What purpose does inflation serve?

[Emptiness]

Then what is the purpose? Annoy people? It can't be to stop large empires because there is already a mechnic in place for that.

Inflation forces an empire to continue expanding in order to survive. It either has to grow out (more cities), grow up (gain population in current cities), or grow in (which covers many things, including: cottage maturity, army reduction, increased -> slider %, and adopting lower upkeep civics). An empire which can no longer do any of those things will stagnate and die over time, thanks to inflation. To be precise, forced army reduction will eventually cause the empire's army to become weaker than it requires to defend itself and then attack from other empires will tear it apart. This is often accompanied by a tech deficiency brought on by a 100% -> slider (which of course means 0% -> slider) which seals the empire's doom.

If inflation didn't exist then it would be possible for a small empire to turtle up and hold off a larger empire indefinitely without any expansion. The smaller empire would be able to support a higher units/city ratio than the large empire because of lower maintenance costs, and because it is physically smaller it would be able to have a higher units/area ratio as well.

Inflation's purpose is to reward with survival those civs which continue to expand their economy at a pace which keeps up with inflation, at the expense of those civs which do not.

"Inflation" depends on so many variables that it is impossible to predict.

But in the exact same situation, the inflation will always be the same. It isn't random, it's deterministic. Complicated, but not impossible to predict.

All right, not actually impossible. Almost impossible. Impossible without spending unreasonable amounts of resources.

Inflation increases over the course of the game. Far from impossible to predict, it is very dependable. Almost nothing can affect inflation directly, so it is very consistent. You can also anticipate inflation's effect, which is that it will apply more and more pressure on your civ to reduce costs as time passes.

What is hard to predict is exactly when inflation will get so bad that you have to take some step to counteract it. This is unpredictable because it depends on a great many factors, including many of the choices you've made in the game and the success or failure of those choices. This doesn't make inflation complicated, but rather reflects the complexity of the game itself.

It's pretty clear inflation is designed as a means of keeping up with growing economies in late-game without actually scaling costs of late-game items to account for that. And for this, it fails horribly. It would be better to simply increase costs. Either through military units (as I suggested) or through civic costs.

Inflation already increases the cost of military units and civics. It even does it in a way that is connected to the passage of game time, such that civs that gain early access to advanced civics or military units are not unduly penalized. Flat cost increases for civics and "late-game" military units comes with its own problems, and even if those problems were acceptable would require the mod to be rebalanced to accommodate the change.

 

[apotheoser]

Flat cost increases for civics and "late-game" military units comes with its own problems, and even if those problems were acceptable would require the mod to be rebalanced to accommodate the change.

Exactly - the point of inflation is to motivate you to expand as it gets progressively worse. If civics and units get a flat cost increase, then smaller empires have no chance to expand in the first place.

If you want to [ ], you raise "inflation".
Please fill in the blank.

"make it necessary to grow faster"
"punish turtling"

are we done?

 

[Earthling]

"make it necessary to grow faster"
"punish turtling"
are we done?

Except for the fact that this is exactly the opposite of what inflation does. You'd have to introduce a whole new "anti-inflation" mechanic to do that. In FFH a small empire of a few ubercities (=turtle) is many times better off as time goes on simply due to inflation. In fact a point is often reached where no matter what many cities are costing more than they can bring in.

Not to be mean but everything Emptiness posted about this was some sort of bizarro-world, "opposites-day" scenario. WITH inflation, it is possible for a smaller empire to hold on with much lower costs and field military units with less cost. Inflation can cripple civs like Doviello, Clan, and a couple of others who have a really tough time teching in the late game, while civs like Ljosalfar and Kuriotates almost never pay a cent. And I'd say it's not a direct problem in the balance of the civs themselves but only arises due to the inflation mechanic.

So, basically,
"If you want to make it necessary to [grow faster] [punish turtling] you LOWER inflation" and then why not remove it entirely?

 

[apotheoser]

small empire of a few ubercities (=turtle)

No. Not true at all.

Not to be mean but everything Emptiness posted about this was some sort of bizarro-world, "opposites-day" scenario. WITH inflation, it is possible for a smaller empire to hold on with much lower costs and field military units with less cost. Inflation can cripple civs like Doviello, Clan, and a couple of others who have a really tough time teching in the late game,

So some civs are better early game and some civs are better late game? Stop the presses.

while civs like Ljosalfar and Kuriotates almost never pay a cent. And I'd say it's not a direct problem in the balance of the civs themselves but only arises due to the inflation mechanic.

