The critique of Humankind's basic economic and city building system: the root of balance issues

[Jkchart]

I certainly wouldn’t mind the AI getting some rubber banding. I agree the game gets boring when it becomes mostly about spamming districts when the goal is just to get fame stars. But the combination of building up to get both fame stars and a military edge on the AI has added the replayability for me. Admittedly it’s mostly a replayability of the first three eras. An option to increase AI production or decrease their unit cost when things got lopsided for the player might help keep the end game more fun as much as a much more complicated AI improvement. I’d appreciated much larger regions to reduce the portion of the world that gets covered in districts. Sure, some empires will get crowded in parts of their territory, but it should be 3-4 turns of movement between most city centers to allow for battles in open land. And I suspect it might make cities feel less sprawling. Of course I’d ask make the curve on district cost more aggressive to slow down later growth in addition to this.

I mean, they do have that with the personalities, but it's tailored to only a few items so if you know what they're good at it can be easy to overcome...but I do agree with this

 

[Taefin]

I mean, they do have that with the personalities, but it's tailored to only a few items so if you know what they're good at it can be easy to overcome...but I do agree with this

Maybe if those AI strengths scaled with Era. Someone suggested using the Era^2 formula applied to influence costs for this. I might keep it linear for bonuses that already apply in a multiplicative way, but a +era strength or -10%*(1+era) on unit cost could really accentuate the difference between different personas later in the game. I want someone to produce a carpet of units in industrial, and +7 anti aircraft could start dealing some real damage to the EM EU or line infantry I’m usually fighting with in the endgame.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Bad balance of the yields and snowballing mechanics are one of the main problems that the game is quite boring and lacks replayability(imo).

You can build too much of everything and there arent enough choices to be made, lack of builders simplifies things as do the vast areas of cities where you spam districts like mad. Then its just filling the famestar buckets against bland and dumb a.i. empires without identity.

No builders, no roads, no fortifications per tiles, no trenches...
It's boring, compared to civ VI, it's fine.
compared to Civ III, IV, V, is absolutely boring.
Sea ransacking a no-no. As no other build other than harbours for sea resource.
Rivers don't get dynamic over time.
Time runs too fast.
It's nice to see critiques starting.

As the OP says, the pop cap is a limit, so it was in Civ 2.... I see it as a good thing...

 

[Auberon]

Without even having to playtest that suggestion, the current game population fluctuates quite a lot with unit creation/militia death (generating situations in which you would be building districts without the requirement), and also the current system actually bases population cap on number of districts, not the other way around, so that would also have to be changed. What would be the limiter of population, for example? If there's no limit except food generation, you are again at the same situation in which the districts can be endlessly spammed. As a matter of fact, the first Open Dev was district cap based on population with food as limiter, but didn't work quite fine. So another system to limit pop would have to be created. As you see, it's not as clear cut as it first seems and easily solved with a single suggestion, but a more complex system may have to be developed.

And again, the same could be achieved with the current system of stability as limiter by adjusting the numbers, sources and expenses, no need to re-invent a whole new system with a whole batch of issues.

City population caps tied to some buildings* (and thus to the technologies you need to have them) coupled with an interdiction to construct new quarters until your cities are full or overpopulated could be a solution.

* What I call buildings are the things you build that you don't place on the map, I am playing in French, so I must translate. I may use the wrong terms.

With a more restrictive stability, I think the whole thing could avoid the snowballing effect.

But as I am not an expert player, far from it, I could be totally wrong.

 

[Don Andre]

As someone mentioned pollution, I also think it should be more gradual, but also think that eg the existing trees should be taken into account, not just newly planted forests. (As a sidenote it is extremely simplistic to consider forest as the only and ultimate counter to pollution).

Pollution should be unlocked by techs. Eg makers quarters increase pollution as you research better production techs and also AQ should produce pollution. The others to a lesser degree.

That way it's inevitable to have pollution. I played a game without any pollution at all by just not building anything from the sawmill onward. Still I got a lot of production by building more districts. It's insane that human progress is possible without something like a sawmill, tractor, or steel mill. These are pretty essential!

 

[PSG]

As someone mentioned pollution, I also think it should be more gradual, but also think that eg the existing trees should be taken into account, not just newly planted forests. (As a sidenote it is extremely simplistic to consider forest as the only and ultimate counter to pollution).

Pollution should be unlocked by techs. Eg makers quarters increase pollution as you research better production techs and also AQ should produce pollution. The others to a lesser degree.

That way it's inevitable to have pollution. I played a game without any pollution at all by just not building anything from the sawmill onward. Still I got a lot of production by building more districts. It's insane that human progress is possible without something like a sawmill, tractor, or steel mill. These are pretty essential!

I have rarely seen pollution be even a trivial factor the way I play. Maybe it's because my victory condition is to win by finishing the tech tree...

