Map Balance Discussion: TP vs non-TP

[Mitoe]

These are the 2 major map types. I don't want this discussion to be about maps, really. It's more about the civs on the maps.

As we all know, the civs that are strong on non-TP maps is very different from the civs that are strong on TP maps. Civs like German, French, Spain, Sioux, Iroquois, and Otto, are very dependent on TPs to be relevant in the current meta.

Is it because these civs are reliant on shipments? Well, that's part of it I suppose, but I actually don't think this is the main reason for their weakness on TP maps. Not all civs that are shipment-reliant or like to build TPs are bad on non-TP maps. India, for example, have to pay 8% more experience per shipment than other civs, but they're not considered bad on non-TP maps; in fact, they're pretty good on non-TP maps most of the time.

Most of the civs that are dependent on TPs are also dependent on the Fortress age. Their armies simply don't cut it in Colonial. Who wants to be trapped into making crossbow/pike or unupgraded musketeers 15 minutes into the game?

If we look at the types of civs that are strongest on TP maps we get civs like this:

British
India
Aztec
Russia
Japan
Dutch

Most of these civs don't mind playing games out in Colonial, or even prefer not to go Fortress if they don't have to. Really, if you look at the differences between civs on non-TP maps and TP maps, the biggest difference most of the time is whether or not they need to be in Fortress.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, of course. India, I've already mentioned; Otto, for example, kind of needs Stagecoach to even have an economy.

Dutch doesn't really need TPs because they have a strong economy and can't really get idled, don't really need crates to age up, and can also train skirmishers in Colonial and transition to Fortress, which are units they'll want to be making in Fortress anyway and are pretty good at defending.

Iroquois... well, they just need TPs to have anything at all at any point in the game. They're alright in Colonial I guess, but they have no way to boom on non-TP maps like other Colonial civs, and already have a subpar eco because they don't have steel traps. Most of Iro's options require TPs to be relevant: rush, FF/semi-FF, stagecoach boom. Sucks to be them I guess.

Portugal and China are also kind of outliers here: TPs definitely benefit them, but they are often fine on non-TP maps as well. Port doesn't need to send a shipment in age 1 which helps, and will usually outscale other civ's economies so they don't need the early momentum in Fortress as much. Not to mention 2-3 TCs makes defending easier. China can also choose to skip 700c or 700w if they really need to, and have a pretty decent eco anyway with the Porcelain tower so they don't mind so much if they don't have a TP.


So why are TPs so important when going Fortress? Well, Fortress shipments are higher value by ~300 resources I suppose, so having less of those does hurt a little bit, but I think the biggest reasons are that you can't really hold timings very effectively without shipments in early Fortress, especially if you already sending a shipment to in order to allow yourself to age (700c) or you're being idled and can't gather resources or train units, and you can't put on as much pressure against civs that have other ways of investing into their economy, like British, Japan, or Dutch.

So how can we improve this?

Well, one of the main reasons any of these civs succeed in Fortress is the fast age politician (40 second age time). You can send a crate shipment to age and still have a shipment ready when you reach Fortress, if you have a TP. On non-TP maps, you send that shipment, fast age, and then what? You're maybe still a minute off of your shipment, you opponent is probably pushing you, and you're going to get out a batch of 5 skirms and 3 goons to try and hold. Good luck with that.

You could slow age, but you'll be forced to either make no units for nearly 2 full minutes (110 seconds, to be exact), or make mediocre Fortress units and hope that you can hold with the units you get from age up, which are often unupgraded Colonial units anyway, or just plain bad: (8 pike, 4 huss, 4 axe riders, 4 mantlets, 3 dopps). You could age with 6 skirm/cassadors/whatever but is it really worth it to add an extra 70 seconds to your age up time to get these units?

Really, slow age politicians are just terrible in every way. They take almost 3x as long as fast age—on top of a full 20 seconds longer than Colonial or Industrial slow-age politicians—they give you very little of a value for the time you invest into it, and you even end up being down almost 3 villagers because you have to idle your TC for 70 seconds longer than fast age.


Anyway, this is all just my opinion on how non-TP maps affect inter-civ balance. I could be wrong, but I think if slow-age politicians weren't so terrible maybe these civs could find success more often on non-TP maps. They either need to be faster, or give you more units.

Maybe there's a more reasonable change, I'm not really sure. Thoughts?

