Villages too strong in GEM 1.05?

[Thalassicus]

Oh, I meant this specific topic. I've edited my post to clear up that ambiguity.

 

[Ahriman]

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.

Awesome (if this means what I think it means). Thanks Thal. I agree, lets work on the other sections and come back to this later if we think it is necessary. I'm glad to contribute suggestions for Armies when appropriate.

 

[mystikx21]

Armies does seem like it'll need a lot of boring scut work from VEM to GK. I presume a lot is merely "change this unit to x " or similar things in promotions.

Feel free to let me know when that's ready to get moving and I/we can divide that up to get it done so people can argue over the specific changes again.

 

[Ahriman]

In terms of armies issues, I think most of the issues are in the early game:
I think spears should be 10 strength, +25% defense, +25% vs mounted units.
Pikes should be 14 strength, +25% defense, +25% vs mounted units. Upgrade to muskets.
Swordsmen... maybe 15 strength, or 14 strength +20% city attack.
Horsemen maybe ok at 4 moves, move after attack, strength 12? Or maybe make them 13 strength with city attack penalty?
Chariot archers are currently pretty strong. We could either keep them, or revert to the move-after-attack-but-low-strength model. I don't really like how effective chariot archers are against cities; move after attack but lower ranged strength would make them better skirmishers.
I think the midgame is probably mostly fine, except Lancers, and longswords probably deserve a city attack bonus. Knights with 4 moves are probably ok?
Is there a way to give siege units a defensive bonus vs cities?
Rename "Great War X" to "Early X".
Tank unit line probably need a boost to fit with reduced availability of oil, and maybe aircraft do too.

There are the various naval design issues. I'm really not sure what the best solution is; every solution I think of has several downsides. I think the biggest problem is the weakness of early game navy (can't affect anything except other navy or coastal cities), and the general weakness of melee navy; either strength boosts (equal tech melee unit should win 1 vs 1 vs ranged unit, because ranged units are much more versatile in affecting land units and en masse, so melee units need to be better at straight-up-fight vs naval units), heal-outside borders or heal-after-kill might be good there.

But this probably doesn't belong in the village thread.....

 

[skodkim]

There's also a bug in 1.053 that increases gold on villages by +1 with the Commerce Finisher.

It should be an easy fix.

Link

\Skodkim

 

[pthmix]

I agree that villages are too strong. Using 1.052Beta I played a tall empire game and had 1 farm (on wheat), a few mines and a ton of trading posts. Yes, I got less food than with farms but using the gold on maritime city states helped a lot. It's far too easy to just cherrypick the social policies which boost villages.

...
- Create a new science yielding improvement, so we have three building choices along with farms and villages
...

This idea sounds interesting. Seperate the trading post from the village. Trading posts would give gold and use the G+K trading post graphic and villages would give science and use the vanilla trading post graphic (if possible?). I would prefer this or Ahriman's position over the current approach.

 

[rhammer640]

I also like the idea of increasing the amount of land improvements we can build as long as we do it so they are all usefull depending on situation.

 

[Jo the spearman]

This idea sounds interesting. Seperate the trading post from the village. Trading posts would give gold and use the G+K trading post graphic and villages would give science and use the vanilla trading post graphic (if possible?). I would prefer this or Ahriman's position over the current approach.

Thanks. I thought a bit about this and came up with a few ideas.

Trading post:

- Base yield: 1 gold (+1 if built near the coast or a river and after researching some tech).

So when you found a new city near a river in the early game, you'll have the option to build either a farm and get 3F/1G with CS or a trading post and get 1F/3G after you get some tech.

Village (need to find a more suited name):

- Base yield: 1 science (+1 if built near a mountain or in a jungle and after researching some tech).
- If built in a jungle: -1 food

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

it's a good idea, but I'm not 100% sure an improvement giving science is really needed. don't farms already give science via higher population? otoh it would be useful if you want more science but can't afford to grow bigger due to happiness constraints, so it could definitely work. one thing it would definitely need is http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=391749 and http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10106144 though, because vanilla TP graphics are ghastly

 

[Ahriman]

otoh it would be useful if you want more science but can't afford to grow bigger due to happiness constraints

If you want more science but can't afford to grow due to happiness constraints, then you should build happiness stuff. I don't think we need ways to be able to get around happiness constraints. Science should come from pop and science buildings.

 

[mystikx21]

I'm very skeptical of giving a basic science improvement.
1) Academies can already do this
2) Farms already do this
3) You can build more happiness if you need it or use specialists to obtain it.
4) I'd be even less likely to use villages.

Seems fine without it.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think of farms as a universal "make me better" bonus. The citizen can give us any yields, which are usually higher than the small science bonus on top.

I'll probably get a thread set up for Gem:Armies planning tomorrow.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

instead of a science improvement, why not a workshop that allows to get production from flatlands? that should provide more choices for improvements.

it could use GK villages graphics while TPs get the modded vanilla graphics. alternatively you could just make them quarries buildable without resources I guess.

 

[Ahriman]

instead of a science improvement, why not a workshop that allows to get production from flatlands? that should provide more choices for improvements.

it could use GK villages graphics while TPs get the modded vanilla graphics. alternatively you could just make them quarries buildable without resources I guess.

I'm opposed to this. Now that hills and forests all give the same yields regardless of the terrain they are on, flatland vs hill vs forest is about the only terrain variation we have left; food comes from flatland, production comes from hills. Adding a production improvement to flatland makes terrain feel even less significant than it already does.