What do you want in a balance patch?

[Aheadatime]

Let's talk about what we want to see patched in regards to game balance. Not bugfixes, and not UI changes (god I hate the fog of war). Just balance changes guys. I'll start the discussion with some things I've noticed.

1. CS first-to-meet envoy is too strong.

I've had games where I met 5 cs first within 15 turns or so, and it sparked a total steamroll. I've also had games with semi-bad starts (flat land settle, meh tiles, no nearby rivers) that were made much worse by not having any nearby cs. Perhaps the first envoy rewards can be halved across the board, ex., +1 hammer instead of 2, +1 culture instead of 2, +2 gold instead of 4, etc. That doesn't seem harsh to me, especially considering that a free envoy basically ensures that you if you want it, you'll have first opportunity to Suzerian a cs.

2. Horse barbs are too strong.

Sheesh. If you get a couple barb huts spawning into you in the first 15 or so turns, it's bad enough already since you have to spam units instead of builders/settlers. Make one of those barb camps a horse camp, and good luck. I'm a deity civ5 player, and I've actually been defeated on deity Civ6 by three horse camps spawning into me by turn 20. I think the frequency at which they spawn units should be brought down noticeably.

3. AI players build too many units.

It almost seems like for the first 30 turns or so, the AI does nothing but build units. I haven't looked into the game files, but it could also just be that they're given a ton of free warriors turn 1. Either way, the amount of units on the map in the early game is pretty ridiculous. It makes scouting difficult, and leads to problem number 4.

4. AI players are too bloodthirsty.

There are just too many early wars. It's not uncommon on immortal for two to three players to be defeated by turn 30 or so. The thing is that this is the same across the board, regardless of the civ. There doesn't seem to be any peace-loving civs in the early game anymore, making their flavors or attitudes blend together into a bland 'overall AI personality'. Don't mistake this with me wanting to trample over AI players for free. I just don't think there's a good balance between warmongering and peace-loving.

5. Religious beliefs seem weak.

I have yet to found a religion. Not because I haven't had the opportunity, but because the beliefs all seem meh to me. They don't get me excited as if I'm racing for an amazing bonus like some of the Civ5 beliefs. I plan to mod this myself later, but thought the proper course of action is to first see if the community agrees and hope Firaxis does something about it.

6. District production costs are too high.

I think taking some of the cost of the districts themselves and dispersing it throughout the district's respective buildings is a good idea. It just costs too many hammers in comparison to the pace of other game mechanics, most notably science and culture. By the time I get a district up, I've unlocked two more that I want just as much as I want to build the buildings in the district I just constructed. It doesn't give me rich and meaningful choices so much as it just makes me feel rushed or pressured. It also makes aztecs a bit too strong atm (imo) in the hands of a human player.

7. Spy missions are too short in duration.

It's pretty tedious having to re-assign my spy every dang 5 turns. Along with having to re-assign my trade routes, this gives off the 'chore' vibe, which you never want in a 4X game. Perhaps offensive spies should take longer to complete their missions, and defensive spies can just be permanently set to a task unless manually refreshed.

8. Eurekas (science and culture) are too strong.

They just distort the pace of the game. If you micro-manage them properly and beeline for a specific tech/civic, it's very easy to leap ahead of the AI in terms of victory progress. Reducing them to 25% of the tech/civic cost seems like a proper start to me.


What do you guys think?

 

[chazzycat]

6 & 8 are related and IMO seem the most pressing. Tying the district cost to tech/culture progress was a mistake...it should be based on era maybe, not number of techs. The setup as it currently exists creates a strange incentive to beeline hardcore and ignore a bunch of cheaper techs/civics so as to avoid increasing district costs.

 

[juanpavo]

Factories are too strong. Either limit number of cities affected or shorten range affected.

 

[redwings1340]

Aside from the AI not upgrading units, I am legitimately wondering if, as they're thinking in numbers, they believe 3 horsemen is a better deal than, say, 1 crossbow, because the horsemen are so much cheaper and combined improves their military strength. Just like in Civ V, the AI is thinking in terms of numbers when the numbers don't represent actual strength.

I'm also wondering if maybe, just maybe, at some point in the past, siegeing a city was stronger, and the AI was then coded to try to siege a city before it starts attacking it. That could explain their nothing patterns, where they sometimes shuffle around a city without attacking.

