[GS] The state of the game, is it speeding through the eras?

[skallben]

Hello,
This is an open invitation to a discussion about the state regarding one of the aspects in the game from the perception of a long time Civ-franschise player. If you disagree with my critique you are of course free to do that, but please don't derail the whole premise of the discussion.


Problem: Game pacing, more specifically the balance between scientific and cultural progress compared to production values are out of sync. Especially so on higher difficulties.

This is nothing new, CiV suffered from this syndrome aswell, especially before patches. The eras breeze through while the level of production has problems keeping up, this means some buildings lack purpose and units sometimes don't even get built before replacements are available.

This discussion has been had previously so I figured with the release of the new expansion, now is a good time to revisit it.

Do you think this is a problem?
Has this improved over time or maybe with GS?
Is it resolvable with through mods?

Please share you views!

 

[kb27787]

much too slow... makes Teddy's UB which was supposed to be amazing (since computers is nerfed) become utterly irrelevant since by the time world modern era comes the game has long ended or is going to end in a few turns anyway.

Now Vanilla was much too fast, but RnF made the eras quite a bit too slow. Same with WC proposals... those double tourism from certain sources look attractive, but then you realize that the game was already over before the proposal ever pops up. Same with Nobel prize, etc... you win before the prize is over.

Yes, and this is playing peacefully with 0% war and pillages... I can only imagine pillagers would progress even faster.

 

[skallben]

much too slow... makes Teddy's UB which was supposed to be amazing (since computers is nerfed) become utterly irrelevant since by the time world modern era comes the game has long ended or is going to end in a few turns anyway.

Now Vanilla was much too fast, but RnF made the eras quite a bit too slow. Same with WC proposals... those double tourism from certain sources look attractive, but then you realize that the game was already over before the proposal ever pops up. Same with Nobel prize, etc... you win before the prize is over.

Yes, and this is playing peacefully with 0% war and pillages... I can only imagine pillagers would progress even faster.

Not sure I understand you correctly. You mean the victory progression goes so fast that later eras are made irrelevant?

 

[kb27787]

Not sure I understand you correctly. You mean the victory progression goes so fast that later eras are made irrelevant?

yes... playing for culture peacefully game ends at world industrial most likely (assuming culture leader AI is at ~150-200 culture/turn)--if you focus on culture generation you will reach cold war/rock bands around this time or late Renaissance if you have a great game... rock bands end games very quickly (deity--not sure if eras are slower on lower levels). At most you've gone through only 2-3 WC sessions which don't really do much. If both Greece and Russia are in the game (or France/Persia with lots of culture UI) or there is a runaway with 300 culture/turn MAYBE you will win in early modern.

My first playthrough on Sweden the first Nobel prize still had more than half the duration to go when the game ended.

 

[Takfloyd]

Civ VI has had broken balance between technology and production since launch. It's baffling that the devs still haven't fixed it. In order to have tech pacing match up with the in-game date, you have to double the cost of each tech/civic via a mod, which is pretty much mandatory to enjoy the game. Generally it gets worse in the later eras, so I use a small mod that gives increasing costs to techs depending on era.

 

[skallben]

Civ VI has had broken balance between technology and production since launch. It's baffling that the devs still haven't fixed it. In order to have tech pacing match up with the in-game date, you have to double the cost of each tech/civic via a mod, which is pretty much mandatory to enjoy the game. Generally it gets worse in the later eras, so I use a small mod that gives increasing costs to techs depending on era.

Does this work well with the dark/golden/heroic ages or does modding break that balance?

 

[Takfloyd]

Does this work well with the dark/golden/heroic ages or does modding break that balance?

I haven't tested it in Rise & Fall or Gathering Storm yet, as I only just returned to the game - all I've done so far is confirm that a mod is still needed, which means I'll be updating my own personal one soon. I believe world era progression is based on the average progress of each player, with a specific upper and lower limit for the duration of each era. Usually, at least on Deity, eras will last only the minimum duration. So making techs more expensive shouldn't break the age system as long as they aren't made so expensive that even the maximum duration is too fast compared to the tech level of the players.

One thing to note though is that you also have to increase the cost of Great People so you don't exhaust all of them too quickly. If you want to make your own simple mod like this, here's examples of what you need to add:

UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*1 WHERE EraType ='ERA_ANCIENT';
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*1.2 WHERE EraType ='ERA_CLASSICAL';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*1 WHERE EraType ='ERA_ANCIENT';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*1.2 WHERE EraType ='ERA_CLASSICAL';
UPDATE Eras SET GreatPersonBaseCost = GreatPersonBaseCost*1 WHERE EraType = 'ERA_ANCIENT';
UPDATE Eras SET GreatPersonBaseCost = GreatPersonBaseCost*1.2 WHERE EraType = 'ERA_CLASSICAL';

And so on for each age depending on what you feel is best. Just put this in a notepad file and call it Rules.sql, then make a definition text file called <name of mod>.modinfo. Look up what you're supposed to put in it or copy one from a different mod and edit it. I'm not really a modder myself so that's what I did. Put both files in a folder, put that folder in the mods folder of the game and it'll work.

