The Stability Mechanic could do with some tweaking

[McMickeroo1]

Sorry this is long.

So I've officially played two games on the new DoC update and obviously on the surface it's great: more civs than ever before; what's not to love. Unfortunately, the two games I've played have presented issues:

First of all I played as Persia: I took over India first, to get a nice population base for my civilization; and then I turned my attention to Babylon. Before I could even take their capital the game ended because of instability. I went back and fiddled around a bit, and eventually went to war with Egypt just as Greece was attacking both them and me. I counter-attacked against Greece but before I could get my troops through Anatolia the game ended due to instability. Again I went back and fiddled around a bit, even used the world builder to cheat, and defeated Greece. I was busy taking out some of the surrounding Barbarian territory hoping to reach the 7% territory goal before Rome attacked, but they did attack, and shortly after the game ended due to instability. I tried again, was able to defeat Rome and hit the 7% goal. I wanted to just completely get rid of all my cities and retreat why the way back down to Persia, but it wouldn't let me. I could only grant independence to a few cities outside of my historical area. So I was stuck again in collapsing because I was over-extended and I couldn't shrink my empire. So I used world builder to just give my territory away to barbarians and yet despite giving away the vast majority of my territory I still died due to instability.

So at the end of this ordeal I realised that this new update was making it no fun to play as civilizations that had the job of expanding. I'm sure there is a way to get around these stability problems. I'm sure there is a right way to play to avoid collapsing. However, that's not fun: at that point the game becomes more about jumping through the very specific hoops necessary to win the game precisely how the stability mechanic says you need to win the game.

Then I played as the Vikings. After all, the Vikings aren't about taking over new civilizations. They're all about razing and destroying and pillaging. So I was playing a great game as the vikings until I suddenly out of nowhere had -36 points for stability because... I'D RAZED TOO MANY CITIES. THE VIKINGS.

Again, this isn't fun. If I'm playing as the vikings, I want to be destroying things.

However, maybe I could forgive all of this if you actually descended into civil war: meaning that your empire split roughly in half and you had to fight back to reunite it. But no. Having descended into "civil war" half a dozen times now, the only result is you immediately die.

PLEASE PLEASE change the stability mechanic. Make it so I can play as Persia or Rome or Greece and actually build an empire. Make it so I can play as the Vikings and actually be a destructive force. I mean God knows what it'd be like playing as the Mongols: "Sorry: you've collapsed into civil war because you control too much land and have razed too many cities! Oh and no... that doesn't just mean your empire has been reduced in size, it means that you're dead and you can't possibly come back!"

Even if the stability isn't going to change: PLEASE make it so when the game descends into civil war it actually descends into civil war rather than just ending the game. Also, give people the option of shrinking the Empire themselves. When I controlled the huge Persian empire at the end I had no means of shrinking the empire to preserve stability. If controlling the historical Persian Empire is going to give me over extension in the -20s, then let me surrender parts of the Persian Empire to prevent this, at least.

 

[1SDANi]

Make it so I can play as Persia or Rome or Greece and actually build an empire

Oh you certainly already can. I was playing a game as Rome last week and in 1600 I had conquered the cities of Mexico, Peru, France, Spain, Holy Rome, and Poland. Had a Stability over 20.

I assume the main issue you've been having is that your core cities are underpopulated and your historical/foreign cities are overpopulated. Try building a jail and later a courthouse in every non-core city, have your core cities work their entire BFC, keep non-core cities at as low of a population as is needed for them to function, and only conquer cities that contribute valuable health/happiness resources.

 

[McMickeroo1]

Oh you certainly already can. I was playing a game as Rome last week and in 1600 I had conquered the cities of Mexico, Peru, France, Spain, Holy Rome, and Poland. Had a Stability over 20.

I assume the main issue you've been having is that your core cities are underpopulated and your historical/foreign cities are overpopulated. Try building a jail and later a courthouse in every non-core city, have your core cities work their entire BFC, keep non-core cities at as low of a population as is needed for them to function, and only conquer cities that contribute valuable health/happiness resources.