 

[rastak]

I agree with 3,4 and 7.

I'd make the AI a little more aggressive when attacking cities. They sometimes pull back when a final round of attacks might cause the city to fall.

 

[Haggbart]

The warmongering penalties need some work. In my game just now, I was friendly to England with lots of positive modifiers. England declared on Japan, and waged a long war. When I could get the casus beli I declared a formal war on Japan who had denounced me several times. As a result I got a -32 warmongering penalty with England. Sure enough, after some turns England denounced me and declared war on me. Seriously??? I mean, I wouldn't mind the heavy warmongering penalty on the other civs, but I think I should've gotten a positive modifier with England aka "We fought against a common enemy".

 

[LanguishViking]

1. City states. The fact that city state bonuses stack is an issue. Getting 24 science per campus because you have 6 envoys in each of Hattusa, Stockholm and Seoul is ridiculous. If you only get the single best bonus per type of city state both issues first encounter envoy and the stacked level 6 envoy go away.

2. Yes, in MP whoever spawns near barbarian horses has the slowest start.

3. The ai builds too many obsolete ancient units and keeps them. Seeing a flood of 30 or so warriors, spearmen, chariots and archers get obliterated by my 4 total crossbowmen + musketmen is just painful to watch

4. Yes, warmongering is broken. I only declare war in ancient era or in later eras when going for domination.

5. Religious beliefs aren't weak, most are useless but a few are really strong. (feed the world, papal primacy)

6. District costs are fine. What something needs to be done about is the exploit where I immediately plan out my city spending 1 turn on all districts I can build to save long term hammers.

7. Micro tedium. I'd like an option to automatically renew certain trade routs, perhaps with a check box in the trade routs menu. I'd also like to see a a trade rout map mode so when I have 10-20 cities I can figure out which city doesn't have a trade route with the captial (and or most developed city)

8. Eurekas are good. I think they make it so that beelining doesn't work as well and players that are behind in tech can catch up

 

[Lord Khorak]

3. AI players build too many units.

It almost seems like for the first 30 turns or so, the AI does nothing but build units. I haven't looked into the game files, but it could also just be that they're given a ton of free warriors turn 1. Either way, the amount of units on the map in the early game is pretty ridiculous. It makes scouting difficult, and leads to problem number 4.

4. AI players are too bloodthirsty.

There are just too many early wars. It's not uncommon on immortal for two to three players to be defeated by turn 30 or so. The thing is that this is the same across the board, regardless of the civ. There doesn't seem to be any peace-loving civs in the early game anymore, making their flavors or attitudes blend together into a bland 'overall AI personality'. Don't mistake this with me wanting to trample over AI players for free. I just don't think there's a good balance between warmongering and peace-loving.

BECAUSE SOME IDIOT THOUGHT WARRIORS SHOULD HAVE NO UPKEEP COST.

This is why scum like Pedro can just s*** out a massive horde of warriors instead of doing literally anything else for a hundred turns in order to launch his completely guaranteed 'surprise' war. They can't bankrupt themselves with warriors, so they can just build them endlessly. One single, completely stupid decision obliterates the early game for anyone who starts next to a hyper aggressive scumbag, because there's no restraint whatsoever on just building an infinite army of warriors.

Oh, sorry, you don't get to play any sort of interesting early game, you started next to King Rat****er, you have to research archery and counter the carpet of warriors that COST NOTHING.

 

[Kougar7]

1. CS first-to-meet envoy is too strong.

Exactly what I've experienced. If I can't find any city-states I struggle, but if I find a ton of them first and early I snowball. There needs to be additional envoy levels, 1, 3, 6, and suzerain aren't sufficient. I would suggest creating a new level 1 with half the bonus as the OP recommended, then adding one or two more levels as well to spread out the bonuses.

7. Spy missions are too short in duration.

Agreed, it's almost nonsensical that it was implemented this way. They can be canceled out of their mission at any time, so why not just have them stay in mission until otherwise commanded just like with V. Or was the idea to have enemy spies "get lucky" by striking between spies bouncing back and forth on every re-queue??

 

[criZp]

For meeting a CS first you could get a bit of gold like in ciV.

As for districts, I think they could up the cost based on districts in the given city, rather than punishing people far ahead in tech.

