Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[scooter]

I actually think the trait balancing is fine in RB Mod. Some are probably better than others, but it's MUCH closer than in vanilla. I don't think anything really needs to change.

[Commodore]

...KK excepted.

[Bigger]

ok Krill I'll bite. which rbmod game has free speech been used as part of a winning strategy? That, imo, is actually the biggest flaw in the rbmod - free speech is just as useless as environmentalism in vanilla is, probably even WITH spiritual (unless, of course, you were absolutely selling out to a cultural victory).

I'm less skeptical about police state, but would like to read where that was used by a non-spiritual civ to win as well .

I also disagree w/ your last paragraph. I would think no one would be dumb enough to arbitrarily revolt every 5 turns - but who NEEDS to change civs every 5 turns? however, w/ a spiritual civ, I find switching to nationhood for 5 turns, drafting like crazy (you actually get 6 turns of drafting for every 5 turn cycle) then switching back to an economic civic while you're draft unhappy wears off to be a very effective strategy for raising an army. (less so with the rbmod I guess, w/ the drafting nerf). a non-spiritual civ could only do that with a golden age, but who wants to draft away all their pop while in the middle of a golden age? slowing down the snowball just to hang on to a GP in case you are attacked seems just as bad.

but what do I know

[Bigger]

I actually think the trait balancing is fine in RB Mod. Some are probably better than others, but it's MUCH closer than in vanilla. I don't think anything really needs to change.

yeah I don't disagree with this. I have been very pleasantly surprised by PRO so far. I'd rank it ahead of FIN now .

[Qgqqqqq]

He meant non rbmod as well.
There have only been like 4 rbmod games...

(Actually, it mayve happened in '20, but I'm not too familiar with that game. Your point is still weak though - pb 5 didn't get much past communism, pb8 no team is past industrialism yet (I kid ) and 16 ended really early.)

[Bigger]

He meant non rbmod as well.
There have only been like 4 rbmod games...

(Actually, it mayve happened in '20, but I'm not too familiar with that game. Your point is still weak though - pb 5 didn't get much past communism, pb8 no team is past industrialism yet (I kid ) and 16 ended really early.)

??? all the civics are unlocked by communism. most well before then.

[Qgqqqqq]

Not police state...
(I also was placing SM somewhere else in my head ).

Anyway your main point on free speech: again only PB5 has got there ('20 wasn't well documented) so therefore the only player who could POSSIBLY have used it as part of a winning strategy is Krill (for '20, MH probably didn't use it, but that was a high water map).
He didn't (IIRC) because he was very close to communism, and he had a massive empire.
FS is predominantly for a highly developed smaller empire.
This is why I think your point is weak.

[Bigger]

Not police state...
(I also was placing SM somewhere else in my head ).

Anyway your main point on free speech: again only PB5 has got there ('20 wasn't well documented) so therefore the only player who could POSSIBLY have used it as part of a winning strategy is Krill (for '20, MH probably didn't use it, but that was a high water map).
He didn't (IIRC) because he was very close to communism, and he had a massive empire.
FS is predominantly for a highly developed smaller empire.
This is why I think your point is weak.

Q, heh. I'm not basing that on any games. I've played it enough in SP to understand how it works - I'm just basing it on common sense. As an economic civ in rbmod, free state falls well short of BOTH free market and stateproperty, and appears well after free market and just before state property. so unless you're going for a late game culture win, its pretty pointless.

[Qgqqqqq]

Adding 2 commerce to every town is pointless?
Its a differing strategy, if you're going workshop you go FM->SP, if you're going cottages you go FM->FS.
Just because SP is powerful doesn't mean it is everyones end game civic.

[Krill]

OK, now I can give this the attention it deserves...

Bigger, I'm unsure of what points you are trying to make. Is it that SPI is overpower, and that some civics are useless? I'm going to assume so for the purpose of this post but I'm sorry if that's a wrong interpretation of your posts.

Civics can be niche. I think it's a fair assertion that there is more than one way to win the game, we've seen cottage spam, workshop spam[/url] and mass specialists (with Mids) win games, and all these use different civics: for some of those games using Rep would have almost certainly caused a loss, but that doesn't make rep a bad civic. A reasonable definition of a badly designed civic would be one that is never as beneficial as another available civic. In the case of Police State, the ideal situation for its use is:

1. WW is high and you don't have jails in every city and Rushmore.
   
2. You have high MFG in the majority of your cities (ie not rushing with gold)
   
3. You intend to win the game without signing any more peace treaties

This often occurs in games where it's reached the late game, there are lots of units dying, you can lose and capture cities every turn. The player has taken over other empires and is using masses of workshops, watermills and mines, the typical MP domination game without a runaway. And it's been used in PB1. It would be used more but games are often called before it can be used, but that isn't a reason for it to be altered: without the civic existing it would cause a recalculation of what a runaway player can do. The fact it exists even if we don't see it used often doesn't mean that it doesn't affect game balance.

Free Speech is a similar case. You stated that Free Market is a better trait, but it pretty simply comes down to the map and the number of towns you have. The more towns you have the better FS is, and it also follows that given a specific amount of land tiles, the more towns you have the less workshops you have. Some maps, such as archipelago maps have such limited land that per city boni are more important, so the extra trade route income, %age production and lower city maintenance costs are all going to be more useful than culture. Sure, that makes sense, but the mod is intended to be balanced for all maps, not just those naval centric maps that we seem to see a lot of at the moment.

Now, the problem with judging the usefulness of FS at the moment it becomes available is that it is a civic that becomes more powerful as the game goes on. Towns are more flexible tile improvements than workshops, worse for production but significantly better at research and gold generation, if you are running both US and FS. But late game you need to consider the usage of Emancipation to quick grow hundreds of cottages, because that might actually be a more productive choice than working hundreds of workshops if it looks like the game is going to carry on for a long time, but this requires more tech than SP. If you are only going to consider the strength of a civic at the moment it becomes available, then you are going to over-value civics that give upfront advantages and need nothing else to be unlocked like SP does.

Also, a few other points:

• ??? all the civics are unlocked by communism. most well before then.
  
  If on a beeline to Communism, you miss Representation, Emancipation, Universal Suffrage, Free Market, Police State, and Nationhood until afterwards. When you get them varies too much game to game to claim you will have them before researching Communism.
  
  
  
• which rbmod game has free speech been used as part of a winning strategy?
  
  You never said RB mod game, and out of the 4 games that have been played/are being played, one hasn't reached T120 yet, one was a quick test of the slavery change and trait balancing, one was won before FS was researched and the other was...well, guess what. mh used both Free Speech and Police State. So I suppose that answers your question.