Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[WarriorKnight]

You will do this even for cities which are planned to develop/maximize production ?
I'll say it will be a very good thing - at least for forests which are on plains ...

Anyway - the main ideea is to have something to choose against "massive-chop strategy" - as you know ... is always better to have at least two option ASAP ... and lumbermills are available soooo late in the game.

There's a couple of reasons why everyone likes mass chopping:

1) To make room for other improvements like cottages, mines, farms etc.
2) Production bonus from chopping
3) Prevent defensive bonuses from invaders

If lumbermills are going to be worth using, then they need some sort of advantage that's worth keeping the forest compared to cutting it. Being available earlier (Metal Casting/Machinery?) and giving more output (perhaps 2 hammers instead of 1 or something similar?) might make them worth using more often.

I've always thought that the Bronze Working tech was a bit too powerful. If I had my druthers I'd move slavery to masonry and forest chopping to metal casting. This might leave a few more forests around for later.

Moving slavery to Masonry is certainly an interesting idea, it would fit thematically (although that doesn't matter much), it boosts Mysticism as a starting tech and gives a good reason to go for Masonry earlier.

I don't think moving forest chopping to Metal Casting would be wise though, wouldn't that make any start which is surrounded by forests weak since you can't do anything with forests until later on? (like in FFH) Maybe if you could improve forests early on it would work (like early lumbermills for instance) but if you can't do anything with them until later on then your options are rather limited.

[Cyneheard]

Can we remind me exactly what we wanted to do with No Espionage? Going back to here in this thread, I think the only needed DLL changes are:

- remove the espionage-to-culture conversion
- lose the doubled culture thresholds

You can remove spy specialist slots and all ways to generate Great Spy points in the XML, right?

The XML changes got rid of the GSpy points from wonders, but did it for both the normal and the modified game. I'm not worried about Spy specialists, you can just set a rule that spy specialists can't be run. And without them providing 4EP, the game won't auto-select them, except in front of maybe citizens.

Now, thinking about that again, what if, instead of messing with the GSpy points for the normal espionage game (i.e., restore the wonders to their normal functionality. Although TGW may get reduced to 1 GPP from 2), the No Espionage version turned GSpy points into Great Merchant points, or Great Spy spawns into Great Merchants? Then spy specialists are no longer an issue (if you run one, it's just a 1b merchant, instead of a 3g merchant. I don't think there's any worry about someone breaking the game by doing that, and Merchant spots are easy enough to get through Caste or Markets and Grocers).


@ Chop comments: Given the changes we've done to slavery already, I'm afraid that moving forest chops around would slow down the opening way too much. Lumbermills and the slavery changes, hm. Must think/discuss some before making any decisions there.

[luddite]

@ Chop comments: Given the changes we've done to slavery already, I'm afraid that moving forest chops around would slow down the opening way too much. Lumbermills and the slavery changes, hm. Must think/discuss some before making any decisions there.

I agree, I don't think you should move forest chops around. For one thing it could really screw someone over if a tile they want to work is covered by forest. You could decrease the value of a pre-mathematics chop a little, but I think it's fine as it is.

I do like the idea of moving slavery to masonry. I think that changing slavery to 30 + 20 would just make it useless for anything except very small, undeveloped cities, while still making it the "one right choice" early in the game.

[Ioan76]

There's a couple of reasons why everyone likes mass chopping:

1) To make room for other improvements like cottages, mines, farms etc.
2) Production bonus from chopping
3) Prevent defensive bonuses from invaders

Correct - I neglected somehow the (3) aspects but the main issue IMHO is related to (2).

If lumbermills are going to be worth using, then they need some sort of advantage that's worth keeping the forest compared to cutting it. Being available earlier (Metal Casting/Machinery?) and giving more output (perhaps 2 hammers instead of 1 or something similar?) might make them worth using more often.

