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

[Charriu]

The scout change is only decreasing quality of life if you compare it to RtR. Like I said in a previous post if you start without Hunting in BtS you get a warrior with 1 movement. This obviously is a disadvantage for Hunting civs as they need to build a warrior for defensive. By giving everybody a scout from the start instead of a warrior, we remove this disadvantage from Hunting, but at the same time we also remove an advantage from Hunting in the 2-movement unit for scouting. Starting the scout with 1 movement and adding 1 movement point with Hunting gives Hunting the scout advantage that it was meant to have from the base game.

I won't go into traits that deep as I will have changes for it in my upcoming changelog, but I will have another look at the traits in PB38.

[Hitru]

That's true (indeed it has been a while I have played bts )

[Charriu]

Regarding Serfdom:

I've been thinking about Serfdom quite a lot right now as it is the weakest civic in the game (followed by enviromentalism). I think it's worth looking at what are the problems with this civic:

Strength of the bonus itself: One thing that is a bit misleading is the wording of the bonus. Instead of "+50% worker speed" you could also write this bonus as "improvements are build in 75% of their time". Well what are we actually getting from this? Most improvements are build 1 turn faster with serfdom (Camps, Cottages, Mine, Pasture, Chop, Farms, Plantation, Windmills, Winery). This feels ok for the first improvements, but especially for Farms, Plantations, Windmills and Wineries another point of reduction would have been nice. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
There are some improvements that do get a reduction of 2 namely (Lumbermill, Quarry, Watermill, Workshop) and lastly there is the fort that is reduced from 10 to 7 turns, but they are no economic improvement anyway.
While these reductions sound nice, they can easily achieved by allocating additional workers, which harm-strings the benefit. So what this benefit comes down to is needing fewer workers. The biggest advantage you can get from Serfdom is in a late era start, when you need to do the basic infrastructure and only have few workers.

Strength of the bonus at the time of arrival: This is one of the biggest disadvantage of the civic. Sitting at feudalism it comes so late that most of the chops and basic infrastructure is already in place. You also have enough workers at this time which harm-strings the bonus like I mentioned previously. It's worth looking at what is happening in the techtree around Feudalism regarding improvements. Before feudalism you might have unlocked wineries and plantations. Around the same time or earlier as feudalism you unlock windmills, watermills and lumbermills at machinery, the last one with the change to lumbermills. Lastly with the next tech being Civil Service you unlock chaining irrigation and therefore build farms on additional tiles. You can see that the intend of the developers was, that the players start major shifts regarding improvements in the medieval era. This at least is one of the small things on the plus-side of the civic that you get to do something with it.

Usefulness at later stages: Serfdom gets exactly one buff with the late game and that is the tech Steam Power which gives the same bonus as serfdom. Both result into improvements being build in half of their time. Note that you can achieve the same with the world wonder Hagia Sophia, but only one player can do so. Other then that there is no additional advantage for this civic. On the contrary your workers get less and less to do with increasing game time, which hurts the civic in the long run. Even Railroads - one of the larger projects for workers in the late game - isn't that great. Yes the build time is reduced from 3 to 1 on an unimproved tile (because you need Steam Power for Railroads), but you will most likely already have an extensive road network in place and improving a road to railroad is always 1 turn.

Synergy between civics: Lastly there are some civics in the game that on their own are not that strong. But as soon as you combine civics you get interesting stuff like Universal Suffrage, Free Speech and Emancipation or Vassalage and Theocracy. When it comes to Serfdom there are very few synergies that I can see. The two biggest would be State Property and Environmentalism as both add bonuses to improvements. But State Property is better combined with Caste System for the Workshop bonus and Environmentalism comes so late and is nearly equally bad as Serfdom. You also rarely have enough forests to make any Forest Preserves at that stage.
One thing I also wanted to mention is that one popular criticism of Serfdom is that Slavery is way too strong compared to it. While this certainly does not help Serfdom it won't solve above problems. Even if you would remove Slavery and maybe even Caste System from the same tree, it would still be weak.



With these disadvantages in mind I came up with the following ideas to buff Serfdom. I don't expect to implement every single one of them. I only want to through these ideas out there to see reactions from you.

Put Serfdom on an earlier tech

Chumchu already proposed a radical, but interesting, idea with it being unlocked at Animal Husbandry and GKC floated the idea at Writing or Alphabet. Chumchu's solution certainly works, but changes the game too much. I also know that I said Writing and Alphabet are either too early like Chumchu's or are too weak a change. But I took the time and looked at it a little bit more. While I think moving it to an earlier tech alone won't solve the problems, it might at least help a little bit. I came up with the idea of attaching it to Monarchy or Construction, which won't change the overall pace of the game too much at least in the case of Construction. Monarchy might be too early as there is the option of teching to Priesthood and choosing Monarchy with the Oracle or just tech it yourself.

Increase the worker bonus

This certainly won't buff serfdom enough and will need additional buffs. The main thing I wanted to do here is to guarantee that Farms, Plantations, Windmills and Wineries are reduced by 2 instead of 1, while at the same time keep all other reductions the same (maybe not forts as it's not that important).

