Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Lord Parkin]

As long as we have 11 traits, then there's only so much that we can do for Protective to take it off of its current focus. Essentially, here are the things available for traits that don't already exist:
1) Having a pseudo-"Financial" to work on either hammers or food.
2) %age bonuses to a commerce output (gold, beakers, culture, or Espionage). Espionage is out because the trait needs to work in No Espionage games.
3) Coming up with different promotions to give to different units. Good luck with that; Mounted units benefit the most from Charismatic already, so synergy between "Horselord" and Charismatic could be troublesome.
4) Finding new buildings to double. The only early- and mid-game buildings that aren't doubled are Monuments (but Creative occupies the meta-game slot of 'cheap early culture'), Markets, Monasteries, Observatories, and Aqueducts.

What about switching the CG1 free promotion to a Drill 2 free promotion (in addition to Drill 1)? Has that been considered? Also, in addition, possibly extending the groups of units that get the free promotions? A trait that gave Drill 1 & 2 on a bunch of units, even if it did nothing else, would surely be a trait I'd be interested in playing with. Not sure if it'd be overpowered, but it'd certainly make Protective a trait that has some offensive benefit as well as defensive, which seems to be the key here.

Anyway, just a thought.

[Lord Parkin]

If Protective did get reworked to give decent first strike bonuses to a bunch of units, maybe a renaming would be appropriate as well. Not sure, maybe "Perceptive" or something? More appropriate, and even sounds almost the same (only 5 letters changed in the middle ).

Just throwing ideas out there.

[Krill]

What about switching the CG1 free promotion to a Drill 2 free promotion (in addition to Drill 1)? Has that been considered? Also, in addition, possibly extending the groups of units that get the free promotions? A trait that gave Drill 1 & 2 on a bunch of units, even if it did nothing else, would surely be a trait I'd be interested in playing with. Not sure if it'd be overpowered, but it'd certainly make Protective a trait that has some offensive benefit as well as defensive, which seems to be the key here.

Anyway, just a thought.

That was done in warlords testing and considered broken. It was way too easy to get to D4, but also makes it feasible to get formation and other such promotions too early.

FWIW, I'd probably rank PRO up there with SPI right now, early granaries are that good.

[Krill]

I think it needs restating that this mod is also entirely about balance. It's not about themes, it not about flavour, unless both of those can fit in with the primary aim, but balance is always the main goal. And that isn't just balance for all play types, but simply for PBEM/PB games as we play them on RB: with and without tech trading, with limited espionage, with unrestricted leaders and no AI present.

That said, though, perhaps it would be better to rename PRO to something else, like Insular? That's effectively what that trait does.

CRE, probably does need to lose the cheap libraries. Once that'd done it'd be pretty hard to state which traits are above "Average" and which are below, with the exception of ORG on noble/prince and AGG (and I'm not sure on that last one).


T-hawk, about corps, Cyneheard and I were discussing it earlier on and basically it resolved down to what is the point of corps? Cyneheard said this when summarising my points:

So, question:
What do Corps add to the late game?
1) Use of Great People in late-game large empire situations. We have cheap golden ages for that.
2) Snowball effect, which we probably want to mitigate.
3) Converting gold into useful stuff.
Gold --> Food is functionally unbalanceable. Output being converted into an input.
Gold --> Culture changes the Cultural Victory a lot.
Gold --> Beakers and Gold already exists. It's called the research slider, and Gold --> Gold is really silly. It either works (YAY! DO IT EVERYWHERE) or it doesn't (NAY! DO IT NOWHERE)
Gold --> Hammers already exists. It's called US, preferably with Kremlin.
4) Value of having multiple copies of a resource. Not worth designing brand-new game mechanics around.

There is an additional problem that corps only work in merc if the civ using merc has the HQ, otherwise corps don't work, so merc would have to get rebalanced anyway.

[luddite]

What about switching the CG1 free promotion to a Drill 2 free promotion (in addition to Drill 1)? Has that been considered? Also, in addition, possibly extending the groups of units that get the free promotions? A trait that gave Drill 1 & 2 on a bunch of units, even if it did nothing else, would surely be a trait I'd be interested in playing with. Not sure if it'd be overpowered, but it'd certainly make Protective a trait that has some offensive benefit as well as defensive, which seems to be the key here.

Anyway, just a thought.

I made a suggestion earlier to throw away drill 1 completely, and just have 3 drill promotions. Getting rid of the mounted immunity to first strike would also help. Not enough to help protective very much, but at least drill would be a little more useful.

I suppose if we really wanted Protective to be better at defending, giving them a buff on siege units would help the most. I realize you're going for balance and not flavor here, but it still seems bizarre to give traits a random assortment of unrelated bonuses.

[Cyneheard]

I made a suggestion earlier to throw away drill 1 completely, and just have 3 drill promotions. Getting rid of the mounted immunity to first strike would also help. Not enough to help protective very much, but at least drill would be a little more useful.

I suppose if we really wanted Protective to be better at defending, giving them a buff on siege units would help the most. I realize you're going for balance and not flavor here, but it still seems bizarre to give traits a random assortment of unrelated bonuses.

For both Protective and Aggressive, my goal hasn't been, necessarily, to make them better at their specialties, which they're both useful for. If Protective's sole benefit was making defense easier, then Protective would need to give a player reasonable security against not just a 1v1 (which, with equal tech, the defender usually wins already), but a 2v1. How many games are designed where a 3v1 dogpile is even an option, much less likely? That scares me, because of how Protective distorts diplomacy, and would increase the likelihood of a militaristic trait arms race to be able to do anything to the Protective players. In regular BtS, Protective isn't even "mediocre", it's awful: I think it would have to be twice as useful on defense if that's all it did to encourage players to take it, and that isn't a good thing.