The thing is I covered that stuff under this:

However, that's not fun: at that point the game becomes more about jumping through the very specific hoops necessary to win the game precisely how the stability mechanic says you need to win the game.

Also, that makes it incredibly difficult for Persia. Persia's core territory is in an area filled with plains, desert, and hills. Meanwhile, their historical area contains the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and Nile Valley.

However, the bigger problem is you've listed a whole load of very specific actions that need to be taken. I don't doubt that there are very specific ways to avoid upsetting the stability mechanic. The problem is, like I say, it isn't fun. In previous iterations of RFC the stability mechanic has always been something to keep and eye on but never felt overly restrictive. In this new update stability has taken over every aspect of the game.

I enjoy playing civilization as a benevolent ruler. I enjoy cranking out a whole load of workers and building up the territories I conquer rather than crushing them down. I like being able to say that Babylon, Thebes, and Delhi are doing better under me than they were under the control of my enemies. This new update now means I have to starve these cities into oblivion just to keep their population below my core population. IMHO, this is a step back.

And I have to ask, does anyone want this aspect of stability? Yes, it's something that can be worked around through the steps you've listed. But what real benefit is there to this style of game play?

Also: I must reiterate the even greater problem of how stability leads to the player getting defeated instantly rather than actually getting to fight back. I'm totally down for controlling an empire and occasionally having to deal with independence movements and even full on civil war. But getting that stability to collapsing is a life and death thing now.

 

[Logoncal]

I have no idea why the player collapses immediately while meanwhile, the AI gets a free pass of losing all non core cities and be able to recover.

I mean, C'MON! The AI is already a cheating piece of horsehocky and the game makes it even worse by giving free pass to them towards overextension. It doesn't help that one of these days i learned that the AI doesn't create Settlers for colonization, no. They get for free

 

[1SDANi]

it isn't fun

1) Fun is subjective.
2) It's not fun for you
3) Stability management is the most fun part of DOC.
4) The "hoops" required to keep a prosperous empire are realistic and still in effect today. Just look at Catalonia and California.
5) I'd love to see partial collapses or something serve as a warning of instability and wake-up sign to change. Or at least some notifications that your empire is unstable.

 

[Tigranes]

Penalty for city razing must be handled more intelligently, I recon. First, it has to depend on era. Imagine Norway captures and razes London in 20th century? But in Dark Ages it could have been less impossible. Second it has to depend on civ.

 

[Orbii]

Second it has to depend on civ.

At least on this point, I am almost 100% certain Mongolia has a hidden modifier decreasing the stability malus for razing cities.

 

[Leoreth]

Mongols are already treated differently when it comes to razing cities. If you want to contend that Vikings razed multiple major cities off the map, either you or me need new history books. Regardless, it's kind of funny that the argument is "should the Mongols really collapse after razing several cities" when off all civs in the game they are the textbook example of quick expansion followed by rapid collapse.

I am not sure how to respond to such a critique because it comes down to wanting to do what civs historically did but not suffer the consequences that civs historically faced for their actions. Given normal playing parameters, of course. Pushing beyond the envelope of what happened historically should go beyond normal playing skill/style, but if you are also opposed to that then this tension is hard to resolve.

It's also really hard to deal with feedback that a) comes from only one game and b) from a game that has been heavily messed with using world builder. The stability system isn't really responsive to everything you're doing in world builder so your actual situation after using it might have been fine but you could have still been in trouble because the stability rules still thought you were in trouble. I really don't know and I can't say because it's a vague subjective experience coming from only one game.

I am also not entirely sure what the "newest update" is, but from 1.14 to 1.15 Persia in particular received numerous benefits when it comes to stability, and in my experience the system is rather forgiving for rapid expander civs in the short to mid term while becoming more punishing in the long term, which models these civs quite well in my opinion. If the complaints were about 1.14 or earlier states during the development of 1.15 I would find this easier to agree with, where I acknowledged for a long time that e.g. Persia are unplayable for the UHV until I got around to address the problems.

