RtR 4.1.1.6 Discussion and Download Thread

[GeneralKilCavalry]

To reply to you Krill, the main reasoning behind the Great Wall change was to augment changes to walls. I also forgot to include some of the changes relating to wonder cost - we had made Great Wall 350 hammers. I agree that this change has absolutely nothing to do with the balancing philosophy of RTR and shouldn’t be put in it. However when modding, we approached the game from the perspective of “how can we maximize the number of relatively equally meaningful choices in the game”. Changing the Great Wall was something we saw something that provided a choice between going for pyramids with a representation specialist econ or something that stimulates and protects REX.

Also, any criticism of my mod is welcome, especially regarding the changed trade routes and the workshops growing as cottages.

[Krill]

To reply to you Krill, the main reasoning behind the Great Wall change was to augment changes to walls. I also forgot to include some of the changes relating to wonder cost - we had made Great Wall 350 hammers. I agree that this change has absolutely nothing to do with the balancing philosophy of RTR and shouldn’t be put in it. However when modding,  we approached the game from the perspective of “how can we maximize the number of relatively equally meaningful choices in the game”. Changing the Great Wall was something we saw something that provided a choice between going for pyramids with a representation specialist econ or something that stimulates and protects REX.

Also, any criticism of my mod is welcome, especially regarding the changed trade routes and the workshops growing as cottages.

This is why I don't have anything meaningful to say regarding your mod. You decided, as a group, you wanted to change things. You did. You're happy with the result. It's enough. I'm not going to come along and, as Commodore once cheerfully described it, "Piss in your cheerios" for no reason.

You made other changes which interacted with the GW. Trade routes, for one, and then changed trade routes for hammers and pushed that through civics. Those are the meaningful changes that remodeled the entire economics of the game, in addition to the tile improvement rebuild. The greatest downside to that is the most obvious one: if a player can't afford population (because of hitting horizontal and vertical growth limits (ie city maintenance cripples research, and no happy to grow more pop) then a player ends up getting bottle-necked and 50 turns down the line, when another player has the upgraded versions of tile improvements, with greater yield, the former player starts to have difficulty responding to the pressure the latter player can exert. That's the most basic level of it, but this isn't good or bad for the mod, it's just the way it's built. Perhaps trait and civ balance feeds into it, but specific map balance is the main tuning knob.


I think there is one point that is worth making though (note, this only applies to an MP game):

These are actually peripheral issues that should not have massive effects on the games (specifically, not every civ, or every wonder has to be useful, and they should never be necessary)

Putting major effects on wonders has the potential for breaking games quite early, if the wonders provide such effects that there is no way to overcome them without other wonders. The stops being about hte game, and being about the wonder. That's one of the reasons why wonders are generally safer to tune down. A good example from the past on RB was PB17, where novice and Spaceman managed to use India to grab both Mids and the GLH despite rego having Bismark in a base BtS game, which basically ended the game (the game was continued as a shadow game, but every player accepted that they conceded the turn the GLH was built).

And so, as a rule of thumb, I feel that if the aim is to ensure choice for players regarding core game features, then the choices have to be provided to all players. It's one of the reasons Mids is a pain in the arse.

[Krill]

Update on the Naval changes.

After playing around with the game a bit (actually playing a test game! Who'da thunk it!) I feel there is room for improvement.

The entire point of this is based around the number of tiles the units should move, and then working backwards to figure out the amount of movement points and access to promotions that keeps the units working as intended. Giving naval units access to double promotions as a minimum, and without tight civic requirements makes this possible (ie civics are not mandatory anymore, whereas they are in base BtS and prior RtR versions).

I hold my hand up on the Transport: I've been unable to make it fit within the ocean/coast movement system, so I've gone for the easy route: it may be able to travel at 6 tiles per turn, but the only units that can move 6 tiles per turn over ocean are submarines which can't defend the transports that well. So the movement issue is covered by the limits on other units movement, and giving it both N1 and N2 as standard introduces flexibility from the promotion system: not every city can make top of the line boats, some cities will lack the infrastructure. Those are the cities you can build transports in, and this introduces added complexity through the simplicity.

The promotions system is also streamlined: Combat 1-5 exists for pure strength, Navigation 1-2 exists for free strikes, Naval Flanking is withdrawal but the latter two feed into the good part of the Drill line. This isn't set in stone, I want discussion on this, especially around combining Drill 1 with N1 and D2 with N2.

Terrain changes:
Ocean: Now costs 3 movement points to enter.
Circumnavigation: +1 movement point on naval units, individual achievement completed by unfogging a single tile on each row and/or column of the map on which the map wraps.

Buildings:
Harbour: +2XP to naval units.
Lighthouse: +1XP to naval units.
Customshouse: +3XP to naval units, cost 120.
Drydock: +7XP to naval units.