Reduce the civic cost to None

Right now we have Slavery and Caste System at Medium and Serfdom at Low. The interesting part is that maintenance costs between Low to Medium and Medium to High don't increase as much as None to Low. By reducing the civic to None the civic becomes at least a better money safe opportunity. But like with the previous changes, this change alone doesn't safe the civic.

+1 hammer on farms

One of the simplest things to do with Serfdom is to give bonuses to specific improvements. This gives a bit more value in the long run and/or might enable synergies with other civics. I previously had the idea of adding the "military food production" thing to serfdom and you convinced me that this is a bad idea, both because it's either too strong or annoying and because it's a more drastic change. This is my way of keeping the basic idea of the "military food production". The main idea here is to encourage players to build more farms; raise the food production that way; increase city growth and therefore work more tiles or even specialists. Of course I could add +1 food directly, but playing with the food yield is dangerous as others already mentioned. This also gives hammer poor cities a few more hammers just like Universal Suffrage does. Lastly there is a hint of synergy between this and Hereditary rule, because to grow your cities like crazy you need to raise or lift the happiness limit, which is what that civic is meant to do. Another civic that gains a bit of synergy with this might be Nationhood, because with more food you can draft more often, while also pushing some hammers into something else you are building.

+2 commerce on farms

This goes mostly into the same direction as the previous idea minus the hammer bonus for low hammer cities. The idea behind this is that with a slavery/cottage economy you can produce quite a good amount of hammers while also producing a lot of commerce. With Farms/Mines (other hammer improvements) you also achieve a good hammer output, but you don't generate as much commerce. Of course you can put those hammers into beakers via "Build Research", but then you are no longer building other stuff like in slavery.
There might be some synergy with Bureaucracy here, because capitols tend to be bigger cities, that might run some farms to grow even bigger.

+1 hammer on windmills

With this change the initial windmill becomes a 2/2/1 tile on a grassland hill. This also adds more food to high hammer producing, but food poor cities. This is already fine, but more importantly with this Serfdom gains a nice late game synergy with Environmentalism. If you want to go in that direction you might as well safe some of those forests with lumbermills, so that you use them later with Environmentalism.

+1 hammer on watermills

With this serfdom becomes the civic you want to run before State Property or in the early stages of State Property, when you want to setup everything.

Increase domestic trade yields

This is aimed purely at synergy with Mercantilism, but might also work with Free Market. Probably won't make the cut, but I just wanted to through this out there.

Reduce maintenance cost for units

Similar to Vassalage with which this also synergies. The idea here is that those workers not only work faster, but also cost less as well as many more units.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Ok, so I still think moving it to alphabet is fairly balanced, mostly because in our non-tech trading games, alphabet has lost some relevance. You don't want to overload already important techs if you'll put serfdom early.

I would combine this change with a 0 cost swap like monarchy, so swapping to serfdom+something will be 1 turn not 2. This way, the civic synergizes with a switch into monarchy/org rel all at once.

[Hitru]

If we start giving free civic swaps we undermine spi pretty badly though. In principle I agree that alpha needs a buff as tech trading is off almost every game (and I prefer moving ob there as in rtr, but I understand if you don't want to follow rtr here). Personally I would keep serf where it is but buff it slightly, maybe give unlimited merchants or one of the buffs Charriu offered?

Here again question is if you want to stay close to original or get balanced civics, can't really get both.

[Charriu]

I would like to stay close to BtS, but would like to buff Serfdom so much that it would be more useful than it is right now. It doesn't have to be on the same level as Slavery, just enough so that people would use it.

Which of my buffs would you prefer?

Right now I would like to go with +1 hammer on farm and windmill as well as increasing the worker bonus so much that farms, plantations, windmill and wineries are reduced by 2 instead of 1. I might even consider an additional +1 commerce on farms.

[chumchu]

My preferred solution is early serfdom as I find it makes the starts much more fun. It has to come at the same time or earlier than slavery for that to work as slavery is the stronger civic. You want slavery as soon as you are ready for granaries unless you are starved for happiness. Also slavery is very important for defense against barbs and other players.

My second option is for it to boost wind/watermills. As it is now especially watermills are bad when they arrive. They give 1 hammer instead of 1 food from a farm or 1-4 commerce from a cottage. You could decrease the boost to these from electricity/environmentalism if that makes them too strong late game. My suggestion would be 1 hammer on watermills and 1 commerce on windmills to keep them ditinct. This interacts nicely with the intended change to financial as well. RTR had a similar version of feudalism way back and it worked fine without being OP in my opinion.

[Charriu]

This is only the changelog compared to version 0.1. All differences between versions are in yellow. If you prefer a clean changelog just look at the second post of this thread.

