What's the rationale for adding a Palace building with a national limit of 3?

[Tomice]

I guess I just don't see "why" at all. Why are extra science, culture, and gold needed?

The Palace in vanilla has 3331. I think we can agree that this makes the capital quite an obvious choice for most (national) wonders. Not to forget that the capital profits more from maritime city states, it profits from being the oldest city and it profits from an often artificially ressource-boosted position.

We had an agreement AFAIK that it'd be nice if other cities had a chance to become equally or even more important as our capital (Not the biggest problem of BNW/CEP at the moment, admittedly).

Thal already changed maritime CS to this end, and now we're looking to get rid of the relatively large yields the Palace provides. We can't just cut them, since the early game would suffer a lot from low yields (by being boring).


My suggestion was basically to change initial production from +3 in the capital to +1 in every city and +1 in the first three cities. This should favor wide and make the capital less unique, while not changing the initial game pace too much.



Agreed that a mixture of per-city yields and national yields should be used first and foremost if applicable, but this doensn't work for production mainly.

 

[lockstep]

[W]e're looking to get rid of the relatively large yields the Palace provides. We can't just cut them, since the early game would suffer a lot from low yields (by being boring).

The definite solution are national yields. Until then, I prefer solutions that aren't worse than the original problem -- therefore, no "free" culture and happiness in non-capital cities.

 

[Ahriman]

he Palace in vanilla has 3331. I think we can agree that this makes the capital quite an obvious choice for most (national) wonders. Not to forget that the capital profits more from maritime city states, it profits from being the oldest city and it profits from an often artificially ressource-boosted position.

So adding 2 production, gold, culture and science to 3 cities would be a large net increase. 3 gold -> 6 gold, 3 science -> 6 science, etc.
The culture is fine at 1 on the palace, and the science and gold can be moved to national yields rather than capital yields . I don't think 3 production is that big a deal, and I don't think it needs to be spread across multiple cities.

My suggestion was basically to change initial production from +3 in the capital to +1 in every city and +1 in the first three cities. T

This is a net increase in production. You're decreasing capital production by 1 in order to increase every other city by 1 or 2. That seems like too large an economy change to be justified by mild preference for less production in the capital, and doesn't really do much to fix the supposed problem (1 less production in the capital isn't really going to be influencing wonder construction decisions by the time any non-capital city is large enough to seriously consider building wonders).

 

[Tomice]

I mentioned it's intended as improvement for both wide-vs-tall and city equality.

If every city gets 1 production due to wide-vs-tall balance, we only need a small amount of extra production from the palace buildings to achieve similar early-game production compared to vanilla BNW.
This meagre difference would be sufficiently small to be ignored when it comes to placing national wonders.

I agree that other yields are a completely different topic, and I've talked mostly about production until now.

 

[Ahriman]

I mentioned it's intended as improvement for both wide-vs-tall and city equality.

Then just cut the capital's palace bonus to 1 and increase all cities by 1, so capital goes down 1 and everything else goes up 1. There's no need for a secondary effect that applies to the first 3 cities. That's artificial and gamey.

And 1-2 production differences are all small relative to the "capital is biggest/most develope-city because it is founded first" effect. Your capital is probably going to have a 30+ turn headstart on your other cities.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Not having any definitive figures laid out in front of me to compare, I would have to say the option @Ahirman presents looks to fit the best.

Less intrusive, less coding, easier fix, better than the problem, better than the current.

As I say, I really have no base figures to work off, and I can't say I really noticed any problem in the vanilla game, just took it as that's how things go, but if we can avoid introducing major patches to cover minor problems, isn't that better?

 

[jacktannery]

Then just cut the capital's palace bonus to 1 and increase all cities by 1, so capital goes down 1 and everything else goes up 1. There's no need for a secondary effect that applies to the first 3 cities. That's artificial and gamey.

And 1-2 production differences are all small relative to the "capital is biggest/most develope-city because it is founded first" effect. Your capital is probably going to have a 30+ turn headstart on your other cities.

I agree 100% with Ahriman: cut the three palaces, reduce prod/cult/scien/gold from capital palace by 1 and increase prod/cult/scien/gold of all cities by 1, and add +5 happiness to the liberty tree somewhere. That will make wide empires a little less crap with BNW.

 

[lockstep]

I agree 100% with Ahriman: cut the three palaces, reduce prod/cult/scien/gold from capital palace by 1 and increase prod/cult/scien/gold of all cities by 1, and add +5 happiness to the liberty tree somewhere.

Ahriman's quote is a response to a post that was "mostly about production". Elsewhere, Ahriman stated

Early game culture should come from monuments or social policies (or pantheon), there's no need for an extra culture building. [...] I don't see why we need extra gold/culture/science at all. They're not solving the capital-centric problem, they're just overall yield boosts. Why do we want that? BNW early game feels pretty good - better than G&K did, because of better barbarian AI that mobs more, and caravans.

 

[jacktannery]

Ahriman's quote is a response to a post that was "mostly about production". Elsewhere, Ahriman stated

Well in that case I partially disagree with Ahriman. I would like to see -1 gold/science on capital and +1 gold/science on all other cities to make wide better and to provide incentives to built national wonders etc. in non-capital cities (as per the reasoning behind adding the three palaces in the first place).

