A new mod enters the ring - Introducing "Close to Home"

[chumchu]

Serfdom is unchanged but is now available from Animal Husbandry. As it is now Serfdom would be good early game civic but it comes so late that its effect is overplayed.

I like the sound of that. Would need to think about the details for balance, but the idea seems good.

It is a big change to the early game. If you want to try it out here is a version of my mod.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/snxlasgq23zhv...Ym89a?dl=0

[chumchu]

Improvements

Lumber mills do need a buff. With the change flat grass lumber mills are now 2/2/1 which is good in the medieval era. The others are 1/3/1 or 0/4/1 which is basically mines with an extra commerce. That is Okish. However they do drop off later in the game compared to windmills/workshops as they are only boosted by railroad.

Max yields with all techs and civics:
Grass hill LM = 1/4/1
Grass hill mine = 1/4
Grass hill WM = 2/2/4

Flat grass LM 2/3/1
Flat grass WS  2/4
Flat grass cottage 2/8

This feels slightly disappointing as there is a big alternative cost to building them. I predict that we will not see many lumber mills as the pay off is low and the alternative cost is high. We will see a few in cities with low production/health in the medieval era. Someone might try to keep a number of them around in a single city to try for a sweet national park later in the game. Overall it is a good change. It does not do anything drastic or game breaking and I support it. If we want them to be a viable option a small boost would be in order

Options:
1) Your proposed change: 1 hammer, 1 commerce, 1 commerce on rivers. + 1 hammer with rail road [see above]
2) My preferred suggestion: 1 hammer, 1 hammer on rivers. + 1 hammer with replaceable parts and rail road [worse in medieval but better in renaissance and beyond, more focused on hammers]
3) A slight increase to your suggestion: 1 hammer, 1 commerce, 1 commerce on rivers. + 1 hammer with rail road, 1 commerce with electricity [a small late game boost that keeps the hybrid hammer/commerce nature. Interacts with financial in the late game]
4) A curveball: Make forest preserves slightly better so that lumber mills are more of a transitional improvement. +1 commerce on medicine for instance.

[chumchu]

Game mechanics

Drafting: Important. Right balance IMO.
AP Resolutions: A must
Fail-gold: Important.
Toroidal Maintenance: Good
Inflation: I really like the idea. Numbers will need to be tweaked ofc.
War Weariness: Skeptical. Afraid it might help the stronger player too much in a war against a weaker neighbor. It incentivizes taking land from weaker players rather than stronger players.
Religion spread: Small but positive change.
Global warming: No opinion.
Espionage: Best solution I have seen yet.

Techs
Cost changes: I like all except fishing and masonry.
Fishing should be cheap to not make coastal starts even worse. The more expensive fishing is the harder it is to play a coastal starts.
Masonry increase is not needed as I see it.
Hunting: With cheaper agriculture it is maybe not necessary.

Naval changes: this is a big topic that can easily get out of hand for a smaller mod. I think there is a need for some change that makes astro less obvious and galleon less dominant on water maps. Making that tech paath harder is one way. Allowing counter play is another. My suggestion is the following: Trireme strength 3 no bonus against galley. Caravel strength 4. That way the defender can at least trade cost efficiently against galleon until the attacker gets chemistry.

[Charriu]

Wow, this is impressive speed and detail. Kudos to you Charriu.

Thank you, but to be honest I had time to think about it since I started thinking about a mod with the beginning of the year.

Tile Yields and Improvements

Improvements

Lumber mills do need a buff. With the change flat grass lumber mills are now 2/2/1 which is good in the medieval era. The others are 1/3/1 or 0/4/1 which is basically mines with an extra commerce. That is Okish. However they do drop off later in the game compared to windmills/workshops as they are only boosted by railroad.

Max yields with all techs and civics:
Grass hill LM = 1/4/1
Grass hill mine = 1/4
Grass hill WM = 2/2/4

Flat grass LM 2/3/1
Flat grass WS  2/4
Flat grass cottage 2/8

This feels slightly disappointing as there is a big alternative cost to building them. I predict that we will not see many lumber mills as the pay off is low and the alternative cost is high. We will see a few in cities with low production/health in the medieval era. Someone might try to keep a number of them around in a single city to try for a sweet national park later in the game. Overall it is a good change. It does not do anything drastic or game breaking and I support it. If we want them to be a viable option a small boost would be in order

Options:
1) Your proposed change: 1 hammer, 1 commerce, 1 commerce on rivers. + 1 hammer with rail road [see above]
2) My preferred suggestion: 1 hammer, 1 hammer on rivers. + 1 hammer with replaceable parts and rail road [worse in medieval but better in renaissance and beyond, more focused on hammers]
3) A slight increase to your suggestion: 1 hammer, 1 commerce, 1 commerce on rivers. + 1 hammer with rail road, 1 commerce with electricity [a small late game boost that keeps the hybrid hammer/commerce nature. Interacts with financial in the late game]
4) A curveball: Make forest preserves slightly better so that lumber mills are more of a transitional improvement. +1 commerce on medicine for instance.