Changelog version 0.2

Tile Yields and Improvements

• Lumbermills: Available at Machinery, +1 commerce, +1 commerce with Electricity Lumber mills and forest preserves now +1 commerce on the corner of rivers, just like the other improvements do. Necessary: 3 Closeness: 3
  
• Forest preserves: +1 commerce, now +1 commerce on the corner of rivers like above Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  

Game Mechanics

• Drafting: Rifles now cost 2 pop to draft. A city must now end a draft at size 6 instead of size 5 (So size 8 to draft a rifle, size 7 to draft a musket). Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• AP Resolutions: Declare War (on a non-member), Force Peace (between two members), Religious victory, and Assign City are no longer eligible resolution actions. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  
• Fail-gold: You never get fail-gold if you also completed the wonder somewhere else (so no National Wonder fail-gold, or doubling up on a wonder to guarantee yourself a paycheck. The game still informs you that you received "0 gold" from your hammers). Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  
• Toroidal Maintenance: Now return city maintenance as if the map were Cylindrical. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  
• Inflation: Inflation rate now increases with global the players tech state. Instead of turns increasing inflation, it now increases with every researched tech. Previously inflation only depended on how many turns had past, and so if the global tech rate was very high (due to lots of tech trading), players would reach high end-game yields and still have very little inflation - which would increase the tech rate further. With this change, there will be higher inflation in games which have lots of tech trading. (And the inflation will be slightly higher for players with better tech!) Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• War Weariness: You no longer accumulate war weariness if you are winning battles. Captured cities only generate war weariness if you don't have the majority of culture in that city. War weariness declines faster after the war ended Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Religion spread: Spreading religions via missionaries to your own cities never fails Necessary: 2 Closeness: 5
  
• Global warming: Removed Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  
• Espionage: Active missions removed Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Espionage: 'No espionage' option fixed, see bugfix section for more details
  
• Maximum player number increased to 52
  

Techs

• Fishing: Cost 50 instead of 40 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Agriculture: Cost 40 instead of 60 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Mysticism: Cost 60 instead of 50 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Hunting: Cost 50 instead of 40 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Archery: Cost 40 instead of 60 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 3
  
• Animal Husbandry: Cost 80 instead of 100 Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• Metal Casting: Cost 300 instead of  450 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  
• Masonry: Cost 100 instead of 80 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 3
  
• Alphabet: Cost 250 instead of 300 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  
• Hunting: No longer enables Scouts instead gives scouts +1 movement bringing them to their normal 2 movement Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  
• Astronomy: Add Paper as another prerequisite Necessary: 2 Closeness: 3
  
• Radio: +1 sea visibility Necessary: 2 Closeness: 3
  
• Refrigeration: lose +1 sea movement Necessary: 2 Closeness: 3
  

Buildings

• Aqueduct: Cost 90 instead of 100 Necessary: 4 Closeness: 5
  
• Colosseum: +1 commerce Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  
• Castle: Obsoletes at Corporation instead of Economics Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Customs House: Cost 120 instead of 180 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 5
  

National Wonders

• Red Cross: Cost 200 instead of 600 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• West Point: Cost 550 instead of 800, +5 XP instead of 4, Requires a level 5 unit instead of 6 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  

Wonders

• Resource modifiers: All wonders that had +100% production with a specific resource now only have +50% production with that resource. Necessary: 3 Closeness: 3
  
• Great Lighthouse: +1 trade route in coastal cities instead of +2 Necessary: 4 Closeness: 5
  
• Statue of Zeus: Obsolete at Gunpowder
  

Unit mechanics

• Flanking: Flanking strength (used to calculate damage from flanking strikes) of all units reduced by 50%. Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Circumnavigation: +1 trade route in all coastal cities instead of +1 movement and can be achieved by everybody Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Coastal blockade: only block trade routes, blockaded cities can still work blocked tiles. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  

Land units

• Scout: +200% vs animals instead of +100%, no tech required, that way everybody starts with a scout, movement 1 (+1 gained with Hunting) Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  
• Swordsman: +20% city attack instead of +10% Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• War elephant: Strength 7 instead of 8 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  
• Airship: Cannot see submarines Necessary: 4 Closeness: 5
  
• ICBM: Cost 1500 instead of 500 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Tactical Nuke: Cost 750 instead of 250 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Nukes: Nukes never create fallout on tiles containing strategic resources. Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  

Naval units

• Work Boat: no longer require any tech (still require Fishing to work water tiles). Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  
• Workboats no longer count as military units for upkeep. They're also no longer considered a military unit so a War Academy will not speed their production.
  
• Privateer: Required techs are Gunpowder and Astronomy instead of Chemistry and Astronomy Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  
• Submarine and Attack Submarine: Flanking vs Transports Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  

Corporations

• Tech: Discovering the corresponding tech for a corporation earns you an executive of that corporation. To settle the HQ you still need a great person. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 2
  
• HQ: 3 gold instead of 4 received per corporation spread Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Sushi, Cereal, Creative and Mining Corps: Yields from resources halved Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  
• Sid's Sushi Co.: Food bonus per resource 0.25 instead of 0.5 and culture bonus per resource 1 instead of 2, maintenance costs halfed
  
• Mining Inc.: Hammer bonus per resource 0.75 instead of 1, maintenance costs 3/4 of original
  

Civics

• Slavery: Available at Masonry instead of Bronze Working Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Serfdom: Produce military units with food like settlers and workers, +2 commerce on farms Workers build tile improvements 75% faster instead of 50%, +1 hammer on Farms and Watermills, +1 commerce on Windmills, Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Emancipation: No anarchy turns, lose unhappiness bonus, gain +10% Hammer in all cities  Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• State Property: Lose +10% Hammer in all cities
  
• Environmentalism: Available at Biology instead of Medicine, remove Corporation costs Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  
• Vassalage: Medium cost instead of High Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  

