Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Krill]

I tried writing a reply Gaspar but I don't actually get the point of your post.

[Shoot the Moon]

It's part of vanilla BtS and it's the reason why you need to dogpile the tech leader asap. Do we want to continue forcing dogpiles as the only solution to tech runaways that haven't been hindered previously? Or do we want to leave open the option that you can get screwed over and yet you might nick the game?

You don't necessarily need to dogpile the tech leader asap though. The person who is the tech leader can change, either through #2 or #3 (or even others, just an example) gaining land and catching up, or through better utilizing their economy or diplomacy, etc. For example, although WK was the tech leader in PBEM 8 from the middle-ages until the end of the game, I think we both agree that I would have likely caught him or come very close to catching him by the time of spaceships (if the game hadn't effectively ended once he was first to nukes) through the combination of taking Byz's lands and effectively utilizing both corporations and the combination of merc, rep, and SOL.

Also, I think Gaspar's point is that we have seen no runaway civ here that wasn't the result either of a stark disparity in player skill or bad map design and thus there is no need to nerf snowballs. (I hope that is an accurate paraphrase Gaspar)

[Gaspar]

You don't necessarily need to dogpile the tech leader asap though. The person who is the tech leader can change, either through #2 or #3 (or even others, just an example) gaining land and catching up, or through better utilizing their economy or diplomacy, etc. For example, although WK was the tech leader in PBEM 8 from the middle-ages until the end of the game, I think we both agree that I would have likely caught him or come very close to catching him by the time of spaceships (if the game hadn't effectively ended once he was first to nukes) through the combination of taking Byz's lands and effectively utilizing both corporations and the combination of merc, rep, and SOL.

Also, I think Gaspar's point is that we have seen no runaway civ here that wasn't the result either of a stark disparity in player skill or bad map design and thus there is no need to nerf snowballs. (I hope that is an accurate paraphrase Gaspar)

Pretty much. Can I have you rewrite all my posts for me Shoot?

A different sum is that I think we're looking at curing the symptom (many of the games are over very early because of a runaway) rather the disease (why do these games have runaways.) I think the cases where the runaway hasn't been caught, its been a function of skill (1 player much better than all the others, so no hope of catching them) or map design (1 player so much better suited to the map than the others, or one player just given a much better map situation.)

So yeah, I think we'd do better to ensure a: balanced maps and b: no sharks or guppies in the player pool than we would to heavily change game balance (obviously small tweaks make sense.) But I don't presume to have all the answers, its just my interpretation from a lot of lurking.

[Krill]

You don't necessarily need to dogpile the tech leader asap though. The person who is the tech leader can change, either through #2 or #3 (or even others, just an example) gaining land and catching up, or through better utilizing their economy or diplomacy, etc. For example, although WK was the tech leader in PBEM 8 from the middle-ages until the end of the game, I think we both agree that I would have likely caught him or come very close to catching him by the time of spaceships (if the game hadn't effectively ended once he was first to nukes) through the combination of taking Byz's lands and effectively utilizing both corporations and the combination of merc, rep, and SOL.

1. You would have caught WK through you taking corps. That wouldn't work here.
   
   
2. TT needs different mechanics to work to NTT. For instance, increased tech costs post Paper otherwise tech speed increases.
   
   
3. Land doesn't change hands easily after the time Paper comes around, it's pretty much all settled. After this point you need an era in tech to really get an easy war and to take more than a city or two.
   
   
4. Diplomacy is out in TT games due to tech blocks.
   
   
5. Do you not see the irony of saying that players can change places based on "Better utilizing their economy" and then say you don't see a reason for "those who have played a worse game to catch up to those who have played a stronger game"?

Also, I think Gaspar's point is that we have seen no runaway civ here that wasn't the result either of a stark disparity in player skill or bad map design and thus there is no need to nerf snowballs. (I hope that is an accurate paraphrase Gaspar)

This isn't just a "nerf" to the snowball. Tech costs need increasing or the tech pace will speed up in TT games, and the increased known_tech bonus is a method of decreasing the worth of techs to slower players so they don't act as bankers to the faster teams. Or at least, decreases the amount of gold given to the tech leaders to catch up.

A different sum is that I think we're looking at curing the symptom (many of the games are over very early because of a runaway) rather the disease (why do these games have runaways.) I think the cases where the runaway hasn't been caught, its been a function of skill (1 player much better than all the others, so no hope of catching them) or map design (1 player so much better suited to the map than the others, or one player just given a much better map situation.)

Skill has been reset due to having to relearn the balance of a mod, and leader/civ combos have all been rebalanced to deal with the latter.

[T-hawk]

I like the idea of cheaper upgrade costs for Organized. 2/3 cost might be just about the right power level (equivalent cash-to-hammers as Kremlin cash rushing, except for the up-front cost of 30g per unit, which could be included or excluded in the modifier), more inventive than just a cheap building, fits on theme, and works all game long. I'm sure I could code it in the DLL. The downside is opening up a multiplayer exploit - everybody gifts their units to a friendly Organized civ for upgrading then gift back. You'd have to ban that by player agreement. And Fin+Org becomes very synergistic, maybe too much so.

