Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[luddite]

Not that I feel I am the right one to suggest anything, but what about to give promotion Leadership to melee (or maybe more? siege?) units build in city with barracks? Still talking about Aggressive trait of course. This will lead to more promotions for that units, but these will not be completely free. If I am thinking correctly that will also mean more XP overall and so more points for Great General? Not that it will have huge economical impact, but you can use GG for GA´s, or not?
What will it do to balance I am not sure though.

This suffers from the same problem that Agressive already has, which is that you'd have to go to war early and often to get any use out of it. Someone with this trait who played peacefully in the beginning (which is often unavoidable, or just a much better choice than early warfare) would be at a disadvantage compared to somoene with an economic trait.

[Krill]

FWIW, I loathe the implementation of siege, and the implementation of flanking is just another version of collateral damage that targets siege, yet there is no way to focus collateral damage onto just fast movers that flank. That's rock/paper/scissors combat at it's most broken on a higher level. If I were going to redesign combat, I'd do it different, but this isn't an attempt to redesign the combat.

Another option, which is pretty much anti-flavour...why not give barracks 1 culture? It's a building that has no tech prerequisites, but costs 50 hammers. Myst takes a hit, but then again, a monument is only 30 hammers and in the early game you can't afford the extra 20 hammers in the barracks, unless you are AGG and the barracks only cost 25 hammers. That'd help in the early game a bit economically, and would make it easier to get a rush off the ground. Zulu would probably be a bit weird, 30 hammers for +3XP, 1 culture and -20% maintenance.

[Cyneheard]

If we made barracks give +1 culture, I'd do two things:
a) Increase barracks cost to 60h, otherwise it's too close to the monument cost. However, being able to avoid teching Mysticism can be a big deal.
b) Restore the +2cpt benefit of being Creative. (The Terrace nerf remains)

I wouldn't touch the Ikhanda's cost; the Ikhanda's a solid UB, but right now the Zulu are spending added hammers in the early game where they matter most, and getting the gold benefits mostly later.

[Cyneheard]

Also, a demographics change:

Making the barracks 2k, instead of 3k, for power. If barracks are getting built in lots of places b/c of this change, it limits early-game C&D if you can't tell a barracks apart from a warrior. Barracks sticking out like a sore thumb when they're now an economic building as well is problematic.

IMO, early-game C&D should be less precise, not more. It's relatively simple to track population points (and number of cities), # of techs is easy, so you always have a sense of how well-developed a player is: that's fine. I know in PB3 that predicting what tech someone finished was a rough guess at best.
But knowing that they have 4 warriors, 2 barracks, and teched these 8 techs is a little much.

[Krill]

FWIW, after playing around with AGG, IMP, and PRO for a bit, I think they are fairly fun to play now.

[luddite]

FWIW, after playing around with AGG, IMP, and PRO for a bit, I think they are fairly fun to play now.

are there any changes to agg and imp in the current build, other than the bonus to custom houses for imp?

[Krill]

I played with an interim build Cyneheard gave me with +1 culture to barracks, and an increase in building cost.

[Cyneheard]

RB Mod v0.51:

http://db.tt/aCFoY3r

Changes from 0.50:

1) Fast Worker: Nerfed to 2 Move, but starts with Mobility. This is a minor nerf that only hurts the FW moving on roads or across flat tiles.

2) War Elephants: 7 Str, +50% vs. Mounted, +25% vs. Knights
Ballista Elephants: 8 Str, +50% vs. Mounted, +25% vs. Knights, still targets Mounteds first outside of a city.
This was because I didn't think it made sense for WE to be superior to Cuirassiers. Ballistas had +25% vs. WE b/c of the "Vulture" problem; without the anti-Knight bonus, they'd be worse than WE against their specialty: Mounted troops.

3) Expansive now gets +35% to Worker Production
As discussed, Expansive was likely a little weak. At +35%, Expansive is virtually guaranteed to get precisely +1 bonus hammer on a starting worker, instead of being dependent on the map design's inclusion of plains hills.

4) Imperialistic now gets +67% to Settler Production
This may be too strong of a boost. Because of how we've changed whips, Imp was indirectly hurt because the 4 --> 2 Imp whip became a lot harder. If we want to reduce this to +60%, then it needs to go from theorycrafting to an actual game played. Going back to +50% is out, because Imp doesn't need to actually be nerfed, which is what we accidentally did.

