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

[Miguelito]

whole week left till 54 is supposed to start, and we all have to run our test games yet...

[superdeath]

whole week left till 54 is supposed to start, and we all have to run our test games yet...

You run test games?

[El Grillo]

Minor bug for AGG in 1.4.1:




The total unit cost in the hover doesn't doesn't account for the AGG reduction, though the total shown on the advisor screen does.

EDIT: Further testing indicates that the 25% unit cost reduction is applied after the handicap bonus, is this intentional? It makes the reduction scale more significantly at higher difficulties where the handicap bonus is smaller and vice versa. In my Monarch tests the cost reduction was only ~16-17% of my outstanding unit cost.

[Charriu]

I will fix the hover. The reduction calculation will stay as is for now, because I don't want to make bigger gameplay changes during a snake pick. But I will look at it again in a future version.

[NobleHelium]

I think the maintenance reduction applying after handicap cost is fine. That is analogous to ORG being better at higher difficulties.

[civac2]

The changelog sounds great. I will definitely give it a whirl once my current game is done. In particular the changes to Japan make me actually excited to try Toku. Always had a weak spot for him and his samurai.

Is the nerf to drafting possibly a bit much? It is now quite difficult to use if you are not SPI since switching into Nationalism just for the heavily nerfed drafts is quite painful/not worth it since it is not much more efficient than slavery anymore. Is it now simply a way to get some units in an emergency? Maybe you could do something like start a GA, build units with hammers , switch into Nationalism at the end and sqeeze out some more units. You don't want to draft in a GA anymore as you'd cripple your high-output cities.

Financial still seems the best choices on watery maps. Is this just accepted as a perk of the trait? Tides of War introduced the wharf building to get around this but that runs counter to the stated aims of your mod.

[Charriu]

Is the nerf to drafting possibly a bit much? It is now quite difficult to use if you are not SPI since switching into Nationalism just for the heavily nerfed drafts is quite painful/not worth it since it is not much more efficient than slavery anymore. Is it now simply a way to get some units in an emergency? Maybe you could do something like start a GA, build units with hammers , switch into Nationalism at the end and sqeeze out some more units. You don't want to draft in a GA anymore as you'd cripple your high-output cities.

First of all thank you for the comment. I think you are referring to these two changes, right?

• 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).
  

• Nationhood: Low cost instead of No Upkeep
  

The change to rifles is necessary I would say, because compared to the other units you can draft, rifles were way to cheap. The change concerning city size isn't that important and I only took it over from RtR. We can certainly argue about that. The upkeep cost of Nationhood is fairly new and I will see how it turns out.

Financial still seems the best choices on watery maps. Is this just accepted as a perk of the trait? Tides of War introduced the wharf building to get around this but that runs counter to the stated aims of your mod.

Yes, right now it definitely is a good or the best choice on watery maps. There were plans discussed to limit this a while back in this thread. My plan was to remove the +1 on water bonus as an instant bonus and instead turn it into "+1 commerce on water tiles with a harbor for FIN leaders." There were arguments for and against it and I decided for now to run with the current implementation. I have integrated some tracking tools to collect more data about various FIN implementation in the hope to have a better base to argue about the pros and cons.

[civac2]

The increase to 2 pop per rifle is a necessity. But the minimum size 8 for drafting a rifle seems a bit extreme. However, it seems the change was taken from another mod (?) so I was asking for info on this from players who have experience with these restrictions.

[Miguelito]

whole week left till 54 is supposed to start, and we all have to run our test games yet...

You run test games?

You know that feeling when your last pitboss ended some weeks ago and you don't have anything scheduled to play every evening? No you don't!  

Tbh I haven't done a test game yet and still have the FFH adventure report due to write,  so may not even get to it (well I have a PB54 sandbox,  that at least runs without issues )

[Gaspar]

I think its perfectly fine for FIN to be a very good choice on a watery map - the problem was always that it was the best choice on every map by a long way. If we're trying to stay "close to home," FIN should remain strong. I think the idea of the mod here is to nudge things towards a more balanced direction, not look for a perfectly balanced game. When you start seeking perfect balance, you have to change a ton and then the game turns into something very different than base BTS, particularly because you have to keep iterating on it and each change takes you further from the original goal.

I personally think the drafting change to make Rifles 2-pop is necessary but I would revert the other changes because right now its pretty harsh if you're trying to draft to defend. Its not a huge deal, though.