Changing Bonuses for Sunni and other religions

[unmerged(6159)]

I didn't find the FAQ but I trust your memory. Do you remember if it was linear? If ten states in the group gave twice the bonus of five and half that of twenty?

Originally posted by AndrewT on behalf of Johan a long time ago. Proliferation bonus highlighted by me
Neighbour bonus is just not how far behind you are, as it also takes into account how many nations there are in your tech group and how big you are.

First its the difference between your tech and the highest tech.

Example: Lets say 3 levels behind

Multiply this by 8.

Example: 3*8 = 24

If the original difference was above 2, then you get the square off the difference added.

Example: 24 + 3*3 = 33

Then 1 is added for every 8 countries in our tech groups.

Example: Lets say Latin has 40 countries, 33+5 = 38

Divided by your size modifier.

Example: We have 6 cities, 38/0.9 = 42

Divided by 4.

Example: 42/4 = 10.5

Multiplied by the NMR

So that means that it is:

(NL*2+NL^2/4*(NL>2)+ntg/32)/SM

where NL is the difference between your tech and the highest in the group, ntg is the number of countries in your tech group, and SM is your size modifier.

Note that this means that increasing the size of a tech group from (say) 14 to 38 will have a very big effect on the neighbour bonus for the high tech coutnries in the group.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

However, as we use more and more tags, it will be near impossible to keep them at the same, or similar levels overall, that they are now.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

I'd like to see us attempt to try to have about the same number of countries in each tech group (except maybe exotic). I think the issues currently are too many latins and muslims, and not enough chinese and torthodox. Presumably Indonesia and central asia will add quite a few to the chinese which is good.

 

[Norrefeldt]

Thanks for finding that Isaac Brock. It seems that unless the group is small and with very even techs a few more states doesn't make that big difference. Exotic tech group is such a group, but they are very slow anyhow. Latin and muslim are big groups with different techs so they are not affected by a few added states.

I'd like to see us attempt to try to have about the same number of countries in each tech group (except maybe exotic). I think the issues currently are too many latins and muslims, and not enough chinese and torthodox.

I concur. Perhaps a new thread for this?

 

[Norrefeldt]

Isaac has addressed these issues far better than I can. Basically, I'm of the opinion that we should try to have some balance in the number of nations in each tech group. As it stands, with the Ottomans jumping from Latin down to muslim, and with Russia going up to Latin shortly after, orthodox tech is virtually unused. I'd rather see us using it to boost the tech of the north African states (relative to their co-religionists in Asia) and have the Ottomans just drop to Orthodox rather than all the way to muslim.

Moving N Africa sounds like an idea worth testing. In MP the Ottomans are often forced all the way to muslim, since torthodox is too close to latin and the result is no decline at all. I personally doesn't like that event, since it's the biggest no-brainer there is.

Out of curiosity, what constitutes sufficient testing in your opinion? That's a very general question, I know, but it's one that needs to be addressed IMO.Maybe we should start with that; this argument is getting pointless fast.

I think ten games would tell alot, although statistically it's nothing I know. Hands-off or playing (but then the affected area cannot really be assessed) and with reported settings. I don't think an aggressiveness above normal would be very good to use for testing.

EDIT: I think a possible first step could be to insert the reduction of missionaries and added stab for muslims.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

OK, revised proposal based on feedback here:

;Techspeed;Stab bonus;Prod. Eff.;Trade. Eff.;Tax Income;Morale;Ann.Col;Ann.Dip;Ann.Miss;x
Protestantism;1;-300;10;0;10;0;100;100;50;x
Reformed;2;-300;0;10;-10;0;200;100;50;x
Counterreformed;-3;600;0;-10;0;50;200;200;200;x
Catholicism;-1;600;0;0;0;0;200;200;100;x
Orthodox;-1;800;0;0;-5;0;200;100;100;x
Sunni islam;-3;800;0;0;5;0;0;100;0;x
Shiite islam;-5;300;-10;0;0;50;0;100;100;x
Paganism;-25;-500;0;0;-20;0;0;0;0;x
Confucianism;-15;1300;5;-15;10;0;0;200;0;x
Buddhism;-5;500;0;0;0;50;0;100;100;x
Hinduism;-7;-300;0;0;0;40;0;100;0;x
END;;;;;;;;;;

Qucik review:

• No changes to the 1.08 settings of the four convertable religions.
• Every religion except pagan is getting at least one diplomat a year.
• Orthodox gets an extra colonist (this was in AGC, yes?) and an extra diplomat, but a small tax penalty.
• Sunni loses the missionary and a bit of tech speed, and gets a small tax bonus and more stability.
• Shia loses techspeed, stability, and production efficiency, but gains taxes and a diplomat.
• Paganism gets its taxes axed.