Wood/jungle chopping is the thing I'm most tired of, I'd say you should get nothing for chopping stuff down, just to put an end to all that microing.

Navies are useless investments. Makes Norway terrible too.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I think:

1) Chopping needs a huge nerf. It needs to scale down by distance. Right now I can march my builder's into the territory of other civs and start chopping like crazy. That isn't right. (This goes for clearing rainforests and marshes, too. In fact, I don't think you should get any bonus for clearing rainforest.)

2) Hills need a nerf. They should be -1 food +1 production. As is, they dominate all other tiles. Starts without hills are just terrible. Nerfing hills would also make Stone mean something.

3) The AI needs to upgrade units. Not sure what the problem is, but these carpets of warriors in the mid-to-late game are totally unacceptable.

4) District costs should not scale with tech. What is the point of this? Why does the game punish me for researching well? If you want district costs to increase slightly for building many copies of the same district (to discourage wide play and discourage spamming the same district over and over), fine. But this current system is anti-fun.

5) Coastal tiles need a huge power increase. Change Harbor buildings so that they eventually grant +1 Food to all water tiles, and further bonuses of production to sea resources. Maybe add a wonder or something that further boosts water tiles (like Civ IV's Moai Statues).

6) Settling directly on the coast should be stronger. Right now there's little reason to do that, and hence there's little reason to build a navy. That's disappointing. Maybe add trade route bonuses to coastal cities, or give them access to special buildings other cities don't have.

7) Internal trade routes are too strong. I'd nerf them. Less production, less food. Or make cities pick one or other, like you did in Civ V.

8) External trade routes should always give some benefit to both sides. This seems like common sense. Right now I don't care if AIs are sending trade routes to me. This trivializes things like diplomacy and good relations.

9) Archers are too strong, Swordsmen and Spearmen are too weak. Give Archers a flat -5 ranged strength, and a further -5 ranged strength against cities. Give them +5 strength when garrisoned in a city. Now they're specialized city defenders, as it should be. Swordsmen should at the very least not be more expensive than Horsemen (right now they cost 90, Horsemen 80). Make it so that Spearmen are not owned by Warriors.

10) Unit selling and 100% cost reduction policies are broken. Just get rid of unit selling altogether (why does this need to be in the game?) Knock the 100% production bonuses down to 50%.

11) Late game wonders take too long to build, even for Civs with strong infrastructure. Cost reductions from about the Renaissance Era on are needed.

12) Techs and eras go by too quickly. I'd raise all tech costs by about 20%, maybe even more than that for the last couple eras. I'd also knock Eurekas down to 40% (China gets 50%).

13) AI agendas need to be more sane. These things should scale rather than be all-or-nothing. If I have one luxury Monty doesn't, I shouldn't get a -12 penalty. That's absurd. Maybe a -3 penalty, that increases to -6 if I have 2 luxuries, and so forth. The AI also needs to give the player a reasonable amount of time to fulfill the agenda. Nvemba shouldn't be irritated that I haven't spread my religion to him the same turn I founded it.

14) Warmonger penalties need to be much lower. Casus Belli need to be more flexible and come much earlier. Maybe add more of them--a "broken promise" Casus Belli would be really nice. Get rid of the triple warmonger penalty for razing cities.

15) The AI should be much less sensitive about players settling nearby (how is this a fun mechanic?) and about minor troop movements around the AI's borders. The AI needs to stop being annoyed by player units inside the player's own territory.

16) Amenities are too ignorable right now. Perhaps increase the number required per city slightly. They're supposed to act as a gentle brake on wide play (I think), and right now they don't.

17) Unique districts are overpowered, unique improvements are underpowered. Get rid of the rule that unique districts don't count against the districts-per-population limit. They'd still be too strong even without that, probably. Significantly increase yields for unique improvements, especially the Mission, Kurgan, Great Wall, Sphinx, and Chateau.

18) Alliances should mean something. Right now, I'm frequently getting backstabbed by my allies. This should be extremely rare, if it ever happens. Otherwise, what's the point in making friends?

19) The free envoy from meeting a city-state first is too strong. Get rid of it. You can have a minor gold boost (as in Civ V) if you really want.

20) Slingers upgrade to Archers too cheaply. 30 gold is a trivial price. Jack that up to maybe 50.

21) Please, please let religious and military units from different Civs stack. As is, the Religious Victory is totally unplayable.