Traits

• Financial: +1 commerce on land tiles that have 3+ commerce, +1 commerce on water tiles that have 2+ commerce. +50% production of Bank back to standard +100%. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Expansive: Remove Harbor bonus Remove Worker bonus, add +100% production of Aqueduct and Grocer Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Creative: Remove Colosseum bonus Reduce Library bonus from 100% to 35% Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• Charismatic: +100% production of Monument and Colosseum, +35% production of Library Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Imperialistic: +100% production of Customs House and Stable Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• Aggressive: +1 hammer on strategic resources, +100% production of Jail +25% production of worker Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Protective: +1 hammer on city tile, +25% trade yield, +100% production of Harbor +75% trade yield Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  
• Industrious: +100% production of Aqueduct and Coal plant Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4 Back to standard BtS
  

Civs

• America UB: NEW Town Hall - Colosseum replacement, Immigration Station - Harbor replacement, +3 Great People Points +1 happy from Hit Musical, Singles and Movies Necessary: 5 Closeness: 1
  
• America UU: NEW Minuteman - Musket replacement, Starts with Guerrilla 1 and Woodsman 1. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 1
  
• Arabia UU: Replace Horse archer instead of Knight, receive +20% vs mounted +25% withdrawl instead of +15% Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  
• Babylon UB: Replace Aqueduct instead of Colosseum, +1 health instead of +2 health, +5% food Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3 Needs something else, see explanation for ideas
  
• Byzantium UB: Replace Colosseum instead of Theatre, +1 happy from horse, +1 happy per 10 culture instead of 20 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 3
  
• Byzantium UU: Strength 11 instead of 12, first strike immune like normal knight Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  
• Celts UB: Never obsoletes Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Ethiopia UB: Never obsoletes Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• France UB: +1 free specialist instead of +1 artist Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  
• France UU: NEW strength 11 instead of 9, movement 1 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 3
  
• Germany UB: Assembly plant now at Steam Power instead of Assembly line, +2 hammer Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Germany UU: NEW Stosstruppen - replace Grenadier, movement 2 instead of 1 available at Chemistry, starts with Pinch Necessary: 5 Closeness: 1
  
• Greece UB: Replace Theatre instead of Colosseum, +1 happy, +1 happy from hit single, -1 culture, +1 free artist Necessary: 1 Closeness: 3
  
• Greece UU: Replace icon Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  
• Inca UB: +1 culture instead of +2, Cost 70 instead of 60 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Inca UU: no combat 1, Cost 20 instead of 15 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• India UU: movement 2 instead of 3, start with Mobility promotion, Cost 70 instead of 60 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Japan UB: NEW Dojo, Barracks replacement - +1XP to Gunpowder, +1XP to Mounted, +1XP to Air, +2XP to Melee in addition to +3 XP for land units NEW Tatara, Forge replacement - +2 XP to Melee Necessary: 5 Closeness: 1
  
• Japan UU: requires Copper or Iron instead of only Iron Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Khmer UB: Acts as a source of water Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Khmer UU: Stays at 8 strength instead of base units now 7 strength, requires Ivory or Iron Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• Korea UB: Cost 180 instead of 200 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Korea UU: Targets melee first outside of cities Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  
• Mali UU: No first strikes Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Maya UU: Immune to first strikes and City garrison 1, other City garrison promotions are now eligible for melee, starts with Woodsman 1 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  
• Mongolia UU: Replace Knight instead of Horse archer - not immune to first strike, first strike, ignore terrain Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  
• Native America Tech: Hunting/Agriculture instead of Fishing/Agriculture Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  
• Native America UB: Available at Archery instead of Mysticism, +3 XP for archer units and +1 for gunpowder units, never obsoletes, Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Native America UU: Need more ideas to make it useful
  
• Portugal UB: Replace Harbor instead of Customs house - +1 commerce on water tiles Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• Rome UU: Strength 7 instead of 8, only +10% city attack compared to base unit, cost 40 just like base unit  Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Russia UB: Replace University instead of Laboratory - Cost 180 instead of 200, only +1 free scientist Necessary: 5 Closeness: 2
  
• Spain UB: Never obsoletes, +3 XP for naval units +2 XP for naval units Necessary:  Closeness: 4
  
• Zulu UB: -10% maintenance instead of -20% Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  
• Zulu UU: Remove Mobility promotion Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  

Leaders

• Also included are three new leaders for the missing trait combos ORG/PRO, CHM/CRE and IND/PRO
  

In addition to all of the above I will also include all bugfixes from RtR, BUG and the game options.

[Hitru]

I'm slightly worried that corporations would still be too powerfull (especially in bigger games), but most games will probably not go that far. I would still rather just ban them (as an extremal example IIRC we had around 45 seafood in pb46, meaning that each city would get over 10 food from sushi).

Would you be open to giving serfdom unlimited specs like in rtr to make it viable option for caste? In that case it would be choice between going for lots of workshops vs faster workers. As an additional note, making civics more balanced in a sense that each of them is really good at something specific which is needed only for short time (like increasing further worker bonus in serf) is direct buff to spi, which does not need buffing. Instead I would keep worker bonus same as it is, give unlimited specs and maybe some small bonus to windmills (say +1 commerce). That would make it completely viable midgame civic comparable to caste and both of those should see use as players transition away from slavery.

