Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Krill]

I'll see if I can find time this week, though will be away this upcoming weekend.

Thanks T-hawk

Free Market loses a bonus (corp cost) so Mercantilism gains one?

FM is a bitch to balance. On archi maps it is awesome (PBEM2, PBEM10). On Pangaea it sucks (RBPB3, RBPB1). It could do with a boost on those high land maps. With no corps the new super civic is SP, so everything is balanced in regard to that...and SP generally works better on all land maps that are easy to workshop/farm new cities up to productivity, FM works best the all sea maps that make use of per city boni and you have friends or cities on several different landmasses.

How about +2 happy with granary, like Nationhood with barracks? It's at least almost on flavor too. Or can the XML do +2 happy in 99 largest cities like Representation?

Either of those is probably a simpler implementation that the religion idea, and less reliant on other players.

Why not simply +1 free scientist? Comparable to the French Salon, and more in line with unmodded.

Cossacks are pretty bad in the normal game (fairly awesome in ren era starts though, but we don;t play them), whereas musketeers are fairly close to awesome. The French get a bad UB, the Russians need something that balances out the bad UU. This implementation can be fairly good if leveraged, so requires good play to set up.

That came out of left field. What does shale have to do with navy? How about sticking to the original functionality, just move it forward in time to something appropriate on flavor. +10% hammers on a customs house or levee or drydock or jail?

Customs Houses are junk. Levees are situational - if you got no rivers Japan is pretty awful. On boats unless you have serious advantage in numbers (from # of cities not # of hammers) or tech (SoL v frigates, first to Destroyers) hammer bonus is inconsequential. Boats require combat promotions to be viable and to attack into coastal waters, which is why an extra +2XP gives Japan an edge only CHM civs would otherwise have, which is following unmoddded game flavour. I'd also compare it to Gers.

Is it really? It's the same price and function as an Expansive granary plus an obelisk. It is like having another half-a-trait (either Creative or Expansive whichever way you look at it), but that can be said for lots of things in the game. Stonehenge is half Creative, the Zulu Ikhanda is Organized-lite, the Portuguese Feitoria simulates Financial, the Hanging Gardens is half-Expansive, the Quechua is like being Aggressive, the Rathaus is faux-Organized, the Roman Forum is mini-Philosophical...

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....stcount=10

[T-hawk]

FM is a bitch to balance. On archi maps it is awesome (PBEM2, PBEM10). On Pangaea it sucks (RBPB3, RBPB1). It could do with a boost on those high land maps.

Is the real problem not Free Market, but trade routes in general? What about just killing the +100% overseas bonus? That would also bring the Great Lighthouse back to earth.

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....stcount=10

Sure, that's my post... what're you bringing up from there?

[Krill]

Is the real problem not Free Market, but trade routes in general? What about just killing the +100% overseas bonus? That would also bring the Great Lighthouse back to earth.

Yeah, but it makes Archi maps slow as hell and makes Collosus uber there.Not that I think the GLH is overpowered, just that most players suck at organizing embargoes.

Sure, that's my post... what're you bringing up from there?

Just that there are many instances where UB provide similar boni to traits, so Sp as dry docks that give extra XP aren't really out of touch with the original game. RL arguments don't really hold much merit in my eyes, but arguments along the lines of deviation from vanilla are a fair point. I don't really see the issue with giving shale plants that bonus or position on the tech try

[Cyneheard]

Then how do water maps become playable? Economy in PBEM2 and PBEM10 is mostly dependent on two things:

1) Food, for whips and specialists
2) Trade routes

PBEM10 Spoiler:

I'm at 241 break-even bpt on 95 land tiles and 13 cities. Turn the TR from 3c-6c down to 2c-4c, and my econ drops to about 160-180bpt. I guarantee you that the non-Mackotis of the game would see similar drops. There goes my ability to do anything: MFG's not bad, but that's heavily thanks to AP buildings, which are clearly limited, and my one Moai city that's working like 12 water tiles, a grass cow, a grass stone, and a couple of workshops. Food can only fuel so many whips if I need specs to tech at a reasonable pace with.

Now, I do find the TR mechanics to be a little frustrating strategically, because it's the Civ5 CityCenterOfAwesomeness problem on water maps, writ small. But simply nerfing them without buffing water tiles somehow (3f is clearly broken, adding extra commerce means that land cottages become utter junk unless you're running FS and/or US, and adding a hammer does the same thing, look at how much better a good Moai city is than any other archi city).

[regoarrarr]

PB1, don't recall how critical the corps were, but on a Huge map it takes a lot of resources to get anywhere.

They weren't that useful at all. Broker got Sid's for the culture mostly but it was hardly gamebreaking. I don't remember if Mining or any of the other ones were used.

[luddite]

FM is a bitch to balance. On archi maps it is awesome (PBEM2, PBEM10). On Pangaea it sucks (RBPB3, RBPB1).

Is that really a problem? I think it's OK if some civics work better on one map type than others. We don't need to have every civic equally viable on all maps.
edit: i wouldn't mind changing the way trade routes are calculatated, though. Due to the round-off, it's much too hard to get a 2c trade route, so the trade routes are all basically a +1/city bonus.

[luddite]

How do you guys feel about the current balance of 2-move and 1-move units? Personally, I think 2-move units are a little too powerful. I wouldn't mind seeing their strength reduced or their cost increased a little.

[Serdoa]

I don't feel like they are too strong. Most of the times I feel they are strong because they move faster. But that means that for most part of the game, you won't have any siege with you. And they are countered easily as well.

Not to say that you cannot stomp someone with them, but I feel that this is more because players are not used to them and don't counterattack the right way and not because they are so strong.

[luddite]

It's not like their base strength is absurdly high, but that having 2-moves is just so powerful. Often one 2-move unit is as good as two 1-move units, because the 1-move units would have to split up to cover the same territory as the 2-mover.

I don't think that they are countered easily at all. HAs can beat spears, and knights can beat pikes. While it's true that invading with them means you can't take along seige, that also means they move fast enough to strike enemy cities without getting hit by their seige. They're not gamebreaking of course, but it does make me a little suspicious that so many invasion armies are 100% mounted, and you hardly ever see people using swords or macemen.

[luddite]

Another thought I had for rebalancing- it's really irritating how random the religious spreading is. An early religion can make a lot of money for you if it spreads quickly, but it might also fail to spread at all, and there's just no way of knowing what will happen. That's pretty annoying, and really discourages people from persuing the early religions. Could we change it so that a holy city is guaranteed to spread the religion to a new city every 10 turns or so? Double that with a shrine. Or at least increase the chance of a random spread from what it is now.