Villages too strong in GEM 1.05?

[Thalassicus]

Firaxis removed villages from the first half of the game

First half? no they didn't. There are 8 ages in the game. It's not like trading posts weren't available until the renaissance or industrial era.

I usually complete conquest games by the modern era, so the first half is ancient, classical, medieval; second half is renaissance, industrial, modern. It takes a while to replace old improvements with villages, so they're usually not a factor in G&K until late medieval/early renaissance, the halfway point.

I've probably said all there is to be said on the topic in the science thread, so for now I'll work on game enhancements we all mutually agree on.

 

[Tarquelne]

My 2c.

I like some science from villages and de-emphasizing the gold. Maybe it's a play-style thing, but I do think it makes things more interesting. As long as the yields aren't too high I think villages make for more interesting decisions because rather than a clear choice to specialize, or a clear choice on what to build when you do specialize - "I want gold so I'll build a trading post" you have to accept a lower yield to boost what you really want. That the lower yield happens to come with some of the other yield (gold or science) too. How well you can take advantage of that makes things additionally interesting.

But "as long as the yields aren't too high" is key. Its very easy to give too much to gold+science villages. I'd rather see them a little on the low-side for yields. The idea being they're most appropriately used when, even though another route (like farms+specialist) would be better in the long term, you plan on wining (or at least over-coming a key challenge) in the short to mid term.

So IMO the key question shouldn't be "What's the most efficient or synergistic?" Instead it's "Will the quicker route give me enough when I need it?" While the first question can be resolved pretty much by just looking at the terrain and your projected techs, the second question is (IMO) far more interesting because you have to make some hard judgement calls about future needs and what your opponents are up to.

(I also like how gold+science villages seems to put full urbanization vs. a less centralized/specialized approach. In RL it looks like more urbanization is indeed more efficient... in the long term.)

 

[mystikx21]

Generally if the problem is that villages were out of a large portion of the game then the solution is to put them back at a reasonable point, not put them back and make them immediately powerful. I wouldn't mind them being more powerful later (to compete with fully teched freedom farming at +3). But spread that out from policies and techs. Don't bring the full fury of 2/2 madness right off the bat.

 

[Zaldron]

Generally if the problem is that villages were out of a large portion of the game then the solution is to put them back at a reasonable point, not put them back and make them immediately powerful. I wouldn't mind them being more powerful later (to compete with fully teched freedom farming at +3). But spread that out from policies and techs. Don't bring the full fury of 2/2 madness right off the bat.

2/2 In late industrial (allowing for freedom and fertilizer) would be fine obviously, hopefully I made that clear in my post.

 

[Jo the spearman]

If I understand everything, Thal's issue with the current G&K system is that science is mostly generated with pop and buildings, meaning there's no real decision making requested from the player regarding terrain improvements. But allowing villages to yield science as well as gold makes it a no brainer compared to the 1 food farm with no river.

Here are a few raw ideas regarding the problem:

- Augment the yield of non-river farms or add some kind of bonus
- Add a new food bonus to non-river farms earlier in the tech tree (or policy?)
- Create a new science yielding improvement, so we have three building choices along with farms and villages
- Add a new science bonus resource (like stone with production)
- Modify some of the bonus resources so they yield science instead of gold

Hope it helps somehow.

 

[jacktannery]

Having read and re-read this thread, I am surprised to actually agree with Thal on this one. At first I thought he was crazy because I have a conservative vision of what I want this mod to provide for me, but after reading through the thread I have changed my mind and I think we should try out Thal's idea for a few versions at least.

 

[Zaldron]

Having read and re-read this thread, I am surprised to actually agree with Thal on this one. At first I thought he was crazy because I have a conservative vision of what I want this mod to provide for me, but after reading through the thread I have changed my mind and I think we should try out Thal's idea for a few versions at least.

Let me ask you the same question I asked Thal then: Do you think that the 1 food from a farm is equal in value to the 2 gold 2 science you get from a village?

 

[Zaldron]

If I understand everything, Thal's issue with the current G&K system is that science is mostly generated with pop and buildings, meaning there's no real decision making requested from the player regarding terrain improvements. But allowing villages to yield science as well as gold makes it a no brainer compared to the 1 food farm with no river.

Here are a few raw ideas regarding the problem:

- Augment the yield of non-river farms or add some kind of bonus
- Add a new food bonus to non-river farms earlier in the tech tree (or policy?)
- Create a new science yielding improvement, so we have three building choices along with farms and villages
- Add a new science bonus resource (like stone with production)
- Modify some of the bonus resources so they yield science instead of gold

Hope it helps somehow.

