Elhoim wrote:

One idea could be that military units can build outposts, but you need a "settler" unit to actually build a city.

I dislike this idea. The aspect of the game where settler units are not required to expand is one of the best parts of it imo. It allows the player to play in a more free form way is a great difference between it and the civilization series. It also makes the settler unit you're able to get further down the line in the early modern era more impactful because it makes a city on the spot instead of having to do the outpost>city path.

We might want to break this off into it's own thread to not clog up discussion about the Neolithic era.

Neolithic era may be the first biggest difference between Civs and this game that players come across, and I find it very cool and meaningful.

It's cool, but VERY exploitable. Moving to bronze age with 25 tribes, 400 influence and two outposts prepared for cap+it's first extra province is insane. I'm pretty sure I could've pulled 2 more outposts for immediate second city too if I played it better. 

Then you just recycle tribes into pops to fuel your cities, I don't know why I'd want to move up the eras at 5 tribes when mammoths give you 2 tribes per kill and 40 influence too, you accumulate momentum so fast in neolithic and then it slows down tremendously as soon as some git invents agriculture.

The speed at which your cities grow increases with the number of pops too, so moving up the ages before you have a fat stack of tribes feels like a trap.

coloneluber wrote:

LunargentThorn wrote:

2. It would be great if foundation of first outposts weren't as easy and felt more monumental. Maybe they could cost hunter unit or two and be prerequest for progressing into next era. 

I think it would be a good idea to sacrifice a unit to plop an outpost. I actually think this would be a good way to slow down the game by requiring you to use a unit for every outpost in the ancient era as well (which gives you a reason to make the scout unit).

I'm quoting those two because I strongly agree. 

I really enjoyed the neolithic and would love to see it fleshed out and lengthened a bit but I agree with everyone else that it feels super exploitable. How about adding in a global food resource (like gold) that all scouts share from but then add a 1 or 2 food per turn maintenance cost to each unit... one of the great things about playing in the neolithic should be a feeling of struggle and a need to settle down and farm or starve... right now there is no struggle and your honestly stronger even if your neighbours are settling down.

Here's another idea that may be a little far fetched have the neolithic end in an ice age (or some other soft disaster) after a preset number of turns (15-30ish?) and depending on how well you did determines what and where you start once the ice age is over and you and all of the other civs come out the other side with the first settlements.  

As people have said Neolithic Era is interesting but too easy to exploit and I think there are a two key things that make it so.

1. Being able to build multiple outposts immediately.
   
   I think this should be limited to just 1 outpost which can be relocated if I can find a better place for it as I explore. This would give me another reason to explore the map and find that perfect spot that I would like to settle and become my capital city. Leave the territory claiming and expansion to the Ancient Era.
   
   
2. Allowing me to split my initial units into multiple.
   
   I dont think this makes sense at this stage of the game. My tribe should be moving together. If they split, they'd probably just become two seperate tribes instead. If instead we could only have one unit, then gathering more food is good way to 'power up' my tribe, allowing me to take on bigger game (Mammoths) or fight off other tribes more easily. Mammoth kills and successfully winning fights against other tribes could therefore provide more Fame points, boosting my progress towards the next Era.

I think another problem that makes neolithic era exploitable is how easy it is to gain influence points. You get 40 just by killing a mammoth. This is super exploitable - basically you could stock up on influence points and plop down multiple outposts as soon as you enter ancient era (even if you limit it to one outpost in the neolithic era). I suggest scrapping influence in this case. You could get extra fame by killing larger games.

That seems like a good solution.

I agree that being able to build just one outpost that you can relocate, having just one tribe (so trascend with 4 + outpost) and removing influence gain would make it work much better. The main goal should be to find a good spot to settle your first city, not fill the map with outpost nor create lots of armies.

Great idea. Needs some work. I like to over populate on units to give myself a population bonus. Removing the healing on Neolithic tribes might be a good way to negate some early game pushing. You get the one event - and one healing related event or one random other effect. Also it might be an unpopular opinion but I think remove the ability to ransack on tribal units. Until there's culture you are focused on scavenging/hunting, and, possibly exploring.

I will point out to all the people bemoaning the advantages of Neolithic. Turning into a culture capable of diplomacy is pretty crucial to not getting too badly stomped. The Olmec's just eeked out a star and immediately asked for a non-aggression pact. If I wanted to just be a gamer about it I could have declined, but, I feel that it was a momentous occasion. They aren't an unknown raiders/scavengers - they are a people! 

Elhoim wrote:

One idea could be that military units can build outposts, but you need a "settler" unit to actually build a city.

That already exists. With the tech, you can build different level of settler, spawing a city with more building, without the outpost.

