RtR 4.1.1.6 Discussion and Download Thread

[Rusten]

I'm a little worried about buffing the xbow to also deal collateral. We're already living in a meta where people think of knights as the be-all and end-all of warfare. By giving the xbow collateral on top of being super strong how are you ever going to successfully threaten anything in the period between classical and knights? The defenders advantage would be obscene and everyone will turtle. It will make knight rush even more standard as it's the only unit that can accomplish anything at all. Just my initial feeling, I could be wrong.

I appreciate the naval changes. It's too extensive to gauge balance, but the concept of it makes sense. Towards the end of PB41 anyone could approach from anywhere at almost no notice, it's very tiresome. If coast is much quicker to traverse than entering ocean it will make it easier to reinforce areas defensively as you can cover a bigger area. I'd happily test it in a game if I find the time to play another PB.

I think FIN is underrated right now, but that's mainly a result of the forum switching to more natural maps and Big and Small in particular. There was a streak of hand-built maps with little coast and a lot of rivers -- of course FIN is going to struggle. If the recent trend in map choice continues and you continue to buff FIN it will be my first choice.

[Krill]

When you talk about distorting civics/tech path, isn't that a good thing?  The whole point of having different playable factions is that they play differently, right?  The reason not to is that it becomes more difficult to balance (unless you go "everything is broken" ala Marvel vs Capcom), but strategies are already mostly homogeneous in the big picture

I've been reflecting on how to answer this post, because I don't think it's that straightforward. I don't think using the word distortion was fair.

Ultimately, a game of civ is about the journey from the starting units on T0 to reaching a victory condition (if a snakepick is involved, it's from the point of receiving starting screenshots or a pick order). It is about the choices we make in response to the changing situations we encounter each and every turn.

The paths taken to go from the start to the finish will be, are used, because of the game mechanics, the tech tree, the terrain and the economics. They are the game. The game is designed to be played a certain way: It is not a sandbox.

The leaders and the civs are options, no different really to variations in the game settings (Raging barbs, no tech trading, difficulty level). Some of these settings are options that we don't even consider as options: the last true tech trading game was PB3? But these options change the values of certain decisions, they change the path of least resistance to get from the start to the victory condition.

Anyway, to what I meant by distortion: civs and leaders are different to the other settings because they only apply to a single player. The hyperbolic example is that if a single civ has an effect that is a "Win button" on, say, T150, then that essentially overrides all the other options. All of the decisions made, by all players, play around that issue.

To bring this back to IND and economics: The problem with tile yield changes (as can other changes, but these are very easy to fuck up) is that they can become "Lose buttons" for other players: When traits or civs get abilities that require specific responses that are not beneficial to other players, responses that have to be made to survive, then this has a disproportionate effect on different players. "Lose buttons" aren't fun. They affect some players differently, due to a variety of reasons: map position being a major component because "Lose buttons" are generally stuff built around taking something from other players (From base BtS: Cataphracts, Agg Rome).

Improvement yields feed into the outputs that basically lead to having more units, or getting to a tech level so much faster that the next level of tech units aren't counterable (This is part of why FIN got nerfed). Extra hammers are a double edged sword in this respect: They can allow a player to finish the city improvements needed quicker, which opens up a window of unit building to exert pressure on other players, not just building more units, but also can be fed into wealth and research builds.

As I said, it is very easy to get power levels wrong on these changes. Set the effects to have stringent requirements, the effect rarely triggers and it has no power. Set it too low, it triggers all the time, and you end up with an effect which is "Always on", like base BtS FIN. The distortion I was writing about in the previous post was around the distortion on the player that has to trigger the effect to make the most of the power. The changes to the "Paths of least resistance" for those players changes the decisions they make, to create situations that become close to "One right choices".

Which brings me back to start of this post. This game is designed around the choices we make, both PvE and PvP. Most one right choices need to get ripped out, but then others are left in: It is right that you have to build a second worker, another settler, to research another tech. The choices around the how, and when. Attacking another player? The why, how and when regarding which player are the interesting part of that decision. We lose that because of messing up the power level of tile improvement change for a trait? That distortion just isn't worth it.

(you derive most early production from Slavery/chops, you expand just enough that you can barely get to Currency, you conquer people somewhere between Knights and Cavs, etc.).  Obviously those changes might be too good if used optimally, but that should be different than not liking it because it's different.  For instance, going to Industrious specifically, maybe saying +1 hammer on grassland (or non-plains) means they don't have to rely on Slavery in the early game and produce a meaningfully different play pattern?

