Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Ruff_Hi]

I have been meaning to mention this ... since this mod is sans corporation, you really should delete the corporation starting comments (the ones that display while the game is loading).

[Krill]

OK, so to bring this conversation from the PB13 forum. It wasn't something that we could have in amazing detail before because PB13 still had to reach that point, but now that they've reached the time of rush buying and measuring production in the number of dozen DD/infantry/arty built a turn, it's necessary to have it.

So, Civics. Specifically, the Legal and Economy civics. The other civic groups seem OK, balanced well enough for a variety of situations that there is always something to think about and fit into various strategies.

First of all, the Legal Civics. These ones are...OK, but I'd like a discussion to see what other people think about them.


Vassalage: Feudalism. Now provides free support for military units as well (meaning Pacifism is cheaper), and is Medium Upkeep.

Bureaucracy: Civil Service. No chance. High upkeep. +50% commerce, hammers in capital.

Nationhood: Nationalism. No Change. Free upkeep. +25% Espionage. Draft up to 3 units per turn (standard map size). (but drafting rifles costs 2 pop)

Environmentalism: Ligeralism. No longer provides +25% Corporate Costs, or +2 commerce to windmills. Provides +1 gold per specialist, +1c to farms and pastures, +2c to forest preserves, and Low upkeep. Swapped with Free Speech. Now available at Liberalism.


The main new bit is Environmentalism. It's been described as an OK trait in a bunch of OK traits. The largest concern that I think I have, and it's not really fair to call it "concern" is that Bureaucracy crowds out pretty much everything. I don't think this is so bad though. Obviously NH took a bit of a hit to rifles but it's seen a good amount of use. HOw do people feel about the choices in this area?


The main section of this post is going to be about the Economy civics.

Mercantilism: Banking. No change. +1 free specialist. No foreign trade routes.

Free Market: Economics. No longer provides -25% Corporate Costs. Now provides +25% Trade Route Yield. +1 trade route per city.

Free Speech: Scientific Method. Now Low upkeep, swapped with Environmentalism. Now available at Scientific Method.

State property: Communism. Now Medium upkeep. +10% production. +1 food from workshop, watermill. No Maintenance costs from distance to palace.


Ignore the history lesson for now about corps. They aren't coming back. At present it seems like FM is in a really good place, it is at its most powerful in PB13 and there it is available earlier than SP but is not far off in power it seems. It's probably at about the right strength for most games. The main concerns here are two fold. Merc isn't worth it except on pangaea/AW type games, and even then it's negligable. I think it might be best to compare it like this: at worst, FM on a map with zero islands in AW, is about 80% as strong as Merc is going to be in the best settings.

So I want to ask people if they think this is a problem, that Merc is in need of a buff of some sort, and if so what type of buff. I think that an extra free specialist is probably too much, but increased yield from specialists, another trade route and stuff are possible. There is also the question if teh foreign trade route thing is the cause and that needs changing.

The other point is FS, but it's not really FS. FS competes with SP but SP just has higher output due to the food that it generates which feeds even more workshops, through the innate production bonus. The obvious point is to buff FS to give more commerce to Towns, but at that point late game cottages just get broken and have too much output IMO, skewing the game back to a point where growing cottages, cash ruish and stuff is too strong.

The other issue is that SP affects costs to the extent that it seems the entire late game is designed around the tile yields enabled by that civic, so nerfing SP is not an easy thing to do.

What I was thinking is that it might make sense to transfer some of the power from SP to FS. FS has obvious synergy with US, whereas SP has the synergy with PS. Would it make sense to move the distance maintenance reduction from SP to FS? It makes US/FS more focussed on saving gold for cash rush and SP is about sheer hammer output to kill people (and use the known tech bonus to try and not gall behind in tech). What are other peoples views on the civic balance in this area?

[SevenSpirits]

You could have merc be, instead of no foreign trade, max 1 foreign trade route per city. That way it's a nice option for people with only 0-2 trading partners. Not sure if that buffs it too much in relation to free market though. (But keep in mind, merc in this version isn't blocking your opponents from getting routes - it's only hurting you.)

[Krill]

IMO that would be a perfectly reasonable buff to Merc.

[Krill]

Maybe make it No Cost? I mean, it shouldn't be worse than the base civic...

[GermanJoey]

What about giving it +1 hammer per merchant specialist instead of lowering the upkeep to No Cost?

[Krill]

I think the main issue with something like that is that it's not going to necessarily give you many hammers, due to the availability of merchants. Need to be in caste, and that's not a given...+1 hammer/spec was something I thought about, and it's a bit swingy in strength. Could be wrong on that bit though.

[pindicator]

What about giving it +1 hammer per merchant specialist instead of lowering the upkeep to No Cost?

I was thinking similar to this, excpet I always thought of Merc as a way to help boost your GP production. So instead of +1 hammer, could you make it +1 GP points per specialist? Not +33%, but +1 base. Is that even possible?

Edit: Another option would be to give it +100% domestic trade route income (or some other +%), something to make Merc a different way to get trade route income than relying on foreign trade routes.

[Hashoosh]

Maybe give merc foreign trade routes, but decrease their value in relation to base ftr?

[GermanJoey]

I think the main issue with something like that is that it's not going to necessarily give you many hammers, due to the availability of merchants. Need to be in caste, and that's not a given...+1 hammer/spec was something I thought about, and it's a bit swingy in strength. Could be wrong on that bit though.

Yeah, that's true. I was thinking of something small and thematic, but that's perhaps too small and making it any better could be very hard to balance with caste/rep/env in the picture. What about some kind of bonus to generic citizen specialists? Is +1 gold/+1 hammer to generic citizens too strong? a 2 hammer, 1 gold tile isn't what I'd call amazing, but could be very useful in island expansions and filler cities that would otherwise have nothing to do with themselves.

I was thinking similar to this, excpet I always thought of Merc as a way to help boost your GP production. So instead of +1 hammer, could you make it +1 GP points per specialist? Not +33%, but +1 base. Is that even possible?

Edit: Another option would be to give it +100% domestic trade route income (or some other +%), something to make Merc a different way to get trade route income than relying on foreign trade routes.

The first idea seems very powerful, but it also seems like something every civ would want to run for a bit before permanently switching into ENV/SP/FS... the problem is that, in comparison to the other 3, GPP eventually gives diminishing returns. Eventually, even Philosophical civs begin to have trouble generating new great people. A +1 GPP bonus would extend that lifetime, but would it be enough to last to even the Industrial age?

A +100% domestic trade route booster seems too strong... why bother opening borders at all if you can bring in just as much income without any of the risk?