The favor economy (Does the AI overvalue it?)

[Archon_Wing]

Now that they added walls to CS's (though for whatever reason not below immortal) it seems like early envoys are a better investment than before. Now, I know certain users have put out early Amani for a long time but come to think about it becoming Suzerain is basically 10g/turn which is kinda big early game since the AI purchases favor like mad in addition to whatever the suzerain bonus actually is. This is doubly true should you meet a CS first.

Of course this is somewhat artificial because the AI will pay so much gold for it. I had a Sweden game where my gpt was crap but I just kept selling my favor. I mean it's totally broken....



Just kidding. This picture actually has nothing to do with anything.This gold is almost all from "Pop Star" for Rock Bands which netted 100k; because I let it play continuously. Sure the game is already over, but those are just details. But it is true that most of the gold before that came from selling favor.

 

[Victoria]

Yep, I nearly always throw Amani out first. Starting to feel for her -2 loyalty promo as well, sure it is at the cost of Pingala but hey, its all fun.
The Suze GPT is great but also the dip points pay for a well timed levy.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yep, I nearly always throw Amani out first. Starting to feel for her -2 loyalty promo as well, sure it is at the cost of Pingala but hey, its all fun.
The Suze GPT is great but also the dip points pay for a well timed levy.

Ah, well, I should have probably just credited you in particular, since I have not read about it from anybody else. It's just very strong IMO and one of the best improvements for my game. When Rome I just become Suzerain so fast and things go well from there, doubly so if it's actually a good CS even though most of my games are on Emp and thus CS's die more easily.

OTOH I've never really seen the value of Pingala first unless you take one of his 2nd promotions ASAP. +20% more is....2 culture/2 science at best? Bascially any CS yield besides red ones or maybe brown ones would beat that. And I certainly wouldn't pass up a number of Industrial CS's like Brussels. +40% production/+2 is nice for early wonders!

Although one issue I've ran into is my Liang is hella late sometimes. I may go Amani, Magnus, promote Pingala much to grants and maybe Provision.That probably hurts my game a bit.

 

[Victoria]

I should have probably just credited you in particular,

no need, just because I may have said it, no doubt someone in the world used it before me.
I find it’s too early for Magnus and with 4 early governor promos I sometimes do not get Pingala at all because there are many reasons to get others and too much advancement too early hurts district costs.
Early Kumasi also got me a good trade route bonus to help make up for pin loss.

 

[Pietato]

Selling favour is gamebreaking, especially if there are 'diplomatic' civs to sell it to e.g Canada, Sweden, Straya. They buy it at around 1 favour for 1gpt, sometimes more, which means the promise to not settle near someone is worth 900 gold.

 

[DWilson]

I think the price is right, in terms of how much they should charge for it (otherwise it would be super easy for a human to buy it all up and dominate the World Congress). Problem is the human player that doesn't want to invest in diplomacy gives almost zero value to it, unlike the AI which always values it, and so the human is usually willing to sell it.

I think they either need to make resolutions more potent, change the meta otherwise on its value (maybe allow you to pay off grievances at some hefty favor cost), or make the trade imbalanced (high buying price, low selling price).

 

[Victoria]

At least it gives the warmongers something to suffer over

 

[DJ_Tanner]

I agree, I think it is pretty close to being right on, IF you are trying for it. For instance, if I wanted to keep or build my favor early I think those prices make sense. However, since I know I can ignore it I plan to, and there is little value in only holding onto a little so it makes a diplo fire sale an very promising option.

 

[Victoria]

I get a pretty solid return of 3 favour = 2 GPT early. At times it can be frighteningly large amounts when you are getting say +5 a turn by doing quests and pushing culture and using Amani
This slowly but steadily increases for a while but as soon as I start winning it starts dropping.
The AI will give you up to 20 in a peace deal which is nice additional income if you have sucked them dry in other ways.

At times it can be quite strong but it is not OP and its easy to spend what you save. I sort of like it now

 

[steveg700]

I think it would make sense for the price to be relative. An AI civ with little favor per turn being generated should buy and sell favor at a much higher price than one that is generating beaucoup favor per turn.

I mean, in an ideal world the AI would be able to gauge overall supply and demand. It would know when there are plenty of civ's generating favor and calculate a mark-up or discount on the base price based on availability. However, that's asking too much. It's not like an AI civ will propose a trade to another AI civ, get rejected, and then come back a turn later with a stepped-up offer.

But I think a civ can at least monitor it's own income sources and adjust accordingly.

 

[Victoria]

An AI civ with little favor per turn being generated should buy and sell favor at a much higher price than one that is generating beaucoup favor per turn.

Maybe they do not want to use favour?
While the general ratio seems to be 3/2 the civs pursuing a dipv at the time (normally 1-2 on standard) will pay 3/3 -3/4 quite consistently but it is a pain because it makes you shop around every civ before selling.
A civ with less favour typically means less power or weaker/smaller civ. It does not have so much money so perhaps it should spend less on it rather than more? (devils advocate here)
I will sell my favour to a stronger civ some distance away because it makes them weaker on the offence and limits runaways... seems like a useful tool for that also.

 

[Unaha-Closp]

I used to sell my favour for lots of money but lately, I've been buying all the great works from everyone. There is nothing they won't sell for it. It feels kinda broken. Thinking on it though I just never tried buying them with gold before so I could be wrong.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

though for whatever reason not below immortal

It would be a very unpopular move on the lower levels!

 

[Archon_Wing]

It would be a very unpopular move on the lower levels!

A lot of people complain about their CS's being overrun early game, which is why the walls were added. It can still happen below Immortal.

 

[Caprikel]

The resolutions definitely need to be more potent, right now there's no way to plan out a strategy using it due to resolutions being random, and as such they typically aren't going to be relevant for you. They really ought to allow you to spend diplomatic favor in order to make a specific resolution show up, so that way there's some control over what you can do.
Maybe they could have it so the first vote of a session has it so whoever spends the most diplo favor can chose the resolution, rather than it being random.
Overall it's really strange to have this diplomatic currency that you can't even use in a controlled fashion to do a specific action.
In Civ 5 you could at least embargo another player, and now it would be even more fair since it would require using diplomatic currency, but instead you can't actually make that happen.

Also here's another idea, what if when a session starts, each player can chose from a list of available resolutions and use favor to vote for it, and then only the two highest voted options show up in the second voting session. Then those two options are voted on normally as it is in the current system. This way it would be less random, but more costly if you want a specific resolution to happen.

 

[DWilson]

I think people would complain then because Mali keeps banning Tea.

 

[ezzlar]

Since the AI is bad at evaluate deals they should always stick to "buy low, sell high" no matter the commodity.

 

[Softly]

I hate it. It makes other sources of gold virtually meaningless. When you can get 25 gold per favor, then having a T1 government with two suzerains nets you nearly 75 gold per turn which can almost triple your gold generation in the early game. AI shouldn't value it more then 7-8 gold per.

 

[steveg700]

It would be a very unpopular move on the lower levels!

I'd be a fan.