costs of Founding Fathers

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If you check more closely the costs of Founding Fathers you'll stumble across some oddities. Once you check the details in the CIV4FatherInfos.xml file you'll discover that their costs in Exploration, Religion, Trade, Military, and Political Points are not standardised.

For a better visualisation I've extracted the costs into a spreadsheet. Thus I was able to do some calculations and comparisons. The listed numbers are based on data from November 2022. For further comparison I've attached the FF costs of 3.01.

Since the release of 3.01 there have been some readjustments and the progression of costs has been smoothed out. The final polishing hasn't been done yet. Nonetheless, these changes haven't taken care of the greater picture.

Well, let's take a look at the current (November 2022) situation: FFs-WTP_3.01.pdf FFs-WTP_4.0.pdf

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Exploration FFs

WTP starts with a multiplier of 1.6667 WTP 4.0: multipliers between 0.9412 to 1.667, on average 1.1686 WTP 3.01: multipliers between 1.0526 to 1.6667, on average 1.2102 Vanilla Civ4:COL starts with a multiplier of 2.0

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Religious FFs

WTP starts with a multiplier of 1.0000 WTP 4.0: multipliers between 0.6400 to 1.0000, on average 0.8182 WTP 3.01: multipliers between 0.6375 to 1.0000, on average 0.8213 Vanilla Civ4:COL starts with a multiplier of 1.12

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Trade FFs

WTP starts with a multiplier of 1.5000 WTP 4.0: multipliers between 1.0909 to 1.6000, on average 1.3199 WTP 3.01: multipliers between 1.0909 to 1.5000 on average 1.2722 Vanilla Civ4:COL starts with a multiplier of 1.5

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Military FFs

WTP starts with a multiplier of 0.6667 WTP 4.0: multipliers between 0.5883 to 0.9474, on average 0.7838 WTP 3.01: multipliers between 0.5578 to 0.9288, on average 0.7596 Vanilla Civ4:COL starts with a multiplier of 0.5

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Political FFs

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With regard to multipliers Vanilla Civ4:COL shows the same deficiencies as WTP: there is no consistency at all. Sadly, this is of utmost importance for keeping costs of Founding Fathers in check, especially those who require the more rare Military Points.

My proposal is to readjust the multipliers for Exploration, Religion or Trade and Military Points, taking into account how difficult it is for the player to gain these. Then this new multiplier will be applied consistently to determine the cost of all FFs of a certain type.

Looking at my latest WTP game (v2.9), I had no problems gaining Exploration, Religion or Trade Points while Military Points were scarce. Religion or Trade Points both scale with the size of your colonial empire while Exploration Points are linked to the size of the map. A lot surely depends also on your playing style, so that Military Points are not that much of a problem for belligerent players.

Based on my experience the multipliers might look like 1.25 - Exploration 2.00 - Religion 1.50 - Trade 0.75 - Military

Keep in mind, that the chosen level of difficulty and game speed directly influence the costs of FFs. Aiming for nicely rounded numbers should not be our goal.

For ease of testing I've attached my spreadsheet. It allows to plan ahead the costs of FF otherwise you're simply lost revising numbers in the CIV4FatherInfos.xml file. Yep, re-adjusting cost is not easily done. FFs-WTP.ods

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For the future it'd be nice to have the costs of FF listed in a separate file.