To balance the Guilds

[Ahwaric]

Great post Kalina, thanks a lot!

A couple thngs before I start adjusting yields according to it
In general, people say the guilds are overpowered. Yet, your calculations show that yields are more or less the same as in BtS (I tried to keep close to these values when adding guilds).
So, I think the reason is the lack of competence and thus, possibility of creating supercities with multiple headquaters, gaining bonuses from more cities than in BtS

• I do not want to introduce competition (above I have explained why), so I can disable multiple headquaters in one city, or further lower headquaters commerce. It is already 25-50% lower than in BtS. I can make it 1/2 or 1/3 of the current value.
• Also, should I keep the yields at BtS level, when there are guild specials (units, spells, buildings) non-existant in BtS? Especially that you can have 7 standard guilds in one city (CoE & CoT do compete, GotN is not a standard guild).
• Seems that discovering resources will have to go after all...

Edit: three more things: Weavers have special building, the clothhall (requires several markets)
The bonuses to commerce & yields scale with map size. Kalina, I hope you have used the same for your tests with BtS & Orbis
and finally, maintenance.
For guilds, it is just 25% of the BtS value, so probably should be increased. I think doubled... (will be 50% of BtS), or tripled (75%). Standard BtS value is too much even for BtS (you loose money because the guild works good)
Another problem are buildings reducing maintenance (civics are already nerfed for 0.30). I think these should apply to guilds, but might need some nerfing. Especially for the order - it is just too easy to make no maintenance city, and that is a problem not only regarding the guilds...

In short, my current proposals:

• headquaters commerce cut to 1/3
• slightly lowered yields per resource
• a bit more maintenance (35-50 % of BtS value, instead of current 25%)
• removed resource discovering spells
• nerfed guild maintenence discounts on civics

to consider: nerfing maintenance reducing buildings & civics

 

[Tobbe_1]

Sounds like a good plan...i just learned that is most of the time a good idea to implement changes in little steps...my suggestion would be to apply these changes and to playtest them...time (and the community) will tell...

 

[Kalina]

So, I think the reason is the lack of competence and thus, possibility of creating supercities with multiple headquaters, gaining bonuses from more cities than in BtS

They all probably add up, with one more think - in BTS corporations are late game thing, all of them being Modern Era. In Orbis, you can get them much eariler, as early as Writing+Festivals or Sorcery so they have much more impact on game (and it's good thing in my opinion).

I do not want to introduce competition (above I have explained why), so I can disable multiple headquaters in one city, or further lower headquaters commerce. It is already 25-50% lower than in BtS. I can make it 1/2 or 1/3 of the current value.

I'd say that you should remove all headquaters per city. Instead, headquaters would give some unique bonuses (not a commerce generating one but a nice promo, free xp, ability to build unique unit) so you'd still want to be one founding it. With it, owner of HQ isn't getting that much more then everyone else from guild so you can try to give guild autospread (and/or give guild spreading unit to everyone who discovers appropriate tech) and it should balance it further - now everyone (including AI) can benefit from guild and founder get just a little more. Of course, this way it might not be worth a GP to found a guild which, in fact, might be a good thing - if everyone gets unit with tech there are chances that AI acually founds a guild as they only need to be first to given tech and have appropriate resources.

HQ bonuses might include (just some ideas, if you like general idea I can make more):
Unique ''Magister'' unit with ability to teach Metamagic spells to your units buildable only in city with Circle of Eight HQ.
Corned Powder for units build in city and ability to buy potions in city with Circle of Transmuters HQ.
Unique Thespians that are also spies (have some spies abilities and are better in cities with Globe Troupe - should be possible, they get Deception II and Improvise II when in city with Globe Troupe), buildable only in city with Globe Troupe HQ.

Also, should I keep the yields at BtS level, when there are guild specials (units, spells, buildings) non-existant in BtS? Especially that you can have 7 standard guilds in one city (CoE & CoT do compete, GotN is not a standard guild).

I believe you should keep them at BTS level, even with all other benefits. as they make you try to get more of those resources. If yields are too low, you don't actually try to get more of them (via war or trade) because you don't get enough in exchange.