[Charriu]

Lumbermills: Available at Machinery, +1 commerce, +1 commerce with Electricity Lumber mills and forest preserves now +1 commerce on the corner of rivers, just like the other improvements do. Necessary: 3 Closeness: 3

I only added the +1 commerce with Electricity, this should ensure that in later eras the lumbermill still is a little bit better compared to other improvements. Keep in mind that you give up on the chop with lumbermills and it remains a defensive terrain for the enemy.

Inflation: Inflation rate now increases with global the players tech state. Instead of turns increasing inflation, it now increases with every researched tech. Previously inflation only depended on how many turns had past, and so if the global tech rate was very high (due to lots of tech trading), players would reach high end-game yields and still have very little inflation - which would increase the tech rate further. With this change, there will be higher inflation in games which have lots of tech trading. (And the inflation will be slightly higher for players with better tech!) Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4

Not much has changed here. I only had a look at K-mods implementation. There it was tied to the global tech rate, but tying it to the players individual progress is a better and fairer approach.

• War Weariness: You no longer accumulate war weariness if you are winning battles. Captured cities only generate war weariness if you don't have the majority of culture in that city. War weariness declines faster after the war ended Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Statue of Zeus: Obsolete at Gunpowder
  

I think there is an agreement that the peace-time decline of war weariness has to be more noticeable. But there is disagreement on the build-up of war weariness, so for now I removed that part. I think a test game will show how effectual this change will be.
Because I removed the nerf to the war weariness build-up, I felt the need to scale back the Statue of Zeus a bit. Gunpowder is a key tech you definitly don't want to skip, therefore it is a great tech to guarantee the removal of the wonder. Now the wonder will only protect you during classical and medieval times and it will only pressure the attacker into a peace during the war itself. After the war the war weariness will quickly decline.

• Fishing: Cost 50 instead of 40 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Hunting: Cost 50 instead of 40 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  

I did some testing with Work Boats tech-free and Fishing at 50. I came to the conclusion that Chumchu is right and Fishing should stay at 40. With this a seafood start comes much closer to the land-food starts.
At the same time I increased the Hunting cost. One interesting part of the six starting techs is the following. Normally you want to increase tech costs for techs that give you something valuable or a lot of valuable stuff. But when it comes to the six starting techs this flips. You want to give the techs that have less value a higher cost, so that they become more valuable for the civs starting with them. I feel like Hunting is a bit less valuable then Agriculture hence why I increased the tech cost.

• Colosseum: +1 commerce Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  

The proposed change is so insignificant that I decided to remove it. I tried coming up with something else to buff Colosseums, but found nothing fitting the theme. There is of course the option of giving +1XP like RtR does, but I decided against it, mainly because of Charismatic, which is the trait that mainly would have benefited from this. Right now in BtS we have the following elements that give XP:

• Barracks: +3 for land units
  
• Stable: +2 for mounted
  
• Vassalage: +2
  
• Theocracy: +2
  
• Pentagon: +2
  
• Drydock +4 for water units
  
• Great General +2 but only in the city
  
• West Point +5 but only in the city
  

Ignoring Great Generals and West Point, which only work in single cities, you can expect the following amount of promotions in every city per era:

• Ancient: 1 promotion on land units
  
• Classical: 1 promotion on land units, but mounted units receive 2 promotions
  
• Medieval and Renaissance: 2 promotions on land units, 1 promotion on water units
  
• Industrial: 2 promotions on land units, 2 promotions on water units
  
• Modern: Same as industrial but with the Pentagon you can reach a 3rd promotion on water units
  
• It's worth mentioning that a city with West Point can produce mounted units with 14 XP, 3 short of a 4th promotion and therefore access to Blitz
  

You can of course increase those with Great Generals in single cities. There is one thing that bothered me at first and that is the extra promotion for mounted units. But if you look at which promotions they can choose the issue becomes smaller as the promotions that do increase the odds the best at the second level are: Combat 2 and Shock. Melee units on the other hand not only can choose those promotions at the second level, but also Cover and City Raider. I did some tests and the extra promotion for mounted units is actually not that bad in Classical.
If we now look at Charismatic we get these interesting differences in promotions per era:

• Ancient: No extra promotions
  
• Classical: No extra promotions
  
• Medieval and Renaissance: Here they easily gain 2 promotions on water units, 3 promotions on mounted units and even a 3rd promotion on other land units with a great general
  
• Industrial: Same for land units as the previous era, but water units now easily get 3 promotions.
  
• Modern: Same as Industrial, but the Pentagon gives you an easy 3 promotions for all land units.
  
• A West Point city can produce mounted units with 14 XP, therefore Charismatic gains 4 promotions and therefore Blitz
  

Charismatic therefore mainly is a mid to late game military trait, with the occasional benefit in earlier eras. The XP on water units might be a problem, but could be solved with a change to drydocks, which I don't want to do right now.

I think the experience situation in BtS is a delequate balance and carefully arranged so that Charismatic only comes into play later. I have to agree with the overall direction of this balance. An XP granting colosseum like in RtR will change this balance considerably in the following ways:

• Ancient: No change, because no Colosseum
  
• Classical, Medieval: All mounted units now receive 3 promotions, but only other charismatic land units will receive 2 promotions
  
• Renaissance and Industrial: All mounted units now receive 3 promotions, but Charismatic leaders might get a 3rd promotion on other gunpowder units with a great general
  
• Modern: No change, because Colosseum effects no longer units from this era
  
• A West Point city only needs a Great General to achieve 4 promotions on mounted units and therefore Blitz.
  

