Super Massive Enhanced Gameplay Mod

[Gawdzak]

Question: What do people think of an IND rebuild that provides +25% production of all buildings (wonders included, excluding the granary because that would be OP as fuck).

What's the reasoning for wanting an IND rebuild? I'm guessing to make the benefits of the trait more consistent? Instead of rebuilding the trait, what do you think about buffing some of the more crappy wonders like ToA, Chicken Pizza and Angkor Wut?

Maybe even just remove it entirely, and put the effect on a tech (maybe a bit further up than Pottery). Any thoughts?

I don't like that, because the granary is central to Civ 4 game mechanic. Mess with the growth and it wouldn't be same game anymore.

[Cheater Hater]

Maybe even just remove it entirely, and put the effect on a tech (maybe a bit further up than Pottery). Any thoughts?

I don't like that, because the granary is central to Civ 4 game mechanic. Mess with the growth and it wouldn't be same game anymore.

To be fair, we've already removed anarchy--I'm taking that as a sign there are no sacred cows here in AGDM

[Krill]

The +25% production of buildings is really a question of theme rather than intentions ie does it sound interesting and fun, would you as a player be willing to pick it?

What's the reasoning for wanting an IND rebuild? I'm guessing to make the benefits of the trait more consistent? Instead of rebuilding the trait, what do you think about buffing some of the more crappy wonders like ToA, Chicken Pizza and Angkor Wut?

Consistent would be one way to put it. IND does 2 things, gives you cheap forges and lets you build wonders for cheaper. But as wonders are a first to bonus, IND doesn't tend to help that much for later wonders due to lack of support for expansion or for research so making those wonders better doesn't help IND any more than it helps players that are developed enough to reach teh tech earlier and have the resources available to build them. And for early wonders it essentially shoe horns players into specific strategies for Oracle or Henge but then the success for that is defined by starting position. IND also cannibalizes the success of other IND leaders, which is a bit of a problem.

I don't really want to strip out the wonder effect but I do not believe that it's all that useful in larger games such as pitboss games with 10 or more players, which most of our PB games are. That's why looking at the effect of the cheap forge seems to be a smarter method of redefining the trait.

Forges give cities extra production, and it applies to everything. This has the greatest relative effect when you lack other multipliers, for example you don't have the +100% production of buildings from other traits. That's kinda where the idea for a blanket small bonus for building production comes from, but there are other methods to do the same thing like the Roman Unique Ability from civ 5, production of all buildings already built in the capital gain a production bonus. Maybe stealing that ability is better? I'm sure there are yet more methods, but more than anything I'm looking for feedback on the generic idea.

If you're thinking of it that way, why not revamp it? I mean, I don't know what that would be--right now it's just 30/60 hammers that have to be invested in every new city once you get Pottery. Maybe even just remove it entirely, and put the effect on a tech (maybe a bit further up than Pottery). Any thoughts?

Changing the granary pretty much is never going to happen because it's like removing workers and introducing a public works system. Everything in the game would have to be rebalanced. Putting an ability like that on a tech, which requires nothing except for beakers would massively distort the tech tree because it is insanely strong. It's not even like Lib, which might give free beakers to one player, granaries essentially double your excess food output every single turn. If you had 10 cities each making +5fpt and then you got that tech, the effect on growth rates is like you just gained an additional 50 food per turn.

Anarchy has nothing on that.

[Cheater Hater]

More crazy ideas incoming: Why not let Industrious leaders always be able to build a Wonder, in addition to the one of each wonder available for non-Industrious leaders? Obviously this feels insanely strong so you'd have to balance it somehow--my two possibilities are either removing the wonder-building bonus/making it smaller or making the wonder weaker if you don't get it first. I really like the idea of making a weaker version (like you're making an inferior copy), but it seems really hard to implement practically--how do you make something like Pyramids or Oracle weaker?

[novice]

Interesting (and crazy) idea, CH.

Maybe it could be balanced by combining it with NW restrictions and/or a production malus on world wonders that have already been built.

E.g. IND leaders can always complete world wonders, but the wonder cost is increased by 100% for each copy of it already existing.

One should probably think through how this affects every available world wonder, though.

[Krill]

Can you imagine being the last person to complete Mids?

I think it might actually be cheaper to simply build that much research to reach Constitution than to build the Mids for it.

Issue: Still going to be fucked over if you are the last person who is able to finish a wonder. And saving the oracle until later for a free tech like Industrialism or Radio or Flight? This sounds abusable as hell, but I'd love to see an SP game based on it first.

[novice]

Yeah you might need an individual hard cap on number of copies for each world wonder, which sounds a bit kludgy. Although maybe the Oracle could be obsoleted by... currency, or something.

[Cheater Hater]

Hooray! My crazy idea wasn't immediately shot down!

Maybe make the extra cost only apply to what's left to be built (so a production penalty)? That makes it so Industrious is punished much less for losing a race than starting the Pyramids on T200.

Are there any other easily abusable Wonders other than Oracle? Oracle seems like a relatively easy fix (make it so it can't get any techs more advanced than Medieval, or maybe Classical?), and you'd have to fix something to make sure Apostolic Palace/United Nations aren't double-built, but I don't think there's much else that really breaks.

[Krill]

I think another method, which may be a bit less kludgy, would be to limit IND to building a specific number of obsoleted wonders. Maybe even limiting in on a per era basis rather than, for example 4 per game. I believe the best way to consider this is like in OCC there is a 5 NW limit, this could be something similar. An issue there is that some wonders may need...pruning. Oracle would be one, another is MoM (but nerfing that is good in my book anyway). I'm not sure about how Mids would be considered, but otherwise I wouldn't be too concerned

Depending on how this would be implemented, I think it could work. Obviously some implementations would be bat shit insane, and not just from a balance perspective, but there is promise in it. I think the best bit is that I can say that realism can go to hell.

[Krill]

After thinking about it a bit more, I see there being problems depending on whatever system is put in place as a check.

For example, in a 5 player PBEM, if IND is able to build a second copy of any wonder then there is a distinct possibility that one player has no competition for any of the wonders and can build each one without there being any to the bonus. So a No risk, high reward strategy. OTOH, in a game with a couple of Ind leaders, and there being a limiting factor on the number of wonders built OR a hammer gate on each copy of a wonder that exists, that last place IND is going to essentially lose the entire trait. The first-to race between the IND leaders still exists.

If you can find a solution to this, I'm still interested in the idea. I don't see a straight forward solution though.

A second option that uses this idea does exist though, based around small wonders. For example, if IND allowed players to build 2 copies of each National wonder, and if the national Wonders had no prerequisites except for the tech that unlocked the NW, that would give IND both an economic boost from the extra copies of the NW and would provide additional gameplay options (such as where to dump the FP with no courthouses needed etc). Thoughts?