I agree with Ahriman on the general idea of removing the palaces and adding a small bonus to the city tile of all cities. I guess the only person I fully agree with is myself...

 

[mystikx21]

All cities should have +1 gold now in the mod at least. (and +1 food, and +3 production from vanilla).

They already have science from the population. +1 science early on from each city would be a rather significant effect for expanding. I'm not sure it's necessary. And the gold I already said I'd rather see require some investment in roads/harbors and come as more trade, which would also help the wide-tall balance.

I'm actually not sure more than the extra food and significant production already added is needed versus moving gold and science to national yields at the point that is available.

 

[lockstep]

All cities should have +1 gold now in the mod at least. (and +1 food, and +3 production from vanilla).

[...]

I'm actually not sure more than the extra food and significant production already added is needed versus moving gold and science to national yields at the point that is available.

QFT. Taking production as an example:

• In unmodded BNW, my first city will typically feature +5 production at the start -- +1 from the city, +3 from the Palace, +1 from either having settled on a hill or from being able to work a +2 food/+1 production tile. Follow-up cities will typically start with +2 production (same as above, but without Palace). The capital-vs.-follow-up-city ratio is 2.5 : 1.
• With CEG (and the Communitas map), my first city has an expected production of +6.5 (+4 from the city, +2 from the palace, +0.5 from worked tiles -- those grassland stone or plain wheat tiles seem to make themselves scarce in the first ring). Follow-up cities, even those without a Palace, will typically start with +5 production (because I'll make sure to found them either on a hill or with immediate access to a +2/+1 tile). The capital-vs.-follow-up-city ratio is 1.3 : 1.

My conclusion: At least compared to the unmodded game, CEG does not suffer from a "build everything in your capital" problem.

 

[Tomice]

I agree with Ahriman on the general idea of removing the palaces and adding a small bonus to the city tile of all cities.

Yes, I think that's the best compromise for now:

1. One palace instead of three (like vanilla)
2. As few yields as possible on the palace
3. A bit more reason to go wide

Regarding #3, I think it has to be decided for each yield individually how to best achieve this goal .


For production, 1 more per city might just be fine.

For science, we might as well adapt the malus introduced with BNW. Although I have a feeling that 1 more science per city could work well without changing the malus at all. Sadly, I don't have the math skills to give a final statement.

For gold, we might better adapt the internal trade formula (which was nerfed in CEP).

I'm most sceptical about free culture. Not getting any culture in new cities before monuments or policies kick in is a pretty strong principle. If we just give free culture, those active gameplay elements would lose value.

 

[lockstep]

I'm most sceptical about free culture. Not getting any culture in new cities before monuments or policies kick in is a pretty strong principle. If we just give free culture, those active gameplay elements would lose value.

Agreed, and I'll add: No free happiness in new cities, please.

 

[mystikx21]

Generally agree with Tomice there.

I could maybe see making production 5 per city, but I don't see a need to raise it from 4.

I could also see leaving cities at 1 gold to start and a minor reduction in the national gold we get to start, which would be a minor wide advantage.

Not as much as science would be per city. I'll look into the numbers on that for the -5% malus. Keep in mind +1 effectively doubles the science of a city on founding though, and decreases to be mostly irrelevant later.

If the trade value goes from 3+.2/population to 3+.5 or .6 per population (still less money at most populations than vanilla, but much more at modest to high populations than CEP), that's a much bigger wide-tall variation and gives advantages to both play styles in a way that just giving money away to cities doesn't really accomplish much. Wide would have many more connections available as a source of actual income rather than zero-sum games with roads, tall would have more valuable connections, where it currently doesn't really matter. If this becomes too much money, keep in mind that unit upkeep isn't implemented (but inflation is still in), opportunities aren't implemented, and so on.

 

[EricB]

Everyone seems to agree that tall empires are more powerful than wide empires due to the science and culture penalties from building new cities. Like many of you, I like having to make different choices. It's what makes the game fun.

I don't think we should ever consider changing those science and culture penalties that favor tall empires. The science penalty doesn't really favor tall empires very much. It really just balances things. Wide empires only really suffer if their new cities are puppets or occupied cities. For culture, tall empires have a significant advantage.

However, wide empires have the advantage of having more production, which means that they can have a larger army than a tall empire.

The problem is that tall empires also have a gold advantage over wide empires due to most of the gold coming from trade routes and building multipliers. Tall empires also have fewer buildings requiring gold maintenance, so they can support a larger army than a wide empire. This is very odd. A tall empire should not be able to have larger armies than wide empires.

So, the way I see it, the gold problem needs to be fixed. Wide empires require more gold to pay for their building and unit maintenance costs. The best way I can think of to increase the gold for just wide empires is to increase the value of city connections. That might restore a bit more competitive balance.