Your numbers are a bit off, but they don't change the argument (watermill has another food with State Property for example). My intention with this change is not to turn the whole world into a lumbermill paradies. If the lumbermill just gets built a bit more often then now I'm already happy. I still need to think about the actual implementation, but increasing the bonus in the late game sounds like a good idea.

Game Mechanics

Toroidal Maintenance: Now return city maintenance as if the map were Cylindrical. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5

Why the emphasis on this? I've seen this as a feature rather than oversight, but perhaps I am very much wrong.

I see quite a lot of people in the broader civ community and in RBs past complaining about the maintenance cost on toroidal maps. Some players already have a harder time to wrap their head around this type, so this changes eases the headaches a bit. To be honest I don't have a problem with toroidal, it's just something I observed in the community. If I'm wrong here I'm happy to remove the change or if possible make it into a game option, if that is possible.

Inflation: Inflation rate now increases with global tech state.

Do you mean era, basically?

Like I mentioned I'm taking this change from K-mod. There instead of turns the amount of researched techs by all players is taken as a measurement for the inflation. There's an additional weighting based on total population of a player, so that weaker players don't suffer as much by inflation caused by player teching faster. Looking at the actual implementation I would change this a little bit. Instead of taking the researched techs by all players as a measurement I would consider the amount of researched techs for each individual player as a measurment for the inflation calculation. Even better would be to take the overall invested beakers as a measurment, but I would need to investigate the code to see if that is feasable.
So basically what you need to know for now is that instead of turns raising the inflation of a player, it would be researched techs raising the inflation.

After a quick read through: some good changes.

Speaking of war weariness, I'm always annoyed by the "We long to rejoin our homeland" unhappiness in conquered cities (or however it's phrased; I always call it "Pining for the fjords"). The only way to eliminate it is complete genocide, which seems a little off. I'd advocate for this, too, to be proportional to the ratio of culture in the city. Once you've assimilated the city, it's part of your empire and doesn't care about its former owners.

I need to look up the actual implementation to make any meaningful commentary on that. I will come back to you.

War Weariness: You no longer accumulate war weariness if you are winning battles.

This part is controversial I would say. The rest I agree with, but I believe a conqueror should not go without penalty, even when winning battles on foreign lands.

War Weariness: Skeptical. Afraid it might help the stronger player too much in a war against a weaker neighbor. It incentivizes taking land from weaker players rather than stronger players.

So to have any meaningful discussion about this I need to explain the actual implementation. These are the ways you accumulate war weariness:

• Your unit attacks their unit=+3 if you lose, +1 if you win
  
• Their unit attacks your unit =+2 (win or lose)
  
• You capture a unit=+1
  
• Your unit is captured=+2
  
• You capture a city=+6
  

All of the above values are multiplied by a the ratio of attacker and defender culture. That way fighting in your 100% culture never leads to increases of WW for you. The following values are not modified by this ratio.

• You launch a nuke=+12 (WW regardless of culture)
  
• You are hit with a Nuke=+3 (WW regardless of culture... this is for All players hit by the nuke)
  
• Each turn =-1
  
• Each turn at Peace= Current WW x 99% (rounded down)
  

The things I want to change are:

• Your unit attacks their unit=+3 if you lose, +0 if you win
  
• Their unit attacks your unit =+0 win or +2 lose
  
• You capture a unit=+0
  
• You capture a city with your culture being in the minority =+6
  
• Each turn at Peace= Current WW x 95% (rounded down)
  

If I understand you correctly, you are fine with the change to "Each turn at Peace" and I would guess you are also fine with the change to "capture a city", correct? This leaves only the other three changes. I think the "capture a unit" change is not as necessary as the other changes as this event happens not as often as the others. I think the reduction of "Your unit attacks their unit" is necessary and the most annoying and illogical. Not that this is only a change from +1 to +0 and you acquire the most WW by losing in enemy territory like for example by sacrificing your collateral in an attack. On the other end I can see a valid point to decrease the "Their unit attacks your unit" from +2 to +1, but honestly I would rather keep it at +0.

Overall the most important change is to increase the reduction during peace time.

Starting balance

Slavery: Available at Masonry instead of Bronze Working Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3

Cant say i understand why this is made....

Moving slavery to masonry I believe is very game changing. If I was to point to "where is this mod exceeding its stated goals" I would point here. The closeness is 1/2, not 3.