So you can point to specific civs with problems and specific civs with no problem whatsoever, yet the ENTIRE MECHANIC needs to change?

You realize if you change a game-wide mechanic, you have to rebalance game-wide, right?

Here's a better solution: just rebalance Doviello and Clan.

 

[Earthling]

First, I don't know what you think the definition of turtling is but that's it, don't see where you disagree there.

About a change - yes, I realize you'd have to rebalance game-wide, if rebalancing was needed at all. But I don't think it would be particularly hard - not too much rebalancing needed (and all of it accomplished with slight maintenance or civics cost increases).

Reasons for this are it's not just a couple of civs - there are still other examples of other civs that develop near invincible economies (Lanun, Sidar, Dwarves) and civs that also suffer (Illians, possibly Balseraph). So I ought to be more clear about the underlying trend (and problem) - whenever the map or game is situated as such that very early rushes don't resolve it, economic imbalances can cripple a game (and just for comparison I'd say much more so than regular civ4). For curiousity's sake I'd suggest that both larger maps, and maps with multiple continents reflect this most strongly in FFH2. I'll admit it is mostly, but not all, a good vs. evil thing because very few evil civs have traits like financial or special economic bonuses. But it is NOT an early vs. late-game thing about the civs - it's only the fact that inflation comes into play later - so-called "late-game" civs like Illians and Sheiam can suffer immensely from inflation. Removing inflation wouldn't remove all costs of course but make it easier for the civs who are, well, supposed to raise massive Apocalyptic armies to do so. With single player games the aforementioned rebalancing probably wouldn't be needed at all because the only effect will be on the human - the AI already doesn't pay a lot of costs anyway and already can have massive production bonuses to armies. And in multiplayer I believe the only result from entirely removing inflation would be enhancing late game warfare/conflict (or someone trying to bring the game to a close with culture for instance).

To paraphrase - I think that removing inflation only significantly affects the late-game anyway, balancing fixes would be very slight on other costs, and it helps with a major issue - irreversible economic gaps between many civs/religions. Inflation is not necessary for any particular aspect of game balance and simply is annoying and not fun - there are plenty of other ways to bring the game to a close.

Edit: and are you retracting the point that inflation encourages expansion? Because I definitely still think it does the opposite - it gets very hard/pointless to maintain extra cities after a certain (and not too late) point in FFH2.

 

[apotheoser]

First, I don't know what you think the definition of turtling is but that's it, don't see where you disagree there.

So when I win a conquest victory with a small group of ubercities, razing as I go, that's turtling?

When I have a continent-sized empire that I only defend from, trying to get an Altar victory, that's not turtling?

 

[Mylon]

Inflation already increases the cost of military units and civics. It even does it in a way that is connected to the passage of game time, such that civs that gain early access to advanced civics or military units are not unduly penalized. Flat cost increases for civics and "late-game" military units comes with its own problems, and even if those problems were acceptable would require the mod to be rebalanced to accommodate the change.

Unduly penalized? As if having more advanced military units or civics wasn't reward enough? I see higher costs of military units more as a means of consolidating giant stacks of 100 units which are a bore to move and fight with down into more manageable armies, and it does this for both sides. Having to pay slightly more cash to maintain a more advance army isn't a penalty so much as means of making late game less tedious.

 

[Earthling]

In the first case I'd say you spent most of the game turtling to build your tech lead/military. In the second case, true, you didn't really turtle at all - expanding/conquering a continent is not turtling. Turtling in civ is like other games and most importantly about your original choice of strategy - to sit back and build rather than attack/expand/whatever other option is possible. So yeah, a person who sits back and builds up and then goes to conquer is still a turtle - a person who attacks/expands aggressively is not a turtle, even if they play defense later on.

But this is kinda a tangent to the role of inflation - and I know it's good to have more voices so I guess we could disagree and I won't be going to spend any more time trying to argue just with you if you hold different opinions.

My last thoughts here: The simple fact is that I still feel inflation works counter to game balance by thwarting would-be conquerors when that's exactly the opposite of what FFH2 is about. Evil civs can't even win altar victories, many would not get culture either, leaving only military, religious, and tower - the last two much more dubious to ensure. Removing inflation wouldn't fundamentally give them anything more late game - it would just mean they could keep at least keep on fielding their armies. But as things stand, you could put the elves and, say, malakim on one continent and a civ like Clan, Illians, or Doviello on the other, with whomever else, and the good continent will likely be untouchable. Something that is brought to mind for me are players suggesting strategies like "Doviello should stop teching and be done at champions, or something like that" -the problem being that if they can't easily get to all remaining civs to kill they'll fall behind and be done - and of course human opponents against the Doviello are even better at stopping them too for example. I feel things like Armeggedon and naturally arising wars between civs are what should be bringing the game to a close rather than economic crashes - if evil civs and the Infernal and hell terrain control half the world there shouldn't just be a stalemate because they can't possibly finance an invasion.