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. BtS Agg is mediocre, maybe on the low end of mediocre, so it doesn't take that much to fix. Aggressive players now have a significantly more flexible start, which has obvious value, and lose significantly less under the Barracks cost increase than other players, as it's still 1-pop whippable, but you need 10h into it for a 2-pop whip under the Slavery change; Protective players get the most essential building in the game for half-off, and it does fit at least plausibly with an "insular" theme.

[luddite]

For both Protective and Aggressive, my goal hasn't been, necessarily, to make them better at their specialties, which they're both useful for. If Protective's sole benefit was making defense easier, then Protective would need to give a player reasonable security against not just a 1v1 (which, with equal tech, the defender usually wins already), but a 2v1. How many games are designed where a 3v1 dogpile is even an option, much less likely? That scares me, because of how Protective distorts diplomacy, and would increase the likelihood of a militaristic trait arms race to be able to do anything to the Protective players. In regular BtS, Protective isn't even "mediocre", it's awful: I think it would have to be twice as useful on defense if that's all it did to encourage players to take it, and that isn't a good thing.

There's a lot of room in between a completely even 1v1, and a 2v1 dogpile.
What if you've been focusing on economy, skimping on defense, and then you get sneak-attacked? In that situation, a trait that allows you to defend better would be really useful, and being able to do that gives it an economic bonus. There's various ways to do that, and it seems like you're giving up way too easily without even attempting to balance the trait as it's intended.

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. BtS Agg is mediocre, maybe on the low end of mediocre, so it doesn't take that much to fix. Aggressive players now have a significantly more flexible start, which has obvious value, and lose significantly less under the Barracks cost increase than other players, as it's still 1-pop whippable, but you need 10h into it for a 2-pop whip under the Slavery change; Protective players get the most essential building in the game for half-off, and it does fit at least plausibly with an "insular" theme.

The only thing aggressive has now is that they don't have to research mysticism. Which you sometimes skip anyway. Meanwhile the barracks cost increase actually nerfs any rush from an AGG player, and the slavery nerf does too.

If you completely refuse to have any military traits, then you might as well just eliminate AGG and PRO completely. Right now they have only one useful feature.

[Krill]

There's a lot of room in between a completely even 1v1, and a 2v1 dogpile.
What if you've been focusing on economy, skimping on defense, and then you get sneak-attacked? In that situation, a trait that allows you to defend better would be really useful, and being able to do that gives it an economic bonus.

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.

If Protective's sole benefit was making defense easier, then Protective would need to give a player reasonable security against not just a 1v1 (which, with equal tech, the defender usually wins already), but a 2v1. How many games are designed where a 3v1 dogpile is even an option, much less likely? That scares me, because of how Protective distorts diplomacy, and would increase the likelihood of a militaristic trait arms race to be able to do anything to the Protective players.

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.

There's various ways to do that, and it seems like you're giving up way too easily without even attempting to balance the trait as it's intended.

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.

The only thing aggressive has now is that they don't have to research mysticism. Which you sometimes skip anyway. Meanwhile the barracks cost increase actually nerfs any rush from an AGG player, and the slavery nerf does too.

If you completely refuse to have any military traits, then you might as well just eliminate AGG and PRO completely. Right now they have only one useful feature.

Strawman, simply put, you are not looking at every facet that the new barracks have:

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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.

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.

Basically, we're refusing to have purely military traits. First CHM and IMP, now AGG and PRO, all have economic boni.

[Cyneheard]

Anyone have any reasons why any of these UU/UB changes would be problematic (if not, I'm going to start implementing them):

Russian Research Institute: University Replacement, 1 Free Scientist. Superior to the Salon, but I think similar in power to the solid Seowon.

German Assembly Plant: Normal Factory, comes into play at Steel

German Panzer: going to look a little comical, but a 90h Cannon. Gives Germany both its UU and UB at Steel.

Japanese Shale Plant as a "Naval Yard" (unless someone has a better title): +6XP Drydock replacement. Basically turns Japan into having the equivalent of a Charismatic Navy at Steel.

American NAVY Seal as a "Minuteman": Guerilla I and Woodsman I Rifle (remember, Rifles now require 2-pop to draft). Clearly designed for mobility.

American Mall: The only reason I'm not going with Krill's +gold suggestion is because then America looks too much like Britain (Rifle UU, better +gold from a building). So:
Grocer, with +1 happy from Deer, Sugar, and the three Hits (Singles, Movies, Musicals)
(Why Deer and Sugar? Supermarket and Grocer resources that are at least plausibly connected with 19th century US (Sugar in Florida/Louisiana; Deer everywhere). Doubling up with Market happiness resources would be bad, so Furs were out as an option. A straight +2 happy on a better building than Aqueducts could be a little powerful, but my gut says that a flat +1 happy is a little weak. Hits are purely for late-game flavor, and could go or get trimmed down to only 1 of them, I'd say Singles)

[T-hawk]

German Panzer: going to look a little comical, but a 90h Cannon. Gives Germany both its UU and UB at Steel.

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.

Japanese Shale Plant as a "Naval Yard" (unless someone has a better title): +6XP Drydock replacement. Basically turns Japan into having the equivalent of a Charismatic Navy at Steel.

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.