[Balancing] Reduce Production Provided by a new city!

[Nitroglycerine]

Hello Devs!

I just had a realization.

The current economy issues in the game are all linked to the production boost given by a new city.

When built, cities provide:
IG & Orks: +6 food, +6 ore, +6 energy, +6 research.
Necron: +9 ore, +9 energy, +6 energy, +6 research.

It is this bonus that singlehandedly makes SM unable to compete, Necrons weak in larger maps because of inability to consistently expand, and IG/Orks a bit too good on medium and above maps.

After all, that is the equivalent of FOUR resource buildings!
It's also an instantaneous boost without requiring any time (construction) or resources (beyond the 50/100/150/200/etc to settle) to gain.
In addition, you get all the new construction slots of the new city (for even more resource income or military trainers).

So, the most straightforward fix: reduce this, and all is well.
Option 1: Instead of getting the "HQ" building, would instead get a new building with a different name, that provides less resources.

The resources it provides will need to be tweaked of course, but my initial thought is:
Orks/IG - +3 food, +2 ore, +3 energy, +2 research.
Necrons - +6ore, +2 energy, +2 research.

3 food/3 energy or 6 ore (necrons) - It supports 3 population + the construction building. THey still get 2 energy/ore and 2 research production.
A new settlement should not fully support it's population without a farm (or similar building). 3 food gives more than enough time to build a farm as well as other buildings.

Option 2:
This is more extreme, but they don't get a "HQ" building at all.
They start with the (faction equivalent) of a dormatory, and a construction building.

So they take an economy hit at construction until you can get an energy and farm building up (to support the construction building and the population, respectively).

[Basura Nephilim]

You're not factoring in:
unit build time, unit research time,unit production building cost + upkeep, unit build cost, unit upkeep, city build cost. -- edit, oh you did factor build cost, pardon.

Then there's the negative loyalty for every city constructed.

You actually need to invest quite a bit, and you need to wait before the returns are actually profiteable.

[Nitroglycerine]

Originally posted by Basura Nephilim:

You're not factoring in:
unit build time, unit research time,unit production building cost + upkeep, unit build cost, unit upkeep, city build cost. -- edit, oh you did factor build cost, pardon.

Then there's the negative loyalty for every city constructed.

You actually need to invest quite a bit, and you need to wait before the returns are actually profiteable.

I am completely factoring it in.
I actually feel we are hitting high level techs far too quickly as well, because of the cities providing +6 research.

Without building a research building, by turn 80 you should be at tier 8 techs (with anyone but SM), and researching tier 8 techs will generally take 4-6 turns.

It's also leading to the strategies like "go from boyz > heroes > meganobz > Gorkonauts" while completely ignoring the vehicle line because of your research increasing so rapidly from new cities.

Why go back and research lower tier techs, (e.g. vehicle building > vehicle > vehicle upgrades) when you can spend the same # of turns researching the next tier infantry/walker unit? Or for IG, stick with vehicles and neglect their infantry (like Bullgryns).

The current system basically wants you to:
- build up your capital as a troop trainer (e.g. 2 unit trainers + 1 hero trainer + add a 3rd unit trainer if possible).

- use the 2nd expansion to provide resources to keep your capital running - a huge portion already comes the instant it is built in the +6/+6/+6/+6.

- 3rd, can be a bit of both (resources and troops).

It is only the 4th expansion (200 ore) and upwards start actually getting pricy, and that's when you need to debate about investment vs rewards.

[gmsh1964]

My two cents is sort of what Kalis is saying, there should be some form (like CIV 6) where once you set up a city, it is NOT productive for many turns and actually hurts your overall stats for a while other than the Loyalty hit.

It a great game and right now, city-builidng rush is definitely the way to go. I guess that is not a bad thing. Hmmm, maybe I should NOT post this. Again, GREAT GAME.

[Seswatha]

This game is much more combat oriented and has a faster pace than civ, so cities should pay for themselves really fast or they will be pointless. So I'm not really sure I like the idea.

[zhukodim]

The rapid expansion in the games usualy have the main drawback - inability to defend all of them.
Not sure how it works in this game right now. Need to play a lot more MP games vs decent players. But in general I feel that logistic is a problem. Mainly for infantry. I think it can be solved by adding early cheap transports for SM, AM and Orks.

As fot SM reserch speed problem. Here I feel the same. Maybe adding something like +4 R points for they Dormitories can change current dynamic.

