Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Ruff_Hi]

Quick question: what is the intended fix for overflow gold? IMO, fail gold should be kept in line with that.

My understanding is that the fix that the unofficial patch put in was that the maximum hammer overflow could not be greater than the hammers used to produce what you just built (after multipliers) and any excess base hammers are converted to gold.

I could be wrong.

[Krill]

My understanding is that the fix that the unofficial patch put in was that the maximum hammer overflow could not be greater than the hammers used to produce what you just built (after multipliers) and any excess base hammers are converted to gold.

I could be wrong.

That was put in to stop the chopping for gold tactic when PRO, IIRC.

Well, to put it into perspective, that can also be abused. Build walls with stone to 49/50. Slave for 1 pop (60 hammers) and go max hammers. If you are spi with OR revolt out of that, disconnect stone, and then get free gold. There are other applications of that idea that utilise PS/OR and whip overflow.

Actually, is the current implementation that bad?

[Ruff_Hi]

Well, to put it into perspective, that can also be abused. Build walls with stone to 49/50. Slave for 1 pop (60 hammers) and go max hammers. If you are spi with OR revolt out of that, disconnect stone, and then get free gold. There are other applications of that idea that utilise PS/OR and whip overflow.

I think the gold overflow is also limited to 1xbase hammers required. So, for your example ... 13 gold (13 x 3 = 50 after rounding).

Actually, is the current implementation that bad?

Yes. The current implementation mostly yields 0 gold. In some funky situations, it does give the right gold overflow that they were aiming at. There is a long thread at CFC that gives all the ins and outs - will find it and link it in later.

Edit: Initial discussion here (including comments from alexman)
Details here by DanF5771.

[Krill]

Yes. The current implementation mostly yields 0 gold. In some funky situations, it does give the right gold overflow that they were aiming at. There is a long thread at CFC that gives all the ins and outs - will find it and link it in later.

Is it wrong that you don't get gold when the overflow exists to that extent? Looking at the games played here, I can't think of any time it's been a problem, because the overflow hasn't been that large. There does exist a point, IMO, that forward planning to minimise overflow is good play.

[Cyneheard]

Wonder fail gold:

National Wonders should give 0 fail gold. That is simply abuse: you can only get it if you build the same NW in 2 cities, which is intentionally setting yourself up for the failure. And then getting possibly 2-3g per hammer because of situational bonuses like marble and Ind.

World Wonder fail-gold...that's less obvious.

[luddite]

What do you guys think of changing India's starting techs so that they don't start with mining? You could change them to hunting/mysticism or fishing/mysticism instead.

The reason I suggest that is that, even with 2 move/mobility, the fast worker still seems like by far the best UU to me. Especially on quick speed, where saving 1 worker turn is huge. And the best part about the fast worker is how great they are for chopping forests. Changing the starting techs wouldn't be a huge change, but it would at least slow down india, so that they don't get such an explosive start right away.

[GrafvMonteDisco]

sounds like a good idea to me.

[Cyneheard]

What do you guys think of changing India's starting techs so that they don't start with mining? You could change them to hunting/mysticism or fishing/mysticism instead.

The reason I suggest that is that, even with 2 move/mobility, the fast worker still seems like by far the best UU to me. Especially on quick speed, where saving 1 worker turn is huge. And the best part about the fast worker is how great they are for chopping forests. Changing the starting techs wouldn't be a huge change, but it would at least slow down india, so that they don't get such an explosive start right away.

Hm. I like this idea. Frankly, the FW can't be nerfed directly much harder, and simply nerfing India's UB doesn't help all that much; after all, by the time it comes into play, the FW has mostly run its course.

Myst/Wheel may be a little better as a nerf, if only because that means India NEVER has a food tech to start. That really delays BW quite a bit: you have to get at least 3 techs to get to BW, instead of possibly just 2.

I'm going to give PBEM16 some time to get off the ground & into the actual game, not the build-worker-and-hit-enter turns, and get in a better time situation personally, before trying to truly tackle UU/UB balance (we've hit most of the best UUs and UBs with the nerfstick, and brought the truly irrelevant UUs and UBs into usable eras, but haven't done anything for the Persias of the world: right era, but aren't good for MP play at all) and whatever else may come up through PBEM16 and potentially other games.

(Persia's Immortal is a fantastic Monarch+ SP UU, because the AIs love their archers. But against humans who will build spears and frequently skip Archery, the Immortal isn't really an improvement over chariots. And the Apothecary is mediocre at best)

[luddite]

Hm. I like this idea. Frankly, the FW can't be nerfed directly much harder, and simply nerfing India's UB doesn't help all that much; after all, by the time it comes into play, the FW has mostly run its course.

Myst/Wheel may be a little better as a nerf, if only because that means India NEVER has a food tech to start. That really delays BW quite a bit: you have to get at least 3 techs to get to BW, instead of possibly just 2.

I'm going to give PBEM16 some time to get off the ground & into the actual game, not the build-worker-and-hit-enter turns, and get in a better time situation personally, before trying to truly tackle UU/UB balance (we've hit most of the best UUs and UBs with the nerfstick, and brought the truly irrelevant UUs and UBs into usable eras, but haven't done anything for the Persias of the world: right era, but aren't good for MP play at all) and whatever else may come up through PBEM16 and potentially other games.

(Persia's Immortal is a fantastic Monarch+ SP UU, because the AIs love their archers. But against humans who will build spears and frequently skip Archery, the Immortal isn't really an improvement over chariots. And the Apothecary is mediocre at best)

myst/wheel sounds good. Especially since the mapmakers at RB seem to love giving people deer as a food resource lol. And I agree, it's hard to think of any way to nerf the fast worker any more, without scrapping it entirely.

And yeah, the immortal is a pretty silly UU. Even doing what it does best- fighting archers- the War Chariot is still better most of the time. But definitely focus on the big changes, first.

[Cyneheard]

Back to an earlier topic:

Fail gold. Having something for players when they fall short in a wonder race is necessary IMO.

I'm not that concerned about patching out intentionally building 90% of a wonder and waiting for it to complete. Yes, you can abuse this, but it's nearly impossible to separate that type of abuse (which requires a willing partner) from simply missing a wonder because you were too slow.

However, any time where a player can intentionally generate fail-gold needs to go: if you start the same wonder in two different cities, either you're being a , or you want the fail gold.

Two cases where that can happen, and they (should) be codeable:
1) National Wonders should never produce fail-gold.
2) If you finished the relevant World Wonder...then you shouldn't get any fail-gold for having it half-built in a different city.