The eastern religions are still heavily modified. Relative to the previous proposal:

• Morale benefits for Hinduism and Buddhism are toned down.
• Tech penalties for Hinduism and Buddhism are brought in line with muslim.

i still dont see a point of giving Hindu or Buddhist ANY morale bonus. Confucianism should get slight morale malus IMO, countries like Japan should have morale boosted by DP. On the other hand i agree that Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist should advance at pretty much the same pace (except OE) to be historical.

 

[doktarr]

I've been thinking about it, and I'm not sure a massive stability bonus really makes sense for Confucianism. Sure, stability is stressed in that philosophy, but do the in-game effects of stability really reflect the reality of confucian nations during this time period? Let's look at the effects.

• Better tax income - while tax collection was good in these nations, there was plenty of variation in how effective it was. I think a straight bonus to tax income makes more sense, and stability variations should be encouraged.
• More effective at trading, more merchants - Confucian traders were extremely bad in this period, as the merchant class was considered a necessary evil, and successful traders often became landowners in order to climb the social ladder. While this should also be reflected in a penalty to trade efficiency, losing merchants at CoTs would model help model Confucianism's special attitude towards its merchants and its difficulty in getting a steady stream of merchants.
• Less revolts and general unrest - ehh... China and Japan had some of the most violent revolts of the entire period.

So, I don't think Confucianism warrants a stability bonus of any note. The in-game effects of stability just don't make sense here. Confucianism should simply get taxvalue and production bonuses, and maluses to technology and trade.

What problem in the game are you addressing with this change?

Simply the lack of realism in the religion's effects.

Aren't you concerned that these changes will damage game balance?

What balance? Jinnai is completely re-doing Japan, and Sun Zi is completely re-doing China. After the changes are done, any balance that existed (and China was never well balanced, anyway) will be out the window.

 

[doktarr]

OK, revised proposal based on feedback here:

;Techspeed;Stab bonus;Prod. Eff.;Trade. Eff.;Tax Income;Morale;Ann.Col;Ann.Dip;Ann.Miss;x
Protestantism;1;-300;10;0;10;0;100;100;50;x
Reformed;2;-300;0;10;-10;0;200;100;50;x
Counterreformed;-3;600;0;-10;0;50;200;200;200;x
Catholicism;-1;600;0;0;0;0;200;200;100;x
Orthodox;-1;800;0;0;-5;0;200;100;100;x
Sunni islam;-3;800;0;0;5;0;0;100;0;x
Shiite islam;-5;300;-10;0;0;50;0;100;100;x
Paganism;-25;-500;0;-20;0;0;0;0;0;x
Confucianism;-15;1300;5;-15;10;0;0;200;0;x
Buddhism;-5;500;0;0;0;50;0;100;100;x
Hinduism;-7;-300;0;0;0;40;0;100;0;x
END;;;;;;;;;;

Qucik review:

• No changes to the 1.08 settings of the four convertable religions.
• Every religion except pagan is getting at least one diplomat a year.
• Orthodox gets an extra colonist (this was in AGC, yes?) and an extra diplomat, but a small tax penalty.
• Sunni loses the missionary and a bit of tech speed, and gets a small tax bonus and more stability.
• Shia loses techspeed, stability, and production efficiency, but gains taxes and a diplomat.
• Paganism gets its taxes axed.

The eastern religions are still heavily modified. Relative to the previous proposal:

• Morale benefits for Hinduism and Buddhism are toned down.
• Tech penalties for Hinduism and Buddhism are brought in line with muslim.

And once again, this is regular 1.08

;Techspeed;Stab bonus;Prod. Eff.;Trade. Eff.;Tax Income;Morale;Ann.Col;Ann.Dip;Ann.Miss;x
Protestantism;1;-300;10;0;10;0;100;100;50;x
Reformed;2;-300;0;10;-10;0;200;100;50;x
Counterreformed;-3;600;0;-10;0;50;200;200;200;x
Catholicism;-1;600;0;0;0;0;200;200;100;x
Orthodox;-1;800;0;0;0;0;100;0;100;x
Sunni islam;-1;600;0;0;0;0;0;0;100;x
Shiite islam;-3;600;0;0;-20;50;0;0;100;x
Paganism;-25;-500;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;x
Confucianism;-10;1000;0;0;-20;0;0;0;0;x
Buddhism;-5;500;0;0;-20;0;0;0;100;x
Hinduism;-10;-300;0;0;5;50;0;0;0;x
END;;;;;;;;;;