The two reasons for this change were:

• Increase Mysticisms value as a starting tech (access to slavery)
  
• Make room for more interesting choices (Do I go for slavery first or for the chops)
  

It's also noteworthy that Mining still leads to masonry. This change is not so diffcult to comprehend as a newcomer to the mod, but I see your argument that this is a game changing alteration. I would like to know how more players feel about this. I know that Chumchu did change this to masonry too in his mod. Chumchu also made an interesting argument for serfdom, which might solve this problem too, but I will come back to it later.

Masonry increase is not needed as I see it.

This is only to compensate for moving Slavery to Masonry.

I feel like swapping pastures/camps as done in RTR, keeping AH just as expensive, making fishing/hunting/agri both 50 beakers, keeping myst/mining as is would be closer to vanilla. Wheel would remain a bit more expensive.

I feel like the swapping of pastures/camps is also a rather deep cut into the original starting gameplay. I understand why Krill did it, but it's definitly a bigger change then reducing the tech costs. Speaking of those, I think reducing the tech cost of all starting techs to 40 in RtR was a change for the worse. That way you are always able to tech two starting techs before your first worker pops with a plains hill city. With this change starting techs mattered way less in RtR, which hurts overall uniqueness and power of some civs. Changing all starting techs to 50 except for The Wheel as you proposed leads to a similar devaluation of starting techs. I would like to go with these changes.

I dislike the idea of giving scouts an extra movement point with hunting, it just seems like a overly engineered mechanic. The fact that hunting is still necessary for spears to counter that lone chariot which is now easier to get (AH is cheaper, de-prioritization of bronze working makes chariots a far more likely rush unit, yet another reason I dislike the new change) makes hunting fine as it is.

To clarify I don't plan to give the scout an extra movement. The scout will start with 1 movement and with Hunting he will be back to his usual 2 movement. Looking at scouting in BtS you had the following two scenarios:

• Non-Hunting civs started with a 1 movement unit with strength 3 against animals as well as barbs
  
• Hunting civs started with a 2 movement unit with strength 2 vs animals and strength 1 vs barbs
  

With my changes we come to this:

• Non-Hunting civs start with a 1 movement unit with strength 3 against animals and strength 1 vs barbs. Therefore a small nerf, but they can at least increase the movement.
  
• Hunting civs start with a 2 movement unit with strength 3 against animals and strength 1 vs barbs. A slight buff because the scout is a little bit better against animals.
  

With these changes I aim to keep everything mostly as with BtS, while also giving nobody an advantage with a starting warrior.

Fishing should be cheap to not make coastal starts even worse. The more expensive fishing is the harder it is to play a coastal starts.

Making work boats available right from the start should already solve a lot of problems for coastal starts. Teching Fishing while building a work boat first shouldn't be a problem. One additional reason for increasing the cost is to buff civs, which have Fishing as a starting tech, by giving them a little beaker heads-up compared to Agriculture and Hunting.

Hunting: With cheaper agriculture it is maybe not necessary.

What exactly do you mean by that? Do mean to change something here or to tech Hunting?

Additionally, with how you are buffing lumbermills, machinery becomes that much better and more essential, making MC so drastically cheaper is something to think about. Perhaps 350 beakers is a bit more tempered.

Actually RtR buffs lumbermills even more then I do, but your argument is still valid. For now I would like to keep it at 300 and if it turns out to be a problem I can still push it to 350.

Buildings

Colosseum - why this specific change? +1 commerce seems like one of those arbitrary things modders tack on when they don't know what to do with a building (I am guilty of doing this in my own balance mod). The +1 unit exp from RtR perhaps makes more sense, and would have some synergy with a chm player?

I agree that my change is a poor change. I was thinking about something to buff colosseums a bit, while also staying true to the flavor of the building. My thinking was that the theme of the colosseum is "bread and circuses" which is a great explanation for the happiness, but it could also fit as an explanation to make some money from it. I'm very hesitant to give out more XP on general buildings. I think there is an intenional balance in BtS to keep CHM always a few XP short of the next promotion at least with the first three promotions. Then again they managed to unbalance everything with the stable. The stable alone is one reason why mounted units are great as it is much easier to get to two promotions on mounted units for everybody, while you need at least a great general to do the same for other land units. Maybe it is worth to give archery and melee units some extra XP to get them on equal footing vs mounted units. This might be worth investigating further.
By the way, were can I find a changelog for your balance mod. I would like to have a look at it.

Castle - make it come earlier as well, perhaps with construction.

