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

[DaveV]

Every time I read this title, Grand Funk Railroad is playing in my head:

[Mjmd]

I know Native Americans suck and SHOULD get a change, but again is 3-4 lines of log text worth it; just using them as an example? I'm probably on the more conservative side though, so again 2 cents.

[Charriu]

Every time I read this title, Grand Funk Railroad is playing in my head:

I could make it the title song for the mod. If only there wasn't copyright protection.

I know Native Americans suck and SHOULD get a change, but again is 3-4 lines of log text worth it; just using them as an example? I'm probably on the more conservative side though, so again 2 cents.

Your 2 cents are worthwhile for me, I would even take a whole buck if you have one.

I think the added gunpowder XP and not obsoleting the UB is a step in the right direction. The tech changes are certainly debatable. Other then that I don't see how I can make a civ that sucks and should get a change better in just one line of log text.

I will also provide another changelog in the next days which incorporates the feedback you all gave to me. Thanks for that so far.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

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.

Most of my changes only make sense with allowing oneself a radical revision of gameplay. Growing out workshops, which I believe to be not just a good, but necessary change to the game, is just not compatible with the vanilla progression of production. Similarly, if one does not rebalance renaissance tech costs, its necessary to introduce new techs like I did. Playing on random maps where players frequently have swathes of tundra to manage is offset by the gulag improvement in my mod, but this is again, an addition and therefore not very vanilla friendly.

The only change to gameplay from my mod that somewhat keeps with the vanilla tradition is the "trade-route economy" which is dominated by imp and pro.
To rebalance protective and make it worth playing, castles/walls themselves need to be made into better improvements. Adding the harbor to pro was the correct choice. I would make the bonus to trade 50% or even play around with 100% because of the way its calculated. People need a reason to take protective in and of itself.

PLEASE NOTE YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE DLL CHANGES FOR THE 25% BONUS TRADE ROUTES UNDER PROTECTIVE - There is currently some oversight in the DLL that means certain bonuses only work in multiples of 100%, such as the trade route bonus, or the emancipation growth bonus.

It is important that these considerations be balanced with mercantilism/free market. Merc is currently underpowered in my opinion, as the free market commerce is just overwhelming - you can get around 24 commerce in a city pretty easily without doing too much. Merc requires you be in rep over police state over universal suffrage, and even then you only get 6 beakers and 3gpp from a scientist. I solved this by adding 1 hammer to trade routes in merc. And of course, buffing merc or free market is not problematic due to the shadow of state property.

[sunrise089]

I voted in the original poll so I wanted to chime in here even though I’m an infrequent mod player. I read the change log carefully but only briefly skimmed the responses. My thoughts:

*broken stuff balance changes seem good
*serfdom seems too powerful and too much of a change.
*I think the trait changes are too extensive and become unintuitive to remember. I’d prefer adding one more stronger element to Pro, for instance, versus three weaker elements to get the same net effect. My idea theoretical mod would remove one thing from 1-3 traits and add one thing to 1-3 and call it a day.
*Same thing with units. Rome (if a problem in RB games, elephants, cataphracts, etc seem justified in having their power buffs rolled back, but other tweaks seem to add complexity out of proportion to their gameplay benefits. Zulu for example - I’m surprised it needs any nerf but if it does I’d caution whether two small nerfs are the best way to handle it.

That sounds on balance negative so I want to reiterate that I respect the effort here and acknowledge I’m not the target audience. And, what I’d consider the ‘core’ changes to blockades, war weariness, spies, corps, definitely strike me as improvements. As a person still playing MP games most weeks those are all items we ban if possible so I’m in full agreement there.

[Charriu]

There will be fewer changes regarding traits and civs in the next changelog.

I agree that serfdom is a big change, but what made you think it is too powerful, when others like GKC mentioned that is disadvantageous compared to slavery?

[Erwin]

Regarding slavery: I think moving it to masonry is quite a major change compared to BtS. I'd rather nerf it similarly to RtR, i.e. sink the hammers to 30 for the first pop and then 20 for each following pop. In my opinion, workshops should be buffed as well similarly to RtR (give production bonus earlier).

[Charriu]

I agree that the slaver-masonry is a major change and I will remove that with the next version. But I won't integrate the 30/20 hammer nerf from RtR as well, because I do believe that this is an equally major change from BtS and would run against the goal of staying close to BtS. I would need to look this up, but I think there were also some additional changes necessary from the slavery nerf in RtR, but I might be wrong about that.
The workshop change also falls into the same category, because in order to do the workshop boost, RtR also needed add a boost to Watermills, Mines and Quarries to keep them up with Workshop. That is certainly too much change.

EDIT: To clarify, I don't think these changes are bad, especially for RtR. But with the goal of this mod it is too much.

[T-hawk]

The 30/20 hammer nerf actually gets closer to the early design of Civ 4 before its expansions. In the original release and first few patches, Slavery didn't properly get multiplied by hammer multipliers, it usually yielded 30 hammers per population, except in a buggy case that was later discovered. When that was fixed, Slavery became too dominant for production over simply working hammer tiles, particularly when interacting with Imperialistic settlers that were added later. Slavery was never brought back into line in BTS. The purpose of RTR's nerf is to make hammer tiles viable and require building some military with them, rather than just always working max food to whip an army on demand. It's meant to make instant defense less viable and thus conquering more viable and to reward the more prepared military. Up to you if this mod will share any of those goals.

BTW, the earlier whipping discussions about size 2 -> 1 being most efficient miss the fact that the 2nd and 3rd and 4th citizens are usually working pretty good tiles. The conventional wisdom for Slavery is don't whip away a laborer on a resource tile, and in general workng a grass hill mine is also a better conversion of 1 food : 3 hammers.

[Charriu]

If everybody is fine with the slavery nerf from RtR, I would integrate it, especially if I'm the only one feeling it departs too much from BtS.