But I did not try it, if a settler cost influence too, it look like useless to me has I have enough gold to instantly spawn good outpost as cities (an outpost with enough food). An outpost with few food is always added to a existing cities. A good city have take an outpost. A huge cities have some wonders and annex two or more territories.

For neolithic era, when you understand it s cheated to wait, I dominate my continent in normal by harrassing an opponent. Switching era with 3 outposts and 8 scouts...

The worst diffculties is cheated for AI, they spawn later unit to fast.

Elhoim wrote:
having just one tribe (so trascend with 4 + outpost) and removing influence gain would make it work much better

That is an extreme change that would make neolithic far less interesting and fun while also reducing strategic choices.
Choosing whether you want to settle or stick around a bit longer to collect the 10 ruin perk and more pops should be a legit choice, similar choice is present at every era where you pick between sticking to your current culture for a bit longer or moving onto the next one and losing your current unique stuff. 10 ruin perk being the way it is seems like a direct encouragement to do that even, since you'll have way more than 5 tribes by the time you find enough ruins of the right type.

The bigger problem with neolithic abuse in my opinion is the extreme shift in momentum that happens when you switch from it to ancient - one second your dudes are multiplying like flies and next you're tied up by much slower pop and influence growth. It makes you want to stick as stone age Grug for longer because it's just more fun and being settled is like being put into chains in comparison.
Before I realised that I could abuse mammoth farming and recycle my dudes into pops (that button is surprisingly easy to miss) I played a couple games where I settled fast and had cities growing "naturally" and ancient era was just slow as hell, I didn't even get my religion in the ancient era because pop growth was so slow, I made no new units either because again, pops grow REALLY slowly if you don't have a bunch of tribes to fill them out. Number of pops you have in your city just affects pop growth rate far more than having lots of food does, which is realistic, but it seems to directly encourage aforementioned tribemaxing.

What if instead of nerfing neolithic into the ground to be as boring as a "naked" ancient era their power differentials could be equalled out? I definitely agree on mammoths being way too good, halving their rewards would be a decent start to making them more fair, perhaps also making them dangerous enough to require a stack of 3 tribes to take down. But also them being the biggest source of influence for this stone age tribe feels completely right, you would become more influential by being good at hunting giant mammoths. 

Making ancient era more dynamic should be a big priority though, being able to get extra tribes during neolithic is a big part of that, since being able to boost your cities with tribes does provide a nice kickstart to your civilisation.

Next point that needs to be stated very loudly because lots of people seem to forget about it - AI sucks right now, it's not even close to being able to play the game, which is also one of the things that allows the player to run rampant and put outposts everywhere while an endless tide of tribes sweeps across the land. Even if you don't put outposts everywhere AI barely shows signs of life. It's not difficult for the player to just waltz into a region that has an outpost in it and burn it in a turn - you've done, I've done it - but AI isn't good enough. Not at neolithic era, not at any other eras.

It would be very silly to balance the game around that level of stupidity however, taking tools away from the player because AI wasn't made to utilise them.

It is also worrisome how eager people are to propose harshest nerfs and especially hard caps (ew) whenever a balance issue is brought up.

Balance around strength is balance around fun.

Mostly agree with previous discussions. Just want to emphasize what I think are the key points:

+1: Neolithic era is a cool concept (super super cool)

+1: Balance needs work

+1: Avoid hard caps, and instead balance around soft costs and benefits - cost to create outpost, benefits from mammoths, etc.

TimBur wrote:

Mostly agree with previous discussions. Just want to emphasize what I think are the key points:

+1: Neolithic era is a cool concept (super super cool)

+1: Balance needs work

+1: Avoid hard caps, and instead balance around soft costs and benefits - cost to create outpost, benefits from mammoths, etc.

Soft caps could work with adding maintenance costs

1 minor point:
those "knowledge curiosity" don't give you sience, but influence. The naming suggest the other.

So i didn't know I could already claim an territory.

Adding food upkeep would be a great idea. That way you would be naturally inclined to settle once your tribe gets too big and you can't find enough food to feed them. 

I agree with the opions voiced in this thread, but wanted to share my thoughts on how the era is too easy:

I think the combat AI of animals lessens the challenge of the neolithic era too much. Since high ground gives a large combat bonus and animals (or neutral armies in general) seem to be programmed to always attack if possible, it's often enough to stand ontop of a hill and watch mammoths (or any other animal) suicide into you, giving you huge rewards with little effort.

Animals in real life are generally not aggressive and they certainly will avoid a fight to the death and try to flee. So I would suggest to implement this in their behavior, which would result in real hunts, where in combat you have to attack the animal and can't stay defensive on high ground for an easy victory. That makes the combat more challenging and thus makes it harder to aquire food. Also it gives animal combat strength a purpose; currently it's largely irrelevant if you attack deer or bears since the high ground bonus let's you dominate either way.