I think for it is fine to obsolete it at corporation. Thinking about it, it is weird that Economics obsoletes them, but I bet the reason to do that there is to get rid of that additonal trade route from castles right when you can get another one. But on Economics you only get the next trade route with a civic change, while with corporation you permanently get the trade route. So going with that I think it's right to obsolete at Corporation.

Customs house - move to banking - provides a counterbalance to adopting mercantilism?

I think reducing the hammer cost is fine for now. I also don't think the "later" introduction of Customs Houses is the reason why mercantilism is adopted. The main reason why mercantilism is adopted when it is available is that this is the first economic civic you get and it's hard to counter that.

Naval Mechanics

+1 trade route on circumnavigation? Not a fan, this feels like a civ5 mechanic.

The main purpose of this change is to get rid of another +1 sea movement. At the same time the circumnavigation always was a nice mini-goal during the game. By giving it +1 trade route instead of +1 movement I try to keep this mini-goal. I would like to know how others feel about this.

Naval changes: this is a big topic that can easily get out of hand for a smaller mod. I think there is a need for some change that makes astro less obvious and galleon less dominant on water maps. Making that tech paath harder is one way. Allowing counter play is another. My suggestion is the following: Trireme strength 3 no bonus against galley. Caravel strength 4. That way the defender can at least trade cost efficiently against galleon until the attacker gets chemistry.

I would not like to go the way of counter play here for two reasons. It creates more changes compared to BtS and if you look at the techtree and the beaker cost of Astronomy it becomes apparent that the original developers intended this to be discovered later then possible with the astro-bulb.

Corporations

Have they been extensively used in MP? I've attempted to replicate the infamous wonderbread strategies from the civfanatics forums, but SP is a whole different story. Would not a race-to-the-bottom state property mass adoption in similar fashion to race-to-the-bottom mercantilism adoption against a GL or heavily expanded opponent occur? Point is - do they need the extensive nerfs proposed for our MP-oriented community?

They haven't been used here extensively. Mainly because RtR removed them and before RtR they still came in late. I think giving everybody an executive is the right choice, because that way everybody gets the change to play with them. But I think you are making a valid point about State Property and the nerfs being to hard. I probably lift the nerfs on Creative and Cereal as well as the HQ, but I think the nerf for Sushi and maybe Mining is necessary. I will have a closer look at the numbers.

Civics

Serfdom thoughts:

I have extensive testing with this option from the xml in an iteration of my own balancing mod. It is absolutely disadvantageous when compared to slavery. The most efficient food -> hammer conversion is when whipping size 2->1, and later on when you need to whip maces, 4->2. You want to be whipping small cities for maximum production. In any case, cities not growing is a huge disadvantage. This prevents the development of a proper specialist economy or a cottage spam, while not being very effective with whipping as a specialist economy is, and not offsetting the need to grow pop with cottages.

You are absolutely right about slavery being more efficient with smaller pop numbers. While doing some tests with the military food production, I found that around pop 12 this military food production becomes somewhat equal or sometimes better then slavery. I see the following advantages between slavery and military food production:

Slavery:

• Smaller cities with food excess are more productive in unit building
  
• Smaller cities with food excess are more efficient in getting up basic infrastructure
  
• Emergency whips in a defensive situation.
  
• Make excess food in any city useful
  
• Synergies are great with cottage economy
  

Military food production:

• Bigger cities with food excess can turn that into units
  
• Cities at the happiness limit can still use the great food tiles without going into unhappiness
  
• Enable low hammer cities to build units during wars
  
• Synergies with the farm bonus.
  

I want to clarify for the others that the city only stops growing when you build a unit in it, but I expect that you, GKC,  already knew. It's also worth pointing out that slavery also limits growth, but manageable by the player and indirectly. Still you are right that this is a disadvantage. What would be your opinion about this if you could toggle this food production per city? Maybe even toggling it for settlers and workers, too? I would like to collect some more thoughts by other players before I make another decision here.

Serfdom - Don't implement the food mechanic it will be bad. Instead, give it 50% bonus to cottage growth (this requires a DLL change due to stupid nasty rounding - giving 50% in the XML doesn't work for quite a few mechanics) as a counter to the specialist economy of caste system. Maybe give caste unlimited priests as well, to synergize a tiny bit with angkor and make it just a bit more op, now that serfdom has a major buff? Or, perhaps remove the worker speed buff from serfdom instead.

I think the cottage economy is already strong enough, possible too strong, which is why it does not need another earlier boost to it then emancipation. Giving unlimited priests to caste is interesting. It might be a problem though if people can get a shrine faster that way. Still something worth looking at if Caste needs a boost.

About serfdom.

I would propose the change that I play with in my single player mod taht is close to bts: Serfdom is unchanged but is now available from Animal Husbandry. As it is now Serfdom would be good early game civic but it comes so late that its effect is overplayed.

