v137.1 on Emperor

[Txurce]

I played Korea for the science edge, and found myself between America and Russia. My second city was up against America's second, and I bought every useful tile in range. I missed the GL and the Oracle, built the Pyramids, HG, Great Wall and PT. After 152 turns I have beaten Russia in a war that prevented me from growing beyond three cities, and now have 5, including a captured one. That seems like a reasonable number at this stage. Now, the stats:

Cities (5 civs so far):

Iroquois 11
America 9
India 6
Korea 5

Population:

India 13.2
America 7.2
Egypt 4.3
Korea 2.6

Science:

America 287
India 279
Korea 206
Iroquois 176

It seems to me that, in a game where I missed the GL by a few turns, I'm already destined to lose. (The AI leaders grew almost 10% in the last two turns!) This should not be happening in a reasonably well-played game after 152 turns. Once again, the obvious culprit is population. And from experience, I suspect that it will only get much worse. The Iroquois' many cities will soon put them well ahead of me.

Moving on to specifics:

2X gold for my two missed GW's helped a lot - maybe too much?

Russia had blitz swordsmen. How did that happen?

I was allied with a CS at 90. Then overnight I was a Friend... against someone with 282. Soon after, my two other CS allies were permanently out of reach - well before t150. That's too soon to write off an entire aspect of the game (on which I'd wasted a couple of SP's, and which has left me stuck in the red until I just researched the Printing Press). My conclusion is that the AI has too much gold (be it from production or other sources).

 

[Zaldron]

I was allied with a CS at 90. Then I was a Friend... at 282. Soon after, my 3 CS allies were permanently out of reach - well before t150. That's too soon to write off an entire aspect of the game (on which I'd wasted a couple of SP's). My conclusion is that the AI has too much gold (be it from production or other sources).

This confirms what I observed in a recent game where every CS was owned with thousands of influence by Siam. I think we need to cut back the top gold earners.

 

[Txurce]

Agreed, although I would prefer an approach where the civs maintain their differences - they just all pump out less gold!

 

[Zaldron]

Agreed, although I would prefer an approach where the civs maintain their differences - they just all pump out less gold!

I don't have a problem with Monty (who's making like 15gpt) staying at that level, but Siam making 650gpt should be toned down.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Txurce, Zaldron
Individual AIs do not have a different gold bonus, and I don't think there's a way to implement that. However, we can change unit and building maintenance costs separately. Militaristic AIs build more units than peaceful AIs, and vice versa for buildings. Perhaps I should leave AI building maintenance at 100% while lowering AI unit maintenance?

 

[Txurce]

@Txurce, Zaldron
Individual AIs do not have a different gold bonus, and I don't think there's a way to implement that. However, we can change unit and building maintenance costs separately. Militaristic AIs build more units than peaceful AIs, and vice versa for buildings. Perhaps I should leave AI building maintenance at 100% while lowering AI unit maintenance?

That sounds like an effective fix attempt for the gold issue, if we choose to isolate it. But keep in mind that there is also a pop-based runaway-science issue on Emperor, confirmed by several of our regulars. If we could tackle this at a root level - I keep bringing up the production bonuses - then I wonder if both issues would be meaningfully reduced. (A lot of this was discussed in the prior pages.)

 

[Seek]

From my understanding, the production and maintenance bonuses are tied in the AIhandicaps XML, so lowering the building handicap would affect both. I think going 0/100 is a little extreme, but shifting the bonus from buildings to units could be a move in the right direction and certainly worth trying.

 

[MortalD]

From my understanding, the production and maintenance bonuses are tied in the AIhandicaps XML, so lowering the building handicap would affect both. I think going 0/100 is a little extreme, but shifting the bonus from buildings to units could be a move in the right direction and certainly worth trying.

As a side effect, AI that loose hes army will get huge income boost that will help it regain its former power.

 

[Aristos]

Thal will hate me for this, but...

VEM has too much food.

Sorry. But I stand my ground. I just don't see why the rates of food cannot be decreased; I understand it's a balance issue, but along the versions, it should be clear by now that the growth balance is off by now, and is starting to affect other factors, further complicating balance.