I think that moving the tradition science bonus from villages to farms would solve the whole problem actually. Alternately +2 farms +3 freshwater.

A science yielding improvement could work out really nicely too. I don't think we want to put food on bonus resources as that makes it more random.

 

[mystikx21]

2/2 In late industrial (allowing for freedom and fertilizer) would be fine obviously, hopefully I made that clear in my post.

I thought so at least. I was trying to make more clear the idea that if villages offer these mixed benefits (or even just excellent gold benefits), it makes sense to spread them out so that they're competitive or interesting niche wise (for extra gold/science) but not overwhelmingly the best choice (unless you beeline for techs/policies that make them temporarily superior)

They could be roughly as good as farms and specialists styles, but should not be obviously better as that's no longer fun. I think a mid to late 2/2 or 3/1 setup + policies to go for 3/3, 2/3, or 4/1, 4/2 setups would do that against late game farms but the early 2/2 setup is overpowering versus +1 food farms.

I don't see any reason that our cities and civs should be designed with the idea of "urban sprawl" in mind as a necessary form with lots of villages instead of lots of farms/mines. That should be our choice to do as a strategic design rather than feel forced by function. There are already trade-offs for both approaches that are interesting (more gold versus less production/population and less gold with more production/population).

Note: I did not like the tradition +1 bonus period. On farms or on villages. I think the proper place to add that is in a later game tree.

 

[Thalassicus]

2 gold 2 science you get from a village

This requires several conditions:

• Tall empire.
• Coastline with Sailing tech. I don't think the village bonus is enough to get that tech early with a land-focused empire.
• River or lake.

Most people have 1g 1s villages, or possibly 2g 1s if we start on a coastline. In addition to that, farms are usually better to build first to grow city populations. I usually build 1-2 food tiles, a production tile, then villages (in that order).

@mystikx
Tradition needs a science bonus because high science is a goal for tall+peaceful empires. Without fast research, tall+peaceful empires have both less advanced and less experienced units, making conquest too easy for militaristic players like myself. I added the village science bonus because people said in another thread that villages are not a priority of tall empires in VEM. If you think most tall empires would build villages without the Monarchy bonus, I could replace it with a different science bonus.

 

[mitsho]

Well the problem would be solved if we could simple let villages grow over time

I agree that the goal should be a healthy mix of the improvements. The +1 on village does seem strong in a way that it would also be very good for wide and conquest empires, not? Of the other yields addable (?) to villages, only doesn't seem too strong (though it's strong), but that again is a wide empire boost... is in the commerce tree, obsoletes other improvements, is prevalent enough already. But I'm not sure we need stronger villages. I do think they should be fringe improvements at the start (for when you need that bit extra science/gold) and fill out the places later on where there are no farms/mines/lumbermills. If you want to add a bonus to Tradition, I'd suggest boosting the Mentor's Hall with another per-pop modifier. That fits realistically (the elite providing education to their sons) and supports tall empires.

 

[Ahriman]

Again though; why science on villages as part of the basic yield at all, why not just gold?
I don't see why science coming from population and science buildings doesn't work.
And even if we thought that science-from-raw-pop was a problem, the base science yield and the mentor's hall already mean that most science doesn't come from raw pop.
If we think the village is weak in G&K, then just make it available earlier (as it currently is) and increase the gold yield.

I don't get why there are so many blurring changes being introduced; putting science on gold buildings, putting production on military buildings, putting culture on production or happiness buildings. The game is much cleaner and balancing is much easier when each thing has a Purpose, and we to get different mixtures of those purposes we build different mixtures of the things.

Want more gold? Build villages, markets/banks/etc, or use merchants.
Want more culture? Build operahouses/etc, or use artists.
Want more tech? Build farms and happiness boosters to increase your population and build library/etc. or use scientists.
Want more production? Build mines/lumbermills or smithies/etc. or use engineers.

Aggregate production should be low enough that you can't get everything you want (unless you have only a very few Tall cities). Increasing in any one of these then has a clear opportunity cost, because getting that one thing doesn't get you the others. And then there are interesting/complex decisions to be made in which of these you prioritize and what mix you get.

You get a healthy mix of improvements by ensuring that all the goals are useful and that improvements are balanced given what they do, and then you'll observe that all the improvements get built (though some particular strategies will focus more on some than others). Social policies can boost particular strategies (eg a particular specialist or improvement type) but those should come from mid-late game policy trees, not the early game ones.

