Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Cyneheard]

Hmm, that makes Steel the one right renaissance beeline for Germany most of the time. How about an Artillery UU? The historical flavor matches up well there, also going through Physics. Not sure what it should do though. Or let the Panzer stay as is, there's really no problem with it other than coming late, but a fair number of MP games do go as far as tanks.

One right beeline (and Steel is beelineable) is problematic; point taken there. So Panzer as a new cannon is out. The Panzer is decent, if the game is still closely contested (unlike the SEAL, which really wasn't good enough to make a big difference). The German UB is now good enough that they're a plausible pick if you expect the game to still be close in the Steel era, which is more likely in TT games than NTT, but such is life.

America and Japan are now plausible choices now IMO (see below for the Japan UB. Samurai aren't anywhere near Cataphracts, even at 11Str, but they're certainly a usable UU). Neither's going to be a frequent top-5 choice, but I'd be worried if a new UU or UB was that good.

I'm really not sold on this - IMO this is over the line into redesign instead of rebalance. Japan has never had business being a naval power in the game. I'd add a small hammer bonus to some other building that's early enough to matter. Courthouse or university or grocer maybe?

Rest sound OK to me.

Hm. I see your point on the drydock. So, there's only one early hammer building: the forge (I can't justify a hammer boost to courthouses or universities, that just doesn't sit right). +30% hammer forge? That's enough of a difference to be noticed (7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19hpt all see +1 hammer with just the +30% Shale Forge, and then of course 1 more hammer per 20).

[luddite]

That completely fucks up the metagame, and ignores what Cyneheard just said. It doesn't have an semblance of balnce because it takes no heed of when a 2v1 is occuring, with what levels of differing economic abilities, when in the tech tree, what types of invasions, anything.

It depends hugely on what types of maps you are playing. In PB1, and PB3, PRO for me could have been huge, where I had to hold off a 3v1 (and I did it anyway) and up to 8 players at once. PRO in PB3 could have been God Tier under buffs that would still keep it underpowered in games such as PBEM2 where you didn't have to fear invasion...ever.


While it probably would be useful to be able to defend a 2v1, it also alters the metagame because it forces everyone to gang up on the PRO leaders. You would never be able to take on a PRO leader 1v1 so would have to spam settlers and plant right up on the PRO leader, to the extent that the major strategies in the game just got changed.

This is not what we are trying to do. It might get done in some other mod, in some other game, but that is not what our aim is.

Actually, THIS is a strawmen. You and Cynehead keep saying that protective shouldn't be able to defend a 2v1- no one is saying that they should! It's a complete non-sequitor to anything I suggested. Being able to defend more easily does not mean invulnerable defenders.

The aim that Firaxis had with PRO has been met: they knew it sucked but that was OK, they wanted it to help defenders, and to provide a bonus to archery units so that they balanced up a bit better to AGG melee and GP units.

But this doesn't matter one iota. Just because Firaxis had a specific aim in mind, that aim is less important than providing balance.

But it doesn't help the defenders at all. It helps the AI spam useless archers that get smashed by siege, but it's almost useless for defending in multiplayer.

1. They are 1 pop whipable for AGG, but require 10 hammers and 2 pop for other leaders. That's quite a few turns saved early on.

But every other civ can do this with a monument, assuming they've teched mysticism. So, like I said, it's equivalent to making them not have to research mysticism.

Not having to research Myst speeds up other techs: BW and Pottery, the important econ techs. AGG now synergises with some traits because of this.

So again, they don't have to research mysticism. Other civs can also choose this, everyone can decide whether the beakers or the hammes are more valuable early on.

It favours horizontal expansion, which is the entire point of AGG, expansion through other players instead of sticking at hte capital and throwing out troops. If a map is designed such that you have no good second city sites then the map is a dud.