[Garja]

It's good analyses and I agree basically with 99% of it. Maybe few things that were left out:
- Dutch don't rely on TPs but they still want to be in fortress. In that sense they're different from all other "non-TP civs".
- Iroquois are not so bad in colonial. They still have great politician to colonial, very upgradable units, and a number of non fortress related perks (travois and fertility dance, farm upgrades).
- Ports outscale in colonial eventually but they have worst units of all. They do want to be in Fortress and compared to other civs they have a tangible advantage at completely skipping it with even very low eco straigh FFs;
- water can be a way to boom in colonial and spend the resources saved with TPs. Now with the fishing boat change most of the FF civs can do that;

If I were to point out one single element that raises balance issues between the two type of maps is colonial units.

Economy is something you can play around as long as both civs are stuck in colonial. For example, Sioux and Brits have completely different eco levels but as long as units have to be produced to hold some map control Sioux are fine. This is because of all the utilities they get from cards or simply civ features (lot of unit shipments, no houses required, bison shipment, 4 unit types, high raiding potential, etc.). Sure Japan and to some extent India are very tough MU for Sioux on no TP maps but that's becuase those two civs are very hard to raid while also both having significantly better units than Sioux (Iro, Russia, Brits, Chinese and Aztec units are somewhat closer in power).

Units however is what really makes the difference. If your stuck in colonial and you have worse units you can have all the eco you want but eventually you just lose. There are some exceptions to this (e.g. Dutch, Ports or Fre being able to sneak a delayed age up if they manage to outplay a bit) but the substance doesn't change.

The only civ for which eco is the problem is Otto. Otto have somewhat decent units (altho only abus are upgradable) but they tend to lag behind in eco. I think however that mosque buffs mitigate this issue.

I'm not too sure we should consider buffing slow aging options. Not too excited about a 5 huss politician for Spain FF or 8 lbow age up for Brits when some civs rely on their early fortress weakness to beat them. In general slow aging buffs will improve naked FFs. 4 dopps can make naked FF more successful against Otto or even Spain (dopp ulhan play but with naked FF). 7 skirms would help against rushes I guess, even tho Ger and Fre realistically only naked FF vs Otto again.
Imo, one possible solution to fix the map problem is just to boost colo units for civs that are struggling. Among all units xbow isreally the worst one. Its multiplier vs HI doesn't compensate for the less 2 damage points it lost from nilla. I would bring it back to 17 so that they can also deal better against all those RI units that instead do great in colonial (yumi, gurkha, strelets, lbows, etc.).

[momuuu]

I think what was left out in this analysis is that some civs dont have the ability to increase their 'eco' beyond market upgrades and TPs, and these civs are also the TP reliant civs.

The curious thing with regards to this is that the nature of TC strength/minutemen and available free resources on the maps create a certain amount of 'optimal' greed to go for within the standard meta game. If some civs have only market upgrades and villager shipments, they'll be lacking in the greed department and mostly due to the strength of TC fire/minutemen and the time it takes for resources to run out they cannot really use the spare resources to rush.

Look at the civs that really dislike not having TPs: France, Germany, Iro, Sioux, Spain and Otto. These all lack viable boom options: France, Spain and Germany have just the market and vill shipments, Sioux and Iro have just the tier one market upgrades, the inefficient farm upgrade and the vill shipments and honestly Otto has extremely few vills to the point where they shouldnt get market upgrades early on, although they do have the mosque.

Look at some of the civs that dont mind no TP maps; Brits have manors, Dutch have banks, india has the consulate, japan has shrines, Aztecs can sort of do a warrior priest boom instead.

Aztecs and of course russia are the least impressive arguments here. I think russia is one of the few civs that can reliable rush despite TC fire and can't do anything else generally, they're a special civ in that regard.

With this in mind, its also easy to realize that ports with extra TCs and china with the economic wonder have extra boomy options that make it so that a TP is not necessary.

I also think that TPs are just strong in general and really strong buildings with regards to FF play so that is definitely a factor, however the explanation I provided seems to be better at explaining the observed phenomena.

A third thing not considered is that TPs are simply strong but dont always make a build more smooth. As Dutch and China its somewhat awkward to get it, as ports the TP doesnt speed the build up a lot. As otto, it gets you that first shipment so much faster, as germany and france it singlehandedly enables the very smooth 3 shipment colonial into FF build.

With these 3 phenomena in mind I think you come really close to explaining why some civs do better without a TP than others.

[saveyourskill]

The only civ for which eco is the problem is Otto. Otto have somewhat decent units (altho only abus are upgradable) but they tend to lag behind in eco. I think however that mosque buffs mitigate this issue.