See, this isn't something I agree with. HA rushes and swords have meant that conflict from the classical era onward is often the right choice. Currency is just one part of the economic game: getting the happiness to grow vertically is the other part of that issue. There is much, much greater nuance in RtR that I don't think we fully understand at this point. And free hammers are just that, free: they are not in exchange for anything. And that is where the distortion starts to come in: if the cost of accessing them is not considered a cost (Caste is standard, workshops are standard) then they truly are free. The hammers are on top of what is available through Slavery, and this rolls into the further effects.

Now, there is one route to add a ceiling and floor effect: ie +1 hammer on tiles that produce 1 to 3 hammers, because this route takes out the late game problem, but it increases the balance problem from variability: If the terrain does not match what is needed to trigger the effects, then the power level is reduced. I've been toying with this recently as another interpretation for FIN, so it could revert to it's original effect but with a ceiling at 4 or 5 commerce: this way putting cottages on rivers gives you all the commerce, but late game the river commerce is lost as river towns give 6 commerce at PP. This can help us avoid the issue with traits variability in the power level, due to restrictions in the early game terrain.

The problem from front loading power on traits returns though. Right now FIN kind of works because it doesn't kick in really early, but reverting to enabling early river commerce reinforces that pattern of cottaging early rivers, build a tech lead, workshop other stuff, murder people. Hammer changes on IND available in the early game that cuts out later? Same problem: the free hammers aren't used to expand faster, it's used to cover a deficit that is caused by diverting resources into something else and it reinforces one right choices. Putting these traits in a position where they lack in the early game, in the first 50-60 turns gives them a small hole to dig themselves out of compared to other traits such as IMP, EXP and PRO and allows them to have the power that they do. It's these complexities that add into the difficulty with balancing around tile yield bonuses.

[Krill]

I'll answer this one in reverse order, because that last post took me two hours to write after several days trying to figure out how to word it. I hope this one is a bit easier.

I think FIN is underrated right now, but that's mainly a result of the forum switching to more natural maps and Big and Small in particular. There was a streak of hand-built maps with little coast and a lot of rivers -- of course FIN is going to struggle. If the recent trend in map choice continues and you continue to buff FIN it will be my first choice.

I agree, I think FIN is underrated too. But then, how often do people look at a start and think "IMP gives me this much" and value the trait purely off that, and don't consider the longer picture? I hope to play a completely random map next: No changes using a Full of Resources map generated along the same lines as PB42 (with the truly junk maps thrown out, the one for PB42 should have been turfed out because of Lewwyns start, but not my start despite difficult happiness situation).

I appreciate the naval changes. It's too extensive to gauge balance, but the concept of it makes sense. Towards the end of PB41 anyone could approach from anywhere at almost no notice, it's very tiresome. If coast is much quicker to traverse than entering ocean it will make it easier to reinforce areas defensively as you can cover a bigger area. I'd happily test it in a game if I find the time to play another PB.

Yeah, these changes needed to be tested, but it's worth it for every player to cast their eyes over them and think if there are any edge cases that may have been missed.

I'm a little worried about buffing the xbow to also deal collateral. We're already living in a meta where people think of knights as the be-all and end-all of warfare. By giving the xbow collateral on top of being super strong how are you ever going to successfully threaten anything in the period between classical and knights? The defenders advantage would be obscene and everyone will turtle. It will make knight rush even more standard as it's the only unit that can accomplish anything at all. Just my initial feeling, I could be wrong.

I suppose the way I'd phrase teh answer is with another question: Is China un-invadeable? Because the CKN hits 5 units with collateral, and drops them to 40hp, cats hit 5 units to 50hp. This Xbow revision hits 3 units with collateral to 60hp, and also requires Construction so it is not available instead of catapults, but only in addition to. So as a defensive unit, to counter attack stacks, it adds a bit of collateral not to the extent that China has, and as a tile defender it is unchanged. But on offensive, it provides unflankable collateral, which can be of benefit.

I'm not sure how it would play out. I think it will harm the SoD approach to an invasion, because there should be more available collateral in one location to counter, but in a more skirmish orientated conflict I think it is to the benefit of the attacker. That's why I think it's worth testing, but I don't think it breaks anything except possibly a true SoD attack, and frankly that is never the most efficient route to a victory...