This has a number of good effects in my opinion:

1) Gives a valid alternative to slavery in the early game.
2) Easy to learn change.
3) Animal Husbandry becomes a more critical tech which makes early game tech choices more interesting
4) Less obvious best opening
5) A slight buff to spiritual

6) Less eurocentric view of history. Corvée labor was used all over the world by the Incas, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Indians, Chinese etc.  

The big downside is that it will not be used much later in the game except occasionally by spiritual leaders. I think that is okay as more interesting early gameplay compensates for that.

Like The Black Sword I find this very interesting. It's a simple comprehend-able change. If slavery really does not go towards masonry I would probably put serfdom on masonry, mainly because there is already enough going for Animal Husbandry and that way Mysticism is buffed. I still think it would needs something that makes it interesting in later stages, like Caste improving Workshops for example. I really like this idea, but I also see the following problems:

• It alters the early game quite a lot, maybe too much.
  
• It is a huge buff to Spiritual
  
• It also deforests the world faster which is working against my lumbermill change.
  

Emancipation - Swap bonuses with Univ. Suffrage. In effect, make Emancipation give +1 hammers on towns, and gold rushing, and have Univ. suffrage give the unhappiness of Emancipation, or perhaps some other, more creative bonus. The universal unhappiness is a terrible mechanic and should be avoided. Maybe give it 100% GPP boost? It would help carry specialist economies further.

Swapping late game civics around was only a thought experiment and if I ever would do it, I certainly would just swap the benefits around. Still this would be a huge new balancing issue, which I don't want to do. You also mentioned that "civics are not about what category they're in". I would say it is both synergy between civics and the theme of the civic tree, with bigger emphasis on synergy. You mentioned that the unhappiness bonus of Emancipation is totally broken. I totally agree with you. At first I thought changing that to just +1 happiness across your empire, but I find moving the +10% hammer bonus from State Propety to Emancipation very attractive. I will think some more about that.

Vassalage: either make it give more extra free units or make the costs significantly less.

In that case it would be better to decrease the costs as free units don't scale with map size and only work situational, while the civic cost is always there.

Bureaucracy: Set cost to medium.

I would like to hear more opinions from other players about that.

Traits

Financial - the nerf is effectively for early game only - you're losing out only on a small dole of the commerce. The bank +50% is totally unnecessary.

You are correct that this nerf is mostly for early game, but that's not the whole picture as there's also this:

• Windmills along a river no longer receive the bonus, only with Enviromentalism.
  
• Same for Forest Preserves and Lumbermills along a river
  
• Non-river tiles will always activate the benefit after 30 instead of the 10 turns in BtS, which is a noticable difference
  

This change was actually used in RtR before the current implementation of giving the bonus at "2 commerce, but not on river tiles" was implemented. This is definitly a harder nerf and led to some players saying that FIN is now one of the worst traits in RtR. This may not be true, but I think the nerf in RtR is to hard and at the same time a bit further away from BtS then this one. The nerf on the bank bonus is certainly debatable.

Agg - sure, that's not a bad change, but I would swap the jail/stable bonus between imp and agg. Buff jails as well, make them come earlier, they're not that amazing anyhow, and it would give players some ability to leverage espionage. Give one of the two drydock bonus.

Like I already that in my initial explanation I think giving Stable to AGG is too strong as bonus. Giving it to IMP is in my opinion better as it balances the three militaristic trait better. I wanted to mention that the drydrock bonus still remains at AGG. But moving jails to an earlier position might be valid, the only question is where to. My initial thought is not to go any further then Divine Right, Paper or Guilds. Maybe Banking is a good spot. Also a nice addition when it comes to flavor. Moving jails to an earlier position also might help against Statue of Zeus. Only downside is that Constitution is left with only the Representation civic.

Ind - now the "hanging gardens" trait. I don't disapprove, however. Though, since the resource bonus is less, is Ind not better now?

Thanks for mentioning the hanging gardens. That's certainly a good reason to remove the aqueduct again. IND already got strong enough with Metal Casting reduction and the resource bonuses.

Civs

America - what? The UB description confused me. If I get it correctly, it seems kind of op, maybe +2 is fine instead.

To elaborate a bit more about it. Normally when you add GPP points to a building in civ4 you need to assign to which Great Person the points go. But interestingly it is possible to assign neutral Great Person Points. That's exactly what I did here. The numbers of course as you have mentioned need tweaking.

Arabia - tbh Camel archers can just get a 25% withdrawl chance instead. Tune instead of changing should be the tune of a mod like this.

This is very hard for me to admit, because I really liked the flavor of the change, but you are most certainly right, that tuning should be the tone of the mod. 25% withdrawl sounds good so far. At the same time the change to Mongolia might be reverted as I only made it in response to this change.

