Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Shoot the Moon]

I'd be interested this evening if you guys are still around, although because of time zones, I suspect my evening may be too late your guy's time. To be more specific, I'd be up to play about an hour from now. I'd also be interested tomorrow.

[Twinkletoes89]

Right - me & Krill played a couple of 2v2v2s against Immortal & then Emperor AIs just to check out a few things & see how it works. Here are my thoughts after discussing it with Krill on TS.

Leaders played: Sury (Cre/Exp), Hannibal (Fin/Cha), Joao (Exp/Imp), Wang Kon (Fin, Pro)

The Good

Financial nerfs have really worked well on early game - no tweaking needed I think

Protective is now a viable trait - possibly one of the top few now with the granary bonus.

Charismatic is pretty much there too - 2 permanent happiness is a really good boost to have without overpowering it.

The Bad

Expansive is now pretty unattractive - loss of the granary bonus really hurts it as health cap is not too hard to raise without bonus & worker speed is just ok. Definitely needs something more to rebalance it - maybe a building that provides +2 food?

Imperialistic probably needs a little bit more adding to it. A bit slow & a drag in early game - needs a little extra to either help synergy or speed up settlers again with the whipping changes.

Creative may need a little rethink. While reducing it to 1 free culture per turn may level the balance in the early game, it still remains a very weak mid-to-late game trait. I think it may be better to leave it as it is - as a trait designed to get an early advantage - or perhaps give it half price Monuments so they have to at least work to get that +2 early culture?

From thinking about it, Aggressive may need a little incentive added to it as it feels like it has been 'left behind' a bit, especially as Protective is so attractive and the defensive boni it receives. Maybe some 'free units' (like at Vassalage) could be some kind of economic assistance.

Summary

I think you are nearly there with it. I can't see anything being really overpowered and if the last couple of 'straggler' traits can be boosted a little more we may well have as good a balance as it is possible to achieve.

[Krill]

My opinions after beating up Emperor level aggressive AIs in AW with TT:

Expansive: What have we done here? It sucks now, it was the granary boost that gave it most of it's advantage. It needs a boost to the worker production IMO, but that can't be 50%, because with 4 base hammers it'll then up to 6, so you should be looking at 7 hpt into a worker. 40%, does the same with 5 hammer starts (plains hill, plains hill forest) maybe 35% is the right answer there, but I'm still not that convinced. It'll be worse than IMP IMO.

Protective: really really nice trait now. Not OP, but means that low food cities can be made productive quickly with the cheap granary. I like it more than Exp now, I'd rank it up there above IND, and perhaps equal to PHI.

IMP has been nerfed due to the slavery change. With a 2 pop whip it used to give 90 hammers into a 100 hammer settler, now it only gives 75 hammers. That needs altering so that it can still get 90 hammers into the settler. Either have to alter the %age bonus to 80% to equal it, which I don't like because then a 1 pop whip gives 54 hammers. Slaving a settler at size 2, chopping, is so much more powerful. And yes, those extra 15 hammers are important, IMP was ideal for 2 pop whipping settlers at size 4, right at the happy cap, and working cottages to do so, whereas now it has to wait much longer to get to slave those settlers and work mines which slows down the cottage growth.

Creative might need a boost, I agree with TT that a cheap monument is really a bad idea there. Makes you work a little bit for the extra culture but you don't need it for most cities.

Financial: Perfect, no issues with it at all.

Inca: fine, no issues,

FWIW, Joao now really sucks, so no more Joao of the Incans goodness. And the AIs didn;t seem to be struggling either.

[Cyneheard]

Some other things from discussing with Krill & pondering:

Indian Fast Worker will definitely be made 2-move + Mobility; instead of figuring how to nerf it in a way that isn't a huge penalty, we'll at least slow down some of its running-around-the-empire benefit.

The War Elephant, at 7 str + 75% vs. Mounted, is really problematic against Cuirs: It crushes them with equal promotions, and I really don't think a unit enabled at Construction should be handily beating one that costs 67% more and comes at Military Tradition. So, proposed tweak:
7 str; +50% vs. Mounted; +25% vs. Knights
The Ballista Phant will be 8 str/+50% vs. Mounted and keeps the "targets mounted first" boon.

Cheap Creative Monuments and Expansive @ +35% make sense. Expansive is really hard to figure out.

I'm not sure what to do about Imp. +67% Settler production would be the highest I'd go. 1-pop produces 50h, 2-pop is 83h. Maybe I'll try that for this round of tweaks, and we see how it plays out. It's not the only source of settlers, and everyone else is going to have a much harder time whipping settlers anyway.

Agg: Hm. Genuine economic bonuses, preferably something hammer-related.
Brainstorming session has been unsuccessful so far, at least for XML-related fixes.

[luddite]

I'd be up for a game any time today. I'd like to try this out.

[luddite]

Cheap Creative Monuments and Expansive @ +35% make sense. Expansive is really hard to figure out.

IMHO it was a mistake to take away the main bonus of expansive and give it to protective. Partly because it doesn't make sence with any sort of theme, and partly because of what you're saying here- now protective is good, but expansive sucks. You'd get the same result by moving the +2 culture from creative to protective, or whatever.