 

[Tigranes]

I have rarely seen pollution be even a trivial factor the way I play. Maybe it's because my victory condition is to win by finishing the tech tree...

Can I ask you please how do you finish it in 300 turns? I always run out of turns with 8-10 techs still in the pipeline...

 

[Taefin]

Can I ask you please how do you finish it in 300 turns? I always run put of turns with 8-10 techs still in the pipeline...

Addressed a couple of times in other threads, but consensus seems to be (or at least what I do) is focus on production early (use researcher specialists to get early-mid techs you need) and somewhere in early modern or industrial start building a bunch of research quarters. Many games I don’t even take a science culture but those make it even quicker. The key there is that by getting production higher earlier, district build time drops to 1-2 turns and so you can add a ton of science very quickly. I’ve never played it out that far but I’d probably finish the tech tree ~T240 in most games without doing any more serious science investment.

 

[Victoria]

And taking a science civ later where you can convert your prod into science is what easily gets you to the end of the tree early.

 

[Cherenkov]

Finishing the tech tree is boring but it is currently the only way to win a science game until they fix the mars colony bug that was introduced in the Sept 17 patch. The fastest I've finished this way is T215 on HK difficulty, just go something like Egypt->any->Khmer->any->France->Turks in the end. If you anticipate the Turk public school by creating rings of research quarters then you just drop the Turk EQ in the middle for thousands of science. With enough territories you'll pull 50k+ science easily and finish the tree really fast. A Mars Colony win is much less mind numbing and you skip Turks and go Aussie for building the 3 science projects in just a few turns. Don't know why it is taking so long for them to fix that bug

 

[Karmah]

Finishing the tech tree is boring but it is currently the only way to win a science game until they fix the mars colony bug that was introduced in the Sept 17 patch. The fastest I've finished this way is T215 on HK difficulty, just go something like Egypt->any->Khmer->any->France->Turks in the end. If you anticipate the Turk public school by creating rings of research quarters then you just drop the Turk EQ in the middle for thousands of science. With enough territories you'll pull 50k+ science easily and finish the tree really fast. A Mars Colony win is much less mind numbing and you skip Turks and go Aussie for building the 3 science projects in just a few turns. Don't know why it is taking so long for them to fix that bug

That's the only finish I know so far I'm now sub 150 endings (normal speed/large map/8 AI , HK difficulty) by researching the final techs . Completing the whole tech tree (picking all techs which is not requiered to win a science victory as they are many leaf techs) happens to me usually if I go past 170 in a meh game and I need some time to close the gap to a runaway , those are games I finished 2nd usually instead of being a dominant first. I said it other times in other threads but if you rush late game era and get the turks ,focus in building the schools and surround them with science quarter, your science skyrocket in the higher 4-digits (I almost ended-up 5 digits once) and the tech tree get blown in a few turns.
It get blown so fast in fact that I can't even get the mars running , even so I build all projects in one turn to get more fame , the tech tree get consumed too fast. I'm sure it is just a question of a few turns but when you run out you run out and the game is over
Now I admit there is no much glory here , I focus prod early with Egypt , Achameneid to get mooar cities and prepare an aggressive snatch of 'the new world' , khmer to get more prods , ming to stabilize my overexpansion and pick up civics (those are a comfort pick I'm sure some alternatives could be better even so I'm not fan of the others ) , Siam or French (the jury is still out but I'm leaning toward Siam nowadays to get some side gold) , and ...turks. It's basically a bunch of OP civs and this is definitely a vanillia strats , and it's ok as the game is vanillia currently

All of this is in fact possible because I have a lot of prod , which echoes the general sentiment in this thread

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Yes 2% of 20 science is not a lot but I also got 2 papyrus at 5 science at the start, what a boost!
Being able to slot scouts as science specialists in a town at the beginning when you are using sage to feed everyone is really what it’s about. People get tied up with the late game % mechanics while those early ones to me are insane if you put them in a chart. It is also the flexibility, rush the science to get your chariots and roads for fast attack then swap specialists to production. It is these differing strong tactics at the start that rock.
Also being able to transition a Baray’s production powers to science later, there is such strong mechanics all over the place…. So many toys up front!

Confucius district as first Zhou gives you a lot of early science, if you then get the Khmer baray later on, that is INSANELY poweful district, easily the best district around!

 

[Victoria]

Confucius district as first Zhou gives you a lot of early science, if you then get the Khmer baray later on, that is INSANELY poweful district, easily the best district around!

A lot of science with mountains within your cities districts.
The Baray is crazy good yes, most strategies choose it because it is so, If you halved its bonuses or made it the AI’s first pick … or both, things would be better unless you enjoy being OP.
Just finished a civ game as Trajan, reminds me why I don’t play the Romans much.