Edit: three more things: Weavers have special building, the clothhall (requires several markets)

Didn't notice :> Guilds need some more strategy info in pedia, I can write it after you how they would work in 0.30. I can't guarantee proper grammar though

The bonuses to commerce & yields scale with map size. Kalina, I hope you have used the same for your tests with BtS & Orbis

Checked in pedia from main menu so those should be base values.

For guilds, it is just 25% of the BtS value, so probably should be increased. I think doubled... (will be 50% of BtS), or tripled (75%). Standard BtS value is too much even for BtS (you loose money because the guild works good)

Those things are hard to calculate so playtesting would be necessary. Just be careful with those, especially if you decide to give guilds autospread. You can also consider limiting guilds to cities size 5 or higher if possible, so AI won't commit an economic suicide (it would fit flavor also, wouldn't it ? guilds were big cities thing)

removed resource discovering spells

They are not _that_ bad in fact and should stay for now unless someone comes up with something better IMHO

 

[Breez]

I love the resource discovering spell... it really isn't ALL that useful due to its limitations but its neat

 

[Calavente]

I have not yet played Orbis but I have a question :
wouldn't guilds be more interesting if they have a little autospread ?
As guilds are more intependant from state than religion were, I'm supposing that they would spread with their own interest in mind and not mind the emperor's opinion.
autospread may be boosted in civs without any cities with the guild/ or boosted when the civ gets the tech...etc

As for balance : maybe the GP can still discover the guild but it is founded on a random city ? or the one with most ressources types the guild is interested in ? or with the most number of ressources the guilds is interested in in its fat cross ??? etc..

Then : the guildhall has a big wonder effect but doesn't have a cumulative effect form number of cities... maybe a cumulative effect for number of civ with the guild ?

 

[Apeiron]

To reduce the power of guilds I think it should be necessary to discrease the power of headquarters (for golds, the half ?) and the diminution of guilds costs (25/50/25 for example). To balance that, the guilds may autospread and give the benefits of the guilds to the converted city : a free merchant for vivaldi, food ressources apparition for three fields, production ressources apparition for the propectors guild, etc. So, building the units is not necessary (and the units may just spread the guilds and not have powers), that reduces the micro-management.

The Order give no maintenance cost, and it is normal, even if it is very powerfull with guilds. Maybe the guild costs shouldn't be reduced like that (the reduction is before the application of guild costs) ?

For the headquarters, I don't like the idea of a random fondation.

 

[schwert]

I'm not sure this thread is still alive, but if anyone comes along - I'd say that we need to approach the issue from a slightly different angle. We should seek to make the game more interesting and enjoyable, rather than more 'balanced' and restricting. Frankly speaking, all these endless discussions on various games' sites (not just Civ) about how to eliminate some loophole or prevent some abuse really baffle me. One might think the people are elaborating an extremely important contract with a party they deeply distrust. Say, if there is a possibility to stack guild HQ in one city, does it necessarily mean the player has to do it? What about roleplaying? Why use a loophole if it damages your experience? Or is there some perverted pleasure in finding exploits and preventing yourself from using them? Well, I guess it's more than just Orbis, or Civ, or even computer games. I sometimes think it's the basic fault of modern Western civilization: people treat everything like a game with a set of rules that are meant to be circumnavigated. Everything - law, business, marriage, you name it.
But that's a bit off-topic. What I mean to say is that new features, new abilities, new concepts are needed, not just juggling around figures and trying to fit BTS legacy into a fantasy world. I like Kalina's ideas about uniqueness. Make things more diverse - isn't that the aim of the mod and the modmod?
By way of suggestion, farmers could spread resources instead of or in addition to breeding them. E.g., you place a farmer over a wheat resource, he casts a spell and gets a 'grains' promotion, then goes over to an eligible plot and, given some luck, creates a wheat resource there. Another option would be to 'cultivate' resources, increasing the tile bonus yields. If a guild farmer is good enough to breed new species, he is certainly good enough to improve the wild things. Perhaps, that would be the alternative to the civ-wide yield bonuses - replace them with more tile yields, which makes more sense IMO. It's the city that works the tile that should get the bonus from the improved resources, not the entire civ. Well, the way Civ handles resources available to cities is really strange to start with. How can a single wheat farm supply wheat for a huge empire just because there are lots of roads? And when you get a second farm, all cities of the empire get a further boost - isn't that a bit too much? A resource should be available to a limited number of cities (or a limited population). Then the resource making abilities would really get useful!
Prospectors also seem to be nice guys not deserving removal. On the contrary, I'd say that they should be able to find resources (and then build mines) in peaks as well - they are dwarven, after all. On a more Tolkienist note, you could order them to dig deeper and deeper, with each successive spell, thus increasing chances of finding a resource, but also the chances of spawning a horrible fire demon.
I could provide many more ideas, but I understand some of them might be difficult to implement from a coding perspective, or might seem too strange and whacky. It's the general idea I want to convey mostly - give us new things, not just better balanced figures!