[Rusten]

I'd certainly think twice before invading China with UU available.

Yes, it can definitely go both ways and the unit is stronger for the attacker too, but the issue as I see it is how quickly and easily the defender can switch from defense to offence. If you caught someone unawares they would usually struggle to assemble defenders and catapults. With the implementation you're suggesting the defender, who has far superior movement, could quickly use those defensive crossbows to wipe out attacking forces with greater ease than before. You're removing the need for catapults to punish the attacker.

[Charriu]

Now, there is one route to add a ceiling and floor effect: ie +1 hammer on tiles that produce 1 to 3 hammers, because this route takes out the late game problem, but it increases the balance problem from variability: If the terrain does not match what is needed to trigger the effects, then the power level is reduced. I've been toying with this recently as another interpretation for FIN, so it could revert to it's original effect but with a ceiling at 4 or 5 commerce: this way putting cottages on rivers gives you all the commerce, but late game the river commerce is lost as river towns give 6 commerce at PP. This can help us avoid the issue with traits variability in the power level, due to restrictions in the early game terrain.

Just wanted to say that this is doable from what I've seen in the code, but you probably guessed that. With some more time investment stuff like bonus yields on fields neighboring city tiles or stuff like +1 hammer and -1 commerce on a tile should also be possible. Doesn't mean that I want to propose those, more to show what would be technically possible from yields.

[Cheater Hater]

Hooray for making Krill think! At least I'm having interesting points, even if the specifics aren't great (I haven't played any version of Civ4 in ages; I mostly just watch). Some follow-ups:

* Is there a world where some of these aren't the one right choice? For example, imagine a more-extreme version of old Protective that gave a promotion that was like +50% on defense, -20% on attack--that would discourage wars in both directions. Or how about a version of Charismatic that was +5 happy but Settlers cost 50% more, thus letting you expand tall early instead of having to expand wide. Each of these could be interesting in certain scenarios (neo-PRO would be good on maps with large amounts of land per player, neo-CHM would be better if the land was crap), and they have lower variance (higher floor, lower ceiling) and are easier to play. Obviously this is a fundamental change (and probably not for this mod at this point), and the numbers are extremely hard to tune (I went extreme in these examples, since the problem of "why not both" is difficult to solve), and the play patterns might not be desirable (IIRC one of the reasons you removed City Defense I from PRO was because defensive play isn't fun).

* Another big problem is that there aren't enough diminishing returns overall, since you never get to the point where you don't need more of a specific yield (theoretically there's an upper limit on beakers/production per city, but it isn't practical)--it's difficult to say "Industrious gets early free hammers so it doesn't have to tunnel on Mines/Slavery" since there's not much that uses them with mines/Slavery. One thing that could be interesting is giving Industrious a really cheap Forge that doesn't affect chops/whips to give them a benefit for raw hammer production.

Again, I have no clue on the specific numbers, but the problem is that everything stacks, so you have to balance the best case scenario version of everything, or remove the stacking--you've done that with some UBs, but that's more difficult to do with everything. I'm just throwing out thoughts and ideas.

[superdeath]

I still stand by this in regards to IND:

+1 hammers on all non-hill tiles with 2 hammers. Makes it like FIN is currently. IND basically outside of a really early golden age wouldnt benefit from this till right after their forges are going to be built anyway.. via workshops. Gives IND more mid-late game power. Doesnt effect the early game at all/drastically, and gives a decent reason to choose IND over another trait.

[Krill]

I still stand by this in regards to IND:

+1 hammers on all non-hill tiles with 2 hammers. Makes it like FIN is currently. IND basically outside of a really early golden age wouldnt benefit from this till right after their forges are going to be built anyway.. via workshops. Gives IND more mid-late game power. Doesnt effect the early game at all/drastically, and gives a decent reason to choose IND over another trait.

You understand that this is a great example of how narrow a tile yield bonus can be made that it can be almost worthless, right?

Unimproved plains horse, copper, iron, plains towns under US, grassland workshops without Engineering or Caste, grassland watermills? That is all it works on.

It has no effect on leaving slavery because the swap to caste is for spec slots.

[AdrienIer]

I assume it's non-hill tiles with at least 2 hammers, just like fin

[Krill]

And that is even more broken than FIN!