Otto can have 22v 3 tps upgraded (tp route upgraded around 5:30 or less) with steel traps and placer mines and 10 jans at 6:30 on ep. Germany has 26v at that time with those upgrades doing standard semi ff with 7 uhlans. So even with 2 tps it's not bad for otto but they still need tps to compete in eco.

[deleted_user0]

Just nerf fast age. In ep its almost impossible to get punished by timing anyway. Then +10-15 sec to fast age and then bring 120f cdb and 190hp uhlan etc back so kaiser won't moan all year

[gibson]

Does anyone even read Jeroms novels anymore? Amazing to witness him fall from a quality user to a low tier troll in like a year.

User has been informally warned for this post.

[deleted_user0]

Does anyone even read Jeroms novels anymore? Amazing to witness him fall from a quality user to a low tier troll in like a year.

Idk dude but tl:dr should be required for any post more than 100 words.

[Mitoe]

@momuuu

I sort of alluded to the economic thing in my post, but didn't really mention it directly, yeah. I think with TCs being 500w now it's possible that these other civs could contest that eco a bit if they were able to reach Fortress more easily since they'd have more raw resources lying around from not having to invest in TPs, but I'm not sure if this would be enough.

I'm not too sure we should consider buffing slow aging options. Not too excited about a 5 huss politician for Spain FF or 8 lbow age up for Brits when some civs rely on their early fortress weakness to beat them. In general slow aging buffs will improve naked FFs. 4 dopps can make naked FF more successful against Otto or even Spain (dopp ulhan play but with naked FF). 7 skirms would help against rushes I guess, even tho Ger and Fre realistically only naked FF vs Otto again.

Yeah. Obviously the problem with this change is that it will also help the civs that don't really need it. I mean, I guess we could just change the skirmisher politician with the assumption that this would help Ger/Fre on non-TP maps but not on TP maps (I don't think they need to naked FF to use that politician, either, as you seem to suggest). Doesn't really help the other TP reliant civs, though.

Just nerf fast age. In ep its almost impossible to get punished by timing anyway. Then +10-15 sec to fast age and then bring 120f cdb and 190hp uhlan etc back so kaiser won't moan all year

I've actually suggested buffing slow age in the past, but it got shot down. I suggested nerfing fast age as an alternative afterwards, but that got shot down as well. This was a couple of years ago. It definitely is too good compared to the slow age up politicians; my only concern with nerfing fast age is that Colonial play might become too strong on TP maps, but maybe I'd be wrong about that if you reverted the other nerfs to the affected civs.

[momuuu]

Does anyone even read Jeroms novels anymore? Amazing to witness him fall from a quality user to a low tier troll in like a year.

I dont even know what to say. A post drafted in about 5 minutes on my phone presenting a new way to look at things backed up by logic of how the point fits the 'data' is now 'trolling'.

I am starting to get the feeling that you're blinded by bias and trying to put my in some corner of troll. I dont even know why. This doesnt even make sense as I think Mitoe's post is longer ans Garja's only slightly shorter. If this is an attempt to be funny I dont even see how it could theoretically be funny.

[Garja]

Fast age up doesn't help with this problem tho? I mean, the problem here is TP civs lacking something, units or eco, and nerfing fast age up only make them worse, if anything.
It's not a bad suggestion overall but also makes Fre, Ger, etc. weaker against Brit, Jap, India on TP maps and I don't think that's something we want. Reverting cdb and ulhans changes doesn't compensate for it.

[gibson]

Does anyone even read Jeroms novels anymore? Amazing to witness him fall from a quality user to a low tier troll in like a year.

I dont even know what to say. A post drafted in about 5 minutes on my phone presenting a new way to look at things backed up by logic of how the point fits the 'data' is now 'trolling'.

I am starting to get the feeling that you're blinded by bias and trying to put my in some corner of troll. I dont even know why. This doesnt even make sense as I think Mitoe's post is longer ans Garja's only slightly shorter. If this is an attempt to be funny I dont even see how it could theoretically be funny.

mitoe and garja are actually good and actually play the game. And before you talk about your I got to the ro32 blah blah blah remember that you got destroyed by a player who I 2-0’ed

[Mitoe]

Do we have to derail the discussion right now? Jerom is actually contributing, Gibson; and nothing he said was even wrong or bad. You're just flaming in an attempt to get Jerom riled up.

[gibson]

No there’s a lot that he said that’s wrong and even more that’s at least debatable, it’s just not worth it to get into arguments with him.