Like I said I don't want to mess with the XP situation in general, but I will make an exception when it comes to civ bonuses.

• Workboats no longer count as military units for upkeep. They're also no longer considered a military unit so a War Academy will not speed their production.
  

Just a tiny interesting thing that I found. I don't suspect that it has a big gameplay aspect when it comes to upkeep and did anybody else ever use the speedy production with War Academy? I doubt it. This might go into the bugfix section as the gameplay impact is small.

• HQ: 3 gold instead of 4 received per corporation spread Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  
• Sushi, Cereal, Creative and Mining Corps: Yields from resources halved Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  
• Sid's Sushi Co.: Food bonus per resource 0.25 instead of 0.5 and culture bonus per resource 1 instead of 2, maintenance costs halfed
  
• Mining Inc.: Hammer bonus per resource 0.75 instead of 1, maintenance costs 3/4 of original
  

There was some outcry that I was nerfing corporations too hard and subsequentially buffing State Property, so I'm going back on some of the nerfs here. Note that I think giving everybody an executive of the respective corporation at the respective tech is essential, so that everybody has equal opportunities to play with them.

• Masonry: Cost 100 instead of 80 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 3
  

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

You were right, that the Slavery change is quite impactful for the overall pace of the game. Considering the goals of this mod it is not the right change to do, but I still think it makes for an interesting change of dynamic in the beginning. The Masonry change was linked to the Slavery change and therefore is also removed.
There was a good discussion about implementing the RtR nerf of Slavery (Whips are split into 30/20/20.. hammers) or keeping with the original. It's a tough decission, because of the goals of the mods stating staying close to BtS. For now I keep it at base BtS, but this is not a final verdict on the matter.

• Serfdom: Produce military units with food like settlers and workers, +2 commerce on farms Workers build tile improvements 75% faster instead of 50%, +1 hammer on Farms and Watermills, +1 commerce on Windmills, Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  

As others already pointed out the "military food production" is controversial, both for power and closeness to BtS. Still Serfdom needs a buff, so that players consider adopting it. Moving it earlier is interesting, but always runs the risk of changing the overall pace of the game, while also not providing any lasting benefits or synergies for Serfdom after its usefulness in the classical and medieval times. The proposed changes have the following effects:

- The increased worker rate has the following effect:

• Farms, Plantations, Windmills and Wineries all only take 3 turns to build instead of 4
  
• Lumbermills and Watermills only take 5 turns to build instead of 6
  
• A Fort only takes 6 instead of 7 turns
  

- The hammer on farms provides some additional hammer output for low-hammer cities, it encourages using more farms and work more low food tiles now accessible with the extra food from the farm. You also require "Spreading Irrigation" shortly after Feudalism from Civil Service. Because you to try to convert food into bigger cities there is some synergy with Hereditary Rule, which provides the necessary happiness. Lastly it also stays in flavor of the civic, being often centered around agriculture
- Because of the hammer to farms, it was necessary to provide an extra hammer to watermills. Not only to make Watermills a better hammer tile then farms, while being more restrictive in placement, but also to increase Watermills value overall.
- The windmill bonus encourages placing more windmills, right when might just have researched them at Machinery. It also has some synergy with Financial. But the biggest impact of this is in synergy with Environmentalism later. With both those civics grassland windmills become 2/2/5 tiles and even 2/2/6 with a river. But of course you can only place them on hills.

While I'm at it I removed the corporation cost on Environmentalism because it only hurt an underused civic more.

• Emancipation: No anarchy turns, lose unhappiness bonus, gain +10% Hammer in all cities  Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• State Property: Lose +10% Hammer in all cities
  

I think there is agreement that the unhappiness bonus on Emancipation is a failed design and annoyance and therefore should be removed. This only leaves the growth bonus that quickly looses usefulness similar to serfdom after most of your cottages matured to towns. At the same time the Caste System/State Property synergy is a very strong combination especially when you don't play with corporations. Removing the 10% hammer bonus should bring State Property a bit back to balance. Giving this bonus to Emancipation not only provides the civic with something useful after the cottage growth it also fits right in with the theme of the labor civic tree.
Lastly the "No anarchy turns" is kept at Emancipation so that players can grow back a pillaged cottage economy, but I might remove it, if you feel it is unnecessary or too strong.

• Financial: +1 commerce on land tiles that have 3+ commerce, +1 commerce on water tiles that have 2+ commerce. +50% production of Bank back to standard +100%. Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  

Not much has change except, that I went back to the +100% on banks. It's right not to reduce that bonus as it's the only other somewhat interesting thing to do with Financial. Note that I have a few more ideas to nerf Financial even more if needed.

• Expansive: Remove Harbor bonus Remove Worker bonus, add +100% production of Aqueduct and Grocer Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  

Hitru is right, that either the worker bonus or the granary bonus had to go to bring Expansive back in line. I decided to go with the Worker bonus mostly because it was only added in the expansions and because Granaries fit better with the theme of Expansive being Health. I know that this might be controversial and some might consider this a big change. I believe that the worker bonus is the weaker bonus compared to Granaries. Just go through all the different threads of BtS or RtR games and you will notice that many people choose the granary bonus trait only because of that. To compensate the loss of Workers I put some additional Health buildings on the trait with the Aqueduct and the Grocer. Especially the Aqueduct has a bit of synergy if you pair Expansive with Industrious to go for the Hanging Gardens.