Promotions:

Drill 1, Drill 2, Flanking 1, Flanking 2: No longer available to Naval units.
Drill 3: Requires Drill 2 OR Navigation 2 OR Naval Flanking 2.
Sentry: Requires Combat 3 OR Flanking 2 OR Naval Flanking 2 OR Navigation 2.
Navigation 1: Requires no prior promotion. +1 movement. +1 free strike chance.
Navigation 2: Requires Navigation 1. +1 movement. +1 free strike.
New promotion: Naval Flanking 1: Requires no prior promotion. +10% withdrawal chance. -1 terrain movement cost.
New promotion: Naval Flanking 2: Requires Naval Flanking 1. +30% withdrawal chance. +20% Collateral Damage Reduction.

Units:
Work boat: Base movement 2. Ignores terrain movement cost.
Galley: Base movement 1. Starts with Navigation 1. (Min/max Coast moves 2/4, Ocean 1/2).
Trireme: Base movement 1. Starts with Navigation 1. (Coast 2/4, Ocean 1/2).
Caravel: Base movement 2. Starts with Navigation 1. (Coast 3/5, Ocean 1/3).
Carrack: Base movement 3. Starts with Navigation 1. (Coast 4/6, Ocean 2/3).
Galleon: Base movement 3. Starts with Navigation 1. (Coast 4/6, Ocean 2/3).
East Indiaman: Base movement 3. Starts with Navigation 1. (Coast 4/6, Ocean 2/3)
Privateer: Base movement 3. Starts with Navigation 1, Sentry. Upgrades to Transport (not Destroyer). (Coast 4/6, Ocean 2/3).
Frigate: Base movement 3. Starts with Navigation 1. Upgrades to Transport (not Destroyer). (Coast 4/6, Ocean 2/3).
Ship of the Line: Base movement 3. (Coast 3/6, Ocean 1/3).
Ironclad: Base movement 1. Starts with Navigation 1. Cannot enter Ocean (except within own borders). (Coast 2/4, Ocean 1/2).
Transport: Base movement 3. Starts with Navigation 1, Navigation 2. Ignores terrain movement cost. (Coast 5/6. Ocean 5/6 dependent on Circumnavigation only).
Destroyer: Base movement 6. Starts with Naval Flanking 1. (Coast 6/9, Ocean 3/5).
Battleship: Base movement 4. (Coast 4/7, Ocean 2/4).
Carrier: Base movement 4. (Coast 4/7, Ocean 2/4).
Submarine: Base movement 4. Ignores terrain movement costs. (Coast 4/7, Ocean 4/7).
Attack Submarine: Base movement 5. Ignores terrain movement costs. (Coast 5/8, Ocean 5/8).
Missile cruiser: Base movement 4. (Coast 4/7, Ocean 2/4).
Stealth Destroyer: Base movement 6. Starts with Naval Flanking 1. (Coast 6/9, Ocean 3/5).

Airship: Cannot see submarines.

[Krill]

Woops. Too many tabs open.

I've uploaded the full change log and the mods for 2.1.1.1 and 4.1.1.1, the only difference is that 4.X is for Zulans server, and 2.X is still hostable on any basic server.

[El Grillo]

I like the changes to distinguish between coastal and ocean movement. It’s an interesting use of how civ4 handles movement costs, unlike civ6 where units would need to spend 3 move to enter each ocean tile. I also like how the changes make attacking into an ocean tile feel different than attacking into coast, in terms of your ships having fewer movement points after combat to reposition.

I haven’t been following the recent games, have any been played with this movement change?

[Dark Savant]

I like the changes  to distinguish between coastal and ocean movement. It’s an interesting use of how civ4 handles movement costs, unlike civ6 where units would need to spend 3 move to enter each ocean tile. I also like how the changes make attacking into an ocean tile feel different than attacking into coast, in terms of your ships having fewer movement points after combat to reposition.

I've missed the three-level water distinction Civ 3 had (coast -> sea -> ocean) in later games.

I haven’t been following the recent games, have any been played with this movement change?

Nope, everyone in PB46 is signing up to act as experimental subjects!

[Krill]

I like the changes to distinguish between coastal and ocean movement. It’s an interesting use of how civ4 handles movement costs, unlike civ6 where units would need to spend 3 move to enter each ocean tile. I also like how the changes make attacking into an ocean tile feel different than attacking into coast, in terms of your ships having fewer movement points after combat to reposition.

I haven’t been following the recent games, have any been played with this movement change?

We need more, uh, volunteers for the game. Care to join?

[pindicator]

Does the ocean movement cost apply to ocean tiles within your culture as well? I'm guessing they do, but that may not be intuitive considering culture rules with pre-astronomy naval movement in BtS

[Krill]

Do forest and hill movements costs also apply when they are in your borders (Read: of course, but it's really the movement of galleys and triremes into ocean in your culture that is unintuitive, not the ocean movement cost itself).

[Elkad]

Re: giving Ind something.

Can you do a production bonus on just (improved) resource tiles? If you got a hammer from all your resource tiles, that's only what? 1-5 hammers per city?
If that's too much, knock it down to a resource type? Food&Calendar or something.
Your production cities wouldn't get a big percentage bonus compared to all their hills/workshops, but your commerce cities would have a few extra hammers to get their buildings up (and make that discounted forge worthwhile) without shutting off their cottages.