If you are comparing to vanilla RFC that is a different discussion, of course. The DoC stability system is more responsive than in vanilla, both in how quickly it reacts to changes in the situation and how it behaves at different stages of the game. This makes stability a more constant concern in all stages of the game, instead of RFC where the stability penalties were slow to get going but once they were there even harder to stop. Since many historical events in this game play out in a rather short time frame, a more responsive system actually models these historical developments much better.

Putting historical constraints on player expansion and rewarding playing within historical constraints is a deliberate design goal in DoC, maybe even the most important one. The stability system, especially expansion stability, is the most important system to implement that goal. The idea is that the rules of the stability system, and in turn the strategies to work well within it, are modeled after actual historical phenomena that I have tried to identify. What I mean by that is that "playing the system" isn't just a set of strategies that you are simply forced to learn and execute, but actually correspond to actions that are part of running a successful empire even on a more conceptual level outside of the game rules. It isn't perfect but the stability system really isn't just a random set of rules, but a logical relationship between empire actions and their consequences that reflect historical events.

What I am getting at here is that asking me to let go of these constraints is basically asking me to remove the whole point of this mod. If my player experience goals run counter to your play style then it's possibly better to play vanilla civ or one of the many other excellent mods on a world map.

 

[McMickeroo1]

Mongols are already treated differently when it comes to razing cities. If you want to contend that Vikings razed multiple major cities off the map, either you or me need new history books. Regardless, it's kind of funny that the argument is "should the Mongols really collapse after razing several cities" when off all civs in the game they are the textbook example of quick expansion followed by rapid collapse.

I am not sure how to respond to such a critique because it comes down to wanting to do what civs historically did but not suffer the consequences that civs historically faced for their actions. Given normal playing parameters, of course. Pushing beyond the envelope of what happened historically should go beyond normal playing skill/style, but if you are also opposed to that then this tension is hard to resolve.

It's also really hard to deal with feedback that a) comes from only one game and b) from a game that has been heavily messed with using world builder. The stability system isn't really responsive to everything you're doing in world builder so your actual situation after using it might have been fine but you could have still been in trouble because the stability rules still thought you were in trouble. I really don't know and I can't say because it's a vague subjective experience coming from only one game.

I am also not entirely sure what the "newest update" is, but from 1.14 to 1.15 Persia in particular received numerous benefits when it comes to stability, and in my experience the system is rather forgiving for rapid expander civs in the short to mid term while becoming more punishing in the long term, which models these civs quite well in my opinion. If the complaints were about 1.14 or earlier states during the development of 1.15 I would find this easier to agree with, where I acknowledged for a long time that e.g. Persia are unplayable for the UHV until I got around to address the problems.

If you are comparing to vanilla RFC that is a different discussion, of course. The DoC stability system is more responsive than in vanilla, both in how quickly it reacts to changes in the situation and how it behaves at different stages of the game. This makes stability a more constant concern in all stages of the game, instead of RFC where the stability penalties were slow to get going but once they were there even harder to stop. Since many historical events in this game play out in a rather short time frame, a more responsive system actually models these historical developments much better.

Putting historical constraints on player expansion and rewarding playing within historical constraints is a deliberate design goal in DoC, maybe even the most important one. The stability system, especially expansion stability, is the most important system to implement that goal. The idea is that the rules of the stability system, and in turn the strategies to work well within it, are modeled after actual historical phenomena that I have tried to identify. What I mean by that is that "playing the system" isn't just a set of strategies that you are simply forced to learn and execute, but actually correspond to actions that are part of running a successful empire even on a more conceptual level outside of the game rules. It isn't perfect but the stability system really isn't just a random set of rules, but a logical relationship between empire actions and their consequences that reflect historical events.

What I am getting at here is that asking me to let go of these constraints is basically asking me to remove the whole point of this mod. If my player experience goals run counter to your play style then it's possibly better to play vanilla civ or one of the many other excellent mods on a world map.