In the interest of getting this put in, I'll suggest a still more conservative version of my proposed changes:

;Techspeed;Stab bonus;Prod. Eff.;Trade. Eff.;Tax Income;Morale;Ann.Col;Ann.Dip;Ann.Miss;x
Protestantism;1;-300;10;0;10;0;100;100;50;x
Reformed;2;-300;0;10;-10;0;200;100;50;x
Counterreformed;-3;600;0;-10;0;50;200;200;200;x
Catholicism;-1;600;0;0;0;0;200;200;100;x
Orthodox;-1;800;0;0;0;0;200;0;100;x
Sunni islam;-2;800;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;x
Shiite islam;-5;300;-10;0;0;50;0;0;100;x
Paganism;-25;-500;0;0;-10;0;0;0;0;x
Confucianism;-15;200;15;-15;15;0;0;0;0;x
Buddhism;-7;500;0;-10;0;0;0;0;100;x
Hinduism;-7;-300;0;0;5;0;0;0;0;x
END;;;;;;;;;;

Revised review:

• No changes to the 1.08 settings of the four convertable religions.
• Orthodox gets an extra colonist (this was in AGC, yes?)
• Sunni loses the missionary and gets more stability.
• Shia loses a little techspeed, stability, and production efficiency, but gains taxes.
• Paganism gets a hit to trade.
• Confuciansim still heavily modified.
• Morale benefits for Hinduism eliminated, small tax bonus and better tech added.
• Buddhist tech reduced to Hinduism level, tax penalty reduced.

Hopefully, this can make it to the submission thread soon.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

the bottom one is your latest proposal, right?

i agree with eliminating morale bonus for hindu and buddhist. i'd think a small morale malus for Confucian is warranted (-20). i note the effect on japan, but u think Japan's morale bonus should come from its DP, due to its historical state of affairs rather than religion.

and i do think that confucianism warrants a high stability bonus more than any other religion, though i m flexible with the exact amount being dependent on whats best for gameplay outcome. it is confucianism that allowed the imperial power to hold on to a vast empire with a huge population so effectively for centuries even though during pretty much the entire period of Ming dynasty the regime was filled with incompetent rulers, corrupt eunuchs interfering with affairs, political scandals, heavy burdens on peasants, etc. Korea, japan and vietnam borrowed from this system heavily. it is confucianism and its ideas that drew people's ambitions in line with that of the imperial regime and at least ensured there is some degree of ruling in the interests of the people. You could pretty much say the whole point of what Confucius was trying to preach during the time of his life was how to help the ruler rule the people effectively. Over many centuries of rise and fall of dynasties China has developed a system of government based on confucianism that keeps major negative internal elements in check, from directly erupting as major threats to the regime. historically the main internal threat to any imperial regime are peasants, officials ruling for the empire, officials ruling locally, officials administering affairs in the emperor's palace (eunuchs) and emperor's blood relatives from father or mother's side. for 2 and a half centuries the ming dynasty was effective in keeping in check all of these except #4, and best at #2 and #3, despite so many bad things that happened and the vastness of the empire.

therefore china, korea, vietnam and japan should be able to recover bad effects of stability (RR, income, trade) from negative events at ease, meaning a low cost of stability. the actual effect on RR, income and trade is a separate question from what the rate of recovery of them should be. it is true that confucianism results in disfavour of unproductive profit seeking (trade) and disfavour of high tax income. i suggest a malus to tax income and trade eff and perhaps slight bonus to prod eff. this tend to make it difficult, but desirable, for China to maintain low taxes, which is realistic.

EDIT: i also want to throw out the idea of not necessarily having 1 diplomat per year for confucianism. we discussed this before in another thread, i can't remember whats the lowest malus you can give to keep diplomats above 0.

 

[Norrefeldt]

Very pedagogic outline doktarr that I liked a lot, are you a teacher?
I prefer the more conservative version and can accept it as it is written above. Paganism loses trade efficiency you say, but the code says Tax Income. A typo.
With the changes in tech levels coming up sooner or later for China in mind, and the problem with European merchants in China having a problem getting in, I think it might be a good idea to lower the stab bonus. We need to slow down China, in order to start them at higher levels. Isn't this a good place? (I think they will need about every break we can find.) I must admit I don't care much about philosophy, I'm mostly interested in game effects.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

therefore china, korea, vietnam and japan should be able to recover bad effects of stability (RR, income, trade) from negative events at ease, meaning a low cost of stability. the actual effect on RR, income and trade is a separate question from what the rate of recovery of them should be. it is true that confucianism results in disfavour of unproductive profit seeking (trade) and disfavour of high tax income. i suggest a malus to tax income and trade eff and perhaps slight bonus to prod eff. this tend to make it difficult, but desirable, for China to maintain low taxes, which is realistic.