• Creative: Remove Colosseum bonus Reduce Library bonus from 100% to 35% Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  
• Charismatic: +100% production of Monument and Colosseum, +35% production of Library Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  

This is a similar change to the one in RtR and I think with this both traits come into a nice balance, while at the same time having nice synergy. Note that with the new leaders there now exists a CRE/CHM leader. Because the Colosseum has not a big impact for Charismatic leaders like in RtR, I kept it with Creative.
Before this change a library was a double whip for Creative leaders, with this change it becomes a triple whip. Note that if I implement the Slavery nerf from RtR I might move this bonus up to 50% for bonus to keep it as a triple whip.

• Aggressive: +1 hammer on strategic resources, +100% production of Jail +25% production of worker Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  

Now this might be a very controversial thing to do. It is my believe that Aggresive already is a decent trait that only needs a bit of a buff and this best might be an economic buff. The worker bonus provides just that. Yes, it does not quite fit in with the theme of the trait, but it is an adequate bonus for this trait.

I also want to point out that I find Aggressive gained too much of a buff in RtR. Compared to base BtS Aggressive gains the following buffs:

• A production bonus to Stable
  
• A maintenance reduction bonus
  
• A culture producing Barracks that feels like half Creative.
  

I think by adding one buff that is a bit better then a single one of the above, this trait might become better in the long run while also keeping the changelog smaller.

• Protective: +1 hammer on city tile, +25% trade yield, +100% production of Harbor +75% trade yield Necessary: 5 Closeness: 3
  

As you can see I removed three smaller bonuses with one stronger bonus. The Harbor will remain at Expansive, as in BtS. It wasn't that big an advantage anyway and this way it even provides some synergy as you will see. The hammer bonus is interesting, but not so strong then it lifts the trait up. Now when it comes to trade yield we have the following situation. As GKC mentioned there are some rounding issues, which would have needed fixing if I kept it at 25%. I wrongfully said that there are now rounding issues, so sorry for that. The good thing is with 75% I don't have the need to adjust the code. Let's look at the trade situation in BtS to understand especially in the beginning of the game. The following things increase the trade yield:

• 5% = For every pop above 10
  
• 25% = A connection to the capitol
  
• 50% = Harbor
  
• 3% = For every turn of peace between two players up to a limit of 150% after 50 turns
  
• 100% = Temple of Artemis
  
• 100% = Partner city is on a different continent
  
• 100% = Custom House for foreign trade
  

With a base trade route of 1 commerce in the beginning, we can ignore the 100% bonus and see how we can achieve 100% in the beginning, which grants us a 2 commerce trade route:

• 25% for capitol connection
  
• 50% for Harbor
  
• 25% for a pop 15 city or 27% for 9 turns of peace
  

Now a 15 pop city is unrealistic in the beginning and it also produces higher maintenance costs therefore reducing some of the commerce we generate, so best way in the beginning is the 9 turns of peace. We therefore rely on a foreign trade to increase the trade commerce by 1 in the beginning.

Now with the new 75% trade yield Protective we have the following situation:

• 25% for capitol connection
  
• 75% from Protective
  

So by just settling and connecting the city to the capitol a Protective leader already generates 2 instead of 1 commerce from trade and this bonus does not require a foreign trade route. But that's not all with the following setup the Protective leader can generate another commerce:

• 50% from Harbor
  
• 50% for a pop 20 city or 51% for 17 turns of peace
  

This of course is a foreign trade and requires a harbor.

TL:DR: With +75% trade yield every trade route produces at least +1 commerce and this bonus only increases with additional trade routes and when the base commerce increases itself.

• Industrious: +100% production of Aqueduct and Coal plant Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4 Back to standard BtS
  

I removed the change. Giving it the Aqueduct strongly pushes Industrious towards the Hanging Gardens. The Coal plant on it's own is too insignificant as a bonus, so better free up space in the changelog. Industrious like previously mentioned is already buffed by a cost reduction from Metal Casting and the nerf on wonder-building-resources.

• France UU: NEW strength 11 instead of 9, movement 1 Necessary: 2 Closeness: 3
  
• Greece UB: Replace Theatre instead of Colosseum, +1 happy, +1 happy from hit single, -1 culture, +1 free artist Necessary: 1 Closeness: 3
  
• Greece UU: Replace icon Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  
• Khmer UB: Acts as a source of water Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3
  
• Mali UU: No first strikes Necessary: 3 Closeness: 5
  
• Mongolia UU: Replace Knight instead of Horse archer - not immune to first strike, first strike, ignore terrain Necessary: 2 Closeness: 4
  
• Portugal UB: Replace Harbor instead of Customs house - +1 commerce on water tiles Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  

All of these civ changes become unncessary either, because the corresponding change like with France and Mongolia was removed; the change was only a flavor change (Greece); or the change was to insignificant (Mali) or considered unnecessary because of other changes (Portugal, base building reduced and change to Astronomy)

• America UB: NEW Town Hall - Colosseum replacement, Immigration Station - Harbor replacement, +3 Great People Points +1 happy from Hit Musical, Singles and Movies Necessary: 5 Closeness: 1
  

Only a minor change compared to before. Colosseum already had quite a few UBs replacing it and Harbor right now only has one. Because the Harbor can only be build in coastal cities I kept the +3 Great People Points for now. This is the inspiration for the UB (Ellis Island)

• Arabia UU: Replace Horse archer instead of Knight, receive +20% vs mounted +25% withdrawl instead of +15% Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  

I already mentioned this in a previous post. This was mainly a flavor change that strayed to far from BtS. Still I think that Arabia might need a bit of a buff. We'll see how it turns out though.