 

[bladex]

i want the ai to stop denouncing me over stupid things! so what if my gov is different GTFO!

 

[MistroPain]

1) Reduce the housing bonus provided for being near fresh water.
It incentivizes a very specific set up for your settlers as the disadvantage of settling elsewhere is punishing to that city. Would much rather see it go 3 for neither coast or fresh water, 4 for coast, 5 for fresh water, or something along those lines that allows more varied city styles (+3 is massive). This is especially problematic in multiplayer.

2) Eurekas and Inspirations are both too easy and too powerful.
Consider switching from Eurekas and Inspirations having a single pre-requisite which gives 50% off towards an accumulation of whatever that is. So instead of farming ONE bonus resource for your Eureka in Irrigation it should give you a smaller bonus, where multiple farms will eventually achieve that 50% bonus. This should support more varied teching, it can be somewhat punishing to tech something all the way without a Eureka/Inspiration. I would also say that switching techs causes a slow loss in science in whatever has been researched up a certain amount.

3) Debuff trade routes.
Trade routes are too powerful in the current state. If you want an optimal empire you build Commercial Hubs and Industrial Zones in that order, and spam out trade units since they offer free production. I can personally see this working too ways, require the Commercial Hub to be worked to gain any bonus from trade routes originating or going to this particular city (now it requires a citizen, reducing its relative benefits), or just remove hammers from internal trade routes to cities that don't have the relevant district.

4) Rebalance or tweak the more boring Great Persons.
Some are very boring compared to others. All scientists who provide Eureka or Inspiration bonuses make me yawn (they are powerful, but they are also boring), whereas others provide more interesting bonuses like modifying holy site yields. I understand that this may be extremely difficult to pull off, but if possible it'd be nice to see Great Persons made much more situational to give more reason to 'pass' GPs but also become more interesting and diversity your civ further.

5) Introduce some form of disadvantage for going extremely wide.
Civ5s method, in my opinion, was ridiculous it created a very specific Meta (super tall), but Civ6 has gone the complete opposite way where ICS has become optimal.
It'd be interesting to maybe tie government policies to how wide you go. More importantly, however, amenities need to be more impactful, and districts are too easily obtainable (ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A UNIQUE DISTRICT).

6) Harvesting resources outside of your borders needs to yield either nothing or provide significantly reduced yields.
Its a little ridiculous that I can harvest woods outside of my enemies borders and somehow benefit outside of removing those woods from them. Something should be done about this in my opinion.

EDIT: Some wrong values in there.

 

[God of Kings]

For #8 in the OP's list, eurekas and inspirations could be nerfed, which would indirectly buff China's UA, even if China's UA were nerfed to 50%.

 

[JD_Mortal]

AI not upgrading units is an issue due to the fact that they never actually use them for anything. Plus, upgrading is a "human thing to do", to logic, it is a waste of resources. If no-one is killing the mice, don't turn them into lions! Plus, they all declare war and most never fight one battle. (That has to change first. War is war. If you declare it, freaking fight a war!)

They declare war on people they have not met, get a bunch of guys ready, and sit around waiting to be found, or for a scout to find them. Why? Because Person "A" has no army, so they tell person "B" to declare war on you. Or, person "A" has a grudge, so they ask person "B" and "C" and "D" to declare war... Sometimes they all do, to impress person "A", but never actually do it, because at that point of war, they get a warning that they will be seen as warmongers, and they deny the actual event, and just live with pissing-off person "A", if they find-out. (Which, apparently, they never do find-out, and for some reason, they manage to get someone who has no clue who you are, or where you are, to become an enemy... Apparently, in a deceleration of war, they can't seem to exchange intelligence. Which should be used by them, and us, to obtain locations of others.)

Even worse, the reactions are spotty and irrelevant, 90% of the time. It is a farm-ville AI, in a cool shell of a game. Honestly a poor AI, by any gaming standards. (It is not AI, it is just horrible linear nested loops that simulates something related to AI. It always goes left through the mazes, looking for an exit, which only works if the exit isn't in the middle of the maze, through a door that doesn't touch the outer walls. That's geek for Artificial-Stupidity, as there is nothing intelligent about blindly traversing a maze with your left hand touching the wall, looking for the door-handle, when the exit is a ladder in the middle of the room.)

