Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[yuris125]

Cottage -> Hamlet: 10 turns
Hamlet -> Village: 20 turns
Village -> Town: 40 turns

So for each straight-to-hamlet improvement, you'd gain +1 commerce for the first 10 turns, then nothing for 10 turns, then +1 commerce for 10 turns, then nothing for 30 turns, then +1 commerce for 10 turns, then nothing for the rest of the game. Some of those +1's would become +2's after Printing Press, but you still only get 30 turns worth of bonus commerce for each improvement. Just seems a little on the low side.

Just to throw some other ideas out there, what about...

... +1 commerce from cottages/hamlets/villages/towns only? Perhaps still a bit powerful actually.

... +100% Growth for cottages/hamlets/villages (like Emancipation)? That'd mean you'd get nothing for the first 5 turns, then 5 turns of +1 commerce, 5 turns of nothing, 15 turns of +1 commerce, 5 turns of nothing, 35 turns of +1 commerce, then nothing the rest of the game. That's roughly double the benefit of starting with hamlets (55 turns of bonus commerce per improvement over 70 turns vs only 30 turns of bonus commerce over 70 turns), which might be better balanced. An idea anyway.

Maybe Fin cottages start a hamlets and get +100% growth? So 10t hamlet -> village, 20t village -> town on Normal. Basiclaly this gives Fin cottages +1 commerce until non-Fin cottages become towns

[Catwalk]

From a theme perspective I think a focus on gold would make more sense, but I acknowledge that a mixed bonus is a bit closer to the original. +15% to both?

[Lord Parkin]

Maybe Fin cottages start a hamlets and get +100% growth? So 10t hamlet -> village, 20t village -> town on Normal. Basiclaly this gives Fin cottages +1 commerce until non-Fin cottages become towns

Could be an idea. Either way, putting a cap (70 turns) on the bonus commerce per tile seems like a decent nerf to the trait, while still leaving it fun to play.

From a theme perspective I think a focus on gold would make more sense, but I acknowledge that a mixed bonus is a bit closer to the original. +15% to both?

I think that would be verging on being almost as good as Financial, where the goal is to nerf it. Maybe +10% to both along with the cheap Market and/or Bank... would need to playtest it but at a glance that seems roughly about the right order.

[mostly_harmless]

Chiming in from PBEM20:
- cultural victory: I think the current implementation was just buggy, with legendary sitting on 100k culture. Right?
- The known-tech bonus seemed to have worked pretty well. Not sure you should tweak the numbers based on one test game.
- What I would really like is a adaptation of the diplo system:
- Tie know tech bonus to open borders, i.e. only get full bonus from civs if you have open borders with them.
- Apply a happiness malus to DoW depending on how good your relationship was. So you are backstabbing at +10 relationship. This should be punishable by I dunno 10 unhappy citizens for 8 turns (scale with game speed). Something like this.
- I realize that this would mean an overhaul of the relationship system. Any "preferred civic" bonus should go out. Maybe use a "same civic" bonus instead. Also the bonus for say same religion should be the same for all leaders. I think they are different for different leaders right now. Number of resource trades should affect the relationship bonus from "you supplied us ..." as well. (Not sure it does that at the moment).

What I am basically aiming at is a working in game diplo system, that allows for MP games with no outside-game-mechanic diplo. But in return me sitting at good relations with Krill and Yuris for the whole game should affect my performance once I backstab them. In future I would have to either plan for the happiness hit or degrade my relationship prior to DoW. Cancelling resource trades, closing borders, etc. Basically giving the other player some sort of forewarning.

- On nukes. Is it worth thinking about making the Manhattan project a national project, like Apollo?

-mh

[T-hawk]

Financial: how about the original bonus, but only on non-river tiles? Small nerf while retaining the original character, along with the existing nerf that it's for 3+ commerce on land tiles. So it only kicks in for villages and towns on non-river tiles. Downpowers the synergy with flood plains, and moves away from a "one right answer" situation at least on rivers.

[Tasunke]

I think the main problem with financial is that its basically a "river bonus" while rivers are already the best possible terrain available.

T-Hawk's idea may yet work. In fact, I'm not sure if it needs to be any different than a 2+ bonus as long as its separated from rivers.

Granted, maybe have Fin not affect water tiles at all, while having coast be 2 food/ 3 commerce for everyone. (at least once the buildings are in place ... maybe +1 food w/ lighthouse and +1 commerce w/ Harbor? or vice-versa)

[Krill]

Financial: how about the original bonus, but only on non-river tiles? Small nerf while retaining the original character, along with the existing nerf that it's for 3+ commerce on land tiles. So it only kicks in for villages and towns on non-river tiles. Downpowers the synergy with flood plains, and moves away from a "one right answer" situation at least on rivers.

You mean, +1 commerce on 3 commerce tiles that are not river adjacent?

[Cyneheard]

Financial: how about the original bonus, but only on non-river tiles? Small nerf while retaining the original character, along with the existing nerf that it's for 3+ commerce on land tiles. So it only kicks in for villages and towns on non-river tiles. Downpowers the synergy with flood plains, and moves away from a "one right answer" situation at least on rivers.

Honestly, if we went this route, I think it should just be a flat works-at-2-commerce: River tiles are still better (+1 commerce in all instances, instead of +1 commerce after 10t of a cottage being worked), so on a decently-rivered map, the Financial player doesn't see any benefit from his trait for a long time (how many non-river non-resource tiles are you usually working on T60? 5? Maybe?). And rivers still provide freshwater and all the other sundry benefits: a Fin player still wants rivers, just doesn't mind not having them as much.

It turns Fin into a real late-game trait when all the tiles are getting worked, which is what it's intended to be, without giving one much of an early game boost, which is what we've been trying to do the whole time. Fin's biggest boost early is that you can better handle worse starts, which isn't a game-breaking skill.

A Financial player would probably do something like this, then:
Farm the river tiles. Work them first.
Cottage the dry tiles. Grow into them.

However, assuming worker labor isn't an issue, this is roughly what a non-Fin player should do; we're not really changing the optimal course of action here (since # of farm is also a function of food surplus).

With this modification, a Financial player's start (river or no river) is comparable tech-wise to a non-Fin player with a river start...and that other player gets a 2nd trait to play with.

[T-hawk]

Cyneheard, your post gives me no inkling of whether you think that was a good idea or not. All I see is theorycraft brain dump.

A Financial player would probably do something like this, then:
Farm the river tiles. Work them first.
Cottage the dry tiles. Grow into them.

However, assuming worker labor isn't an issue, this is roughly what a non-Fin player should do; we're not really changing the optimal course of action here.

You've got two conflicting desires here: that a trait such as Financial shouldn't lead to a "one right answer" situation, but also that it shouldn't play just the same as having other traits instead. I don't think that conflict can really be resolved. If you don't want a trait (any trait, without loss of generality) to create a directly obvious play style, it's going to have to play similarly to other leaders.

Krill, the suggestion could go either way, applying to non-river tiles with either 2-commerce or 3.

[Cyneheard]

Cyneheard, your post gives me no inkling of whether you think that was a good idea or not. All I see is theorycraft brain dump.

I'm spending too much time as a low-ranking government bureaucrat: describe the situation, but never make a direct recommendation. But the theorycraft brain dump was kinda essential. I think your idea works; it's definitely better than anything else I've seen (the faster-booming cottages is an interesting idea, but not one that's easily implementable in the existing code structure, whereas no-Fin-on-rivers isn't that different a coding solution to T-Hawk's current "3 if by land, 2 if by sea" setup).