[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[pindicator]

137

Last turn of the golden age, so we'll close with some pictures of select cities and demos.

I'm just finishing up forges, starting some unit builds / barracks and getting missionaries out where I can (mostly needed down south).


























PRO: 45 (1562)
FIN: 38 (1327)
Took off the clam at Lincoln so I could get the trireme out at end of turn; that's why we're lower this turn.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I think one thing not being appreciated in the pro/fin comparison is that the fin bonuses are more concentrated in certain cities, which presumably, would have libraries/markets/academies whatever. Therefore that sort of scaling and specialization benefits fin more. On the other hand, this just emphasizes how much easy commerce you get from pro without putting in effort or specializing cities.

[NobleHelium]

Poor Gaspar gets no respect, makes a post like me and nobody notices.

It seems obvious from the start that a TR bonus would be very powerful early, unlike FIN all you really have to do is the same stuff you would normally do to benefit from it.  Anything that does that much heavy lifting with minimal investment is going to be strong, especially when it starts working from the time you've connected city 2.

The question really is how strong you want it to be.  Its clearly the worst trait in base BTS.  I think the traits in base are best thought of as carry traits and support traits.  In base BTS I think FIN, EXP, CRE, IND, SPI are the carry traits and AGG, CHM, PHI, ORG, IMP and PRO are the support traits.  Some of those are stronger than others, I'd also suspect that PHI was meant to be a carry and SPI was meant to be support but no need to quibble.  Anyway, in this mod I think PRO moves to a carry trait and probably a top 3 carry.  IDK how codable it is but it might be more thematic if it only boosted internal routes.  I've always supported a balance approach that tried to buff the weaker traits rather than hard nerf the strong ones, so maybe this isn't too good in comparison.

I would definitely characterize SPI as a support trait.  Possibly the strongest support trait, (although whether it's better than ORG is debatable) but its effects are definitely secondary by design.  I don't think carry or support should be delineated by strength rather than by character.  I would say traits are carries if they can form the basis of your economy.  I can agree with PHI being the weakest carry based upon this definition.

Shouldn't Crook be working ocean over the farm? Generally I like to be getting as many tile or GP bonuses during GAs as possible. So I wouldn't be working a bare farm over a lighthoused coast tile either.

[pindicator]

I thought it was an interesting point but to be honest I had never thought of traits like that and I didn't really have a good follow-up for him. It does tie in to how Sullla described how the traits should be in the Close to Home thread - how we should stop trying to make every trait an economic trait and let AGG be aggressive, etc. I would rather see traits have more fidelity to a theme than every trait doing the same thing in a different way.

[pindicator]

037

This looks really dubious by Gira.

100 turns of war.

Here's to the next 100.

[pindicator]

Shouldn't Crook be working ocean over the farm?  Generally I like to be getting as many tile or GP bonuses during GAs as possible.  So I wouldn't be working a bare farm over a lighthoused coast tile either.

Oh, missed this comment too. I think it's debateable for this last turn. But previously I believe it was right to grow it as much as possible. Crook certainly doesn't get to size 9 on this turn without working that farm before.

Would you work the 2/1/1 ocean over the 3/1 farm going forward? I think I stay on the farm now that i'm out of the golden age.

[scooter]

We've discussed the tradeoffs of this version of protective pretty extensively in the CTH mod thread, so I didn't have much to add on that front.


The distinction between carry and support trait is an interesting way to look at it, but I don't know how to square that with the fact that you can just go ahead and pick two carry traits, and that will work out better. So you either mod them to be closer together balance-wise, losing some of the flavor and distinction in the process, or you fix it with bans. I definitely agree that buffs over nerfs when possible is ideal. Leaning more heavily on nerfs tends to dilute some of the playstyle differences.

[NobleHelium]

My philosophy on balance is to make the smallest changes possible. So if there are two outliers that need to be buffed then they should be buffed; if there are two outliers that need to be nerfed then they should be nerfed. Don't buff four things when you can just nerf two things instead.

I would generally work a 3/0/1 tile over a 2/1/1 tile.

[Gaspar]

I mostly think Noble was looking for folks to be excited to see me, which means obviously that Noble forgot I'm a jackass and everyone knows it. <3

On the traits, I think the point of the carry-support breakdown is twofold. One, what the carry traits have in common, assuming you make the aforementioned PHI/SPI swap, is that they form the basis of economy. The support traits do something else. Two, I think the goal should be that a good synergistic combo of support-carry would be as good as a carry-carry. Support-support is necessarily going to be trickier, but they'll have types of games where they shine.

If you discount base FIN and PRO, which are outliers in terms of strength and weakness, I think there is a fair number of those sorts of combos: Would you rather play EXP/IMP or CRE/IND? I think its close enough that both work. So I guess if I we're modding, which would never happen, I'd be aiming to balance the carry traits against one another and the support traits against one another while trying to be thematic. I also think a lot of the KrillMOD style changes where you basically just give something a discount that doesn't make thematic sense but works for balance (PRO granaries or whatever) are the wrong direction, while entirely changing how a trait accomplishes balance while staying true to the theme is right direction, like the PRO TR bonus.

So if you rank the base BTS carries something like FIN, EXP, CRE, IND, PHI which is what I think most people would rank them, then I would leave CRE alone, buff IND and nerf EXP a little and buff PHI and nerf FIN a bit more. You probably still have a trait hierarchy but its closer to home. Likewise I think the support traits would be ranked something like SPI, ORG, IMP, CHM, AGG, PRO which can be quibbled with you're doing the same thing in clusters. Of course, the support traits are trickier - how do you meaningfully nerf SPI without fundamentally changing what it does? I guess you increase the number of turns between swaps but that's hard to do without either being meaningless or a hard nerf. I might just keep SPI as the baseline there and try and bring the other 5 up to its level.

Anyway, its food for thought.

[pindicator]

Oh yeah, I am definitely excited to see Gaspar! Doubly excited to see him post his thoughts on trait balance. Although I have a request for you now, Gaspar: Take everything you wrote in that post above and copy and paste it into the Close to Home discussion thread, otherwise Charriu won't see it until this game is over (or he's eliminated).

Dang, we just need a Regoarrarr sighting and it will be like 2013 all over again.