 

[Valkrionn]

So.... Lots of impromptu brainstorming on #Erebus, which spawned two ideas (amazingly, both mine. Wouldn't have had them if not for the discussion though. ) which I quite like... Would require COMPLETELY changing the guilds, though I already intended to do so. Lets see what you all think... Specifically Ahwaric.

First, I'll describe what my basic plan was. Guilds do not provide any automatic economic benefit. You don't get X commerce for Y resource. Instead, a guild allows various UU/UB, and 'competes' with another guild via event when both are in the same city.

Now, the two ideas spawned by the discussion.

• At least two guilds of each type (by which I mean, say, 2 Magic guilds. 2 Engineering guilds. etc), opposing each other. One guild provides new units/buildings, the other provides a Mastery building (which would now require a guild, obviously) and thus provides promotions/equipment. Makes you choose between different stuff, or improved stuff. Neither are necessarily better, but both are valid choices and force you to make an actual decision.
  • Unfortunately, as much as I like this idea it won't work on it's own; Mostly because you could have the one guild in one city, and the other in the other city, and get the best of both worlds. We'd have to have a way to ban a guild from the entire civ, rather than just a city. Which leads to the next idea...
  • In case you aren't aware of what the Mastery buildings are, as Orbis doesn't have them, they are buildings added by FF (and used in RifE) which allow various promotions to be purchased. Master Smith allows some weapons/armors, Master Outfitter gives better recon equipment, Master Fletcher better bows/ammo, etc.
• Each guild has a 'GuildClass'. This will be shared by it's opposite number. For each class, you can only have one active guild. This is the one providing bonuses to your civ, whether it be the new promotions, the units, the buildings, whatever. The inactive guild does nothing but cost maintenance; To go with this, we need a guild-inquisition. You can select which guild is active on the guild screen, and switching causes anarchy.</span>

And then some follow up points from further refinement in Wave (again, amazingly, by me... I seem to be on a roll, typically, at least lately, I steal other people's ideas. )

Spoiler :

• There is no specific reason to limit it to just two guilds per class; We can have as many as we want, but it becomes more difficult to come up with valid choices when you add more. These aren't civics here, each guild should bring large effects. Several units/buildings, or lots of promotions.
• Guild Class (for now, though I see no reason to ever change it) will just be a basic infos file. Easiest to add, no reason to ever need to add tags to it.
• We don't need a guild for each unitcombat; Guilds for each FUNCTION, not unitcombat. So I could see several Engineering guilds... One providing Weapons/Armors (for all unitcombats, this would be the choice for recon-heavy civs IMO), one for golems/siege, one for naval. It should only be split if we decide we want two guilds for the same basic theme, and have different enough ideas to support them.
• No recon guild, unless someone comes up with a very good idea; I don't see enough utility there. The Crime guild should have some recon boosts anyway, just further encouragement for Svarts to go Esus.
• Mastery buildings do NOT need to correspond to a guild on a 1:1 basis... The promotions will mostly stay the same (I really don't want to redo all of that), but can have different requirements.
• The equipment should still cost money, as you're paying the guild for it's services; To keep it from being too weak as a result, the units provided by the other guild will cost a higher maintenance. Buildings can drop gold production, etc</span>

What do you think? Personally, I like it. As does Grey Fox, which means both C++ modders on the RifE team like it; Most likely will go in as a result. Of course, that has nothing to do with me being the head of the team... Course not.

 

[lemonjelly]

Proud to say I was part of that discussion xD and I think it makes them extremely unique, and would be fun to play

 

[LeonardoDFinchy]

Hi, long lurker, first-poster here, love the mod.