Big effects here will make China into even more of a powerhouse. I tend to agree with Norrefeldt on this - if they're getting a significant stab bonus we need to look at other ways to slow them down (more minority religions, non-state cultures, or whatever).

 

[Zander]

Better tax income - while tax collection was good in these nations, there was plenty of variation in how effective it was. I think a straight bonus to tax income makes more sense, and stability variations should be encouraged.

The rest of your points are reasonable, but I'm puzzled by your argument here. If the effect was variable, it makes more sense to reflect it with a bonus to the variable system of stability (and its occasional bonuses to tax), rather than a flat bonus to tax which would be completely fixed.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

I've been thinking about it, and I'm not sure a massive stability bonus really makes sense for Confucianism. Sure, stability is stressed in that philosophy, but do the in-game effects of stability really reflect the reality of confucian nations during this time period? Let's look at the effects.

• Better tax income - while tax collection was good in these nations, there was plenty of variation in how effective it was. I think a straight bonus to tax income makes more sense, and stability variations should be encouraged.
• More effective at trading, more merchants - Confucian traders were extremely bad in this period, as the merchant class was considered a necessary evil, and successful traders often became landowners in order to climb the social ladder. While this should also be reflected in a penalty to trade efficiency, losing merchants at CoTs would model help model Confucianism's special attitude towards its merchants and its difficulty in getting a steady stream of merchants.
• Less revolts and general unrest - ehh... China and Japan had some of the most violent revolts of the entire period.

So, I don't think Confucianism warrants a stability bonus of any note. The in-game effects of stability just don't make sense here. Confucianism should simply get taxvalue and production bonuses, and maluses to technology and trade.Simply the lack of realism in the religion's effects.What balance? Jinnai is completely re-doing Japan, and Sun Zi is completely re-doing China. After the changes are done, any balance that existed (and China was never well balanced, anyway) will be out the window.

Well stability is the only real thing Confuscian has going for it. Plus more revamping will make historical revolts still happen and religious/cultureal revolts, while still possible less likely as they should be since the two major nations played now in the FE with Confusicanism are Japan and China and both have different province religions and china having different cultures as well this is essential after Qing and Tokogowa eras begin.
The point about tax income should infact be quite possible for development over a period of time. Under peaceful times, Confusican tax income should be quite high in comparison.
The merchant thing is of concern, but not overly so. Making sure the DP sliders are in the right positions should mitigate this as well as making sure they don't get bonus merchants from being confuscian.
Finally, as Sun Zi says, Confuscian nations are more easily able to rebound by far from defeats, partly because the religious and cultural differance are ignored moreso than europe (espiecally the former).
Giving them the lowest stability bonus is a smack in the face. Such a low stabilty will essentially cripple even human players and make them never want to ever play a Confusican religious nation.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

With the changes in tech levels coming up sooner or later for China in mind, and the problem with European merchants in China having a problem getting in, I think it might be a good idea to lower the stab bonus. We need to slow down China, in order to start them at higher levels. Isn't this a good place? (I think they will need about every break we can find.) I must admit I don't care much about philosophy, I'm mostly interested in game effects.

thats not what doktarr is interested in when he is proposing the change. realism is the reason why doktarr is suggesting the change and thats why i was addressing realism. any change can only be made for 2 interrelated reasons: improvement to gameplay or realism. if your reason is gameplay, i m afraid you need more justification on top of mere speculation of some anticipated improvement in gameplay after some other change will be put in at some unknown time in the future. my answer to your question is no this is not a good place to slow them down because theres no way to ascertain beyond mere speculation whats the need for or the effect of slowing down on all confucian countries after all the major changes is included in the future. and theres no current gameplay need to do so, european merchants should find it hard to get into china anyway.

Big effects here will make China into even more of a powerhouse. I tend to agree with Norrefeldt on this - if they're getting a significant stab bonus we need to look at other ways to slow them down (more minority religions, non-state cultures, or whatever).

again, nobody knows what how much slowing down (if any) is necessary in anticipation of future changes. the only appropriate ground for a change as of now is realism. in any case the suggestions i made will more likely to be detrimental than benefit to confucian nations.

for both of you, i quote what is doktarr's prepared answer:

Aren't you concerned that these changes will damage game balance?

