Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[NobleHelium]

This is RB we're talking about mackoti.

[Qgqqqqq]

Really?
I'm personally ok with just cutting out the building ability completely, I just don't want to overly nerf it.

[T-hawk]

Nerfs can come more simply than moving the doubler to another building. It doesn't have to be +100% on temples. It could be +50% or +72% or whatever you like.

[Krill]

The point with SPI is that the player is almost using a different metagame because of the main ability, and the strength of that main ability is not just map dependant (resource doublers for Mids and SP) but can also vary very strongly based on others decisions (as can most other traits, but I'd argue to a greater extent).

The temple is not always a relevant building: the main application of it that cannot be duplicated by other means is the priest slot, which only matters in the first 125 turns if you want a religion (need to bulb to ensure) and/or if you want a shrine. It isn't always available because you have to get a religion to build it. Whilst SPI is strong enough to stand without it, it doesn't really do any awful lot beyond saving 40 hammers and allowing the GP a few turns earlier (anything between 8 and 0 turns, really, but I'd reckon it's not more than 2 turns by a good player because they'll just chop or slave the temple either way). I don't think removing the cheap temple actually does anything beyond making people think it's weaker.

That said, I'd disagree with the notion that you can consider traits in isolation, when every leader has two and synergy exists. SPI basically works by making an empire more efficient by enabling constant civic swaps, but it needs to be compared to the brute force gain of pop from cheap PRO granaries and the integrated effect of that over the entire game, or the multiple cheap buildings and cheaper civics of ORG whilst also keeping the other trait constant.

I hate to keep on bringing PB5 up, but I feel like the reason I won that was because of CHM, not SPI. Without SPI I would still have built the SP, but I would just have stayed in HR/Slavery/Theocracy and then revolted into Vassalage if I really had to or stayed out until I got into Bureaucracy. Meanwhile I would have saved an absolute ton of gold with ORG (more so than FIN but then I got shafted on seafood), I would have started to war even quicker with EXP, IMP or PRO speeding up expansion, and I think IND would have meant I got Oracle because I would have researched to it earlier and opened up a forge and workshops at WTF? to enable even faster HA builds. When you consider the different tactics and decisions that different traits enable, it's not so easy to outright state that one trait is stronger than any other.

[Krill]

And FWIW, I've said before I'm not going to make any changes, but Arabia really does need different starting techs...one food tech and Myst or Wheel and it's a good niche civ, instead of just junk. Same probably ought to be done ot Byz as well (only India deserves the Wheel/Myst starting tech pair).

[Merovech]

And FWIW, I've said before I'm not going to make any changes, but Arabia really does need different starting techs...one food tech

Uh, yeah.

[Commodore]

Maybe Myst/Agriculture? Only Inca has that.

[Bigger]

Half price monasteries would be more powerful than temples.

yes, agreed.

The point with SPI is that the player is almost using a different metagame because of the main ability, and the strength of that main ability is not just map dependant (resource doublers for Mids and SP) but can also vary very strongly based on others decisions (as can most other traits, but I'd argue to a greater extent).

The temple is not always a relevant building: the main application of it that cannot be duplicated by other means is the priest slot, which only matters in the first 125 turns if you want a religion (need to bulb to ensure) and/or if you want a shrine. It isn't always available because you have to get a religion to build it. Whilst SPI is strong enough to stand without it, it doesn't really do any awful lot beyond saving 40 hammers and allowing the GP a few turns earlier (anything between 8 and 0 turns, really, but I'd reckon it's not more than 2 turns by a good player because they'll just chop or slave the temple either way). I don't think removing the cheap temple actually does anything beyond making people think it's weaker.

That said, I'd disagree with the notion that you can consider traits in isolation, when every leader has two and synergy exists. SPI basically works by making an empire more efficient by enabling constant civic swaps, but it needs to be compared to the brute force gain of pop from cheap PRO granaries and the integrated effect of that over the entire game, or the multiple cheap buildings and cheaper civics of ORG whilst also keeping the other trait constant.