I may not be an experienced enough player to comment, but I'm not so sure that the guilds are overpowered, but it seems like I'm in the minority there.

I would say at least that providing a resource per resource consumed is a bit much. As I recall, BtS didn't do this, only providing one (Aluminium, say) for presence of the corporation, so long as it consumed something.

On founding cities, might it not make sense to have national (wonder) headquarters? That way, every civ can reap some benefit from a foreign corporation's presence, and spread it as suits them. Forbidding multiple natHQs in the same city could still apply.

I'd actually like guilds to be more powerful, or at least more potentially powerful. So, guilds could be much weaker 'raw', but with multiple buildings each (representing state investment) gained at different techs, a guild could become a powerful driving force in a nation, bringing with it a similar strength as religions, which, if high-level guild buildings exclude ANY other guild (not just competitors)(1) could expand gameplay choice along a new dimension. The player could choose a civilisation, a religion, and a national guild, to really make their mark on Erebus.

(1) I'd do this by having another national wonder, somehow representing the endorsement of the guild, which blocks building of other endorsement buildings in ANY city owned by the civ, then having the subsequent guild branch buildings require ownership of this building in one of your cities. Building such an endorsement would be a gameplay equivalent of researching a religion tech (Mind Stapling, etc.)

I'd see raw guilds much weaker than now, a basic building requiring only guild presence, an advanced building requiring a later tech also, and a faux-unique building requiring said endorsement building first, but probably available earlier than the advanced building (early endorsement brings early benefits).

Haven't got a clue what these buildings would be, yet, but I'm happy to have a bit of a brainwave. As far as I can tell, none of this (except that no-two HQs in one city bit) requires anything but XML.

 

[Bezhukov]

So far, it seems that the main problem is headquaters - especially getting them all in one city.

So how about:

1. limiting headquaters to just one per city... or:
2. remove all "per city" bonuses - you will not get any extra commerce from guild central building. You will just get the guild itself, plus I might add some special for the building, like +20% science for alchemists or +10% commerce for weavers (or maybe unique worldspell requiring the headquaters?)

That might be coupled with reducing the guild per resource consumed.

How do you like it?

Some of your proposals are quite complicated from coding or gameplay perspectives (or even both). I think the above addresses the main problems, while remaining simple.

A few things related to particular guilds:
farmer & miner abilities - it was discussed a long time ago, and then nerfed significantly. But I guess the effect might be big if there are few resources...
Should I remove the spells entirelly?
Then add other abilities or simply spells that give a minor food/production boost for the nearby city?

Bank - I have changed how the branch works - it now modifies city yields based on how many guilds are present in the city (+2% per every guild)
My question is - do you like current banker spell (oversee trade). I am thinking of changing it to be guild-inquisitor,. i.e. can remove guild from one of your cities and grant you some gold.

I have no plans to introduce more competition between guilds, that is not how medieval & renaissance guilds worked. But neirther they were centralized, so significant nerf to the headquaters might be a very good more, from both falvour & balance perspective.
I might remove guild bonuses synergy though, so no guid product will be used by another - that is simply too strong.

By the way, there is no Stonefire guild in Orbis - it is called Prospector's Guild. Stonefire is from FF (and thus RifE).

Since I discovered the power of Ivory spamming, I no longer have room for discover resources spamming! Yeah, discover resources is fun (I love the units that spawn for my guys to fight!) but the effect is a little over the top. Maybe reduce the limit to two units at a time to slow things down.

BTW, the Globe Troupe as an opposition-hosing guild is pure brilliance (took me awhile to appreciate that). Maybe other guilds could use a similarly strategic focus (i.e. Troupe provides culture/espionage in HQ, not gold. Perhaps only Bank hq should yield gold).

As for balance, there's a mod for RoM that has three different classes of guilds, with each having five options. Each civ is restricted to one of the five, leaving the others open to competitors. That's a lot of work, but it really improves game play.

As different civs have different strengths and weaknesses, guilds could also come with weaknesses as well as strengths to improve balance/strategic depth.

Ultimately, I'd like to see the most powerful effects reserved for particular combination of guilds, or at least strategic resources only produceable via a specific guild (a sort of primitive manufacturing economy) to improve replaybility, balance, and realism.

