Tides of War, a balance mod

[suttree]

+happy loses none of its luster once Monarchy hits.
The warrior costs 15h and, on Monarch, costs .7g/t to maintain.
An estimate of the present value of .7g/t is something like .7*42=30h

Over time, it's as if you paid 45h for that happy. That's a lot. Certainly, some of the value of +3 happy comes from the time before Monarchy when other civs might be more constrained. Given that HR happiness is so expensive, however, much of the value of +happy is independent of Monarchy tech.

[SevenSpirits]

IMO a major benefit of CHA is you can delay happiness techs for a lot longer than usual and get other techs instead.

[Gaspar]

Yeah, the fact that you can ignore Monarchy for a while means you have beakers for elsewhere plus you also don't have to have a revolt/plan a specific golden age.

[SevenSpirits]

I've closed the initial feedback form - thanks everyone who used it!

The least popular mod change, by my evaluation, was the new version of The Colossus. I agree, I'm not excited about it either. Anyone have any ideas for it? I can't think of anything that I really like mechanically which isn't a really big change.

The new naval mechanics were looked at with some skepticism and uncertainty. I'm not sure about them myself, but I believe there's more to them than people are thinking. This is definitely a change that needs to be tried out in practice.

People liked the 50% wonder modifiers and the always-available workboats quite a bit, and that there weren't all that many changes. The trait rebalancing went over pretty well, too. Amusingly, multiple people thought that PRO was the best trait while multiple others thought it was the worst. Same for AGR. Makes sense of course: we haven't played with them so it's hard to precisely evaluate their strength.

The main things I'm looking at right now are:
1) Trait balance.
2) Civ balance. The initial version didn't have many civ-specific changes, but I think a few more are needed. This is going to be hard, and I'll probably run some ideas past people before taking any action.
3) Colossus. No one liked this version and it's totally understandable.

[Catwalk]

Was Colossus deemed too weak? If so, how about adding a free merchant to the +2c? I rather like it as a city-boosting wonder rather than all water tiles, fits much better flavour-wise too.

[SevenSpirits]

Not too weak necessarily. Mostly just unaesthetic. I can't speak for everyone who mentioned it, but I would say that the previous colossus felt like a Wonder and this one doesn't.

[Catwalk]

I grew up on the Civ2 Colossus, so I find this one more aesthetic I think it's a good idea to shift a wonder from civ econ boost to city econ boost.

[Cyneheard]

Not too weak necessarily. Mostly just unaesthetic. I can't speak for everyone who mentioned it, but I would say that the previous colossus felt like a Wonder and this one doesn't.

And can it not expire at Astro? That feels less critical if it can't be a 20-city wonder.

[Gaspar]

I missed the feedback form, but as a general rule I don't think lone city wonders tend to be all that appealing unless they're very strong. I mean nobody cares about the Temple of Artemis but Great Library is generally considered a solid wonder.

I'm not sure what the ideal power level for a wonder should be, really. I think they should be closer to "things you can base a gameplan around" rather than "nice little bonus" or "OMG must have." Spending too much time on that of course is how you end up with some other balance mods, where you just end up changing the whole game. Maybe make it 2 free merchants, no tile yield bonus? Of course, Great Library has a hidden cost of researching a path you generally only take for wonders while Colossus is gained at a tech everyone must research because of the key building it holds. Just spitballing.

[antisocialmunky]

Why not just make it the normal colossus but it only affects water tiles next to land?