[Cometk]

No there’s a lot that he said that’s wrong and even more that’s at least debatable, it’s just not worth it to get into arguments with him.

then get into an argument with me; what about what he said was wrong?

[gibson]

Well first off the entire premise is wrong, every civ wants to take a tp. Look at Deccan games. You get an extra 200w start and literally every civ takes a tp. It’s just some civs can’t take a tp early. Dutch for example. Maybe on Florida on a 200w start they could, outside of that it’s just not really viable. However, he mentions that both India and Brit don’t like to take a tp. That’s just wrong. It’s been proven that both those civs are stronger if you take a tp on a wood start. The only reason Aztec doesn’t take a tp is cause the fire pit is the same thing but only costs 100w and Russia can’t take a tp cause it’s not possible to 14 vil with a tp. Many people are even taking a tp with China now in age 2 because it’s just a better way to boom. It’s a better way to boom than every civs unique way of booming, reason being that a tp speeds up every civs boom faster than investing 200w into something else.

[Mitoe]

I feel like you're intentionally ignoring the actual point of the thread

[saveyourskill]

I thought this was about "Map Balance Discussion: TP vs non-TP" like having it 50/50? Also if you do that might as well do that with natives to cause like 90% plus of maps have them. Nats aren't bad and some civs are better with them than others just like the trade route tps. But every civ has the OPTION to take a tp or not.
Also same with water, some civs want to take water some do not, but we have more tp/land maps than actually decent water maps but no one is talking about that when it's the same thing really.
Same could be said about map with high res and low res. Brit wants high food maps but Dutch can care less but it will be good for the brit player of course.
All in all it's part of the map and every one has to adapt to it. Every civ can make one unlike how Sioux can't make walls and others can.

[Hazza54321]

keep going bawse! drama keeps this community alive!

[gibson]

I feel like you're intentionally ignoring the actual point of the thread

oh really? Cause everything I said had to do with something specific jerom said, so how about if you think something I said was incorrect you make a post entailing why it was incorrect instead of doing the very thing you accused me of doing a few posts ago.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Well yea, the reason why some civs do better on no TP maps, is because

1) they rely highly on shipments (the ger semi ff is nothing without the shipment spam, they don't really train a lot of units).
Taking a TP while ffing doesn't actually slow you most of the time (Spain ff isn't faster without it for ex), but it's almost an extra shipment at 8min which is huge.

2) That's the only way for some civs (iro/otto) to have an eco.

That's the way it is, and I'd like it to be changed of course, in order to have the game balanced on all maps.
Unfortunately, the suggestions above just wouldn't change anything:
1) Iro/Otto would still have a terrible eco

2) Adding one extra unit to the slow age up is not going to make it viable, because you'll get timing'd just before you reach the fortress age, lose all your colonial units, get iddled, and lose.

3) I don't know why nerfing fast age up is in this discussion, as it has nothing to do with no TP maps since it is not viable there anyway (because you don't have a shipment ready when you reach fortress), and it would force colonial wars even on TP maps.
I'm sure Mitoe, as a german player, knows better than anybody, that with a 10-20s nerf to fast age up, Germany would die to pretty much every colonial timing when trying to semi ff

Thanks though @Mitoe for bringing this discussion up, that's a really important one, but I guess the only option to solve the problem is to add TPs to no TP maps.

[Cometk]

I feel like you're intentionally ignoring the actual point of the thread

oh really? Cause everything I said had to do with something specific jerom said, so how about if you think something I said was incorrect you make a post entailing why it was incorrect instead of doing the very thing you accused me of doing a few posts ago.

you ignored the context with which this thread lies in (the chinese discussion thread), where it was pretty much shown to be a corollary that there are some "TP civs" and some "non-TP civs". it wasn't solely jerom making that assertion in this thread, jerom was more or less paraphrasing what's been discussed for like 3 pages in the past day, adding in his opinion to it. so you piling on him because he writes "novels" is fucking ludicrous. why try to discourage people who make long posts, people who actually put effort into discussing the game, just because their post takes you an extra scroll wheel to move through?

and yeah, i guess, you're right. every civ enjoys a TP. however, and this is more to the point of what jerom was saying, there are some civs that don't completely RELY on TPs to be effective. brits, india, and aztecs all perform viable strategies just as well as when the map has no trade posts. civs like germany and ottoman might have some builds that can be successful on no-tp maps, but the point of the matter is that they still lose too many win pct points going from TP maps to no-tp maps and that's an area of concern. as garja has brought up before, it's nigh impossible to strike an exact balance where we can make germany a 50/50 (tp map) 50/50 (no-tp map) win pct civilization. as it stands, people feel like the current balance is something like 58/42, 42/58. our best goal then would be to bring it to a more acceptable middle range where, yes, the civilization does slightly favor a tp map, but it also has enough viable strategies to pull off consistent wins on no-tp maps. a range like 54/46, 46/54.