I hate to keep on bringing PB5 up, but I feel like the reason I won that was because of CHM, not SPI. Without SPI I would still have built the SP, but I would just have stayed in HR/Slavery/Theocracy and then revolted into Vassalage if I really had to or stayed out until I got into Bureaucracy. Meanwhile I would have saved an absolute ton of gold with ORG (more so than FIN but then I got shafted on seafood), I would have started to war even quicker with EXP, IMP or PRO speeding up expansion, and I think IND would have meant I got Oracle because I would have researched to it earlier and opened up a forge and workshops at WTF? to enable even faster HA builds. When you consider the different tactics and decisions that different traits enable, it's not so easy to outright state that one trait is stronger than any other.

I don't know how to fix it (I agree that removing cheap temples would be a very small thing), but SPI is strong because it pretty much has synergy with everything, and you can't say that with any other trait.

I don't 1/3 of the civics are in anyway practical in almost any situation w/o spiritual (police state, nationhood except in very extreme emergencies, serfdom, emancipation, universal sufferage, free speech, philosophy when not in a golden age) - w/ spiritual every civic is on is on the table at some point. this is true w/ vanilla as well, of course, but the rb mod makes a lot more civics worthwile, making this advantage standout.

I don't think you utilized SPI as well as you could have in pb5, but thats because you didn't need to, really, you were winning before it really starts to shine. You had no real need for nationhood, for instance. Although you did utilize serfdom quite a bit, iirc, which even with the buff is just not really practical with a non-SPI civ.

[zakalwe]

This is kind of tangential, but I actually think anarchy is an unfun feature. It just takes options off the table in a game that should be all about evaluating options. The effect of spiritual could instead be to enable more frequent civic switches, or something else entirely. (Maybe +50% research for all religious techs?)

[Krill]

I don't know how to fix it (I agree that removing cheap temples would be a very small thing), but SPI is strong because it pretty much has synergy with everything, and you can't say that with any other trait.

That's not synergy. Synergy is the old EXP/IMP of Inca where the advantages of one bonus boosts another bonus (and in this case it equalled a huge turn advantage if you didn't crash your economy). SPI doesn't really boost any individual other trait more than another. It's just useful if you can reach the late game and still be relevant, which can happen more in larger games because it takes longer for multiple players to fall by the wayside compared to a PBEM. A counter point would be something like ORG, which again is a trait that focuses on efficiency savings, and EXP which still works with anything because the focus is on gaining a turn advantage which either. These traits do not rely on others to be useful, but how they are used does depend on the pairing trait. That's the difference with SPI, it is used the same way regardless of the pairing trait, but that is not synergy, or have any bearing on how powerful it is. I don't think it needs fixing.

I don't 1/3 of the civics are in anyway practical in almost any situation w/o spiritual (police state, nationhood except in very extreme emergencies, serfdom, emancipation, universal sufferage, free speech, philosophy when not in a golden age) - w/ spiritual every civic is on is on the table at some point. this is true w/ vanilla as well, of course, but the rb mod makes a lot more civics worthwile, making this advantage standout.

I'm just going to leave it here: every one of those civics has been used at some point in a winning game without SPI. They may be niche civics, but they play their part in specific strategies. The player just has to have the balls to use them and play what might not be considered a standard strategy. Though truth be told, the idea of a standard RB strategy is rather depressing.

I don't think you utilized SPI as well as you could have in pb5, but thats because you didn't need to, really, you were winning before it really starts to shine. You had no real need for nationhood, for instance. Although you did utilize serfdom quite a bit, iirc, which even with the buff is just not really practical with a non-SPI civ.

This is perhaps the main issue: using SPI perfectly does not mean revolting civics every 5 turns, that's actually one of the worst things you can do. You are vulnerable to attack as you lack flexibility to change those civics exactly when you need to react to a change in the strategic situation. Nor does it mean you have to use every civic, you still only want to use the civics that help you meet your next strategic aim: Nationhood rarely does this, but having it available to swap into is enough to affect other players actions. This is also available for other traits to do by simply holding onto GP so that you can pop a golden age whenever necessary. Which is kind of the point, it's how someone uses the traits and civ to get ahead in the game. players need to be proactive and plan out how to win rather than just thinking "I'll tech this and that and then I'll do something, and if I can't I'll tech some more". That's how late game leaders win games. The way that SPI loses games is when someone with EXP/PRO etc comes along and says "I'm going to make sure I don't bankrupt myself and go settle in his face". You have to take the late game away from SPI, and that's a matter of play style. A lot of people don't know how to do that effectively yet, but it isn't a reason to nerf a trait.