And again, to look at the holistic picture of things: in single player inflation has the most important effects on the human and its just annoying to have a mechanic that slows the whole game down, making you take longer in final conquests for no good reason. In multiplayer not having inflation late game would simply allow players on either side (with a little more benefit now to the evil, for instance) to forge a bigger conflict. I don't see any part of game balance requiring inflation and a lot of reasons why it's just less fun.

 

[Emptiness]

Not to be mean but everything Emptiness posted about this was some sort of bizarro-world, "opposites-day" scenario.

No offense taken. We clearly have very different opinions of the effect inflation has on the game.

Edit: and are you retracting the point that inflation encourages expansion? Because I definitely still think it does the opposite - it gets very hard/pointless to maintain extra cities after a certain (and not too late) point in FFH2.

Inflation doesn't encourage expansion, it demands it. If your economy stops growing then either you will stop advancing in tech and your opponents will use their tech advantage to conquer you, or your army will shrink in size and your opponents will use their numbers to conquer you. There is a limit to how much internal expansion (growing up and growing in) that can be done. Once you are at that limit, which is largely governed by how many tiles your cities have available to work, your only remaining option for expansion is to grow out (found or conquer additional cities).

Additional cities can easily represent too much of a burden on an empire's economy, due to increased maintenance costs, and will be detrimental. Overexpansion is certainly bad. However, by the time inflation would usually become an issue an empire will probably have a number of tools available which can reduce the impact that new cities have on maintenance costs. The eventual (once cottages are fully matured, for example) economic benefit of a new city will outweigh the small total increase (the larger the empire in question, the more likely City States will be necessary to make this a small increase) in maintenance it causes.

If you are at the limit of internal economic expansion and you choose not to expand your economy by gaining additional cities then inflation will crush you.

Inflation already increases the cost of military units and civics. It even does it in a way that is connected to the passage of game time, such that civs that gain early access to advanced civics or military units are not unduly penalized. Flat cost increases for civics and "late-game" military units comes with its own problems, and even if those problems were acceptable would require the mod to be rebalanced to accommodate the change.

Unduly penalized? As if having more advanced military units or civics wasn't reward enough? I see higher costs of military units more as a means of consolidating giant stacks of 100 units which are a bore to move and fight with down into more manageable armies, and it does this for both sides. Having to pay slightly more cash to maintain a more advance army isn't a penalty so much as means of making late game less tedious.

Currently, the increased cost of your military is directly tied to the passage of game time, which relates directly to the strength of your economy (which also gets stronger as time passes, provided you are being successful). Right now, early access to Champions is a huge benefit because your army will be better than that of your opponents and will cost the same as if it were made up of less advanced units. Increasing the support cost of Champions would lessen that advantage, because you would be able to support fewer Champions for the same cost - meaning a smaller army or a higher cost army. This isn't specifically bad, but does represent a change from the balance of FfH2 as it is now. This change would create a subtle disincentive to researching advanced military techs before researching advanced economic techs, which would impact the strategies used for some of the more aggressive civs. (Choosing Champions as an example was totally arbitrary. Any other advanced military unit could have been used instead.)

As for reducing the number of units in play late-game, I can agree with you there at least in spirit. It limits the map size that my computer can handle; larger maps bog down on my old computer in the late game, mostly due to the sheer number of AI units, and my turns take longer to make because of how many units I have to deal with myself. Higher support costs for later units would certainly reduce the congestion. However, as I mentioned above, it would have other effects as well.

 

[Earthling]

First, I'd like everyone to hold their horses for a second and consider a novel idea I had - I think it fits perfectly thematically into the game.

Proposal: If inflation were to be removed/altered, Entropy mana could instead create cost increases. As things stands I don't see all too many players caring about the tiny effect on heal rate Entropy mana has, and the spell sphere is neglected as a whole. It has massive diplomatic penalties that often aren't worth its cost and is hard and rare to obtain. However, I'd propose something like Entropy mana causing a 10% per source "inflation" (subject to balance) for all other civs. This would also have a nice timing of not really affecting the early game, beginning only with AV/AV shrine/Infernals and then by choice of evil civs later into the game.