[deleted_user0]

iro doesnt even have terrible eco... on re iro can easily get all food ups if they start farm and open 5v+4v in some mu as well. Or 600w 5v. Problem is that simply that the wood crate nerf makes this impossible on some starts on ep. which is why i was always against that change in the first place. honestly iro can just be reverted to re. with the buff to other civs and better maps, iro would probably not even be top civ.

[deleted_user0]

I think what was left out in this analysis is that some civs dont have the ability to increase their 'eco' beyond market upgrades and TPs, and these civs are also the TP reliant civs.

The curious thing with regards to this is that the nature of TC strength/minutemen and available free resources on the maps create a certain amount of 'optimal' greed to go for within the standard meta game. If some civs have only market upgrades and villager shipments, they'll be lacking in the greed department and mostly due to the strength of TC fire/minutemen and the time it takes for resources to run out they cannot really use the spare resources to rush.

Look at the civs that really dislike not having TPs: France, Germany, Iro, Sioux, Spain and Otto. These all lack viable boom options: France, Spain and Germany have just the market and vill shipments, Sioux and Iro have just the tier one market upgrades, the inefficient farm upgrade and the vill shipments and honestly Otto has extremely few vills to the point where they shouldnt get market upgrades early on, although they do have the mosque.

Look at some of the civs that dont mind no TP maps; Brits have manors, Dutch have banks, india has the consulate, japan has shrines, Aztecs can sort of do a warrior priest boom instead.

Aztecs and of course russia are the least impressive arguments here. I think russia is one of the few civs that can reliable rush despite TC fire and can't do anything else generally, they're a special civ in that regard.

With this in mind, its also easy to realize that ports with extra TCs and china with the economic wonder have extra boomy options that make it so that a TP is not necessary.

I also think that TPs are just strong in general and really strong buildings with regards to FF play so that is definitely a factor, however the explanation I provided seems to be better at explaining the observed phenomena.

A third thing not considered is that TPs are simply strong but dont always make a build more smooth. As Dutch and China its somewhat awkward to get it, as ports the TP doesnt speed the build up a lot. As otto, it gets you that first shipment so much faster, as germany and france it singlehandedly enables the very smooth 3 shipment colonial into FF build.

With these 3 phenomena in mind I think you come really close to explaining why some civs do better without a TP than others.

you definitely have a point there. It's partly why for example iro dreads water maps without tp more than land maps without tp, while for otto it's the opposite. Water maps without tp add to otto's options, whereas for iro, all it does is just adds another threat they are ill equipped to deal with.
Ofcourse, the schooner change kinda makes a difference now, it will be interesting to see how the schooner change affects iro on those kinda maps.

[Goodspeed]

The core difference between a TP civ and non-TP civ is the ability to boom without TPs, I think. A civ relies on TPs if it's their primary way of investing in economy. This is also why widespread use of TPs was so inevitable: games were getting longer and aggression weaker, so civs had to start taking any opportunity to invest in eco.
As Zoi pointed out in the other thread, no amount of balance changes outside of standardizing the living fuck out of all the civs will achieve balance on non-TP as well as TP maps.

[momuuu]

The core difference between a TP civ and non-TP civ is the ability to boom without TPs, I think. A civ relies on TPs if it's their primary way of investing in economy. This is also why widespread use of TPs was so inevitable: games were getting longer and aggression weaker, so civs had to start taking any opportunity to invest in eco.
As Zoi pointed out in the other thread, no amount of balance changes outside of standardizing the living fuck out of all the civs will achieve balance on non-TP as well as TP maps.

Actually I do think there are two things that are definitely possible to do. The TP is honestly one of the strongest buildings in the game - a nerf to for example the unupgraded xp gain would not discourage civs from using it but would just make those specific build orders slightly weaker. It'd probably reset balancing too much though.

On the other hand, I completely agree with the ability to boom without TP premise. I wonder what would happen if you made maps so that aggressive play is rewarded more. Then the boom options wont really be viable anyways. Problem with that is probably that russia, aztec amd india are extremely good on these maps.

All in all I think I definitely do prefer if you accept the impossibility and then mostly balance for no TP maps I suppose.