Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Jkaen]

Just an idea for aggresive, could you give it say +5% bonus on production of military units (actual % and which units it applied to could be tweaked obviously)

[regoarrarr]

For Agg what about a free trade route with (cheap) Walls or something like that

[Twinkletoes89]

Just in case my suggestion was missed - maybe give the AGG leaders +5 free units similar to what vassalage does.

Basically they get 5 more units that they don't have to pay any upkeep on - that keeps the emphasis on actually being aggressive while still gaining an economic bonus. Therefore an AGG early rush doesn't cost so much without messing with trade routes etc.

[Lewwyn]

Just in case my suggestion was missed - maybe give the AGG leaders +5 free units similar to what vassalage does.

Basically they get 5 more units that they don't have to pay any upkeep on - that keeps the emphasis on actually being aggressive while still gaining an economic bonus. Therefore an AGG early rush doesn't cost so much without messing with trade routes etc.

Thats actually quite good. A few more free units for upkeep. This only really is good again though of you're actually going to war. The economic advantage is negligible if you are being peaceful.

What if units costed less hammers? Everyone has to build some units and if a peaceful player has cheaper units then they can spend the hammers on something else. The bonus gets larger the more aggressive you are, but could still be used in a peaceful way. You could give them maybe a 5% training discount or something. This could be straight up, or it could be built into Agg barracks. Build a barracks get cheaper units.

Could this become too powerful or is it negligible? 5% discounted hammer cost would mean a free unit every 20 units?


BTW: How much trouble is it to make the RB Mod compatible with mac?

[Twinkletoes89]

The problem with making units cheaper is that they get more powerful units built quicker. I think there is already enough incentive to build the units they need, so the best way may be to make it less of an economic drain for them.

If you pick AGG, you are pretty much set up to attack early, but reducing the economic cost may give that little bit of help so that 1 failed rush doesn't totally cripple you.

[Lewwyn]

I guess that was my point though. It seems like your best play if you pick Agg is to rush. It feels a bit like the effectiveness of the Agg trait is limited to that and there for more constrictive in your choices as to the best play if you do pick it. With the discount, yes they will get more powerful units out quicker but thats sort of the point

Currently I just don't have a real incentive to choose Agg, even though I am a slightly more aggressive player. The current benefits of Agg aren't great enough for me to really want to take it. And even if you're making 5 more units free support, beyond an initial rush most other economic traits will easily make up that difference and more. With the +5 free unit support, I feel more pigeonholed into an early rush to maximize the trait and that feels less balance to me than traits which are useful throughout the ages.

[Krill]

If everyone else is forced to try and defend a choke from t0, wouldn't that basically give the aggressive player an economic advantage? They could pull ahead without ever attacking at all.

I dunno, you might be right that it would be either useless or unstoppable, but I feel like it would work OK for the RB games where there's usually enough space to play peacefully at the beginning. And I don't see how two t0 workers is any more unstoppable than rushing with axemen or skirmishers or war chariots, or even just building several agg warriors really quickly. You'd be lucky to even find someone else by t10.

PB2, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM7, are just a few of the maps that have either had starting warrior kills or were close enough to have had starting warrior kills. If an aggressive player starts with 2 warriors, then there is no way to stop such a rush, which you can't know for sure will happen until it is too late, without building warriors at the start. If you do build warriors, then you will either get choked if the AGG warriors do turn up, or you just spent hammers on wasted warriors. Or you could have said screw it, built a starting worker and died on t10. Or not died and luck out and not have to spend hammers on warriors.

That is not balanced, and you can not create a balanced map that allows for some players to die on t10 and others to risk everything and get the payoff. You would in fact be turning the game start into something very similar to an ancient era AW TBG game.

So it sounds like the bar for "top tier" traits has been lowered across the board. I guess that's OK then, if EXP, FIN, and CRE all get nerfed. It seems like Phi and Spi are about in the sweet spot of where you want to balance the traits, right? Always useful, but never overpowering.

Pretty much. EXP still needs testing but I don't think it is that far out out 25% with hindsight. 35% might be enough. Maybe 39% to give 41 hammers per 1 pop slave, 69 per 2 pop slave. Just can not go to 40% without breaking the start.

[luddite]

Yeah agg is very much geared towards the early rush. And it's easy to see why- agg gives the same constant benefit of free combat 1 throughout the whole game. But any turn that you spend not in a war means you're losing value on the trait compared to picking an economic trait. So if you wait 100 turns before going to war, you'll have a lot less value from it than someone who rushes with agg right at the beginning, or uses financial to constantly gain a tech advantage.

Maybe agg should be staggered so that it gives more of a benefiit in the late game that in the beginning? I'm thinking something like combat 1 on melee units, combat 2 on gunpowder, and combat 3 on armor units. Or some other progression like that. Anything so that you're not just pigeonholed into rushing with it.

[Lewwyn]

Maybe agg should be staggered so that it gives more of a benefiit in the late game that in the beginning? I'm thinking something like combat 1 on melee units, combat 2 on gunpowder, and combat 3 on armor units. Or some other progression like that. Anything so that you're not just pigeonholed into rushing with it.

Well thats sort of what giving a hammer discount on troops does. Later troops cost more the discount increases.

[Ilios]

Why not give a Combat 1 promotion to all units (instead of only for Melee and Gunpowder units).