Hey thanks for responding! Since I have your attention I'm going to respond to what you've said and at the end I'll summarise with a list of really sincere suggestions that I'd love your feedback on.

> from a game that has been heavily messed with using world builder

I used worldbuilder once to spread my religion rapidly in an attempt to create religious unity. And this was I think the second time that my empire descended into civil war.

> If you want to contend that Vikings razed multiple major cities off the map, either you or me need new history books.

The thing is, this is the point where the game goes from saying, "Hey, you have this unique goal" to saying, "This is how you need to accomplish it." I'm not saying the vikings wiped cities off the face of the earth, but they certainly wouldn't have been adverse to it. Rather than punishing the razing of cities, I'd prefer a mechanic that made cities likely to respawn after a relatively short period. If we're talking historical accuracy, many major cities were razed multiple times, and they still got rebuilt. Sure, I did raze Athens and Constantinople in my game as the Vikings, but given that Rome was razed and rebuilt, I don't see why the game couldn't have a mechanic to reflect the reality that such cities would be rebuilt, albeit weaker, once a barbarian force had left.

> I am not sure how to respond to such a critique because it comes down to wanting to do what civs historically did but not suffer the consequences that civs historically faced for their actions.

Here's the thing: I actually really like the way that this game reflects the ebb and flow of early history. One of the things I don't like about vanilla civilization is that there's a "tipping point" often where you've defeated so many civilizations and your empire is so huge that you can't possibly be defeated and your eventual victory just becomes a rather formulaic matter of time. I'm so down for things that make it harder to expand. Rebellions, barbarian hordes, civil wars. These things are great. What's not great is having a huge army, a happy empire, being one turn away from invading Babylon, and having the game just end; and then ditto for being just about to invade Greece; and ditto for fighting Rome.

> I am also not entirely sure what the "newest update" is, but from 1.14 to 1.15 Persia in particular received numerous benefits when it comes to stability, and in my experience the system is rather forgiving for rapid expander civs in the short to mid term

I got a new computer and installed Civilization itself and subsequently DOC just over a week ago. I'm quite confident I have the up to date version. The stability for conquest given to the Persian civilization was good, but it lulled me into a false sense of security. One of the most annoying things about the game is that my stability icon thing would go from straight (aka stable) to collapsing with a minus score in the 20s in the space of a turn, because the conquest benefit would wear off.

> while becoming more punishing in the long term, which models these civs quite well in my opinion.

The problem is it DOESN'T feel organic. Like I say: I'm so down to play as Persia, rise up quickly and be pushed back quickly too. The problem is, the collapse wasn't organic. My empire was huge. It was perfect. I had enough troops to station vast armies in all the territories of my empire. I had workers developing every corner of my empire and despite controlling 7% of the world's land area I was running out of tiles to improve. In my book that should be a success story, but instead it was a story of frustration as I stared at an overextension penalty in the -30s and had absolutely no way to get around it.

> Putting historical constraints on player expansion and rewarding playing within historical constraints is a deliberate design goal in DoC

I'm ok with this, but I think it is too strict. For example: the game really didn't like me taking over India, but is it so unrealistic to imagine Persia taking over India? I don't think so. There needs to be a balance. The problem is the game seems to punish Persia as much for taking of China as it punishes you for taking over India or Ethiopia. I like historical accuracy, so much so that my game wasn't especially historically inaccurate. I invaded India because I thought it would be a good population centre from which to build up a large army to send against Babylon, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Greece.

> The idea is that the rules of the stability system, and in turn the strategies to work well within it, are modeled after actual historical phenomena that I have tried to identify.

I get this, but there are some points where it clearly isn't realistic. Why should the vikings destroying cities hundreds of miles away hurt their stability? Why should Persia investing in infrastructure that allows for a burgeoning population hurt their stability? Why doesn't having a huge standing army offset this at all? What I found frustrating about the game was how much the result felt so utterly divorced from how I was actually playing.

