[SPOILERS] Louis of Aztecs - One of those industrious

[Krill]

Little comments concerning the late game changes for this mod. No real experience on these yet, but I've used some time to think these through.

Cristo Redentor feels overpriced unless I've understood wrongly what it does. Is it possible for small nation to get a civic switch without Anarchy with this 50% reduction? My civic switches are 2T anarchy so I guess that would be dropped to 1, but I've hard time finding a situation where I would like to switch civics out from Golden age. Only benefit would then be to get a civic switch every 3T during golden age (assuming 50% is rounded up to 3T) Not really worth 1000 hammers. Maybe 75% reduction to civic switches would be better in case "No anarchy" is possible if I would switch just 1 civic at a time

That's a very good idea with the 75% and changing one civic at a time.

Free Speech is now bad, when you can't combine it with Free Market or State Property. This is big hit on cottage economies. I guess this was the intention, but this affects to the late game tech rate that has already been made a challenge with the high tech costs.

Free speech doesn't just affect tech speed but culture victory and rush buy as well though. I would have to question if you consider the tech cost a challenge if you are plowing through Ind era techs in 4-5 turns though.

I've tried to imagine how new "Nukes" work and if they would be useful.

Concerning both nukes their IAirCombatLimit is <100. This means they can't kill the unit they're attacking against. I find this odd when even guided missile can kill so that is 1 change I would make. The Air combat system makes sure that you can't fully kill a healthy unit with just 1 hit no matter how high the base strength is.

ICBM - Big range, massive price tag (900 hammers) and collateral damage for 12 units. Too expensive. Might be useful in some very rare case where you can't hit some city with any other means. To give more flavor to these I would allow them killing units with collateral i.e. not limit their collateral to 75%. Big price tag would still mean that these would be very rarely built. Combat mathematics are such that you need ~5 hits of collateral before units really start to die even against very weak units like warriors.

Tactical nuke - Price tag 300 is more reasonable, but still not really worth it. I would allow it to kill units with collateral damage. Then I think 300 would be quite alright. It still can only affect very limited amount of defenders.

I make no claims that the new nuke cost, strength and other values are perfectly balanced, but I think it is important to judge their value against what Bombers, Stealth bombers and guided missiles are capable of. In the case of ICBMs, also need to remember that there are no ancillary costs in having to get them into position, to defend them prior to usage (like Tac nukes, or bombers having to deal with fighters). Perhaps those values need changing, I wouldn't disagree with that provided some evidence (such as a combat calculator scenario or something done in a world builder) was provided.

All that said, I would have grave concerns about the ability to invest a few thousand hammers into a few units and you can guarantee that you can wipe out a stack following the use of those units, and gain a tactical advantage in a theatre that can cost an opposing player more than just lost units (lost cities, resources).

[plako]

I'm little surprised that you don't know how the weapons you've designed work. They work pretty much the way I've described and also can be found from here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=280434

There might be some mistakes in the decimals, but my tests indicate that the principles are right.

So the eaxample case with ICBM and warrior goes:
ICBM CombatStregth = 160
Warrior Combat strength = 2
(A+D+1)/2 = (160+2+1)/2 = 81,5
(A+F)/(D+F) = (160+81,5)/(2+81,5) = 2.8922

Air strike does not have random elements so damage will be (unless limited by e.g. IAirCombatLimit ):
2.8922*30 = 86,76%

and correspondingly collateral damage will be
2.8922*10 = 28,9%

In this case e.g. having 12 warriors with 3 hits you reach the collateral damage max with current implementation and would be able to start killing units with 4th hit just in case there wouldn't be this limit.

Here is situation with current mod after 2 ICBMs (There is strange graphical artifact that came visible right after I added my 1st ICBM to the city):

So best defense is to Spam/spare cheap units to consume the collateral damage. I don't think these would be overpowered, if they could kill. Building these in numbers would be make a change only in close race and to those these would give a one more way to try to get advantage over your opponent, but you can still mosty counter it. Also bringing the intercept mechanism of SDI defense could be done.

[plako]

While I was at it. I also made a little test with Cristo. There is always Anarchy included no matter how small you're and civic switch interval is 3T. Not very useful as is. Well I don't mind too much. Better this way than the overpowered original. No one forces you to build it.

