Planned changes for Prestige vs. Population Growth?

from Elemental Forums

So in my first game 1.09, large world, 5 normal AIs. By turn 175 I meet New Pariden first. Their cities are growing at a rate of _5_ per turn from prestige. Myself? 1. The next empire I meet? 1. 

This no doubt comes from royalty, and the fact that children who inherit royalty, plus a few champions, all stack.

Right now Royalty is one of those traits that you basically can't live without, were the AI playing with a full deck of cards. In MP, Prestige would be the mandated tactic. Because who is really going to try to compete with a player whose cities are growing 5x faster than theirs. It seems like prestige doesn't come from enough sources to begin with, which may explain why city growth takes forever from 3 to 4+, because it's balanced assuming you're getting prestige from somewhere, and you're not unless you took royalty or hired heroes. At least, I haven't seen any in 20+ games since release.

So I really hope either that whole thing is changing by 1.11, or it's on the list of things to get seriously rebalanced. Because currently it makes for a resource bloated AI sometimes, and when combined with the AI's obsession with expansion, does not instill me with a lot of confidence for what a real game would look like.

elemental
11,099 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

There are buildings (pubs, inns, and the great theater for the Kingdoms) in the civic tree that give a boost to prestige.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

population growth needs to become far more nuanced and more of a game mechanic instead of just a fixed number of people per turn. the game needs to move in a more people-focused direction, but if it does that with such a crude pop growth system then obviously people are going to end up grabbing any bonus they can find.

personally i'd use food. see this thread: https://forums.elementalgame.com/397376

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Royalty has always been broken, but especially so now that they made royalty work for champions and children with royalty too. I mentioned this when Brad was first talking about specialist slots, but I think they do realize that there's a problem since Boogie mentioned in passing that they were reevaluating the system or something, not sure what the plan is now.

 

PS: It's also extremely exploitable. Marry Pariden/Resoln's daughters and suddenly you get massive prestige all over as well.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kalin, reply 3

PS: It's also extremely exploitable. Marry Pariden/Resoln's daughters and suddenly you get massive prestige all over as well.
End of Kalin's quote

i was curious about this. does aquiring a hero with a sovereign ability really give you that ability faction wide? seems silly to me.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

i think offsprings should not inherit the parent's abilities. what are they, clones?  - which they are atm, even down to the description!

 

mind you.. they are all royal, so i guess royalty should do something else - for that matter.. your sovereign is royal by definition, isn't it....  (just rename royalty as it is now to something else.. maybe tweak it)

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Genetics does dictate that your offspring get about 50% of your genetic material. Just think of it as someone having blue eyes or red hair.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

yes... but i think all it does so far is straight clone the talents and descriptions. but probably not the stats... or is that just the display? eg.. there are all those +2 food/+1 tech/+1 arcane stuff.... do offspring get those and have them active?

 

sure.. if both parents are strong, then perhaps nudge the offspring towards that direction with a stronger possibility.. but not clone.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Not only is royalty over powered, but it is baddly named. If champions are going to have it then it should be renamed 'nobility'.

The dynasty system is a mess that needs to be addressed, and if it is ever fixed then it could add alot to the game.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting chavarlison, reply 6
Genetics does dictate that your offspring get about 50% of your genetic material. Just think of it as someone having blue eyes or red hair.
End of chavarlison's quote

yeah, but personally i consider these traits something particular to the sovereign that only has an effect because they are IN CHARGE. it shouldn't matter how intelligent the heir to throne is, if the king is an idiot than the accounts will suffer.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Not really, prestige is really just another word for fame. If your heir or champion is super famous, then there's no realistic reason to why their fame can't help your empire/kingdom attract people. It's just that right now the bonus for it is insane. I mentioned this before somewhere else, but it should be +1 prestige, not +100%.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gwenio1, reply 1
There are buildings (pubs, inns, and the great theater for the Kingdoms) in the civic tree that give a boost to prestige.
End of Gwenio1's quote

The building effects are also doubled by royalty, making things even more broken.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting alaknebs, reply 5
mind you.. they are all royal, so i guess royalty should do something else - for that matter.. your sovereign is royal by definition, isn't it....  (just rename royalty as it is now to something else.. maybe tweak it)
End of alaknebs's quote
Quoting Gwenio1, reply 8
Not only is royalty over powered, but it is baddly named. If champions are going to have it then it should be renamed 'nobility'.
End of Gwenio1's quote
The royalty indicates that they were part of a royal family before everything went to shit. Whether they are currently the leader of any group of people has no bearing on that. It's purely a heritage thing. I suppose this is misleading if you don't bother with the games fluff, but if you don't bother with fluff, I don't see why you'd care in the first place.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

In my mind the issue is that Royalty is producing a global effect now; it should only affect the city the champ is stationed in.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Royalty issues re: SOV.  Lets be very candid. Historically, almost all royalty are the descendants of the first gang of thugs who successfully took control of a settlement.  At root, they were gangsters, ruffians, thugs, thieves, and brutal enforcers of their gang's right to take from the weaker people around them.  The weak 'farmers' or whatever came under the 'protection' of the autocrats because THEY don't want to mess with farming.  Is this an early form of 'protection racket?"

Over time, their 'rights' were legitimized by tradition and religion.  Remember 'divine right of Kings?"  (We now have divine right of multi-millionaires.) Some, perhaps, even became 'enlightened' autocrats. It took many centuries for ideas of the 'obligation of the nobility' to take root.  History has been, in large measure, the story of common folks banding together to get 'more' rights from the Autocrat / Nobles.

Remember, Magna Carta did nothing for the masses.  It was about the rights of lesser nobles vs the strongest noble (the king).  'Peers' were all nobles - memebrs of the 'peerage' which becmae 'the house of Lords.'

Basically, this is a long way of saying that SOVs, no matter their 'history,' become nobles by virtue of their power to channel, to control the enviornment (the lesser people must live in).  The SOV may be the offspring of the lowest of the low, or be related to ancient "Royalty."  It matters not - being a channeler makes one the new royalty - and people will flock to the protection, security (food, water) etc. that SOV offers. 

Not sure how to 'fix' it in the game.

 

 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

What a lovely semantic debate about....stuff that doesn't pertain to game.

What makes prestige tripley broken is that it's an open-ended research tech. Want more prestige? Why, keep researching it. There's no concievable reason you'd want that capped, right?

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Population growth need to be tied to and limited by the availability of food.

Top

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

The bug with Royalty is that it applies its multiplier to every city you own - a global effect. It is (I believe) only intended to impact the city the Royal ends the turn in.

Normal city: +1 pop/turn
Normal city when you have a Royal stationed there at end of turn: +2 pop/turn (intended use)
The issue is that the Royal bonus is currently applied to all your cities. Have 10 cities and 1 royal? +10 pop/turn. (bug)
Have 5 royals and 10 cities? +50 pop/turn. (buggggggggggggggggg)

BTW - glad to see Administrators work, but they should also impact training times - they impact construction times ... and 10% off construction often amounts to zero turns, so it's not exactly a worthwhile bonus.

BTW2 - BUG with Training Times. Play a Kingdom civ. Take over a well-built Empire city which has the two +25% training time buildings. Add your own 2 +25% training time buildings. Voila: Any unit you want, any experience, in one turn, because you have -100% to training time. I was churning out groups of 12 fully plate armored horse wearing knights in 1 turn, for instance.