> If my player experience goals run counter to your play style then it's possibly better to play vanilla civ or one of the many other excellent mods on a world map.

Like I say: I agree with your goals and love so much of what you're trying to do. I love the number of civs just for one thing. I love the accurate spawning dates. I love the way you seem to have made it easier to build up larger armies. And yes, I love the way that your mod does reflect the fast but limited expansion of empires. However, I believe the way you've modded it has first of all some objective problems and then also some problems which affect people with a particular style of game play, so here are my sincere suggestions I'd like your feed back on:

1. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it so civil war is actually civil war. You didn't respond to this, and yet this is my biggest criticism. I could forgive pretty much everything if only civil war actually lead to civil war. I mean... I'm not sure if my copy of the game is just buggy or something, because I can't believe I'm the first person to make this criticism nor that it's intentional. The version of DoC I played before this made civil wars fun. Your empire would split roughly in half and you'd have to build up an army to rebuild it. Even if I thought the instability was unjustified, I'd forgive it if it didn't result in an instant defeat and instead gave me an opportunity to have rebuilding my empire. You keep talking about how this game sets limits on expansion and reflects how empires grow and fall, and that's great, but it's not great when I'm not there to experience the falls, because I'm instantly dead. You had this right in the latest versions and again... do I just have a buggy issue with my computer? Because as I say I've experienced about half a dozen "civil wars" and every single one has been an instant loss.

2. A buffer zone around historical areas. Persia should be able to get away with controlling North West India, possibly even North East India. There should be a buffer zone around historical areas that allows the player to play slightly beyond the precise letter of the law.

3. Let the player make vassals. I feel like this was a feature in the vanilla mode that was completely abandoned with RFC. When I control Persia, why can I, as its ruler, not decide to turn the Egyptian part of my empire into an Egyptian vassal? You say you want to reflect history? Well a major way Rome was able to survive so long was through creating vassals. Diocletian's tetrarchy is widely viewed by historians to have prevented the early collapse of Rome.

4. More organic methods of collapse please! If you want to keep the stability mechanic, can you not make it have an effect that doesn't feel so forced? When my stability is bad... I don't lose the game, instead the game just decides I've lost. Again, this is another example of where I could forgive the precise way the stability works even though I disagree with it. Make Barbarians spawn. Even if the barbarians are undefeatable, I'd rather go down fighting against hordes of barbarians than just be told by the game that I'm instantly defeated.

TBH, all my criticisms could be summed up in one word: degrees. Right now the game seems to have two possible effects of bad stability: no effect at all, or instant loss collapse. The historical areas has two settings: historical area, or absolutely no way don't you dare found a city here.

Sorry if this is long, but please reply. I hope to hear back from you!

And thank you for the awesome mod!

 

[merijn_v1]

If you really want, you can turn of stability for all civs or the human player only. Open the worldbuilder and go to the options screen. There you will find an option to turn of stability calculations (and therefore collapsing).

 

[McMickeroo1]

If you really want, you can turn of stability for all civs or the human player only. Open the worldbuilder and go to the options screen. There you will find an option to turn of stability calculations (and therefore collapsing).

OK. That's pretty cool. I'll try that out. It is a shame though, because in principle I like the stability mechanic. With the minor tweeks I listed above I think it could be made a lot better. I'd still have some issues, but definitely a lot better. However, given the choice between the stability now and no stability mechanic... I'd have no choose no stability mechanic.

 

[TJDowling]

It is totally possible to build massive stable empires. The method of building them is disturbing however. Starving your periphery to the benefit of your core. Even Mughal India is unsustainable without depopulating the South. Why would Persian India be stable controlling a massive Indian population. If you're really that set on playing an alt-history game go in and edit your stability maps. I've done it many times.