 

[iffi]

I see others beat me to it, but I third the notion that all guilds giving straight cash is kind of boring.

Also, it is a confusing system with two separate gains (HQ/number of resources) and one loss (maintenance). Can not be bothered to make any estimations, I just pop the guild and spread it and see how much the turnly income changed in the end. Even then, difficult to say what was the exact end result.

Instead of coins, both the HQ and cumulative resources could give (increasing) yields of the other goodies? GP points, XP (to specific unit classes), promotions, health?, happiness, culture, hammers, etc.

Of course, the maintenance hit should also be removed or at least toned down. Alternative penalty methods could be negative (specific) GP points, hammers, health, etc. Maybe some civics could be needed/prevented by some guilds?

To emphasize the uniqueness of the guilds, specific units and equipment is of course a great idea, if you can spend the time and effort to introduce them.

Instead of having to buy the equipment, how about a guild giving a random guild specific eq and/or basic/unique promotion with some %chance? This would more than replace the removal of guild-gained gold.
This way the AI would get the same benefits from a guild (I dont actually know if the AI buys the eq sometimes).

 

[Kalina]

BTW, the Globe Troupe as an opposition-hosing guild is pure brilliance (took me awhile to appreciate that). Maybe other guilds could use a similarly strategic focus (i.e. Troupe provides culture/espionage in HQ, not gold. Perhaps only Bank hq should yield gold).

Might be a good idea. Of course, if it's possible for HQ to give different bonus than 1 of something per city, because 1 food is worth more then 1 culture. 0.25 food and 2 culture is differing thing (you need guild spread to 12 cities to get one more citizen, so should be ok ?)

As for balance, there's a mod for RoM that has three different classes of guilds, with each having five options. Each civ is restricted to one of the five, leaving the others open to competitors. That's a lot of work, but it really improves game play.

Sounds complicated... I'd rather prefer keeping things simple. Orbis already have lots of options

I see others beat me to it, but I third the notion that all guilds giving straight cash is kind of boring.

They are not. Only Vivaldi gives straight cash now.

Also, it is a confusing system with two separate gains (HQ/number of resources) and one loss (maintenance). Can not be bothered to make any estimations, I just pop the guild and spread it and see how much the turnly income changed in the end. Even then, difficult to say what was the exact end result.

Yeah, that's a problem with maintenance. It's even more important when creating cities then with guilds. But maintenance has it's advantages - scales with size of you empire, can be affected by civics, can be affected by buildings.

Instead of having to buy the equipment, how about a guild giving a random guild specific eq and/or basic/unique promotion with some %chance? This would more than replace the removal of guild-gained gold.
This way the AI would get the same benefits from a guild (I dont actually know if the AI buys the eq sometimes).

It works like this in case of Circle of Eight and Hansa. I believe Ahwaric would be willing to expand this aspect if there are enough interesting promotions provided.

 

[Valkrionn]

This is what's likely to happen for RifE.