 

[jacktannery]

Everyone seems to agree that tall empires are more powerful than wide empires due to the science and culture penalties from building new cities ... and ... gold advantage

It is not just these factors, but also the fact that the tradition policy tree is far superior (in my opinion anway) to most playstyles in the first part of the game, which is the important part compared to the other policy trees. For almost every strategy (wide/domination/etc) taking the full tradition tree is a generally good idea; on the other hand taking the full liberty tree is useful in far fewer situations.

What this means is that even when you decide at the start to go wide and build a million cities, you might still end up taking tradition and then logically deciding to only build your 3/4 cities until the modern era, because it just makes more optimal sense.

 

[jwerano]

It is not just these factors, but also the fact that the tradition policy tree is far superior (in my opinion anway) to most playstyles in the first part of the game, which is the important part compared to the other policy trees. For almost every strategy (wide/domination/etc) taking the full tradition tree is a generally good idea; on the other hand taking the full liberty tree is useful in far fewer situations.

What this means is that even when you decide at the start to go wide and build a million cities, you might still end up taking tradition and then logically deciding to only build your 3/4 cities until the modern era, because it just makes more optimal sense.

I find tradition to be superior on difficulty up to Emperor level due to the boosts to wonder production, and population to work production tiles since completing the wonders first is all that matters. But on Immortal when its hard to get any wonders at all I get more advantage from liberty.

I've found wide to really start shining in the industrial era especially with the order Ideology and factories that boost science to counter the per city science penalty and the ability that cuts purchase costs by 33%. Combined with Commerce it makes it viable to rush develop new cities so they can grow quickly and contribute to science or make freshly conquered cities with decent population prized assets for gold/tourism/science. It seems that these enhanced yields once the city has a high population and is properly developed, make wide best for ALL victory conditions.

 

[jacktannery]

I find tradition to be superior on difficulty up to Emperor level due to the boosts to wonder production, and population to work production tiles since completing the wonders first is all that matters. But on Immortal when its hard to get any wonders at all I get more advantage from liberty.

I've found wide to really start shining in the industrial era especially with the order Ideology and factories that boost science to counter the per city science penalty and the ability that cuts purchase costs by 33%. Combined with Commerce it makes it viable to rush develop new cities so they can grow quickly and contribute to science or make freshly conquered cities with decent population prized assets for gold/tourism/science. It seems that these enhanced yields once the city has a high population and is properly developed, make wide best for ALL victory conditions.

I agree with you actually, but this only underscores my point: the wide policy tree is only better than the tall one in 1) niche situations, 2) on the highest difficulty and 3) in industrial era.

And this is on top of the fact that going tall (even without any policy tree) is just better in 90% of cases than going wide at the beginning of the game (say, up to medieval period).

 

[Tomice]

There are some really good thoughts in this thread, this is taking a good direction!

General thoughts:

1. The possibilities given through the order tree seem to help balance wide vs. tall very well. Maybe we should just move some similar bonuses to the liberty tree (or some other earlier tree - exploration maybe? Ahriman once said this has been discussed and dismissed, though...)
2. In order to improve wide without making it overpowered, I think we should focus on ways to help new cities catch up quicklier without making them much stronger later on.
3. I'm rather bad in maths, but it seems that e.g. one more science per city does exactly what we might desire - it helps an wide strategy early on, but loses relevance later on, both when the city grows and when we already have many cities. Or am I wrong?
4. While not every yield should be available in a completely undevoloped city without any policies (culture!), the more yield per city we have, the less we're dependent on yields from a palace (or multiple palaces). I have seen some very convincing arguments that the problem of building everything in the capital is small already in CEP, so small adjustmets might eliminate it completely.

Let's do some number-crunching:

Currently each city gets 3 4 1, + 1 when founded on a mountain (which is weird IMO and should be cut if possible). The 3 palaces each give 2 2 2 2 2.

I'd suggest 1 1 extra per city, plus an adaptation of the internal trade formula (so roads are more profitable and wide empire get a bit more money).
For the single palace in the capital I'd only suggest 1 1 or something along these lines.

I'm not sure about culture. Not having the 3x2 from the palaces seems like a lot, but then again we only have 1 single culture on the palace in vanilla BNW, and that's the only culture we get before monuments or tradition/liberty openers. How much can we adapt the policy cost formula to not be dependent too much on the "free" culture now given in CEP through the 3 palaces?
On the other hand, is there even a downside to having free culture on the palace? We don't have a national wonder any more that boosts culture, and tourism is the main factor for a culture victory...

And, sorry, but I'm too tired to make up my mind about happiness and where it should come from

Just one final question: Which yields can we make national already now without much effort?

 

[lockstep]

I'm not sure about culture. Not having the 3x2 from the palaces seems like a lot, but then again we only have 1 single culture on the palace in vanilla BNW, and that's the only culture we get before monuments or tradition/liberty openers. How much can we adapt the policy cost formula to not be dependent too much on the "free" culture now given in CEP through the 3 palaces?

The unmodded BNW formula (25 for the first policy) is at least a good start.

On the other hand, is there even a downside to having free culture on the palace? We don't have a national wonder any more that boosts culture, and tourism is the main factor for a culture victory...

Did I miss a drastic change to the Hermitage?