Minors - city builds

[Infixo]

Wide topic about minors and what they build. I did some analysis regarding valuation. First some core info.

1. Minors get -50% to production but they have boosts for the following things: Builders and Military Units (+200%), Harbors (+500%), Walls (+200%). They also have virtually free unit upgrades. By default they are forbidden to build any district.
2. Each specific Type gets +500% for districts of its "type" (e.g. Scientific minors get boost for Campuses, etc). Also, each type is allowed to build its district type.

Observations from Vanilla game (default behavior)

1. They do build walls and other stuff.
2. Walls sometimes are delayed by 20-30 turns because other items have higher valuations.
3. When there is nothing to build, they start running projects.
4. Combat units have pretty low valuations and they are not prioritized often.
5. The mix is more or less balanced for: ranged, melee, cav and anti-cav.

Valuations

1. Districts have very high, 200+ very early, reaching 500+ @ T100 and 1000+ later. This probably due to high PseudoYield.
2. Buildings are rather medium, in ranges 50-100; some are high like Shrine and Temple (why?); however City Center builds are low priority.
3. Walls are 50-100, Castles 300-500, Star Fort 500+ so very high, they do prioritize them.
4. Builders are high, 100+ early, 150-200 later.
5. Traders are also high, 150+. Each Minor builds 1 trader. BUT they don't get boost here, so it takes them a lot of time.
6. Combat units. Are pretty low. Archers ~40, Warriors ~30, Pikemen ~40, Pike & Shot ~50.
7. [Edit] Projects ~35-50.

[Edit2] Test setting. 4 civs, 8 minors, Continents, Quick speed, 200 turns, Prince.

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Summary

1. Make a separate file for minors for better readability and maintenance.
2. Boost Granary (by 50%). Lower Districts (by 70%). Lower traders and builders (by 25%). Boost units (by 50%).
3. Projects - see next point how to make minimize them.
4. Increase value of combat units over time (time strategy), also with builder so they will keep using them. This way combat units should be still more valuable than projects. Probably every 2 eras by +50% should be enough.

[Infixo]

Ideas.

1. They should not do any projects. That's production wasted. Ban.
2. Lower districts by half. They still will build them, only a little bit later. Lower traders and builders by 25%.
3. Boost combat units by 100%.
4. Boost Granary - it helps to grow the city.

[Phyrax1]

Just recently I was experimenting with this because for some reason city states just kind of stop building units later on and I wanted to make a mod that reworks the bonuses city states get. At first I thought they had just trouble with maintenance for their units (and they do), but even after I just gave them maintenance discount and a gold boost they spam projects instead of building a decent military (They will usually only have 1-3 armies/corps later into the game and that's it). So I put PSEUDOYIELD_UNIT_COMBAT into MinorCivPseudoYields with a value of 100, but they are still just projecting. I gave up after that for now. I also noticed that they will often just produce nothing, but that may be due to them not having enough gold income to keep up maintenance for units they would build.

Banning projects definitely sounds good; I have no idea why they are doing them in the first place (They get gold from harbor and CH projects I guess but they definitely don't need science or culture because they get free techs/civics anyway). Your other ideas also make a lot of sense.

[Infixo]

Test 1 results. Changes are: Granary +100%, projects not favored, districts -50%, traders -25%, unit combat +100%. Valuations

1. Districts have dropped. 100-150 early. Later still high, reaching 500-800. PseudoYield seems to be working here.
2. Buildings are rather medium, in ranges 50-100; however City Center builds are low priority. this time Markets are very high 250-400, but they appear pretty late (T150).
3. Granary seems boosted 50-80, later 60-100. PseudoYield seems to be working here. They do build it rather quickly, ~T30.
4. Walls / Castles / etc. No change here. Walls appear ~T45.
5. Builders are high, 100+ early, 150-200 later. No change.
6. Traders seem lower. 1st one was 60. They started building them after T100, which is ok. Values then ~200. PseudoYield is working here.
7. Combat units. Archers ~40-70, Warriors ~30-50, Pikemen - none built, values ~30, Pike & Shot ~40
8. Ah... Projects. They still do them, even thou the values are pretty low, ~25-50. Not often, I think more often they just don't do anything... Maybe this system just doesn't use Favored. Must check Value...

So, yeah. PseudoYield for Combat Units doesn't do shit. And I might have an idea why. If this turns out true, that will be the biggest blunder in Civ6 :( And lasting since first release...

[Infixo]

@Phyrax1 Re: combat units - my results are the same. But I have one more idea to check here. Projects - see above. Not doing anything. I think the valuation must be at some minimum to trigger a production. But doing nothing is not bad - this prod is actually accumulated and when there is something to build - it bursts and builds it in like 1 turn. So, it is not a bad thing.

[Infixo]

Test 2 results. Changes are same as Test 1, ex. projects are banned via -100% value and PseuoYield CombatUnit is added to Units. Valuations

1. Districts are 150-200 early, later 500+ up to 1000+have dropped. Maybe still too much?
2. Buildings are rather medium, in ranges 50-100.
3. Granary 50-70. OK.
4. Walls 100+, Castles 150-500, Star Fort 400-600. Ok.
5. Builders are high, 100+ early, 150-200 later. ok.
6. Traders 50-100 early, later ~200. Ok.
7. Combat units. Archers ~50-90, Warriors ~30-50, Pikemen - 40-90, Pike & Shot ~40. No changes? But they certainly built a lot more units than previously (like 30% more).
8. Projects. They still do them :( Value 30-60, seems virtually the same as before any changes.

However, this time they build much more Ranged units (35%).

Combat units. Vanilla - 53 units, 50% melee, 30% ranged, 20% cav. Test1 - 47 units, 65% melee, 20% ranged, 15% cav. Test2 - 78 units (!), 50% melee, 35% ranged, 15% cav.

[Infixo]

Test 3 results. Combat units only. PseudoYield +100%. Added to units. Combat units. Test 3 - 48 units, 70% melee, 20% ranged, 10% cav. Valuations: Archer - 60-70, Warrior ~50, Field Cannon ~50, Chariot 60. Hmm, still inconclusive.

[Infixo]

Test 4. Focus on valuations of Warriors, Archers and Chariots, only 75 turns. Should be enough, Warriors are built till ~T50, archers and chariots till ~T70. Variants: of a) pure vanilla [none in units] b) pseudo set to 2.0 / 3.0 / 4.0 c) pseudo +100% +200% [units updated] d) =b e) =c a) warrior 20, chariot 41, archer 39 b2) warrior 47, chariot 66, archer 55 b3) warrior 75, chariot 82, archer 117 b4) warrior 112, chariot 156, archer 238 c-100) warrior 50, chariot 87, archer - (only 1 built) c-200) warrior 74, chariot 112, archer 73 with units set to Pseudo d) warrior 23, chariot 55, archer 43 e) warrior 53, chariot 67, archer 74

Conclusions

1. Setting units with PseudoYields doesn't change results, there is no need for that.
2. Changing DefaultValue of PseudoYield - changes valuations - this works for sure; more or less proportionally
3. Changing PseudoYield itself also works - changes valuations - to more or less the same as DefaultValue would, i.e. DefValue = 2.0 == Pseudo +100%, DefValue = 3.0 == Pseudo +200%.

[Infixo]

Test 5. This is just for Projects. Last option - Favored = 1, Value = -100%. Valuations: vanilla ~39, Test5 ~67. Pseudo works but only to make a project more desired (favored=1). All other combinations do not influence valuations. [Edit] Also checked previous tests. Always project was valued for ~40.