Babylon - I don't believe in messing around with food too much. Anyways, it looks a lot like the Baray.

You are absolutely right, that it looks like the Baray and it bothered me too. I will think some more about a better change to the UB.

Byzantium - I guess?

What turned you off or is it just a "I don't care"?

UU - keep musketeer as is? I don't see the point of the change, they're a good unit. The fact you give a similar bonus to germany doesn't really seem exclusive - you didn't have the same problem with giving a food bonus to an aqueduct.

You make a valid point especially with the comparison to the aqueduct. I will think some more about the German UU, as it was the reason for this change.

UU cost too high, 70 cost ok with Granary bonus

I feel like for each of the civs that you said "am i too hard on them" ... you were. Otherwise, id love to try out most of these changes.

should be fine, but given the unpopularity of early rushes in our meta, keep quechuas at 15.

First yes the granary bonus still applies to the 70 cost. That way it is not an immediate 1 pop whip for EXP. You two of course may be certainly right that I'm a bit too hard here, so quechua back to 15 is valid.

I guess, Nanban Harbor I liked a lot because few harbor UB's

It's certainly interesting. I need to think some more about it.

Mali - does it really need a nerf

You be right that I'm to hard, but then it's a archer with higher strength and more free strikes. At least bringing it down to the archers usual 1 free strike should be fine.

Native America - give dog warriors woody + guerilla, keep at strength 4.

I fear that it might be too strong as a unit for rushs and at the same time it doubles with the Aztec Jaguar. Maybe removing Guerilla is needed.

Portugal UB is fine. No need to change this, given changes to imp - we need some renaissance civs as well, but perhaps make it give bonuses to domestic trade routes as well. This would make portugal a premier mercantalism civ, with the ability to offset foreign trade route losses. The nerf to astro makes portugal much better.

Good and valid arguments, but I feel the domestic trade bonus would too much, after all you improve every water tile with it.

I would say Rome doesnt need nerfed for a "close to home" bts. RTR Rome i would say has stronger UU than BTS Rome in most situations. +50% attack vs cities beats an extra strength point... IMO, and no im not saying that because i happen to be playing them ;p

How do others think about the praetorian? You may be right, but I would like to hear more opinions.

I feel like for each of the civs that you said "am i too hard on them" ... you were. Otherwise, id love to try out most of these changes.

Zulu - don't nerf, fine as is...

I'm not so sure. Zulus are chosen quite often. But you are right that I'm possible to hard on them, so of the two nerfs will go. Right now most likely the maintenance nerf on their UB.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

War Weariness: You no longer accumulate war weariness if you are winning battles.

This part is controversial I would say. The rest I agree with, but I believe a conqueror should not go without penalty, even when winning battles on foreign lands.

War Weariness: Skeptical. Afraid it might help the stronger player too much in a war against a weaker neighbor. It incentivizes taking land from weaker players rather than stronger players.

So to have any meaningful discussion about this I need to explain the actual implementation. These are the ways you accumulate war weariness:

• Your unit attacks their unit=+3 if you lose, +1 if you win
  
• Their unit attacks your unit =+2 (win or lose)
  
• You capture a unit=+1
  
• Your unit is captured=+2
  
• You capture a city=+6
  

All of the above values are multiplied by a the ratio of attacker and defender culture. That way fighting in your 100% culture never leads to increases of WW for you. The following values are not modified by this ratio.

• You launch a nuke=+12 (WW regardless of culture)
  
• You are hit with a Nuke=+3 (WW regardless of culture... this is for All players hit by the nuke)
  
• Each turn =-1
  
• Each turn at Peace= Current WW x 99% (rounded down)
  

The things I want to change are:

• Your unit attacks their unit=+3 if you lose, +0 if you win
  
• Their unit attacks your unit =+0 win or +2 lose
  
• You capture a unit=+0
  
• You capture a city with your culture being in the minority =+6
  
• Each turn at Peace= Current WW x 95% (rounded down)
  

If I understand you correctly, you are fine with the change to "Each turn at Peace" and I would guess you are also fine with the change to "capture a city", correct? This leaves only the other three changes. I think the "capture a unit" change is not as necessary as the other changes as this event happens not as often as the others. I think the reduction of "Your unit attacks their unit" is necessary and the most annoying and illogical. Not that this is only a change from +1 to +0 and you acquire the most WW by losing in enemy territory like for example by sacrificing your collateral in an attack. On the other end I can see a valid point to decrease the "Their unit attacks your unit" from +2 to +1, but honestly I would rather keep it at +0.

Overall the most important change is to increase the reduction during peace time.