I insist on going back to more vanilla-like food tile rates.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Txurce
I did the production-per-era change in v137.1. It's 3% right now (was 12%).

@Aristos
What specific change would you recommend? Most vem food is already equal to or lower than vanilla. The differences are highlighted:

Vanilla

-60% AI from population.
+10% AI growth rate.
15 city growth base cost.
08 city growth multiplier.
1.5 city growth exponent.
+1 farms.
+1 freshwater farms with Civil Service.
+1 dry farms with Fertilizer.
+1 on water Lighthouse and +1 on resources.
+2 Granary and +1 on resources.
40% storage with Aqueduct.
25% storage Medical Lab.
​

Vem

-0% AI from population.
+0% AI growth rate.
20 city growth base cost.
08 city growth multiplier.
1.5 city growth exponent.
+1 farms.
+1 freshwater farms with Civil Service.
+1 dry farms with Fertilizer.
+1 on water Lighthouse and +1 on resources.
+2 Granary and +1 on resources.
40% storage with Aqueduct.
25% storage Medical Lab.​

The last time you made this request I increased the city growth base from 15 to 20 cost. If you feel growth is still too fast, would you prefer we slow early or late city growth?

 

[Jaybe]

@Aristos, Thal,
No fractional tile food yields, but building food bonuses (flat or per pop) may be reduced, perhaps even to negative values to compensate. Of course, I would think late-game reductions would be better than early-game. Or food consumption or city-growth requirements could be altered.

With a successful enough game, city growth can be a little overwhelming with all specialist slots filled, 40+ pop and having personal issues with having 'generic' specialists form from having no place for the people to go.

 

[Zaldron]

@Aristos, Thal,
No fractional tile food yields, but building food bonuses (flat or per pop) may be reduced, perhaps even to negative values to compensate. Of course, I would think late-game reductions would be better than early-game. Or food consumption or city-growth requirements could be altered.

With a successful enough game, city growth can be a little overwhelming with all specialist slots filled, 40+ pop and having personal issues with having 'generic' specialists form from having no place for the people to go.

Once you start using generic specialists you should stop growth with the button to take advantage of the happiness science bonus. I've never found food to be too abundant, certainly not in the early game.

 

[Thalassicus]

I could increase the cost of each population point to... 110% cumulative cost? 120%?

 

[Txurce]

Thal will hate me for this, but...

VEM has too much food.

@Aristos, Thal,
No fractional tile food yields, but building food bonuses (flat or per pop) may be reduced, perhaps even to negative values to compensate.

Once you start using generic specialists you should stop growth with the button to take advantage of the happiness science bonus. I've never found food to be too abundant, certainly not in the early game.

I happen to agree with Zaldron about food not being over-abundant, but the problem we have is that the AI - not the human - has too much food. Any reduction in food across the board will not help to resolve that problem. The solution for the present runaway science AI can only lie in AI-specific adjustments - just as the problem itself is a side-effect of the AI-specific gold-spending adjustment.

I could increase the cost of each population point to... 110% cumulative cost? 120%?

As per my point above, does this hurt the human player too much (even if it hurts India and America and Siam, etc, more)?

@Txurce
I did the production-per-era change in v137.1. It's 3% right now (was 12%).

Thanks - that's really good to know. I'm sure I'll notice the effects once I play a game past 150 turns (which only just hit the Renaissance for Korea). But clearly it didn't fix the population problem, or the gold problem that essentially places CS alliances off-limits. So what's causing the AI to grow exponentially faster than the human, if it's not primarily greater production?

Forget nerfing individual traits - they're features we want to keep for when we play with those civs, and even lowered aren't going to solve the problem.

Could it all be coming from maritimes? That is, someone corners the alliances, but the other big boys all have maritime Friends? Does the AI get more from a CS than the human player does?

Worst case, we could nerf the AI science bonus to the point that it's a handicap. But this would 1) destroy the second-tier AI civs, and 2) still have the "aesthetic" problem of absurdly high populations.

 

[Stalker0]

I happen to agree with Zaldron about food not being over-abundant, but the problem we have is that the AI - not the human - has too much food.

I'll agree with this, I don't feel that the my cities grow too quickly overall, just the AI ones.