What balance? Jinnai is completely re-doing Japan, and Sun Zi is completely re-doing China. After the changes are done, any balance that existed (and China was never well balanced, anyway) will be out the window.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

again, nobody knows what how much slowing down (if any) is necessary in anticipation of future changes. the only appropriate ground for a change as of now is realism. in any case the suggestions i made will more likely to be detrimental than benefit to confucian nations.

Yeah, I was more raising the concern than anything else. As you say, this concern is purely speculative at this point. Just expect me to come back to it once I have some experience with all the changes.

But I'd like to add a more theoretical point.....

At some point all of this absolutely has to be done. The Mongolia situation is unworkable right now, presumably because they don't expend resources fighting China. We can't keep throwing more changes on top of other unimplemented ones indefinitely with the argument that 'everything else is changing and this will make it more realistic'. In the case of Confusianism I'm OK with that argument, at least until I can see how it works. But in the end gameplay IS more important than realism, and the only way to see how the gamplay works out is to try it. The more sweeping the changes the likelier it is that something goes wrong, and the easier it will be for someone to argue that we should just go back to the original set up since the changes don't work.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

Yeah, I was more raising the concern than anything else. As you say, this concern is purely speculative at this point. Just expect me to come back to it once I have some experience with all the changes.

But I'd like to add a more theoretical point.....

At some point all of this absolutely has to be done. The Mongolia situation is unworkable right now, presumably because they don't expend resources fighting China. We can't keep throwing more changes on top of other unimplemented ones indefinitely with the argument that 'everything else is changing and this will make it more realistic'. In the case of Confusianism I'm OK with that argument, at least until I can see how it works. But in the end gameplay IS more important than realism, and the only way to see how the gamplay works out is to try it. The more sweeping the changes the likelier it is that something goes wrong, and the easier it will be for someone to argue that we should just go back to the original set up since the changes don't work.

it is not a bad idea to keep everything unchanged until all the major changes are ready to be put in.

i was more responding to doktarr that the change he suggested is not realistic.

but i guess doktarr was quite eager to put something about the far east into the submissions thread. i did not want to water down his eagerness so i suggested an alternative more realistic change that is unlikely to worsen gameplay.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Aside from stability his changes for Confuscianism were fine as were the rest for now.

 

[doktarr]

As Sun Zi implied, I do think we should start putting stuff in. Sun Zi, even if you can't finish what you have, the current Mongolia situation is terrible, and putting in some of the changes can only benefit us in the long run in my opinion.

Thing I'd like to put in very soon:

• The trans-PTI links between China and Mongolia. Where do we want these?
• The naval events from the far east thread that replace the strategic decision event. They might get changed later, but since the basics are agreed on and that's a good start.
• The events that allow Russia to take Mongolia, from that thread. These events are basically done anyway.
• A workable set of religious changes - The set below is the same as the previous ones except I put the stability bonus back in and took out the taxvalue bonus.

Later on, when Sun Zi is done with his changes, we can put in the reworked Manchu rebellion, the reworked fall of the Ming, and the reworked far east techs. But the changes I list above should be able to be put in for the next patch.

Anyway, onto the latest iteration:

;Techspeed;Stab bonus;Prod. Eff.;Trade. Eff.;Tax Income;Morale;Ann.Col;Ann.Dip;Ann.Miss;x
Protestantism;1;-300;10;0;10;0;100;100;50;x
Reformed;2;-300;0;10;-10;0;200;100;50;x
Counterreformed;-3;600;0;-10;0;50;200;200;200;x
Catholicism;-1;600;0;0;0;0;200;200;100;x
Orthodox;-1;800;0;0;0;0;200;0;100;x
Sunni islam;-2;800;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;x
Shiite islam;-5;300;-10;0;0;50;0;0;100;x
Paganism;-25;-500;0;-10;0;0;0;0;0;x
Confucianism;-15;1000;15;-15;0;0;0;0;0;x
Buddhism;-7;500;0;-10;0;0;0;0;100;x
Hinduism;-7;-300;0;0;5;0;0;0;0;x
END;;;;;;;;;;

 

[unmerged(6159)]

I support all of that, although the religion thing isn't a big deal for me. We'll try something and see how it works out.

 

[Norrefeldt]

Well, we can postphone any changes to the FE, since it's not there yet as you say. I agree with doktarr, it's very important that we get that part playable ASAP. With temporary solutions if necessary. Doktarr, I think you still got Paganism wrong?