Probably +2 production is a little bit too much ... what about something like +1 food in squares where food production is < 2 ? This will make a lumbermilled forest "self-sustainable" no matter in which terrain is placed ...

Moving slavery to Masonry is certainly an interesting idea, it would fit thematically (although that doesn't matter much), it boosts Mysticism as a starting tech and gives a good reason to go for Masonry earlier.

This sounds really interesting - but somehow I feel that a better solution will be to allow a quite strong alternative earlier : for example Pottery to offer also Serfodm as civics ( actually Serfdom was more frequently in history than slavery ) and this to be improved to offer also +1 food +1 hammer in the city square ...


Just few random toughts ... don't throw stones !!

[T-hawk]

So I finally got around to fixing No Espionage. Check your email for the DLL.

- Removed the EP-to-culture conversion. Implemented in CvCity::getCommerceRateTimes100 by simply commenting it out.

- If No Espionage is set, spy specialists can't be created. I know we said that's unnecessary if Great Spy production is controlled, but it's a good way to prevent accidents and any AI from stupidly doing so. Implemented in CvCity::changeMaxSpecialistCount by checking to see if the specialist type produces EP > 0 and if so exit without changing the max specialist count. (Need the roundabout way of checking the specialist's yield: thanks to moddability, the DLL code actually doesn't know anything about identity of specialists.)

- If No Espionage is set, converted all Great Spy points to Great Merchant points. The building mouseover still says "Great Spy", but the mouseover bar for Great People shows Great Merchant. Implemented in CvCity::setGreatPeopleUnitRate. There was already a test for the condition (No Espionage and Great Spy points), but it just exited resulting in those weird typeless points. I made that convert the points type to Merchant instead. (In a roundabout way again - I had to loop over all unit types looking for the Merchant, by looking for getUnitInfo.getBaseTrade > 0.)

The doubled culture threshold for No Espionage actually is in the XML. NO_ESPIONAGE_CULTURE_LEVEL_MODIFIER in GlobalDefines.xml. Just set it to 0.

[Cyneheard]

Nice, I'll see when I get a chance to work it into the mod (and undo the GSpy changes to the various wonders. TGW may still get changed to something else, or nerfed to 1GPP, 2 GM points is too much that early: CS bulb).

So I finally got around to fixing No Espionage. Check your email for the DLL.

- Removed the EP-to-culture conversion. Implemented in CvCity::getCommerceRateTimes100 by simply commenting it out.

Simple enough.

- If No Espionage is set, spy specialists can't be created. I know we said that's unnecessary if Great Spy production is controlled, but it's a good way to prevent accidents and any AI from stupidly doing so. Implemented in CvCity::changeMaxSpecialistCount by checking to see if the specialist type produces EP > 0 and if so exit without changing the max specialist count. (Need the roundabout way of checking the specialist's yield: thanks to moddability, the DLL code actually doesn't know anything about identity of specialists.)

Good: the complete solution's better than the hacky one.

- If No Espionage is set, converted all Great Spy points to Great Merchant points. The building mouseover still says "Great Spy", but the mouseover bar for Great People shows Great Merchant. Implemented in CvCity::setGreatPeopleUnitRate. There was already a test for the condition (No Espionage and Great Spy points), but it just exited resulting in those weird typeless points. I made that convert the points type to Merchant instead. (In a roundabout way again - I had to loop over all unit types looking for the Merchant, by looking for getUnitInfo.getBaseTrade > 0.)

The doubled culture threshold for No Espionage actually is in the XML. NO_ESPIONAGE_CULTURE_LEVEL_MODIFIER in GlobalDefines.xml. Just set it to 0.

Query: If we implemented a +g/specialist change to Mercantilism (not sure if we will), would this be a problem? If so, then setting .getBaseTrade > 2 should work.

[T-hawk]

Query: If we implemented a +g/specialist change to Mercantilism (not sure if we will), would this be a problem? If so, then setting .getBaseTrade > 2 should work.

