v3.1 plans

[EricB]

Concur with Ahriman on that. I prefer an even playing field with the AI as much as possible. Some randomness is okay.

I would play on marathon speed with GEM and opportunities were so frequent that just about every tile was improved with some effect boosting it. It wasn't even the same game anymore. I didn't know how to disable them, so I went into the file controlling the effects for them and zeroed them all out. They would still pop up all the time but had no effect on the game. It was annoying having them pop up every 5-10 turns or so but at least they weren't altering the gameplay anymore.

I could see how they could work, but I'd like to see them not affect the civ economy by adding gold, science, culture, production, or faith to any part of the game. Make them rare and affect things like units, city state influence, etc.

 

[Ahriman]

Some thoughts on 3.1.9:
1. Gold purchase of tiles is too cheap, it devalues cultural spread. (*edit* it seems this is from tile acquisition cost that affects culture too: it is very cheap to get the first few tiles, but then becomes very expensive.)
2. For some reason AIs are being very hesitant about founding cities. My Egyptian neighbor had a settler for probably 30 turns before they built a city with it. Some of this may be that they get confused when their target city spot is taken.
3. The Communitas map seems to be making really a lot of mountains, the chains and the massifs are probably too big, the AI has enough trouble as it is doing conquest, so lots of mountain chains or narrow passes are likely to make it even harder.
4. The great person improvement bonuses need to be spread further. +8 production or science in the early game (from a great person generated by the Liberty finisher) is very very strong.
5. The map is generating weird thin strips of desert that go snaking around. There are also tundra tiles at fairly low latitudes next to mountains, but they all seem to be hills, so I presume this is part of the mountain chain coding, and it's ok, because tundra hills are still fine.
6. The map I'm playing has hugely clustered resources. I built a city that has 4 gems, 2 wheat, an oasis, and an iron all within a radius of 2. I suspect this may be a conquence of the mountains creating small player zones, so there are 2 civs worth of resources packed in a very tight area.
7. The AI seems to suffer badly from barbarians early on. I suspect that a significant part of this is that the pirate ships, with their ranged attack, shop up too early on. The AI is helpless against them, and very often gets units trapped in healing cycles (where it sits there bombarded getting healed).
8. The freshwater tile bonuses come slightly too early, they should all come in medieval era, when farms get the civil service bonus.
9. The cargo ship/caravan cost multiplier seems a bit too high. 180 vs 50? Caravans could go up slightly or cargo ships down slightly, probably the latter.
10. Income from domestic trade routes is very low. It's hardly worth building the roads.

*edit*
11. The AI builds a ton of warriors even when it doesn't have the iron to upgrade them.

 

[EricB]

In all my games I seem to have a lot of gold coming in per turn once you get past the ancient era. CEP seems to have increased the gold compared to the vanilla game. To compensate, you may consider increasing the maintenance costs of buildings, especially the more powerful ones.

Also, the AI is incredibly passive.

 

[mystikx21]

1) Agreed on gold purchase and culture expansion. It's really, really fast to get out 3-4 tiles, and then it slows down.
2) I think this is a happiness issue. It's at 90% for the AI handicap (10% advantage for population/per city). If the AI isn't prioritizing colosseums and luxuries enough, it won't grow. Last couple of games, the civs that grew were getting excess luxuries from me in trade.
3) Possibly convert some mountains to hills?
8) Concur.
9) Concur also
10) Also true. It's worth it later, but by then you have harbors.

With reductions to other units, lancers and gunships seem really overpowered. They get an attack bonus, a counter bonus, gain 50% more XP (because of first strike), have an extra strike, and are stronger than other units even with the defence penalty. I'd consider removing the attack bonus and reducing strength.

Most of the more powerful buildings are later in the tiers. Increasing early upkeep isn't ideal as most of those buildings aren't very good (colosseums is about it that could go up). Moving back some of the gold bonuses a tech line or two (freshwater village, market) might help instead to slow down the gold flow.

 

[Ahriman]

10) Also true. It's worth it later, but by then you have harbors.

I have 4 cities outside my capital connected by roads, with a combined population of 41. I have Maccu Picccu for +25% domestic trade income. And my gross domestic trade income is.... 25, with road maintenance of 19. That's pretty weak.