 

[Krajzen]

Yeah, science is too fast when compared with production. We should pester devs about this, this has to be balanced better.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Yes, science is too fast. In my game as the Maori, I was not even trying but my science rate was around 500/turn by the late game. I finished the entire tech tree including the new future era techs by the late "modern era". I think eurekas are part of the problem. Conceptually, eurekas are a nice mechanic but I don't think the devs took them into account when they set the tech costs. Without eurekas, the tech tree might be ok but since the players will get a ton of eurekas easily from Great Scientists, it will help them speed through the tech tree. Also, the devs seemed to have balanced the tech tree for small civs of less than 5 cities. So if you get a big civ of say 15+ cities with science districts in most your cities, you will not just have a ton of science but also spam Great Scientists which will give you a ton of eurekas, allowing you to speed through the tech tree. Also the increased fertility from floods means higher population which also means more science. As the Maori I had cities with a population of 25 because every farm was generating 6 food!!

 

[kevinb70]

Science way too fast.
During the game your science/turn grows faster than the flat, linear rise in costs of the techs.
When you pair up a logarithmic line with a linear line, things never match up.
My opinion is that a city should be able to make more than 1 military unit in the same time span as it takes to research one tech or civic.
I've tried tweaking the tech/civic curve thru the eras in the game files, from Era multiplier, down to each tech/civic cost.
One problem is that there isn't one variable to be changed, there are multiple variables controlling cost of units, science, and civic.
Each tech/civic can be assigned a base cost individually, there's science thru population, etc.
Can tweak your settings by loading game files from various eras (same game settings) and seeing how it affects the number of turns to research the next tech.

My best results were modifying each tech/civic cost using a spreadsheet to create a new "cost curve"

 

[Takfloyd]

If you see my example code above, you don't have to set individual tech costs, you can do it by era. It's quite simple and convenient.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Tech pace hasn't changed at all. It might have even gotten faster tbh. It's just that victories take longer.

 

[Aristos]

It makes you wonder why FXS did not include a setting in game setup to give people the choice... easy to do, especially for them. A slider like the Disasters one..

 

[AntoineS]

Yes, we can indeed fly through the culture and science trees way too fast.

One solution would be to increase techs and civics costs, another to add more techs and civics per era, expanding both trees, it would also help filling in the gaps in some military lines. The science tree should be similar to that of Civ IV and the culture tree similar in size to the Civ IV science tree as well.

À mix of both would be nice to hace a good balance. The year we are in at each stage of the game should be an indicator of where we're at more or less on both trees. We shouldn't be constantly 1 and a half era ahead of schedule. It would help with the immersion aspect if the game as well

I am, like most of you, surprised that the devs haven't addressed the issue yet but if we keep pressing I believe they will put it as a priority on their agenda

 

[Depravo]

Yes. You can easily be at an early modern level of tech before leaving the BC years without even focusing on it.

I play with a mod that triples culture and tech costs.

 

[Krajzen]

I play with a mod that triples culture and tech costs.

I've seen those mods. Dear Firaxis devs, if there are popular steam workshop mods which DOUBLE or TRIPLE tech costs then maybe it says something about tech cost and pacing in your game

 

[Metecury]

The problem this game has is tech. You can shoot ahead too easily, there are no penalties to that or not having culture be on the same level as your tech advancement.

If you can just spam campuses and pull ahead that is a real problem. There should be some mechanic slowing down your tech growth or some.penalty for focusing solely on research.

All in all there should be a way of.sliwing down someone who snowballed too hard.

 

[Siptah]

It‘s way too fast. Making it slower would lead to more turns without any decision making, which may be why Firaxis shies away. Not a good reason in my eyes.

 

[ArturoBelano]

It definitely needs to move slower. I think Firaxis knows this but now with the era system it is probably a bit more complicated to balance. But it needs to be top priority for the next patch. Also, gifting units. Completely unrelated.

 

[Icicle]

Yeah, much slower would be my preference. I think I have not yet seen a game where we're not going into space several hundred years early (if the game hasn't ended long before). That's not a bad thing to happen every once in a while but for it to be normal is just off.