[Krill]

Plako, I understand how air combat works with missiles: I spent most of a day working on different values. and running a few economic calculations for cost effectiveness (but it was not completely thorough). There is no point comparing nukes against warriors though: if you can build nukes and your opponent can build warriors it means they lack rifling and nukes don't matter in that scenario. Late game collateral needs to be judged on how it copes attacking rifles and better (TBH, Inf and better is probably more realistic).

Spamming cheap crap works as a defence against all collateral damage units, it isn't unique to tac nukes and ICBM. I don't understand what your point is about that. Almost all of the balance with collateral damage units needs to be based on the cost of those units (provided they are disposable like suicide cats and missiles), ie maybe the ICBM does need cost reducing to 600 hammers to make it more cost efficient relative to bombers but it does provided functionality that other modes of bombardment don't.

[plako]

yeah. Warriors are not realistic defenders. I just took them as an example how air strike works. Against backwards nations you're better of having 6 bombers instead. The possibility to kill doesn't change current ICBM's much really. I just thought they felt a bit weak for their price at the moment and little boost wouldn't be bad idea.

[plako]

Couple of screenshots from my border areas North-east and north-west. I've started drafting infantries. The biggest burden will be on Fishing villages, but also cities near size 10 will be occasionally Drafted. There are also demographics. I've dropped to 3rd spot in power, but very close to leaders and drafting should keep me close to the top for now.

[plako]

NOooo. Just end turn and I'll go away.

This game is degenerating. There are too many players just mailing turns and worst of all being vocal about it.

Serdoa is biggest to blame here. It was ok from Serdoa to suggest concession, but when it didn't go through he should have just let it be. Message explaining the reasoning behind the suggestion and stating he won't attack me was out of line in a game that was supposed to be AI-diplo. These messages changed the atmosphere of the game towards "we just wait for end to come".

Bigger is also to blame. If you're invested to the game and want to play in it, why do you need to pauses like he did this weekend. He isn't even currently in a war so things shouldn't be that complex.

And now this latest Commodore message is just alarming. He is ready to retreat something just to get things moving faster! If you're not anymore fully trying, it would be better just rant in your own thread.

So it seems a lot like we're in duel situation. Serdoa is not attacking me (can't be totally sure about this though). Commodore is having his eternal skirmish with Pindicooter and more or less given up. Cheetach has been mailing the turns for a long time. At least he isn't vocal about it. So that leaves just leaves 2 major powers i.e. Lewger and me to fight for the win and his culture run can't succeed, if I can just focus on them alone. If I would be forced to concentrate on other fronts things would be much harder for me. There are still several major nations that have a decent shot at winning, if they just would start playing the way they should.

[SevenSpirits]

That is really too bad.

I appreciate that you are still giving the game good effort and reporting.

[plako]

Couple of other things going on:
* I did sink one of Bigger's East indieman snooping around near my cities. Lost 1 Privateer in the process.
* Cheetach is going for Communism. Mistake I think unless he really wants to build those EP buildings. Free Market is really worth it when you've OBs with everyone

Also in the future games if espionage is on I'll do whatever it takes to found religion, even if I would end up being Creative. That -40% from city having your state religion is just too good to be ignored. Also the real EP costs of tech stealing are actually 1.5 times the beakers costs so in case this mission is still in I would increase the stealing EP costs to multiplier 2. Other alternative is to affect to the multitude of discounts. Especially the ones related to religion that are very hard to counter (had to adopt same religion or try to prevent spreading).

[plako]

Lots of info in this 1 screenshots. Bigger wasted some commerce to EPs and still did not finish Scientific Method. To be on the safe side I fired counter-espionage mission against him. I also sunk another East Indieman of his and got Great general out of it.

Commodore got peace with Pindicooter. I guess they mainly want just be pushing end turn for the rest of the game, but I still need watch closely watch out the big navies both Commodore and Pindicooter have collected.

I could get Steel in 1T, but I don't really need to get it faster so I just keep my event fund up. 12 Infantries drafted so far.

I've been gifting close to 10 units to Xenu. In his standards they've been modern i.e. Maces, catapult and Knight. Now he decided to pay back and gifted his wandering Archer and Chariot to me. Sorry Xenu I appreciate the gesture, but I did throw your precious gifts to trash bin. I hope I don't had to dig them up when you come to visit .