The current design is blurring the purposes too much and is forcing particular paths; why should I have use merchants to go wide (I don't get the happiness boosts from Liberty without getting a policy that boosts merchants)? Why should I have to use villages to go Tall? Why should I have to focus on military to get/boost engineers (which are mostly used for wonders, which are normally the opposite of a military build)? Why should my gold city also have to be a science city/my science city also have to be a gold city?

It feels like there is less player choice than before; to get one thing I have to get something else that doesn't really fit with it.

 

[mystikx21]

@mystikx
Tradition needs a science bonus because high science is a goal for tall+peaceful empires. Without fast research, tall+peaceful empires have both less advanced and less experienced units, making conquest too easy for militaristic players like myself. I added the village science bonus because people said in another thread that villages are not a priority of tall empires in VEM. If you think most tall empires would build villages without the Monarchy bonus, I could replace it with a different science bonus.

I'm not sure that a tall empire requires a science bonus in that way however. At least not in an older tree as it should be ahead earlier in science (at that point) because of having more population (per city penalty is large such that wider empires will be slower early without heavy luxuries or happiness improvements) and more early mostly per-pop science buildings and then later higher ratios per pop to modify with multipliers (plus have an easier time constructing national wonders). I think tall empires could then go to rationalism to get back ahead with bonuses to villages, academies, scientists, and numerous buildings, instead of being able to rely on an early game tree for science. They have a strong incentive versus wide to do this as they have less interest in filling out piety (because religion favors wide) and less need for commerce (again, wide).

I think the reason tall empires wouldn't use villages is that farms + specialists is more effective for most of their cities (other than gold specialist city). A further reason for tradition to do more farms is that they'd get a food surplus bonus, meaning they could later add villages and mines or GP improvements. I'm not sure that means we should need to improve villages in that way, or if we do so, it shouldn't be very early in the game but be more gradual (from mid game techs and policies). The problem there is that people would build them instead of farms. This is a) not realistic (subsistence agriculture is most of human history versus wide urban developments) b) not very fun game wise when villages are better than farms. They should be roughly equal, offering some gold and possibly some science, and then more of each later as farms improve, such that you have a trade-off to build them instead but not a compelling reason to build them exclusively. My suspicion is 2/2 villages are better than +1 farms, which is where the problem is. 2/1 villages are probably on more equal terms.

The idea of improving mentor's hall or libraries is probably a decent half measure (and could get rid of the flat +5 to boot).

 

[Ahriman]

Right. Tall empires don't necessarily need high science, and if they want it, they can get it through scientist specialists, academies, national college, and rationalism. Tall empires will already be ahead in science in the early game because they'll get much more efficiency use from mentor's hall and library (eg building a couple of each can have a huge impact, where it won't for non-tall empires) and because they don't get hit with the painful 4 unhappiness per city, so they can grow larger in the early game. And Tradition doesn't need to provide everything that tall empires will ever want.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
Consider the Granary change I made two years ago. They used to have only one purpose:

• Food bonus

I gave them three purposes:

• Food bonus
• Improve resources
• Discourages infinite-city-spam (more efficient to place 1 granary for 2 resources than 2 for 2)

These "blurred" roles mean we may get Granaries because we need the food, or because we have lots of the resources nearby. Granaries have a variable value combining both of the two factors. It depends on circumstances of the game and terrain. This makes it more challenging to analyze how useful the granary is for a specific situation, which means it rewards our skill at considering the multiple complex factors. I talk about this subject some more in the main project goal thread.

In short, it has several strong advantages:

• More complex
• More challenging
• Rewards skill

I've been following this overall game design philosophy for two years, and Firaxis added things like this to the base game (such as the Granary change), so I feel it's a well-proven method to make the game more fun.

I'm a visual thinker, so I picture the "blurred roles" concept with the graph below. The original granary was on the left side of the scale: it was the best choice only if we needed more food, and it was the only early building choice to raise our food in most cities (second part is why I added Aqueducts). Now it's in the center of the scale: good for both food and improving resources, and there are two choices to raise our food. This is more complex and challenging, which I feel makes the game more enjoyable.

 

[mystikx21]

I'm not sure that this blurs the impact of Granaries. The improvement change it then offered to tiles was simply more food. In that sense, it largely impacted how quickly you might add them or how often they were more useful to a city (by having several different tiles it added to). Ditto for stables offering production on various tiles, forges, mints and gold, etc.

By which we would mean it made granaries better, but made them better by (potentially) adding to their fundamental ability. It did not make them more flexible by adding some other feature to them, say production or gold bonuses in a way that adding science to a village can do.

I have no problem with science being on villages in the general sense because of the effects of rationalism and jungle tiles, but I don't think this analogy is the same because the change is not simply they can "add more gold", which is the basic function of villages as tiles.