In vanilla there is an interesting early game tradeoff between building more stuff and building more workers, between using workers to build improvements, and using workers to connect cities. There are also interesting tradeoffs between settling not too far away, so that I can still get road connections, and taking the very best city spots, even if I can't possibly connect them.
That's gone now, failing to connect your cities basically doesn't cost anything.

 

[mystikx21]

Couple things that could be done there.
1) The GEM solution of having the capital trade with itself (which also fixed the railroad capital bug, that still exists in BNW). This would boost some trade early. A smaller amount of gold could go on the palace to compensate.
2) Boost city connections. I'd say 2 per route, with a higher amount on population than GEM/CEP used. I think the current formula is 3 per route and 20%. I'd go 2 and 30%. That seems worthwhile with the 25% boost. It would be the same amount in this example however. Perhaps leave it at 3 and increase to 30%?
3) We could add a policy that adds 25%.
4) Leave the road upkeep policy at -50%. This lowers harbors a bit, but harbors are also cheap railroad connections. (Railroads should also add some move speed over roads, they do not currently).

 

[Ahriman]

I think that we should be getting at least 35% per pop from trade route connections, maybe much more. I don't understand why we're setting it so low. Isn't it 1 in vanilla?

But anyway, domestic trade should be a significant source of net gold income.

 

[mystikx21]

Base game is 1.1 per pop, .15 from the capital, and -1 per route. So on that math, you'd have at least twice as much gold from trade, and possibly more. I think that's too much, but obviously half as much is too little to be useful.

I'd be happy with .35 per pop or .4 as a top limit and take out the capital population (just give it its own route to fix the RR bug), with the routes reduced to 2, looking over the math that would be about 30-31 plus the capital route (which doesn't cost anything to maintain). That would be about -25% or -30% off vanilla, and somewhat more in the later game with larger cities.

It still helps harbors regardless of the price of roads as they do RR production bonus for free plus the sea trade route effects plus the city connections. I'm not sure why they're looked at as too weak if city connections are profitable with roads. Harbors cost even less in many cases to maintain.

 

[Ahriman]

12. It just feels weird that pikemen are highly mobile healers that are a bit rubbish in combat. It still feels from a flavor sense like these guys should be holding the line, especially when strategic resource units are lacking.

13. My neighbor Brazil doesn't seem to have built anything but archers (crossbows at this stage). It's actually not a bad strategy given how awesome crossbows are, though they still can't quite hold up to the Chinese CKN invaders.

 

[Ahriman]

14. There's probably something weird with AI building construction. My spy in Beijing (size 18, Renaissance era, turn 226) reveals that they have nothing but wonders, free buildings provided by policies, and happiness buildings. No granary, no university, no workshop, no market. The fact that they don't get any gold buildings probably contributes to why they're all constantly in negative gold income.

15. China is also spamming CKN. They have At least 15+ that I can see, and no other units. So something is weird with the army composition formula.

 

[mitsho]

I'd guess number 15 derives from 14 or at least has the same basis. See the thread in the bugforum on that...

 

[Ahriman]

I'd guess number 15 derives from 14 or at least has the same basis. See the thread in the bugforum on that...

Wouldn't building AI and army composition be quite different code sections?

16. Knights seem far superior to longswords at strength 25. Knights have 4 movement and move after attack, they should have no higher strength than the strength 23 longswords and probably lower.
And then arqubusiers are only strength 20? Should medieval mobile units on an economy tech line really be totally pwning renaissance slow infantry? Arquebusiers should probably come up too, so they're not such a downgrade from longswords.

*edit*
I see that in the current design, longswords upgrade to muskets (my longsword hit an ancient ruin and upgraded to an arqebus). So there is no Renaissance era soldier unit. That doesn't make sense to me at all. Why bother going for swords and longswords if they're going to have a big gaping hole in the midgame?

17. The lack of gold buildings probably explains why it is so easy for me to dominate the city states. Lack of domestic trade income probably contributes too (the AI is good at connecting cities).
High unit maintenance is probably also contributing to the terrible AI economy. Has the GEM unit maintenance been copied over, despite lower overall gold income in BNW? The AIs have decent size armies and navies, I have a modest military but it takes up 1/3 of my gross gold income.