No problem. getBaseTrade looks for the ability of a Great Merchant unit to do a trade mission, which is unique.

(Yes, it's a numeric value, not a binary enable flag, that can be set per unit. A modder could create "mini merchant" units that can do a trade mission for 30 gold. And Great People points are accumulated indexed to the unit that will spawn, not to the type of specialist or super specialist. A modder could have the GP bar fill towards military or domestic units.)

Fixing the Great Wall to 2 Spy points normally but just 1 Merchant point with No Espionage is possible (anything is possible with enough coding) but gets pretty hairy. The function that converts the points type has no idea where the points came from. It would have to loop over all buildings in the city to see if it has the Great Wall (roundabout again: see if any buildings has the "keep barbs out" effect) and subtract the point. And this function does not know what the GPP multiplier was. It could recalculate that and subtract the point after also backing out the multiplication, but that's getting pretty hairy and subject to rounding issues.

Anyway, is the GW doing 2 Merchant points so bad? The Great Lighthouse also does 2 Merchant points for only a few more hammers, and a much better natural effect.

[Cyneheard]

No problem. getBaseTrade looks for the ability of a Great Merchant unit to do a trade mission, which is unique.

(Yes, it's a numeric value, not a binary enable flag, that can be set per unit. A modder could create "mini merchant" units that can do a trade mission for 30 gold. And Great People points are accumulated indexed to the unit that will spawn, not to the type of specialist or super specialist.

Ah, good to know.

FFH uses this scheme for its missionary-equivalents. Things that the Zealots/Savants/whatever can do
1) Spread the religion, as in the base game, although the % success rates may function differently: I wouldn't be surprised if it's friendlier there, given the importance of the various religions in the game.
2) Many of them can create a "mini" Great Work, which only creates 20 culture (Normal Speed), but still ends resistance immediately; it's a viable option for developed cities when you capture them. The Ashen Veil Savant is a miniature lightbulb instead (like 20 beakers, a complete waste of 60h), and some of them may be mini-merchants (Runes of Kilmorph? Haven't played as any of the dwarf types, so don't know)

I wouldn't make the Great Wall have a specific rule inside the coding, that is too much to do. I guess we'd have to see if someone can truly break the game with a fast Great Merchant before making a change. I'd have to experiment; certainly with a Stone start it would become very cheap (TGL is more restrictive in several ways, and Stone TGW is amazingly cheap: it's less than one settler, instead of 2 settlers + the early lighthouse build). I do think that in the un-modded RB games, Great Merchant points are far superior to Great Spy points, especially given our usual restrictions on what Espionage can do. Although that's more about the lack of GSpy value than the fact that GMerchs are that amazing.

[T-hawk]

I do think that in the un-modded RB games, Great Merchant points are far superior to Great Spy points, especially given our usual restrictions on what Espionage can do. Although that's more about the lack of GSpy value than the fact that GMerchs are that amazing.

Great Spies are pretty good when espionage is unfettered and you aren't simply far in the lead against inferior AIs. Infiltration can get much more tech than a lightbulb, and Scotland Yard is twice an academy. But of course when we keep forbidding spies in every game, Great Spies are pretty useless.

Anyway I don't think the Merchant-CS slingshot is a big deal. To do the fast version of it, you have to avoid Bronze Working to block Metal Casting, which is suicide in multiplayer. The slow version requires all of MC, Alphabet, Currency, and Code of Laws, which are together more expensive than CS itself anyway (you could just research CS sooner than MC+Alphabet+Currency.)

[Lord Parkin]

I've always thought that the Bronze Working tech was a bit too powerful. If I had my druthers I'd move slavery to masonry and forest chopping to metal casting. This might leave a few more forests around for later.

Of course, on my mac I can't use mods, so it's academic.

For the record, I think that moving Slavery to Masonry is a great idea. Forest chopping should stay with Bronze Working though, I reckon.