Where I think the problem, disagreement, is when there is no skill to say whether we should build a village or a farm. If the farm is (nearly) always inferior there isn't any skill. Similarly if the village is always worse. Where the village or farm offer different trade-offs, each potentially valued at the cost of the other, then there is some skill and some flavor. I'm not sure that a +2/2 early village does this versus +1 farms. I'm not sure that even a +1/2 early village would do so because of the value of science. I'm not sure this is desirable (or realistic) that we should be building mostly villages in the early to mid game versus the mid to later game. I have no problem if villages are useful early, for specific purposes (like the granary analogy for some cities) like on coastlines, and potentially more useful as the game proceeds but I question why it's necessary they should be better early in most cases. 2/1 to me offers enough utility without an early science boost for them, and if 1/1 is the problem here then accelerate when you can add +2 gold to the non-freshwater villages through techs (guilds perhaps, optics on freshwater?)

 

[Zaldron]

This requires several conditions:

• Tall empire.
• Coastline with Sailing tech. I don't think the village bonus is enough to get that tech early with a land-focused empire.
• River or lake.

No, it just requires tradition and one policy + commerce and one policy. Even a wide empire could/would *easily* afford those policies *long* before farms are boosted from +1. With the buffed tradition opener I can *easily* see wide empires getting these four policies with no second thought. Riverside villages just make them 3gold 2 science.

 

[mystikx21]

So it seems the science bonus is just in rationalism in 1.053 and its now just 2g/1s in most cases. I can live with that early, with a 5% per science building bonus on monarchy instead. I think this tranfers the science in tradition debate away from the are villages too powerful debate. For my part anyway.

 

[Thalassicus]

The village policies and improvements are now back to the way they were in vem. I'll leave it back there as we focus on things we all agree need improving, such as the Armies section of the project.

 

[mystikx21]

The policies and improvements are now back to the way they were in vem. I'll leave it back there as we focus on things we all agree need improving, such as the Armies section of the project.

Wow....
Does this mean all changes were revoked including GK related religious or spies? 1) Piety? I figured the new GEM version was mostly balanced as we could get it with mods (for now). The only thing I had changed on my end for instance was the instant faith to a straight faith on building boost (and it is certainly possible some instant faith should remain for tall empires in balance terms as this was less gameable than other instant yields, all it would take is a balanced #.) and the Great Prophet finisher, which was kept and seems like a good/popular change from feedback and was consistent with the VEM approach of free GPs in trees. And that just left a fake wonder effect from Djenne as a floating idea for later and a lot of more interesting ideas that appear to require code access that we don't have. 2) Several of those changes were excellent or at least interesting and didn't appear very controversial (moving happiness-culture to tradition tree, happiness on spy buildings, bonus production instead of Order's weird GK finisher). Undoing those wasn't at issue as they did not change the philosophy and cohesion of the tree. Shifting some policies around internally was (usually) not very controversial either (rationalism or order, patronage somewhat) as that had more to do with changing the prerequisite system, which is an interesting longer term project but could be done very simply (all it takes is placement of policies x and y and linking them or not on the basis of y being perceived as more powerful than x, or as an evolved idea from x, thus requiring some changes to it to make it more powerful).

I'll wait and see what the next version looks like, but I think you'd have taken the critiques a little too hard to undo the whole thing or even most of it. First its your mod and your vision and philosophy. It's easy enough for people like me to modify things to our preference instead if we feel we must (and still give credit to a lot of fundamentally good ideas that you or others had made happen over the last couple years and now months if we then release it to the GEM community for their own uses). This would be unpleasant personally and pride wise if people mostly preferred one vision to yours but you've (so far as I've seen) responded well to critiques to use ideas and arguments from others where you seem to be doing something radical or unbalancing that they don't like or where it would improve what you're already wanting to do. It's very possible some or most people wouldn't like my ideas very much either. That's the breaks of having an audience. And second there are good ideas in there that I have seen few critiques of, or even endorsement. We're (mostly) wrestling over changes that took good and working ideas or solid improvements on vanilla ideas from VEM and jostled them into new places to rework trees or policies that were themselves already fairly well balanced. That kind of change is bound to inspire some rough debate because it's like changing the game on people from what they are used to and enjoyed to something new and different that they may or may not. I don't think people are arguing over things like the piety tree or extra happiness on spy buildings. They're arguing over villages in tradition, late tree exclusivity, or specialists in liberty or nationalism trees or the renaming functions on top of those changes in order to make other changes. To put it into perspective.