testing some of the trickier things out, there's really no reason not to release a test version. In the end, you did all you could to indicate that it's not actually an official, polished version, but rather a test one.
1. Culture to tourism conversion ratio definitely isn't 20%. When I finished building the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus I had +2 culture per turn, but turned out I got +10 tourism with all known civs. Later on I got about +8 tourism for completing a city quest while having +6 culture per turn. At some point I got +81 tourism for completing two CS quests simultaneously while generating +13 culture per turn. It seems that the tourism gains right now aren't following any specific rules or conversion ratios.
2. I noticed that free great people that are obtained by the Mayan UA don't generate instant tourism. That's fine if it's intentional. However, after completing two or three cycles, great people born in a natural way stopped generating instant tourism, too. Neither my first great prophet, nor a naturally born great merchant as well as writer raised the tourism count (all were born after the second Mayan calendar cycle, I think). Not sure if the Mayan UA is to blame, but I'd call it.
3. Player is mostly oblivious to tourism level fluctuations. This is more of a UI issue that stems from the vanilla UI design that's associated with tourism. It's really clunky - I've always hated how you could easily see how much influence a certain civ had over others, but couldn't see how much a certain civ was already influenced by others. For example, if I wanted to see who had the most influence on me, I'd have to click through every civ in the 'Cultural Influence' (or whatever it's called) window to get that information. There's no easy way of finding out who's exotic/familiar/influential etc. over you until ideologies kick in.
Here's where I'm leading this to: could we possibly have a popup that notifies you when somebody has achieved/surpassed one of the stages of cultural influence over you? Similar to the notifications that inform you about your cities' spy potentials when they hit a high level of vulnerability.
Also, is it possible to have these instant lump amounts of tourism show up as popup yields over the player's capital? Similar to how the amount of culture gained per researched technology if Progress is adopted is briefly shown (as well as many, if not all, other instant yields per something effects). Right now it is a chore to go into the culture/tourism overview to see how much tourism you gained every time you build a wonder/complete a CS quest/generate a GP.
I'm sorry if this isn't your area, Gazebo, as you generally don't do UI work. It would be naive of me to think that these changes are easily implementable.
Gameplay feedback aside now:
As long as there's somebody willing to help with testing some of the trickier things out, there's really no reason not to release a test version. In the end, you did all you could to indicate that it's not actually an official, polished version, but rather a test one.
Wodhann
South American Norse God
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Funak, you're overreacting. This is a test version (it says right in the title), it's expected that it's going to be all weird and messy. Maybe you should be playing the previous version if you just want to play a game like normal.
This is a first step that must be taken. And as for what's bad about the tourism system, I and others went in detail about what's wrong with it. It's not just me in particular "not liking it".
This is a first step that must be taken. And as for what's bad about the tourism system, I and others went in detail about what's wrong with it. It's not just me in particular "not liking it".
The endgame was boring as hell, yes that is correct. Just clicking end turn and dropping musician bombs on people.
Tourism was undertuned compared to culture, that was also true.
Both of those could easily be changed with a few buildingchanges or some numbertweaks.
Absolutely, but there are easier ways to handle that. The hard part here is that tourism was so tightly connected to culture that there just wasn't any reason to not build the tourism-buildings (hotels, airports and so on), and just float along on your free tourism. The only real active choice you made between tourism and not tourism was how you popped your great writers/artists.
You seems to be mistaken, numbers are numbers, that's not really the issue. I said I wasn't going to keep playing this version, that has nothing to do with what I think is wrong with this rework, and nothing at all to do with my post.
I'm just trying to point out that the things people found the most boring about the old tourism-system, the fact that you're not making any active choices, is still there, only difference is that now you get tourism for doing what every other victory-condition already wants to do, birthing great people, building wonders, doing city-state quests, sending traderoutes. There still isn't anything distinctly tourism about the playstyle.
Overreacting how? I think starting with a clear set of ideas/goals is more likely to get you a good end-result. For that reason a few questions should be answered:
Why does this actually need a change?
Does it really need a overhaul or is just minor numbertweaks fine?
How does this affect the rest of the game?
Does this actually solve the main issue?
and so on.
Wodhann
South American Norse God
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I made a list of reasons here, others have shared their opinion in that thread.
Number tweaks only work when it's a matter of balance, not a matter of conceptual issues. It's not a matter of "this number is too low, it must be increased", but a matter of actually changing and adding things.
That remains to be seen. This is only an initial test after all.
So it needs an overhaul and it's like this it will end. I don't think some little updates can solve the problem, so it's a good thing IF it don't stop any other balancing updates on all other domains. Need to wait and see
The fact that you can hit Popular/Familiar in the 100s means that you can specifically start trying to maintain that through musicians/trade routes/CS quests/GPs/WWs. Also means that you get the passive bonuses sooner, which may also affect your gameplay decisions (who to attack/not attack, etc., where to direct trade, who to befriend). It also means that the AI will react differently towards you based on your influence gain, and that different empires will have different periods of more/less global influence based on their actions (golden ages might actually mean something now in terms of natural influence).
How does that affect gameplay? It means that CSs matter to the Cultural Victory. It means that all Wonders and all GPs, not just culture-specific ones, matter to the Cultural Victory. The two new WC resolutions mean that the WC now matters greatly to the Cultural Victory. Religious beliefs (already present, but amplified in value based on earlier tourism in-game) now matter greatly to the tourism victory. Extension, expansion, and over-extension now matter, both in positive and negative ways. You can expand, but it is going to hurt your culture, and may in turn allow another civ to become influential over you, thus benefiting them at your expense. You want big cities? Influence from tourism will boost your growth rate if you have lots of trade routes going to a specific civ.
Shall I go on?
G
Atlas627
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I am going to try a game with this beta version, so everything I say right now is pure theorycraft.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the traderoutes being a snowball mechanic, in fact I think it SHOULD be a snowball mechanic because there is something you can do about it as an opponent: go to war. And you don't even need to conquer anything!
The tourism game should be much more interesting with these changes simply because it is more intermingled with other systems in the game. That alone means there are more decisions and important decisions to make.
Look at the vanilla tourism system, and as Funak said, the only decisions to make were where to put your guilds and how to pop your great people (and theming, but it was done poorly). On the other hand, the vanilla diplomacy victory only has you choose which city states to bribe (when doesn't matter, since it just has to be before a vote) and which resolutions to propose/vote on.
These new CBP versions of those victories have you worry about where/when to produce/research what, how that affects your diplomacy as well as yields, tradeoffs of gold/science/faith/tourism with traderoutes, etc. Infinitely better.
Edit: Welp, guess I'm not testing it. I hate EUI and there doesn't seem to be a non-EUI version of the beta.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the traderoutes being a snowball mechanic, in fact I think it SHOULD be a snowball mechanic because there is something you can do about it as an opponent: go to war. And you don't even need to conquer anything!
The tourism game should be much more interesting with these changes simply because it is more intermingled with other systems in the game. That alone means there are more decisions and important decisions to make.
Look at the vanilla tourism system, and as Funak said, the only decisions to make were where to put your guilds and how to pop your great people (and theming, but it was done poorly). On the other hand, the vanilla diplomacy victory only has you choose which city states to bribe (when doesn't matter, since it just has to be before a vote) and which resolutions to propose/vote on.
These new CBP versions of those victories have you worry about where/when to produce/research what, how that affects your diplomacy as well as yields, tradeoffs of gold/science/faith/tourism with traderoutes, etc. Infinitely better.
Edit: Welp, guess I'm not testing it. I hate EUI and there doesn't seem to be a non-EUI version of the beta.
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