[NobleHelium]

Lower upgrade costs is definitely possible, since FFH2 has a trait for that already.

[Cyneheard]

I like the idea of cheaper upgrade costs for Organized. 2/3 cost might be just about the right power level (equivalent to Kremlin cash rushing except for the up-front cost of 30g), more inventive than just a cheap building, fits on theme, and works all game long. I'm sure I could code it in the DLL. The downside is opening up a multiplayer exploit - everybody gifts their units to a friendly Organized civ for upgrading then gift back. You'd have to ban that by player agreement.

We ban plenty of other giftings by player agreement, so that sounds fine (although in PB1, I know that there was some mass-gifting of Knights to the Spain player to get Conquistadors, but that's a slightly different situation). 2/3 cost is still plenty of a discount since mass upgrading is a viable but rarely potent strategy.

However, do we want to have NO traits with a cheap library?

@Zerker discussion: Zerks already have +10% city attack, IIRC.

[Krill]

I like the idea of cheaper upgrade costs for Organized. 2/3 cost might be just about the right power level (equivalent cash-to-hammers as Kremlin cash rushing, except for the up-front cost of 30g per unit, which could be included or excluded in the modifier), more inventive than just a cheap building, fits on theme, and works all game long. I'm sure I could code it in the DLL. The downside is opening up a multiplayer exploit - everybody gifts their units to a friendly Organized civ for upgrading then gift back. You'd have to ban that by player agreement. And Fin+Org becomes very synergistic, maybe too much so.

We ban plenty of other giftings by player agreement, so that sounds fine (although in PB1, I know that there was some mass-gifting of Knights to the Spain player to get Conquistadors, but that's a slightly different situation). 2/3 cost is still plenty of a discount since mass upgrading is a viable but rarely potent strategy.

However, do we want to have NO traits with a cheap library?

Yeah, that sounds pretty cool if it can be done, but what about the lib? And yes, FIN/ORG becomes a bit overly synergistic...also, axe rushes could be a bit nasty. And CR2/3 mace>rifle upgrades, ouch.

@Zerker discussion: Zerks already have +10% city attack, IIRC.

Well that's sorted then

[T-hawk]

Yeah, that sounds pretty cool if it can be done, but what about the lib?

Could the library not go back to Creative where the darn thing belongs? Maybe not half price, maybe +50% to production instead of 100%.

And CR2/3 mace>rifle upgrades, ouch.

Not sure how complicated we want to get here, but it'd be possible to charge extra for upgrading a unit with lots of promotions, or maybe for any promotions that the target unit can't normally get.

[Shoot the Moon]

1. You would have caught WK through you taking corps. That wouldn't work here.
   
   
2. TT needs different mechanics to work to NTT. For instance, increased tech costs post Paper otherwise tech speed increases.
   
   
3. Land doesn't change hands easily after the time Paper comes around, it's pretty much all settled. After this point you need an era in tech to really get an easy war and to take more than a city or two.
   
   
4. Diplomacy is out in TT games due to tech blocks.
   
   
5. Do you not see the irony of saying that players can change places based on "Better utilizing their economy" and then say you don't see a reason for "those who have played a worse game to catch up to those who have played a stronger game"?

I agree I wouldn't have caught him without corps, but I also didn't deserve to as he had more of both land and population. Why should I be allowed to catch him if he has played the stronger game?

I agree with increasing tech costs post paper to account for tech trading. I don't agree with increasing the known tech bonus anywhere near the extent you propose (and question the need at all really). The two are not related.

I agree land doesn't change easily after paper. But at the same time, why should people's relative positions in the game be easy to change? Doesn't that just make how you play in the ancient era worthless if we allow people to catch up easily later?

Tech blocks change (how many different acronyms did we have in PB3?) and also have to form in the first place, so no diplomacy is not out in TT games.

I see no irony at all. Whoever better utilizes their economy deserves to have a tech advantage (or more accurately a teching advantage). Both of those statements are consistent with that.

This isn't just a "nerf" to the snowball. Tech costs need increasing or the tech pace will speed up in TT games, and the increased known_tech bonus is a method of decreasing the worth of techs to slower players so they don't act as bankers to the faster teams. Or at least, decreases the amount of gold given to the tech leaders to catch up.

Considering that the most common arrangement in these games has been "you fund me and I research" I don't see how you expect the known tech bonus increase to change this -- it is still suboptimal for an alliance to have more than one person research a tech. All it does is allow the weaker alliance to have an easier time of it, which again I don't think should be done and just leads to so many metagame issues of purposefully sandbagging techs to make the other waste their beakers and gold on not having the known tech bonus. Hell, in PB3 we were already spreading around researched techs as little as possible to avoid known tech bonus, can you imagine what that would be like if we were to increase the bonus eight times what it currently is?