Otherwise, unfortunately I still disagree with Emptiness and have highlighted a few quotes for brevity (which I felt formed a basis of your opinions-not trying to misrepresent you) and have to disagree.

Inflation doesn't encourage expansion, it demands it.

The first statement simply isn't true. At no point in the game does inflation ever encourage what you call "outward" expansion - it hinders it greatly. OTHER game mechanics, like spreading religion/military/claiming resources, encourage expansion; inflation is not one of these. Instead inflation contributes to making it harder to expand because it raises costs; even city states doesn't counter increased military/civic costs, and also removes other powerful civics so that's not a solve-all option. Inflation has almost zero effect on a "core" empire - unless you really played something like 1000s of turns the maintenance costs on a few large cities will never damage your empire. If you didn't simply win the game (culture, altar, whatever) you could probably even offset such costs just by building wealth/GP generation. This is blatantly obvious if you play a game with the goal of making a few economic ubercities - Kuriotates, elves, dwarves, or Lanun for instance.

To be clear - I don't disagree that it is good to go out and, say, conquer new cities. But it's not at all because of inflation that this is good - it's simply to become more rich/powerful - inflation annoyingly slows the process down.

The eventual (once cottages are fully matured, for example) economic benefit of a new city will outweigh the small total increase (the larger the empire in question, the more likely City States will be necessary to make this a small increase) in maintenance it causes.

The problem again is that this is not true for a (significant) number of civs, which is why I see it as a huge problem. The fact that it is true for some civs makes them have even greater advantages in expansion and empire building. For sake of comparison, even though we recognize FFH2 isn't the same as regular civ, improvements in FFH2 have lower yeilds - towns max out at 5 for instance. Lack of economic traits/buildings and things like hell terrain make it so that new cities for some civs will still never pay off. I don't think it's right that the way for civs like the Clan, for instance, to keep their economy afloat is to adopt Order and pacifist civics etc...

If you are at the limit of internal economic expansion and you choose not to expand your economy by gaining additional cities then inflation will crush you.

Similar to the first statement - this conclusion simply isn't true. If you just have a small empire of a few cities inflation will never hurt you. It hurts your military much less if you have higher-level/fewer uberunits and don't need as much military to defend (+ no support costs). Even more so if you're an Order civ of one of many economic powerhouses. What might hurt you is the AI outproducing you because of their bonuses and killing you for instance, but this has nothing to do with inflation.

Lastly I don't propose increasing unit maintenance in FFH2 either (though I would in regular civ4) because of the reasons you mentioned - much of the tech and strategy is devised around seeking out powerful specialty units and there's no need to change this system. If anything it's really AI production that could be tweaked to avoid huge armies since humans don't see the same problems, but probably not all players would see that necessary.

 

[Honor]

Actually inflation both hinders and encourages outward expansion. It hinders expansion by permanently increasing your maintenance costs whenever you conquer new cities, and encourages it (in effect) if your newly conquered cities can flourish to offset the added maintenance costs later on (and thus, lead to a better economy). This only continues to be true until your economy hits the cap and your inflation is so high that maintenance (both city and unit maintenance) costs per city outweigh the income you generate per city. In these extreme cases having a much smaller empire will be much more adventageous than having a large one, as Earthling pointed out.

Putting a cap on max. inflation rate per game (say, 100%) would solve every issue I have against its current implementation.

I must add, I find the entropy mana idea quite interesting, as well.

 

[Ribusprissin]

So, something like "your inflation rate = 2x# of entropy mana in world (including palaces) not including yours" then?
Edit: seems too low ... # squared would be too high ... half of (# squared) might be just right: 4 nodes = 8%, 6 nodes = 18%, 8 nodes = 32%, 10 nodes = 50%.

 

[Mylon]

Currently, the increased cost of your military is directly tied to the passage of game time, which relates directly to the strength of your economy (which also gets stronger as time passes, provided you are being successful). Right now, early access to Champions is a huge benefit because your army will be better than that of your opponents and will cost the same as if it were made up of less advanced units. Increasing the support cost of Champions would lessen that advantage, because you would be able to support fewer Champions for the same cost - meaning a smaller army or a higher cost army. This isn't specifically bad, but does represent a change from the balance of FfH2 as it is now. This change would create a subtle disincentive to researching advanced military techs before researching advanced economic techs, which would impact the strategies used for some of the more aggressive civs. (Choosing Champions as an example was totally arbitrary. Any other advanced military unit could have been used instead.)