 

[mystikx21]

Longswords should upgrade to muskets at least (not arques, which are weaker now). That would at least put them from 23 to 25 strength. I'd consider bumping all the mainline (resourceless) units at least 5% in cost and strength.

I would agree with knights, and possibly horsemen getting reduced. Since there's no hard counter unit, they are really powerful right now. Lancers are also crazy strong.

Unit upkeep does not appear to be active as yet. At least in 3.19.

 

[Ahriman]

Longswords should upgrade to muskets at least (not arques, which are weaker now).

But.... muskets are an industrial era unit in this mod (they're vanilla riflemen). The problem isn't the upgrade line, the problem is that the arquebus is so weak, there is no decent Renaissance era soldier. We can't skip eras like this in the unit line. Gunpowder should be a good offensive military tech; with the current arquebuses it isn't.

Yeah, lancers also have an issue, my winged lancers are strength 41.

 

[Anastase Alex]

Opportunities:

I do not know how opportunities were coded into GEM. I remember you had a certain % of having one every turn, and were assured to get one every X other turns. This is going to be a wall of text...

However I do not know if they have dependencies on technological age and past decisions.

Here are some suggestions:

Valiant Scouts:
Tales of your scout's forays in foreign land might inspire your people.

Requires:
Ancient through classical era
A unit that is more than size_of_the_map_dependent hexagones away from one of your cities.
Options:

A: let them return and throw them a hero's parade! (spend size_of_the_map_dependent gold, disband the unit, starts a golden age)
B: let them return and record their adventures! (spend size_of_the_map_dependent gold, disband the unit, gives a great work of writing)
C: let them use their experience to further explore the world (as with the ancient ruin selection of revealing surrounding territory, centered on the unit in question)

Uprising General
Rumors say that one of your generals attempts to seize control of the nation

Requires:
Classical through industrial era
Empire not at war, unhappiness, control at least 2 great generals, accumulated culture > 50% required for next policy

Options:
A: Let him do his coup. Perhaps he can sort this mess up... (you loose all currently accumulated culture for the next policy, and all your stored gold. you cannot choose latter/ have already chosen the Freedom ideology, each great general gives +1 national )
B: Squish the rebel! (The great general becomes barbarian. 3 Barbarian units spawn next to him. If captured, your empire gains +6 national permanently. you cannot choose latter/ have already chosen the Autocracy ideology)
C: Have the secret service kill him. We will face the public outrage in another way. (The great general is lost, all your spies gain a level, you annot choose latter/ have already chosen the Order ideology)

I would also love to see opportunities that rely on my previous choices:

Cheaper Books
The first printing press has opened in (name of the capital) and the books are flooding out! What should be our top priority?

Requires:
Renaissance era, be the first to research the printing press

Options:
A: Print the tales of our past glory! (+1 culture and tourism per university, +2 if option be was chosen in Valiant Scouts)
B: Spread the holy texts! (+13% religious pressure for your religion -cumulative with the enhancer belief)
C: Spread out scientific knowledge brought from foreign lands (double the science generated by trade routes)

 

[agc28]

1. I must say. I am really looking forward to Opportunities in the new CEP versions!!
But I do want to see more variety in opportunities.

2. Also, can we enhance the Citadel improvement bonus? At +1 hammer +1 science, it is not very good.

 

[Zaldron]

Why not just cut the science bonus down? So rather than 2 science, all you get is 1 science with research labs? So it's just a fairly minor flavor bonus rather than a large yield increase?

Universities are a medieval era tech, it doesn't make much historic sense to be getting science bonuses from jungles back then.

This sounds great, 1 science at labs is a benefit but not the huge advantage to jungles we see now.

 

[Zaldron]

What I liked about opportunities is how they encouraged keeping some gold aside. It was a tough, but interesting choice if you had good reason to spend the last gold on (say) a miltary unit but knew the next opportunity could happen at any time.

This, this, and this. I thought opportunities were awesome and even though they were powerful everyone had equal access which should make them relatively balanced. The only ones I'm concerned about are the free worker and free settler. Those were far too powerful early in the game (although a nice bonus if they started say in the Mid/Ren eras respectively).

 

[xInVicTuSx]

I don't have a problem with knights being the dominant unit in the medieval era, I would rather see the amount of horses reduced. Lancers however... they were actually killing some of my great war infantry and that just felt wrong.