• Guilds provide a new layer of uniqueness
  • New UU's [actual UU's, not new units but replacements (civ UU/UB's have priority)] and UB's, Equipment promotions, etc. I think 4-5 units and 2-3 buildings (one of which provides Equipment) is a good amount to work with. That does not include the basic 'corporation' unit, unless it serves a purpose beyond spreading the guild.
  • Contrary to my earliest thoughts, I don't think it should be "One guild gives units/buildings, other gives equipment". Instead, you should have some of each, but have different functions.For Engineering guilds, you could have the following:
    1. Weapon Guild - Specialized in attack units, buildings granting increased military production, weapon promotions.
    2. Defense Guild - Specialized in better archers, walls, armors.
  • Obviously, just basic ideas but you get the point.
  • The Guild is not part of the civ (with one exception, will get to it below), and is a separate entity from your government. To show this, we do a few things:
    • Headquarters can move.
      • An inactive guild is likely to move it's headquarters to a civ which is following it.
      • An active, but underutilized guild is likely to move it's headquarters to a civ using it's units/buildings/promotions more.
      • A guild is less likely to move from a large city with many traderoutes, even if underutilized.
    • Buildings will generally be better than what they replace, but have a new cost (gold cost, generally) representing the Guild taking it's cut.
    • Units cost higher maintenance. Again, Guild taking it's cut.
    • Equipment costs gold to purchase.
  • To encourage the hoarding of resources, without giving free boosts for it, we have two mechanics in mind:
    • Some buildings will have stats that increase with each resource. +2% per metal resource, for example.... Have 4 coppers, get 8%.
    • Better Affinity system - Can modify any stat on the unit, and have decimal support.
• GuildClasses
  • Similar to civics; Multiple guilds in a category, only one may be active and providing benefits. All guilds within a category are considered to be 'competing', which is expressed via event chains.
  • "Pledging support" for a guild does not cause anarchy, and does not have a delay. Instead, there is a gold cost, based on several factors.
    • How ingrained the old guild is (Raises cost)
    • How widespread the new guild is (lowers cost)
    • Organized trait (lowers cost)
  • 'Inactive' (unsupported, either term works) guilds either provide minor benefits and increased costs (+2 , but +1 , for example), or nothing. I'd prefer the first, second works too.
  • I think this is a better method for limiting guilds than JUST competition, and makes our lives easier (Balancing different guilds to work together without being OP is hard to do, when you want them to have substantial effects)
• Cults
  • Using GuildClasses, we can have Cults, representing the religions of certain agnostic civs. To cite an example from the public thread:
    • In the case of the Scions, the Emperor's Cult would give a small amount of culture, and grant access to the Scion religious buildings/units if followed. If a foreign civ follows it, they get a diplo bonus with the scions (can add a tag like 'NativeCult', if someone follows it you get a boost) but have various bad effects as well... Units can 'defect' to the Scions, creepers/HL begin appearing, etc.
  • Following a Religion makes you unable to follow a Cult.
  • Basically, we can do alot here to represent the Intolerant civ religions, without making a full religion (which is far more work, harder to balance, and pointless)
  • Civ-specific cults would be founded automatically in the capital, but not spread for free; Multi-civ cults (Cult of the Dragon) would be founded via event.

 

[Apeiron]

Well... it sounds great ! ^^

So.. it is for Rife... but for Orbis ?

 

[Valkrionn]

Well... it sounds great ! ^^

So.. it is for Rife... but for Orbis ?

No, but my idea was spawned by this discussion and concerns Guilds, so I figured I'd post it; Ahwaric might be interested in some of it.

 

[Bezhukov]

Sounds complicated... I'd rather prefer keeping things simple. Orbis already have lots of options

They are not. Only Vivaldi gives straight cash now.

Complicated to implement, not to play. You could have three groups of three guilds, of which each Civ could only choose one each.

I think the RoM mod is by Vincentz.

As for the straight cash, the reference was to the HQ.

 

[Kalina]

Complicated to implement, not to play. You could have three groups of three guilds, of which each Civ could only choose one each.

With nine, it's less complicated to play. Previously you said about three different classes of guilds, with each having five options, giving 15 guilds in game. By keeping it simple I also meant something AI can use at least sometimes
Not to mention that Ahwaric doesn't want guilds to compete.

As for the straight cash, the reference was to the HQ.

Right now, not all HQs are not giving gold. Globe Troupe is giving 2 and 1 per city, Circle of Eight is giving 3 per city...

EDIT: It might sound a little aggresive. It's not

 

[Valkrionn]

This one here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326966

It's just a shared guild unit (whatever the hell you call the unit that spreads the guild) and some python preventing a new guild from being founded if it's in the same 'set', which is hardcoded. Basic idea is similar to what I'm wanting to do, but the implementation is far more simplistic.

 

[iffi]

My original post:
I see others beat me to it, but I third the notion that all guilds giving straight cash is kind of boring.

Kalina:
They are not. Only Vivaldi gives straight cash now.

My reply:
Sorry about the misleading wording. I ment that all guilds give a lot of their perks by the way of cash. The ones that are already giving something else, improve those and remove the cash bonus. Maintenance (negative cash flow) reduced equally, instead, if further penalties are needed implement them as other negatives.

This would of course make the dreaded 'balancing' much more problematic. But I think it would be worth it to make the guilds really different from each other.

(The 'quote' button does not seem to work as it used to..)