 

[Leoreth]

Well the short answer is that there are more gradual forms of expansion stability planned, and talking about this also made me rethink how cities are weighted (maybe in addition to population, buildings should play a greater role). But there never has been an actual civil war mechanic. Once we have a better way of how civ slots work it's certainly possible to split a civ into two copies and I'd like to get there but it's not possible right now.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Rather than punishing the razing of cities, I'd prefer a mechanic that made cities likely to respawn after a relatively short period. If we're talking historical accuracy, many major cities were razed multiple times, and they still got rebuilt. Sure, I did raze Athens and Constantinople in my game as the Vikings, but given that Rome was razed and rebuilt, I don't see why the game couldn't have a mechanic to reflect the reality that such cities would be rebuilt, albeit weaker, once a barbarian force had left.

Imo there should be a way to "sack" a city, distinct from razing it. Choosing this option would return the city to the original owner after the revolt from capturing it ends, with no penalty to stability for the civ sacking it.

 

[McMickeroo1]

Well the short answer is that there are more gradual forms of expansion stability planned, and talking about this also made me rethink how cities are weighted (maybe in addition to population, buildings should play a greater role). But there never has been an actual civil war mechanic. Once we have a better way of how civ slots work it's certainly possible to split a civ into two copies and I'd like to get there but it's not possible right now.

Hey dude! It's good to hear you're working on more gradual forms of expansion stability, and I hope more organic forms of collapsing too!

Also, please do consider bringing back the feature from vanilla where you can turn parts of your territory into a vassalised civilization. Like I say, diocletian, tetrarchy, crisis of the third century, all that jazz.

With regards to civil war: the game never created two equal civilizations. However, as far as I remember in the original RFC the game would cause all of your cities except your capital to become independent, and you'd have to fight back from that. In the last version of DoC I remember the mechanic was much the same except not all of your cities would become independent; only about half. The idea of civil wars spawning actual AI civilizations would be great! I've always liked the idea that having a certain part of your empire that's uniquely poor could cause a clone version of your civilization called "The people's republic of x" to spring up. But like you say, that's miles away in terms of modding if it's possibly at all. However, I'm definitely not mistaken in saying that civil war used to still leave you with control of some of your cities. The rest of the cities went independent. Are you saying that this wasn't a feature in the previous versions?

Thank you for responding again! I love what you're doing and honestly don't believe what I want from the game contradicts your desire to have a game that reflects historical events. I'm glad to hear that you are retooling the stability a bit, and I hope that makes the game a little more forgiving for players who want to play a little differently.

 

[McMickeroo1]

Imo there should be a way to "sack" a city, distinct from razing it. Choosing this option would return the city to the original owner after the revolt from capturing it ends, with no penalty to stability for the civ sacking it.

This is a really great idea! Maybe the game could work so like... your city is "being sacked" and as it's being sacked the population goes down and buildings are destroyed and things like that. In turn the gold pillaged from the city is granted progressively with each turn. However, if your city is being sacked you have the possibility of counter attacking and retaking the city, thus avoiding the total destruction of your population and buildings. However, once the sacking is complete, the city is handed back to you automatically, with a population of 1 and no buildings. I think that would actually be super cool!

 

[HighFunctioningAlcoholic]

If you hate the razing penalty that much, just use the World Builder to delete the city when it's down to its last defender. Or capture, grant independence, capture, rinse and repeat until it's down to population size 1.

 

[Finbros]

More forms of collapse were in, iirc, 1.14 and it was pure pain.
(but collapse to capital from original RFC was fun, especially if you forgot some nuclear warheads in rebellious cities. Probably I should say even !!FUN!!.)

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

More forms of collapse were in, iirc, 1.14 and it was pure pain.

Eh, honestly I prefer it over the current system where everything is completely fine until suddenly it isn't and you're dead with no warning whatsoever.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Eh, honestly I prefer it over the current system where everything is completely fine until suddenly it isn't and you're dead with no warning whatsoever.

I've suggested this elsewhere, but I think a solution to that would be to make conquering a city less damaging to it—keep far more buildings and most of the population. Then, cities splitting off as you become unstable wouldn't be nearly as damaging.