I dunno that peaceful, cultural expansion is really the point of AGG but nevermind. Let's compare it to creative. AGG will get early culture a little easier for it's economic advantage- but CRE just gets it for free. So CRE wins hands down- it's entirely better, economically. AGG will be behind, unless it can use its military advantage to catch up. So you're stuck in exactly the same situation that you were trying to avoid- AGG sucks economically, and has to rely on its military advantage.

The slavery nerf claim is just wrong. Slavery nerf works both ways and it is better to build axes/spears from grass hills than from slaving if you want numbers. The slavery nerf makes you decide between cottages and production a little more and that is for both attacker and defender. That has nothing to do with AGG.

Well grass hills were already better than slavery, someone rushing won't be building many cottages. But usually someone doing an axe rush is slaving much more than someone trying to play peacefully, which is why I said it's a small nerf to rushing.

[Krill]

Well grass hills were already better than slavery, someone rushing won't be building many cottages. But usually someone doing an axe rush is slaving much more than someone trying to play peacefully, which is why I said it's a small nerf to rushing.

I think I dispute every single claim in that paragraph

Hills aren't better than cottages, not really, not when you need to consider the need for commerce. Working the mines gives you slightly more hammers in the short term but significantly less beakers and gold in the long term. Slavery needs food to work, and so do grass hills, but that comes down to the map, the needs of the empire and prescence of a granary.

When you rush you need to consider the later game and the need to keep up with other competitors: because of this you can not neglect cottages.


But that last one is just wrong. PB1, Inca, PBEM2, France, PBEM10, Carthage, are all games where the players that slaved the most were the peacful players.

But every other civ can do this with a monument, assuming they've teched mysticism. So, like I said, it's equivalent to making them not have to research mysticism.

So again, they don't have to research mysticism. Other civs can also choose this, everyone can decide whether the beakers or the hammes are more valuable early on.

Yes, and your point is?

I dunno that peaceful, cultural expansion is really the point of AGG but nevermind. Let's compare it to creative. AGG will get early culture a little easier for it's economic advantage- but CRE just gets it for free. So CRE wins hands down- it's entirely better, economically. AGG will be behind, unless it can use its military advantage to catch up. So you're stuck in exactly the same situation that you were trying to avoid- AGG sucks economically, and has to rely on its military advantage

If you completely refuse to have any military traits, then you might as well just eliminate AGG and PRO completely

Again, strawman:

So, the goal with Pro and Agg is to give them a generic economic boost that makes them useful in more circumstances, not just war.

This, "Right now they have only one useful feature." is also demonstrably wrong.

But it doesn't help the defenders at all. It helps the AI spam useless archers that get smashed by siege, but it's almost useless for defending in multiplayer.

PRO makes it more difficult for an invader to capture a city. From this premise, because less resources are needed to hold a city, more resources can be allocated to other needs such as building seige or flanking units. Thus, PRO helps defenders.

Actually, THIS is a strawmen. You and Cynehead keep saying that protective shouldn't be able to defend a 2v1- no one is saying that they should! It's a complete non-sequitor to anything I suggested. Being able to defend more easily does not mean invulnerable defenders.

Your claim is that PRO should make it easier to defend, and that there are ways to do that.

Cyneheard posted that IF that is all PRO did, it would have to work for at least 2v1s. Your reply to this is that there is a difference between 1v1 and 2v1, which was already presumed, and then went off on a tangent about making it easier to defend while unprepared. You have not replied to Cyneheards' issues about distorting the metagame nor game design.

My first claim is simple: that making it possible to stop a rush whilst you are expanding just through a trait is broken and destroys the metagame.

My second claim is simpler still: you do not represent the effect of slavery, or the addition of barracks culture on the game correctly.

[Krill]

Hmm, that makes Steel the one right renaissance beeline for Germany most of the time. How about an Artillery UU? The historical flavor matches up well there, also going through Physics. Not sure what it should do though. Or let the Panzer stay as is, there's really no problem with it other than coming late, but a fair number of MP games do go as far as tanks.