I agree with the need to significantly increase WW reduction, but I think that would be satisfactory. It will help the attacker significantly enough.

I deleted my post from November where I posted my own mod. There have been a few changes since, and our internal changelog is incomplete. I can make a post with the full changelog in the coming week, as well as attaching a completed (that is, one without my friend rapping about civ) version of the mod.

[Charriu]

Changelog is more then enough.

[AutomatedTeller]

I've often thought the best way to make protective more useful is to just make it so that walls and castles don't obsolete at all. Not exactly sure why they do, anyway. If they are still good, then protective is 1/2 price on what turns out to be a pretty expensive building.

[Mjmd]

I'm just going to throw my very much 2 cents into the ring. As someone who started a base BTS game because the RtR mod was too far from the base, just be aware of if a change is necessary which it sounds like you already are as its part of your scale. Also, it may be something just isn't worth the extra wall of text (looking at you Native Americans). I do agree with a lot of your changes, but as I'm sure your aware chasing perfect balance is almost impossible.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Here's my mod Charriu.

I'm leaving out changes to any civs because we mostly tried to play around with the game to the fullest rather than balance. (I think at one point, we introduced a unit that came with Construction or Metal Casting that allows you to load unit into it and had 3 movement points. It itself was a land unit with 4 strength. The current UU/UB changes in our mod are not that great either)

PHILOSOPHY: Buff things to make them as good as the best thing

Financial  
+1 commerce on tiles with 2
50% Cheaper Bank

Philosophical 
+135% GPP
100% Cheaper University, Observatory

Expansive 
+3 Health 
50% Cheaper Workers 
100% Cheaper Granary, Aqueduct, Hospital

Protective - REX trade route econ
Free Drill I promo 
Free City Defender promo 
FOR MELEE too
100% Cheaper Walls, Castle, Harbor 

Aggressive 
Free Combat I promo ALL UNITS
+50% Great General Emergence 
100% Cheaper Barracks, Stables, Drydocks

Charismatic 
+1 Happiness 
+1 Happiness Monument, Colosseum Broadcast
-25% XP for promos 
100% Cheaper Courthouses 

Organized 
-50% Civic Upkeep 
35% Cheaper Settlers, 100% Cheaper lighthouse, factory

Imperialistic - “Tall” trade route econ
+100% Trade Route Yield 
+1 happy from jails
100% Cheaper Customs House, Airport, Jail

Spiritual 
No Anarchy
100% Cheaper Religion Buildings
50% Cheaper Missionaries

Industrious 
+1 hammer on tiles with 5 
+35% Wonder Production
100% Cheaper Forges

Creative 
+2 Culture 
+100% National Wonder 
+1 happy from Theatre
100% Cheaper Library, Colosseum, Theatres

IMPROVEMENT OVERHAUL:
Workshops -  -1 food, +2 hammers, +1 hammer caste, no SP bonus

• 15 turns to Smelter:  -1 food, +3 hammers, +1 hammer caste, no SP bonus.
  
• 45 turns to Factory :   -1 food, +4 hammers, +1 food from state property, +1 hammer caste
  
• 60 turns to Industrial Center: -1 food, +5 hammers, +1 food state property, NO caste bonus
  

Windmill 

• +1 Food, 2 Commerce, +2 commerce from electricity, +1 hammer replaceable parts
  

Farm 

• 50 turns to Estate
  

Estate 

• +1 Commerce, 100 turns to latifundia
  

Latifundia 

• +1 hammer
  

Gulag - Tundra only, +1 food, +1 hammer, +1 commerce next to river, 12 turns to build.

CIVICS OVERHAUL:
Government:
Hereditary Rule

• Medium Upkeep now
  

Police State

• +1 gulag hammer
  

Legal:
Vassalage:

• No unit cost <iGoldPerMilitaryUnit>-1</iGoldPerMilitaryUnit>
  

Bureaucracy

• Medium Upkeep
  

Labor:
Serfdom:

• 100% growth for all improvement types (we couldn’t get 50% to work, because of DLL bug)
  
• High Upkeep
  

This is offset by Caste System:

• Unlimited priests/engineers
  
• +1 hammer on first 3 levels of workshop
  

Emancipation:

• +1 hammer, +1 commerce to all kinds of farm, low upkeep, small unhappiness penalty to all civs
  

Economy:
Mercantilism

• No foreign trade income
  
• High Upkeep
  
• No foreign cops
  
• +100% hammer from trade routes. I forget the XML changes, but trade routes give +1 hammer. This bonus can become extremely significant based on customs house changes.
  