5) Barracks now cost 60h, but give +1 culture. The Ikhanda gives +1 culture, but still only costs 60h.
The primary goal: Boosting Aggressive economically, without requiring them to actually invade anyone.
Secondary goals: Additional options for the early game, and making rushes somewhat easier, especially for Agg players.
Monuments were already no longer essential for any trait (thanks to Charismatic being a flat +2 happy). Stonehenge is probably a little less useful now, but probably not significantly: you still see the same benefit, it's just that other players have one more option.

6) Creative restored to +2 culture. I was never terribly happy with that nerf, and with Barracks providing easier culture as well, other players are getting easy and useful culture. The Terrace is still +1 culture.

To Do List:
Other UUs and UBs that were basically useless, so there was discussion on making them come into play sooner, but never fully finalized (which is partially my fault):
Russian Research Institute. I think T-Hawk's suggestion was +1 Free Scientist for the University. Keeps it the same UU, too.
German Panzer: Cannon replacement? One possibility: Reduce its cost to 90h.
German Assembly Line: One proposal was to have it replace the Iron Works, but give +100% to having Iron, instead of +50% (I think that's actually doable, National Wonders are in the same file as regular buildings).
Japanese Shale Plant: Drydock UB (giving +6XP, so that non-Cha players can get 2-promo ships without civics, and 3-promo with Civics?)
American NAVY Seal: Turn it into a Minuteman, as a Musket replacement?
American Mall: Sounds like a Grocer replacement to me.
a) Can make it a Happy Grocer, with, say, +1 happy and +1 happy from the late-game Hits
b) Make it a Better Grocer (say, +35% gold)

Corporations:
The simple plan is to just remove them. The Genetics Health Bonus would get moved to Refrigeration.
Does anyone have a better one, with a sense of how to code it?

[Krill]

Other UUs and UBs that were basically useless, so there was discussion on making them come into play sooner, but never fully finalized (which is partially my fault):
Russian Research Institute. I think T-Hawk's suggestion was +1 Free Scientist for the University. Keeps it the same UU, too.
German Panzer: Cannon replacement? One possibility: Reduce its cost to 90h.
German Assembly Line: One proposal was to have it replace the Iron Works, but give +100% to having Iron, instead of +50% (I think that's actually doable, National Wonders are in the same file as regular buildings).
Japanese Shale Plant: Drydock UB (giving +6XP, so that non-Cha players can get 2-promo ships without civics, and 3-promo with Civics?)
American NAVY Seal: Turn it into a Minuteman, as a Musket replacement?
American Mall: Sounds like a Grocer replacement to me.
a) Can make it a Happy Grocer, with, say, +1 happy and +1 happy from the late-game Hits
b) Make it a Better Grocer (say, +35% gold)

Research Institute, fine with +1 sci as uni

German Assembly Line, I like that idea of a change, but it's not exactly that great on larger maps. Maybe just keep it as a normal factory but move it forward? To Steel? It is only +25% extra production, and does not have Power for the extra 50% production.

Shale Plant, I like that as a Dry dock replacement. Rename it if you want to keep it flavoursome?

Navy Seal, Rifle? There are a fair few musket replacements. Can't make it cheaper or it will become 1 pop draftable, so maybe give it something useful. Like Amphib an a small strength increase to S16?

Mall, either of the above work for me, though I think I'd prefer the higher gold multiplier.

[T-hawk]

German Assembly Line: One proposal was to have it replace the Iron Works, but give +100% to having Iron, instead of +50% (I think that's actually doable, National Wonders are in the same file as regular buildings).

Problem is that the +100% will often go to waste. Especially on quick speed, you'll just crash into the limit of 1 unit per turn. I like Krill's idea, just give Germany their factory at Steel, it won't be overpowered there without power plants. Maybe make it a bit cheaper or remove the Organized bonus for the UB.

Corporations:
The simple plan is to just remove them. The Genetics Health Bonus would get moved to Refrigeration.
Does anyone have a better one, with a sense of how to code it?

I had this idea just now. Handle them like FFH does religions. When you research the tech, you get an executive even if you aren't first. Nerf the HQ to 1 gold per city and scale down the branch cost appropriately. (I can do both of those in the DLL if the XML can't.) So being first has some value but not overwhelmingly so. Note that this means a corporation can exist without its HQ, just like a religion can exist without its shrine. And a Great Person can create the HQ for the cash just like a Prophet for a shrine.

Overall I think that gives corps some value, enough to not need radically realigning Free Market and the entire economics civic column around their absence, but avoids them becoming a crazy snowball runaway for whoever gets there first. And it takes out the sometimes big huge dice rolls on getting the right GP for a corp.