Was thinking about this last night and I agree that it can't really be a cannon UU, if the factory change goes ahead. However, I don't think a tank UU is really a good choice, because in NTT games the game is over before then and it is a "useless" unit in that regard. Same with Arty. Other option would be to move the factory to Steam Power and have the cannon change?

I'm really not sold on this - IMO this is over the line into redesign instead of rebalance. Japan has never had business being a naval power in the game. I'd add a small hammer bonus to some other building that's early enough to matter. Courthouse or university or grocer maybe?

Rest sound OK to me.

I see your point, although there is something to be said for the fact that AGG/PRO Japan could have had a naval boost and it would still be in theme. I can't really think of anything that, well, fits the Japanese theme other than a barracks UB, perhaps, and even then you can't really make it give more XP so you couldn't make the UB do anything interesting.

[T-hawk]

Hm. I see your point on the drydock. So, there's only one early hammer building: the forge (I can't justify a hammer boost to courthouses or universities, that just doesn't sit right).

Why not? UBs don't have to simply do more of their base thing or even match the base on flavor. Forges have nothing to do with cash but Mali's mint works. Aqueducts have nothing to do with happiness but the Hammam works. The Theater has nothing to do with horses but the Hippodrome works. The Market has nothing to do with Great People but the Forum works. The Observatory has absolutely nothing to do with art but the French Salon works.

The actual buildings that come to mind for historical Japan are Shinto shrines and pagodas. But the religion mechanics make a temple/cathedral UB pretty awkward. Could the university or observatory be a Pagoda with a hammer bonus? +10% feels about right like the Seowon, remembering that some of it will get lost to roundoff.

[Cyneheard]

Because most cities that build unis or observatories already have a forge, round-off would be less of an issue, since +35% is easy to calculate and micro to, if desired. +10% hammers is significantly better than +10% beakers, because all your base hammers go into hammers, unlike all your base commerce, and in general one has lower hammer multipliers than beaker multipliers, at least in the biggest cities that see the largest pay-off.

So: the Pagoda would replace the observatory, and provide +10% hammers in addition to its beaker benefits.

The Salon only sort-of works mechanically, but that's mostly because Artists tend to either be amazing specialists, or awful ones, and usually a well-established city doesn't need +4 culture per turn all that badly, so the artists tend to be a waste of space. (To a lesser extent, Great Artists have that problem as well, because their bulbing options are usually sub-optimal but culture bombs can be huge. Or a waste of a Great Person.).

[Cyneheard]

Talking it over with Krill, and a slightly different tack:

Have the Pagoda give +1 free priest. We've decided that the Uni is a better fit (either way, it's similar to an existing UB, either the new Russian Research Institute, or the French Salon).

[Krill]

Actually, I think T-hawks idea is a better fit. Japan kinda needs a bit of a boost with a hard UU to use, and the hammers would come in handy. Free priest could be one option though if that didn't work out, I suppose, but I don;t really like that as an option.

[GrafvMonteDisco]

Is it really necessary to change the spears, pikes and elephants so much? Can't you just give formation ate the shock level to spears and pikes and be done with it?

[Cyneheard]

Spears and pikes aren't being changed; that was discussed in previous versions, but instead we gave WE -1 Str and +25% vs. Knights.

War Elephants are a problem, because they're fundamentally not-balanced units in the status quo (they've been banned in every RB game since PB1, I don't think anyone's put them into their game), as they're way too early for pikes to threaten them, but spears can't really do a lot to them, especially if the attacker puts down a Stables for Combat II WEs. Making Formation require just Combat I would require the spear-builder to either be Aggressive or have Vassalage or Theocracy, which, while possible before WE come into play, doesn't leave a whole lot of options for the defender. Now spears can attack a WE-only stack, or be fairly safe in defending a stack from WEs, while keeping WEs as an anti-knight and generally anti-mounted unit.

Also, changing Formation to require Combat I changes the game a lot more than trying to re-balance a single unit.