 

[Seek]

the problem we have is that the AI - not the human - has too much food.
...
the population problem,
...
So what's causing the AI to grow exponentially faster than the human, if it's not primarily greater production?

The AI (to my knowledge) never shifts the city focus away from "default" - were you or I to practice this, our cities would be growing faster as well. Of course it's unreasonable to do this in practice as our production is inherently lower than the AI's at higher difficulties. I'd bet that unless we give the AI a *penalty* to food the AI will always have larger cities than the (city micromanaging) human.

You've said a number of times that the AI population is only aesthetically displeasing to you, so is there really a problem that needs addressing here? I'm not sure there is. I don't want to see the AI nerfed past being competitive at Emperor, but I can always move up if necessary.

FWIW, I'm finding Emperor to be very well balanced for me with v137 - but I've only played one game so far, and it's one in which there's no tech runaway, though I'm only just staying on par with the peaceful AIs in tech. (Side note: I guess I have to redact my statement that Polynesia "never does well" because they're the tech leader in this game and doing very well!)

 

[Txurce]

You've said a number of times that the AI population is only aesthetically displeasing to you, so is there really a problem that needs addressing here? I'm not sure there is. I don't want to see the AI nerfed past being competitive at Emperor, but I can always move up if necessary.

FWIW, I'm finding Emperor to be very well balanced for me with v137 - but I've only played one game so far, and it's one in which there's no tech runaway, though I'm only just staying on par with the peaceful AIs in tech.

What I think I said is that the AI population would only be aesthetically displeasing to me if it didn't result in runaway science civs. There's little doubt that a lot of people are having unwanted runaway results with v137 - the Emperor players spent a good part of the last week discussing fixes. I've put up stats for each of my games which I think demonstrate that 1) I'm generating a relatively high amount of science while 2) the AI outpaces me over time due to exponential population growth.

That's not what I expect from Emperor. Thal has mentioned trying different strategies, but I interpret that as trying more rigid strategies, the way one does on Deity, for example. We have all played Emperor because it offered the most challenge while allowing all approaches t be successful. I don't find this the case now, when playing tall/peaceful.

However... and this is a huge however... this dynamic may be different in v138. I can't tell because the AI gold-spending seemed to break in the two games I've started on that level.

 

[Aristos]

I was referring to the tile food yields mainly. I may be wrong, but from what I remember that is the main difference between VEM and vanilla in terms of food (or was?).

 

[Seek]

@Txurce - Let me rephrase: If the problem is science, let's adjust science. I think if we tamper with food too much we will end up unbalancing a lot of other aspects of VEM, and will be constantly be playing whack-a-mole trying to get everything straight again (though there have been some other major changes in the last few weeks). From your reports, it does not seem like the runaway civs have populations that necessarily correlate with their science rate; they naturally have an impact, but it's not a one-to-one ratio due to other mechanics in the game. This is why I keep trying to bring the focus onto those mechanics (eg, the science from happiness and buffed alliance RAs, both of which are fairly recent) - perhaps if we just tone these down a bit things will even out.

I just don't think food is the problem here.:/ But of course I agree, let's try the new iterations and see how things look.

 

[Txurce]

@Txurce - Let me rephrase: If the problem is science, let's adjust science. I think if we tamper with food too much we will end up unbalancing a lot of other aspects of VEM, and will be constantly be playing whack-a-mole trying to get everything straight again (though there have been some other major changes in the last few weeks). I just don't think food is the problem here.:/ But I agree, let's try the new iterations and see how things look.

The civs that have a lot of science have a lot of pop, so I do think food is at the core of the problem. However, I don't know how we can reduce the AI food supply, and not the human's, so am starting to conclude that, with regard to science, we may be better off with the quick fix of reducing the AI science bonus.

Unfortunately, there is also a big gold problem in my opinion. You may have seen some of my recent posts on this. I'm now playing a v139 game where, on t120, Greece has allied with 13 CS against me. How did he even meet that many so soon, let alone afford them (and be left with a treasury of 754. with net gold 99)? Well, I noticed he had a heavily promoted caravel (huh?) on t87.

Doesn't all this seem out of whack to you?