[gmsh1964]

zhukodim, I think you hit on something. Against human players (I only play the AI), the city-sprawl thing would not work because a human opponent would crush your cities. So yeah, everyone is kind of right. Again, all I know is this game is really great. Looking forward to new factions.

[zhukodim]

Originally posted by Seswatha:

This game is much more combat oriented and has a faster pace than civ, so cities should pay for themselves really fast or they will be pointless. So I'm not really sure I like the idea.

Yep, agrreed. Also I want to add that in the current game you have zero options to increase the growth and development of the new cities ( only Necrons have such a mechanic ).

[Nitroglycerine]

With orks and IG, the city sprawl actually doesn't affect things much, because you can build a new city 4 tiles away, and generally start in a corner.

so you just build 4 cities around your capital (1 in each direction, 4 tiles away), and with your capital as your trainer, it doesn't take very long for your units to march to it, given units have 3 movement.

Whereas necrons actually do have it tough, because tomb placement is random.


In MP, I honestly think the current faction balance is, excluding tiny map 1v1s
1. Orks (unlimited expand with 8 pop cities, boyz are amazing in early-game when used properly, especially once a warboss, weirdboyz, and painboyz comes out).

2. IG (unlimited expand, 6 pop cities where barracks are basically a "free building" as it provides +1 population. The real struggle of IG is their early-game, where they lack both melee and a unit to "tank hits").

3. Necrons.
I place them at #3 because of how luck based they are. On a good map for them, they can be #1. It's all economy dependent.

In the first 40 turns,
If you find 2 tombs to expand to, you're going to wreck face.
If you only find 1 tomb, it's going to be a bit of an uphill slog.
If you can't even find one, you've been trolled by the map and will lose.

Military-wise, they're very very tough customers.

4. SM
Great units, 0 ability to research or produce enough requisiton to upkeep their forces properly. Everyone else will be constantly growing their economy to run more and more military trainers.

SM are currently hard-capped at 4 (1 hero, between 2-3 unit trainers), and their requisition income will be slowly decreasing.

[void]

Hello, not giving an HQ building is sadly a bit counter-intuitive since the HQ unit is used to represent the city defenses. If city spam is really too powerful, I think an elegant solution would be to simply increase the loyalty penalty for each new city from -3 to -6 (so you need a loyalty building in each city to fully compensate).

Also, the next build will have an improved special feature, necron tomb, artefacts and wild life distribution. Especially for tombs the lack of homogeneity made the Necron expansion experience indeed a bit erratic.

[Seswatha]

I do agree that the balance needs changes, but making cities pay for themselves too slowly would just make expanding an overly risky proposition. A small nerf might be ok though, idk.

Orks and AM should still keep an eco advantage, since Necron and SM units are generally better on 1v1 basis. There's a bunch of units in all rosters in need of some buffs or nerfs too. Specifically for Necron, tomb spawns need to be less random as well.

[BladeofSharpness]

As for wild life Void, that would be better if all wildlife was attached to a 'lair' ( = Ancient Factory for Castellan, Wasp nest for wasps, etc.). Why?

1. If you group lair generation so that a given region has a few of them (a single type), then you give flavor to areas on the map. "This is the scorpion den", "this is where you have castellans", etc. Much more chrome and interest. Because right now, all the map is covered with random monsters mixed together, bad.

2. This would remove part of the "hey, what's give, castellans and tech priest are helped by wasp to attack me, nonsense"

[Nitroglycerine]

Originally posted by void:

Hello, not giving an HQ building is sadly a bit counter-intuitive since the HQ unit is used to represent the city defenses. If city spam is really too powerful, I think an elegant solution would be to simply increase the loyalty penalty for each new city from -3 to -6 (so you need a loyalty building in each city to fully compensate).

Also, the next build will have an improved special feature, necron tomb, artefacts and wild life distribution. Especially for tombs the lack of homogeneity made the Necron expansion experience indeed a bit erratic.

I like it void!

Definitely worth a try to see how it works out.
With 4 cities, that would be an extra -12 loyalty, which would be 24% production lost.

It would definitely cause a lot more "diminishing returns" for additional cities when playing non-SM factions!

[eddieballgame]

A 'simple fix' that might help balance the production values of the factions that can build multiple cities vs the SMs:

Adjust the output of the HQ...maybe cut the output in half (or just a little) for the factions that can build more cities. Maybe increase the output for the SMs. Maybe raise the initial pop limit for the SMs.

This is, easily, done in the Data/World/Buildings/---Faction folders.