 

[JD_Mortal]

Religion should be a multiplier/factor of...

- The infecting person's "Culture level", "Economic Value", and "Happiness"
If the civs spreading are low in culture, there is little belief to follow.
If the civs economic value is low (total assets, not income), there is little reason for belief to follow.
If the civs happiness is low, lower than the ones you are trying to infect with religious "it's better"... there will be few who follow.

Additionally, if they have no temples or religious "stuff", they should be impossible to infect. There is no "place" to operate, to maintain religious propaganda.

Additionally, if you have been infected with another's religion, that symbol should be on those peoples shields... If you take that person to your enemy, and try to infect them with it. That enemy should be going after the idiot who infected you, the creator of that religion. Making infecting other nations a dangerous task.

Before infecting others, you should first have to convert everyone in your cities. Without the support of your city, you would have no power to convince others to believe. Especially if half, or a portion of your city is believing in another religion. If you only convert half your city, it is assumed, you have half the culture-power, half the economic value, and half as much happiness, if anyone is happy at all. If they are all pissed, it should be impossible to convince others to join you. Just as if you are not as happy as the ones you are trying to infect/convert.

When it comes to winning, you should have to have 100% of your whole civs belief, and half the others that remain.

It also needs better explanation as to how it works, including how to create a religion. Since it took me 2 days of google searches to figure it out... Mostly, I just figured-out that it sucked and is gimped, as a whole system, like the AI and the naval-stuff and the culture victory.

==================================

Culture victory...

There should be a minimum level of culture, and list of possessions and buildings needed, before a cultural victory is had. This also including the lack of war interactions and technology that is not culture-related, as a determining factor of victory.

If you have tons of non-culture advances (which are not required to obtain a culture-advance along the way), then you should have less "culture value", even if you have more culture points.

If you have started tons of war, thus reduced others culture, using non-culture technology (seen above), then you should have less "culture value".

If you have constantly lied and gone against your word, or denied, without reason, trades with others, you should have less "culture value".

Culture is about "being cultured". (Horrible definition.) To put it better... American Indians were cultured. They made things which were needed, and little more. They shared or offered things, within reason, and expected nothing more than equality or a hopeful return. They did many things that helped nature (the gods), without any expected returns. (Including not consuming more than was needed from nature.) These things done as a part of the culture, the ritual. (Unlike bombing random cities and constant lies, which could technically be counted in semantics as a form of culture too. Mostly culture is seen as something positive and beyond ones self.)

Russia and Germany would NEVER win a culture award... China would, 1000 years-ago, but not now... America, Pffft... India, Would, up until about 300 years ago... (Almost no late-day modern societies would qualify for that, which would simply leave those with the most value as the winners. After what point in time? I would say it should be forced to end after the "United nations", or possibly the "Cold War"... At that point, everything is just kindness out of fear or defeat that nothing-else is a possibility. Not being able to go to war, due to national issues, is not the same as not going to war, because you don't want to go to war. So, at that point, there is no true measure, other than those bold enough to actually go to war, and just say f-it... Or those who hide behind them, supporting them, or terrorists, to keep their hands clean...

 

[MRM]

4. I have not played immortal yet, but shouldn't it be more difficult on higher levels? So far I don't have the impression that the AI is to aggresive - quite so opposite, much less wars then in previous versions of civ.

6. I think mainly repairing costs are to high, it often take longer to repair a district then it took me to build it

8. Eurekas, I have a different suggestion. Eurekas should entourage the player to alter their gameplay. For me this does not work, and I think what may work is this, let the Eureka bonus fade if you do not research the tech for what you get the bonus. This would weaken Eurekas plus it would encourage to research in this direction.In general Eurekas should be more difficult to get, but I would leave the ( initial ) bonus at 50%

However what bother me most balance wise is production of units vs science. ( i usually play on marathon speed )

It happened to me to often that a unit is outdated before I could build it. Especially annoying are examples like biplanes and submarines. I started to build a biplane, but before it was build, I already had advanced flight - and because I did not have immediately aluminum, the hole production was canceled. Meh ( Why can't I complete the biplane if I don't have aluminum yet anyway ? same with submarines ) - that has the effect that I do not even bother building them anymore.

 

[GlobalTree]

does anyone expect civ balances like even when some require complete changes..?? or is it unlikely for quite some time..??