As for reducing the number of units in play late-game, I can agree with you there at least in spirit. It limits the map size that my computer can handle; larger maps bog down on my old computer in the late game, mostly due to the sheer number of AI units, and my turns take longer to make because of how many units I have to deal with myself. Higher support costs for later units would certainly reduce the congestion. However, as I mentioned above, it would have other effects as well.

Consider if, say, swordsmen cost 3 gold to upkeep and champions cost 4, would you really notice? Especially considering that the promotion for each champion would matter that much more. Aside from this, civilizations get a decent number of free units anyhow. If anything, higher costs will also make civilizations have to choose between supporting a large standing army and researching. Because ultimately anything with a higher cost means slower research. Alternately, or as a complimentary expense, the support cost for units in enemy territory could be increased. Besides, one can still build the earlier units in FFH if one prefers mass and cheaper numbers.

 

[apotheoser]

Consider if, say, swordsmen cost 3 gold to upkeep and champions cost 4, would you really notice? Especially considering that the promotion for each champion would matter that much more. Aside from this, civilizations get a decent number of free units anyhow. If anything, higher costs will also make civilizations have to choose between supporting a large standing army and researching. Because ultimately anything with a higher cost means slower research. Alternately, or as a complimentary expense, the support cost for units in enemy territory could be increased. Besides, one can still build the earlier units in FFH if one prefers mass and cheaper numbers.

Of course I would notice. I would defend my internal cities with Warriors and hold some money in reserve for upgrading if I was actually attacked.

Saving 2-3g per unit per turn, it's obviously the best decision.

 

[Fafnir13]

Putting a cap on max. inflation rate per game (say, 100%) would solve every issue I have against its current implementation.

I'd second that.

Also, there is an option to turn inflation off. You have to modify some file to show all options. It would be nice if that option came available by default.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I don't realy see any point in arguing about it. Add it as a check box, on/off option for inflation and let everyone chose if they want it on or off.

 

[Calavente]

I'll just say for now that in ffh2 I'd rather have my late techs at 10000 and some inflation than no inflation and my later tech being at 30000 to equilibrate it.

but maybe inflation is bad ... if you stay long enough in the game... without real expansion, or while overexpending.

if you could propose a new mecanisme that's good..

-making building have an upkeep cost, or advanced units cost more than tier 1 units is bad : you can't reap the benefit of teching through a specialized path as using the hard won units/building that you got early would cripple you

-making late game civics cost more ... WTH .
that's already the purpose of "low" medium and high upkeep.
furthermore, in ffH2 more so than in civ4 there are few "late game civics"... I mostly use early game civics and few late games ones. citystate, godking, religion, arete, agriculture come to mind.

-Maybe as you said : link inflation to the "necromancy" manas enthropy (more administration-corruption), chaos (losing information, bills...etc) and shadow (organized crime) sure are mechanisme that cripple the legit economy and may represent the real work of inflation.

-maybe you can attach inflation to some technologies... like : 5% for each tier per tech branch (animal/horse - nature/recon - marine/boats - commerce/ - metal/melee - ranged/archery - engineering - arcane - religions)
you would approximately have some inflation in 1 tech out of 2-3.
and teching in a widespread way will up the inflation more quickly than speciallisation and verticaly teching.
or just to some perticular techs. or +10%inflation for tier 2 unit techs...

or mix multiples ideas .

my 0.2

 

[Ariminio]

You're a ron paul voting gold standard crazy who hates fiat money, aren't you?

Moreover, you actually believe in conspiracies enough that you want them modelled in a Civ game?

Why do you insult him? And conspiracy? Inflation is no secret scheme nobody believes in, its reality and he summed it up pretty correctly. And yes, I do believe that in future Civ games currencies and their value will play a role.
Every nation has its own currency, and you as their leader can chose to dilute it for war or to bail out a bank.

 

[Broken Hawk]

What really is inflation, and the theories we all have on who does it, and how it is used, to make us more miserable, is not of any interest here, IMO.
The point here is that, in this game, the player is the ruler and the mechanics want to provide a challenge! Not Fireaxis nor any other complany wants to just piss off their customers by ruining the fun in their game.
Inflation serves a purpose in this game, and while I am not quite happy when I see my inflation rising, I can always do things to help me overcome the challenges arising by the fact.
As with all preferences, some people find Inflation a good thing, others bad thing, and there are those that cannot stand it.
Since the solution to turn it off has already be given in this thread, I guess all of us can be happy playing this game, the way that closest matches our preferences .

Thank you. Good grief, this post should have ended the thread.