Free Market

• +100% Commerce from trade routes
  
• Medium Upkep
  

State Property

• +1 food on top 2 workshop levels, watermills, +10% hammers, no maintenance costs
  

Environmentalism:

• Requires Biology
  
• +10 health in all cities
  
• +1 free specialist
  
• +3 commerce from forest preserve
  

The Renaissance Overhaul
Gunpowder - Comes after engineering, give pike and shot, 8 strength, 50% bonus vs. mounted, gunpowder unit, ignores first strikes
Flintlocks - require either education OR guilds AND gunpowder, give musketmen, all of which will be upgraded to 10 strength, including the UU’s. No bonuses against longbows/knights will be given. Muskets get CG1
Riflemen - 25% defense against Cavalry. (Not cuirassiers)
Cuirassiers - machinery and miltrad (not flintlocks), 2 movement, 12 strength 
Cavalry - require rifling and miltrad, 3 movement, 15 strength, not 1st strike immune.
Ethics - requires philosophy, leads to constitution (alternate path instead of nationalism)

• Jails -- MINUS 1 happiness, 15% production, decrease war weariness.
  
• Gulag -- +1 food, +1 hammer on tundra tiles, +1 commerce next to river, +1 with police state
  

Other unit changes
Machine Gun - now 150 hammers
Swords - 20% city attack
Grenadier - do up to 20% collateral

Buildings Changes:
The Trade Route Revamp:
Walls:

• +25% trade route income
  

Castles

• Now +2 trade routes
  
• Come with Construction
  
• Obsolete with corporation
  

Jails

• MINUS 1 happiness, 15% production, decrease war weariness. Come with Ethics
  

Customs House

• Now simply gives 100% trade route income, 150 hammers
  

Security Bureau

• Replace with School
  
• 200 hammers
  
• +1 hammer, +1 gold to engineers/scientists/merchants
  

Wonders:
TGL

• +1 trade route
  

Sistine

• +2 beaker on specialists
  

Angkor

• +1 food on priests
  

Hagia Sophia

• +1 free engineer
  

Statue of Zeus

• 50% war weariness
  

Security Bureau replaced by 

• Comes with Democracy
  

Eiffel Tower:

• 50% GPP
  

Chichen Itza 

• Enables all Legal Civics
  
• 500 hammers
  

[Charriu]

I've often thought the best way to make protective more useful is to just make it so that walls and castles don't obsolete at all.  Not exactly sure why they do, anyway.    If they are still good, then protective is 1/2 price on what turns out to be a pretty expensive building.

I doubt that only not obsoleting is enough to make this useful or get chosen voluntarily by any player. The reason why those buildings are going obsolete is the following:

• Walls: Both of its bonuses don't work against gunpowder units. If this building does not go obsolete it would work against air units, which is hilariously wrong and tanks, which might be debatable. By obsoleting the developers just avoided slapping those things onto the building too. But I need to investigate if this is really the case for air units and tanks, if I don't obsolete the celtic Dun.
  
• Castle: This one is definitley. The defensive bonuses fall into the same trap as the ones on Walls. This leaves only the +1 culture, +25% espionage and +1 trade route. The developers intended to get rid of the +1 trade route, which is why the obsolete at Economics. Same thing happens with happy resources obsoleting when new happy bonuses arrive in the Modern era. I'm not sure if all three bonuses are enough to make PRO any more useful. You would also need to lift the Wall requirement.
  

I'm just going to throw my very much 2 cents into the ring. As someone who started a base BTS game because the RtR mod was too far from the base, just be aware of if a change is necessary which it sounds like you already are as its part of your scale. Also, it may be something just isn't worth the extra wall of text (looking at you Native Americans). I do agree with a lot of your changes, but as I'm sure your aware chasing perfect balance is almost impossible.

I'm aware of the perfect balance chase and would leave that to RtR. When it comes to the Native Americans you probably refer to the UB and tech change. My reasoning for those is as follows:

• In BtS you need to tech Mysticism (50 cost) to able to build the UB, but you then still need to tech Hunting (40 cost) and Archery (60 cost) to really get this bonus going. All in all 150 base beakers. With my changes to Mysticism and Archery the total base beaker cost is reduced to 140. A slight buff, but be aware that I'm not totally sure if I keep the Archery change. By giving them Hunting instead of Fishing and moving the UB to Archery you only need the cost of Archery to get the bonus rolling.
  
• Giving an additional +1 XP to gunpowder units makes this UB and civ a little bit more useful in the later stages of the game.
  
• Not obsoleting the UB is the same reason why I did not obsolete any UB, it hurts those civs unnecessarily. Especially because it now has a later bonus too.
  

I more or less kept the bonus intact, but only streamlined it.

Here's my mod Charriu.

Thanks I will look at it and maybe you will find some of your changes here, too. But judging by your philosophy I doubt it will be many.