For me, this is the single largest unbalancing effect in the game currently.

Most games for me end when I reach Early Modern era and rush for Patronage and build them before the AI (on Civilization difficulty).

The boost to my economy from these is more than the AI can keep up with, and most times the game then turns into an 'end game button' simulator.

I think removing the Luxury Manufactories would go along way to smoothing out the imbalances, at least as a quick fix.  I would still keep the effect of the Hanging Gardens though, since it would be a once a game effect.

I looked for a mod that would do this but was unable to find one.  I don't know how easy it would be to mod this, but I would really like to test it to see the effect.

Full agreement on the rush for Patronage and the resulting imbalance.  If you have a strong trade network, you can corner the market on almost everything if you hit Patronage first.

I think a reasonable fix would be if you need to own 50% of the luxuries within your land and not just reach 50% through trade.  Colonial powers went to war to control the source of these luxuries (unfortunately), so if that were true in Humankind -- if we needed to control enough luxuries and not just trade for them -- it would rein in the power of Patronage, and it would also make the Materials Procurement civic make thematic sense, too, that you could control less or gain it more easily through conquest.

RedSirus wrote:
I think a reasonable fix would be if you need to own 50% of the luxuries within your land and not just reach 50% through trade.  Colonial powers went to war to control the source of these luxuries (unfortunately), so if that were true in Humankind -- if we needed to control enough luxuries and not just trade for them -- it would rein in the power of Patronage, and it would also make the Materials Procurement civic make thematic sense, too, that you could control less or gain it more easily through conquest.

I agree that limiting the availability of luxury manufactories with resources that you actually control, and hence excluding the ones you acquire by trade, would be a better approach rather than removing this mechanic from the game all together.

I don't think that's a viable solution for your problem, though. In almost all of my campaigns (with Empire or Humankind difficulty) I already practically end the game in early Early Modern Era, even before building any of lux manufactories. (Isn't that the case with snowballing in all strategy games?) I then continue playing Humankind as a city builder game rather than 4X strategy and focus on my efficiently-building-cities skills until the point where I want to end the campaign. Once you reach a pinnacle, with or without the help of substantial boosting power Patronage tech can provide, game is destined to turn into a "end game button simulator" as you said. Besides, you can always opt not to build lux manufactories yourself and leave them for your opponents to take advantage of in order to make them more challenging rivals.

I agree with El-Fakir. It can and should be balanced better, but its such a nice idea that I'd rather not have it removed from the game.

I don't like the removal idea, I would prefer if they'd make it less 0-1, you research Patronage and boom, you plop Manufactories everywhere, they're built in 1 turn most of the time anyway.

I'd much prefer if they were working like Wonders, i.e. you'd still need to have enough resources to claim them, but it would cost Influence per resource and then building one would take effort from multiple cities.

Oh, I like the idea of being able to 'one up' someone on manufactory if you get into control of more resources on your territory. I wouldn't like it if they'd take away an ability to get a manufactory through able trading altogether, but it does seem nice if someone with 4 sources of Papyrus could just take it away from me if I had only 2 and swindled them out of it with trade. That would be another way to make it a more dynamic competition rather than one-and-done deal that it is right now.

I can even imagine the tooltip,

The XYZ activated Wondrous effect of this Luxury Resource by building Luxury Manufactory with 3 sources in their territory. You'll need at least 4 sources within your borders to compete against them for it.

I'd still see it as a winner takes it all type of deal, though why not, maybe there could be a much less impressive Not-So-Wondrous effect for having a Manufactory without a lead. I really like the idea of making amount of resources within your territory relevant, though, to give some incentive for mid-late game pushes for land.

Only issue I can see with this is for Tall Empires that already have it rather hard to prosper.

RedSirus wrote:
No need to build Manufactories.

This would also get rid of the little annoyance I have about luxury extractors losing district properties (loosing white district border and stability bonuses districts provide to adjacent quarters) after being upgraded into manufactory.

Some great ideas in this thread. In more general terms I think the whole trade system is ripe for an expansion...

However, I even think that manufactories could be limited to monopolies (i.e. you have to control all of a particular luxury resource - which is obviously easier/more likely if you have the "clustered" option selected in the game setup). With monopolies being by far the most valuable state of ownership it could also open up interesting possibilities, like what if the saboteur unit instead of ransacking a luxury resource, could "steal" it, so that it could be transplanted in your home territory. Thus breaking a monopoly.

Love the idea of a national trading company. It would also be neat to see more contemporary "luxury" resource specialization (microprocessors, for example), which would require really significant investment to develop.

Saboteurs and Stealth Units in general are completely different pair of shoes, there's a lot that could be done with them, but to say they're currently underutilized is to give them too much spotlight already. Hopefully, though, there are devs rethinking that aspect, as the Cubans EU gives hope that they're looking into it (they're stealth units that tank Stability if in hostile territory)

Maybe the wonderous effect only applies to the city that has the luxury manufactory in its territory.

RedSirus wrote:

Full agreement on the rush for Patronage and the resulting imbalance.  If you have a strong trade network, you can corner the market on almost everything if you hit Patronage first.

I think a reasonable fix would be if you need to own 50% of the luxuries within your land and not just reach 50% through trade.  Colonial powers went to war to control the source of these luxuries (unfortunately), so if that were true in Humankind -- if we needed to control enough luxuries and not just trade for them -- it would rein in the power of Patronage, and it would also make the Materials Procurement civic make thematic sense, too, that you could control less or gain it more easily through conquest.

mm i like it, i like it 

Okay, I'll agree under one condition - you'll be able to trade territories. Give it restrictions, make it unlocked through civic, I don't care. I don't want this to become yet another thing that's heavily reliant on warfare. Battle system in HK is top notch, don't get me wrong, but mopping up floor with your enemies should only be a part of Empire building. I wouldn't like to see Manufactories ending all about biggest armies, instead of who had better research to reach the tech, economy to trade the resources and influence to grab the New World.

And if we're talking about colonial powers, then the luxuries in your vassals' territories should count too, after all not every one of them assumed direct control. With that it would still be nice to have Manufactories not to be a one-and-done deal and have a way (for a freed vassal, for example) to wrestle for control over Wondrous Effect without knocking their doors down and taking the territory with Manufactory from them by force.

So obviously I'm pretty proud of my "Manufactoriless" National Trading Company idea above, where Wondrous Effects can shift dynamically as empires gain and lose control of Luxury Resources, but assuming Manufactories stay, can we make them more visible, maybe even appearing on maps like Cultural Wonders and Holy Sites do, so we know what choice territory we need to conquer?  :)

And I'm in full agreement with DNLH in wanting more ability to trade territories, even in a quid pro quo exchange with another empire as a different but important improvement for Humankind.

I also think that the luxury manufactory needs some sort of rebalance or a littel redesign.
But in this thread are already some interesting ideas how it could be fixed :)