In an earlier version of the game, protective was made viable because it could get massive overflow gold from chopping walls. What about bringing that back? And maybe change walls so they give an extra trade route.

[Krill]

Only thing that we've thought of is a free trade route for Agg, and tbh, I don't think that is much. I'd rather say two free trade routes but Cyneheard thinks that is broken. Maybe with a malus, -20% to trade route yield?

[luddite]

Only thing that we've thought of is a free trade route for Agg, and tbh, I don't think that is much. I'd rather say two free trade routes but Cyneheard thinks that is broken. Maybe with a malus, -20% to trade route yield?

you mean, just right from the beginning they get an extra trade route? That would be weird. Maybe cheaper stable and a bonus on siege units? Or start them with a free warrior.

[Krill]

The problem with AGG is that it works in a completely separate manner to everything else other than vanila PRO: it helps only warfare, and not the economy that sets the player up for warfare. To affect other people you have to threaten them with an army, and in a game where defending is easier than attacking, AGG does not do enough to make that a viable play. Cheap stables and improved siege will either not change that or completely break the game because there will be no place to balance it in the current format.

And a free warrior, for instance, is an example of that: it forces every single player to automatically try to defend a choke from t0, no way to defend against a double agg warrior choke on t10. You have to spam warriors and effectively turns every game into an AW anc era FFA game.

Partly because it doesn't make sence with any sort of theme, and partly because of what you're saying here- now protective is good, but expansive sucks. You'd get the same result by moving the +2 culture from creative to protective, or whatever.

Is EXP awful? I feel that I misplayed the first start with it because I forgot the granary bonus and played it wrong. It will pretty much always give you a worker on t12, 3 turns ahead of an none EXP leader without plains hills, with plains hills 2 turns lead. It gives a late game health bonus, cheaper harbours and now cheaper grocers. An increase to 35% effectively means an extra 2 hammers per forest chop, 17 hammers per 2 pop slave. However, the trick is to remember that with the nerf to slaving granaries are no longer always necessary until you start growing larger, from happy res or HR.

I'd call it no longer top tier, I'd rank it more at the level of Phi now, which was more of a second tier trait along with Spi. I think I need to readjust my thinking of how to play the trait a little bit more.

Protective, OTOH, now plays like a decent trait. As we said at the start this mod is for balance, and it is balanced. It plays a little bit like the old Exp, a little bit like the old PRO, a little bit like the old IMP trait, but it is still PRO: don't forget you get cheap walls and nasty archers. It's a trait that focuses on the city tile, and not the surrounding tiles; EXP now focuses on the surrounding tiles instead via the more quickly built worker.

In an earlier version of the game, protective was made viable because it could get massive overflow gold from chopping walls. What about bringing that back?

I think that is not in the XML. DLL, most likely.

[luddite]

The problem with AGG is that it works in a completely separate manner to everything else other than vanila PRO: it helps only warfare, and not the economy that sets the player up for warfare. To affect other people you have to threaten them with an army, and in a game where defending is easier than attacking, AGG does not do enough to make that a viable play. Cheap stables and improved siege will either not change that or completely break the game because there will be no place to balance it in the current format.

And a free warrior, for instance, is an example of that: it forces every single player to automatically try to defend a choke from t0, no way to defend against a double agg warrior choke on t10. You have to spam warriors and effectively turns every game into an AW anc era FFA game.

If everyone else is forced to try and defend a choke from t0, wouldn't that basically give the aggressive player an economic advantage? They could pull ahead without ever attacking at all.

I dunno, you might be right that it would be either useless or unstoppable, but I feel like it would work OK for the RB games where there's usually enough space to play peacefully at the beginning. And I don't see how two t0 workers is any more unstoppable than rushing with axemen or skirmishers or war chariots, or even just building several agg warriors really quickly. You'd be lucky to even find someone else by t10.

Is EXP awful? I feel that I misplayed the first start with it because I forgot the granary bonus and played it wrong. It will pretty much always give you a worker on t12, 3 turns ahead of an none EXP leader without plains hills, with plains hills 2 turns lead. It gives a late game health bonus, cheaper harbours and now cheaper grocers. An increase to 35% effectively means an extra 2 hammers per forest chop, 17 hammers per 2 pop slave. However, the trick is to remember that with the nerf to slaving granaries are no longer always necessary until you start growing larger, from happy res or HR.

I'd call it no longer top tier, I'd rank it more at the level of Phi now, which was more of a second tier trait along with Spi. I think I need to readjust my thinking of how to play the trait a little bit more.

Protective, OTOH, now plays like a decent trait. As we said at the start this mod is for balance, and it is balanced. It plays a little bit like the old Exp, a little bit like the old PRO, a little bit like the old IMP trait, but it is still PRO: don't forget you get cheap walls and nasty archers. It's a trait that focuses on the city tile, and not the surrounding tiles; EXP now focuses on the surrounding tiles instead via the more quickly built worker.

So it sounds like the bar for "top tier" traits has been lowered across the board. I guess that's OK then, if EXP, FIN, and CRE all get nerfed. It seems like Phi and Spi are about in the sweet spot of where you want to balance the traits, right? Always useful, but never overpowering.