The thing is, you do not need the Baray to win, you do not even need it to win in style, there is just so much OP in the game

 

[Taefin]

I keep coming back to what could discourage going all in on production so that we could keep cool production cultures, but not make it just the best of everything. A real stability penalty for each quarter, or maybe causing each quarter to require influence to maintain, would give a reason to get other quarters before boosting production. Or making Baray a hamlet replacement? Or just or take away the production bonus to rivers, exploiting both is already pretty good.

 

[NombreyApellido]

nerfing in the name of balance got us here. it's what made money a non issue and slavery a featuren't

neutering what little remains of good is the actual game breaker

find way to get money to reflect wealth production and let it snowball. the same with population. stop making influence (culture) a scarce thing by bloating its related dumps. give religion its relevancy back

they have been trying to force parity in the results by way of taking diversity out and setting blocks and limits

no wonder why everything doesn't even makes sense

 

[Taefin]

nerfing in the name of balance got us here. it's what made money a non issue and slavery a featuren't

neutering what little remains of good is the actual game breaker

find way to get money to reflect wealth production and let it snowball. the same with population. stop making influence (culture) a scarce thing by bloating its related dumps. give religion its relevancy back

they have been trying to force parity in the results by way of taking diversity out and setting blocks and limits

no wonder why everything doesn't even makes sense

I’ll bite, that sounds like a pretty good theory of the state of the game to me.

Add that the lack of conflict in mid-late game takes away the one thing you might use production on, hundreds of units to engage in industrial era wars.

 

[NombreyApellido]

sorry if i sound a bit jaded. honestly, i'm not trying to be mean but it pains me to see the same approach attempted time and time again expecting different results


sometimes it's good to have a look from other perspectives and to get another vantage i urge you guys to consider the discussion on the subject of buffs vs nerfs on the fighting and FPS game genres

anyway, i really do hope those modding tools to become handy soon so we can all put our economic theories to test

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think 2 things are needed

1. Specialization each thing can be used for its own but it grows (Have money be the only way to get units... until some industrial era civic gives you the option to build them with industry)/ Let pop grow a little bit faster... maybe excess food supports military units as well as allowing population growth
So Standard units are bought with money and supported with food....Some later Civics/LTs let you support units with money, and other Civics/LTs let you build units with industry

This stops one yield from being the "yield that does everything"

2. A strong Time dependent Empire Size Stability Penalty.

There should be a "Cap" on Empire size(ie total attached territories), but it should get worse based on the amount of time above the cap. So you can build a large empire, get some fame bonuses before it collapses after an era or two. (and then work on rebuilding if your Golden Age Was Ancient-Medieval)

 

[NombreyApellido]

i think of it as a card game. four suits. one can get you two others, for the third one you need the wildcard. it's played against the house

the house could be stability, the less you have your cities and outpost go independent... the further from the capital, the pricer they get

wildcard 1 could be religion

wildcard 2 could be the neolithic legacy trait

both should allow you to get a "full" deck

we had this game not that long ago, but it got patched away from us

 

[Cherenkov]

That's the only finish I know so far I'm now sub 150 endings (normal speed/large map/8 AI , HK difficulty) by researching the final techs . Completing the whole tech tree (picking all techs which is not requiered to win a science victory as they are many leaf techs) happens to me usually if I go past 170 in a meh game and I need some time to close the gap to a runaway , those are games I finished 2nd usually instead of being a dominant first. I said it other times in other threads but if you rush late game era and get the turks ,focus in building the schools and surround them with science quarter, your science skyrocket in the higher 4-digits (I almost ended-up 5 digits once) and the tech tree get blown in a few turns.
It get blown so fast in fact that I can't even get the mars running , even so I build all projects in one turn to get more fame , the tech tree get consumed too fast. I'm sure it is just a question of a few turns but when you run out you run out and the game is over
Now I admit there is no much glory here , I focus prod early with Egypt , Achameneid to get mooar cities and prepare an aggressive snatch of 'the new world' , khmer to get more prods , ming to stabilize my overexpansion and pick up civics (those are a comfort pick I'm sure some alternatives could be better even so I'm not fan of the others ) , Siam or French (the jury is still out but I'm leaning toward Siam nowadays to get some side gold) , and ...turks. It's basically a bunch of OP civs and this is definitely a vanillia strats , and it's ok as the game is vanillia currently

All of this is in fact possible because I have a lot of prod , which echoes the general sentiment in this thread

Oh wow, I only just realized that I wasn't focusing on the final techs for a much faster tech finish. I was thinking how in hell did you get sub 150 endings and now I see lol. Can't believe I wasn't paying attention to this. I was just mindlessly clicking each tech as I went after I got Space Orbital. If you just aim for the end game techs you can finish this game so quickly. Especially if you go Fusion Reactor 1st for the 50% production boost.

Knowing this now I don't even care that the mars colony is bugged anymore. Tech tree finish is way easier and faster and not dependent on resources.