• Babylon UB: Replace Aqueduct instead of Colosseum, +1 health instead of +2 health, +5% food Necessary: 4 Closeness: 3 Needs something else, see explanation for ideas
  

The Bowman is actually quite a good unit as some players have shown and Babylons techs are useful enough. Still I think the UB is one of the least useful UBs in the game and needs some kind of a buff. Here are some of my ideas:

• Granary replacement, +1 health, available at Agriculture
  
• Aqueduct replacement, +1 health, remove unhealthiness from flood plains and jungle (most likely to situational)
  
• Aqueduct replacement, +1 health, act as source of water
  
• Aqueduct replacement, +2 health +1 culture
  

I think the Granary replacement is interesting, but also quite a bit far away from the original. The +1 culture Aqueduct is closer to the original, while also replacing a building that is only replaced two times so far.

• Germany UU: NEW Stosstruppen - replace Grenadier, movement 2 instead of 1 available at Chemistry, starts with Pinch Necessary: 5 Closeness: 1
  

I could just as easily make it a 14 strength Grenadier, but these higher strength bonus tend to be somewhat boring most of the time. This is certainly more interesting as the Grenadier works quite well against the Rifleman now.

• Inca UU: no combat 1, Cost 20 instead of 15 Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  

The UB of the Incans already received quite a nerf, so I'm going a bit back on the unit here.

• Japan UB: NEW Dojo, Barracks replacement - +1XP to Gunpowder, +1XP to Mounted, +1XP to Air, +2XP to Melee in addition to +3 XP for land units NEW Tatara, Forge replacement - +2 XP to Melee Necessary: 5 Closeness: 1
  

Now the dojo was a complete disaster on my part both in communication and conception. I hope to make up on that. The main intention of the Dojo was to increase the usefulness of melee units and therefore synergies with their UU. I have the same intention with the Tatara here. I put it on the Forge as the Forge is one of those buildings you build almost everywhere. Because the bonus more or less obsoletes with the Renaissance it might be ok to put it on such a prominent building. Still I can understand if some want an additional use in the later eras. The forge also only is replaced by the Malian Mint so far. I'm saying this because GKC mentioned the Nanban Harbor, being one of the few Harbor replacements. But if the Americans get their Immigration Station, we have another one of those. In addition if you look up Nanban it also has more connections with foreign trade then with unit experience. My inspiration for the building was this: Tatara

• Khmer UU: Stays at 8 strength instead of base units now 7 strength, requires Ivory or Iron Necessary: 4 Closeness: 4
  

Only a minor tweak guaranteeing that the Khmer can build their unit on almost every map.

• Maya UU: Immune to first strikes and City garrison 1, other City garrison promotions are now eligible for melee, starts with Woodsman 1 Necessary: 3 Closeness: 4
  

I think this might turn out to be an interesting unit. With a barrack in place you can take up Woodsman II gaining 2 movement points in forests and jungles during a time when those still exist. Even with Immune to first strike it won't be that strong against city-defending archers. This might turn out to be a similar unit like the Impi in that it can try to choke an enemy early on.

• Native America UU: Need more ideas to make it useful
  

GKC mentioned that adding Woodsman (and Guerilla) might be a solution for this unit. But I think Woodsman plus a "vs melee" bonus is a bit too strong this early in the game, especially if you add Guerilla. I did some more tests with the original unit and came to the conclusion to keep it as it is. With 4 strength but +100% vs melee it becomes stronger against melee units then the base unit, while performing worse against archers (both perform poorly against chariots). This unit performs better against its base unit and even can take it up with the nerfed Roman praetorian.

• Rome UU: Strength 7 instead of 8, only +10% city attack compared to base unit, cost 40 just like base unit  Necessary: 5 Closeness: 4
  

Just a few changes so that the Praetorian does not performs worse against cities then the base unit. Also scaling back the nerf a bit.

• Spain UB: Never obsoletes, +3 XP for naval units +2 XP for naval units Necessary:  Closeness: 4
  

+2 XP are enough to bring Spain to 2 promotions on ships during the medieval times and 3 promotions during Industrial. With this Spain performs almost just as well as Charismatic when it comes to promotions for water units, while at the same time not providing strong synergy with the trait.

• Zulu UB: -10% maintenance instead of -20% Necessary: 5 Closeness: 5
  

I think the UB is the stronger part of the Zulus. The UU has it's uses, but the UBs bonus stays for the whole game. Because some felt it was unjustified that I nerfed Zulu, I'm going a bit back on the nerf here. The nerf of the UU makes it a bit less terrifying for your enemies, but like I said the true power of the Zulu lies in their UB.