[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[NobleHelium]

Uhm well I think we should try to deny Rome iron considering that we're attacking them and all. They could get iron from someone else though. I'd prefer to plant off the iron but that may be too greedy...

[scooter]

Turn 076

Okay, I'll get the stuff you lurkers don't care about out of the way:



No seafood. Commodore settled 1N of the northern gold. Like I said in chat to pindicator, I'm not super concerned about the fogged land to our northwest since Commodore doesn't seem super concerned about settling it. Anyway, I think this cow/horse site makes for a decent northern border. I'd really rather let Commodore have a fair amount of the land between us and reduce his incentive to attack us rather than fire up the grudge match. Later in the game may be a different issue, who knows, but for now if he wants to keep colonizing the north I'm cool with that. So we had a coin flip attack on the barb:



We were both kinda torn on this on this, so I went ahead and took the shot. Lost . Please Great Wall, come quickly. Easy cleanup I suppose.



We now have two 5xp archers btw. Those will come in handy. Thinking positively here . Anyway, pindicator and I chatted over the Nakor thing last night. I tested against a fully fortified axe and archer. We won against the axe 4/10 times, archer 7/10 times. We really don't want to come out of this with no gains, so we talked about a risk minimizing idea. I went with it.



Sniped the worker. Worst case scenario now is we get +1 worker out of the deal and we've hurt the growth of our natural geographic enemy. Now, 2v1 on an axe with no amphibious penalty is an easy victory. So the question is - can he get another unit in there before next turn? Another unit from a nearby city is basically out of the question. The odds of that are very small. It's not possible to get a 1 mover in, and I don't think they even have a chariot yet based on horse connect date and power graph. The real question is do they have hammers into a unit to be able to whip it? If yes, we take our worker and go home. If no, city is ours. I'm pretty optimistic.

So what could he be building? Well, so far this city has done 2 forest chops. Zooming in on the city shows they've built a Monument and a Granary. Given that the fish is 2nd ring, it seems likely the first chop was a Monument. If that's the case, he's about 2T away from a border pop (and 20% culture defense it should be noted). In that case, I think it's particularly like they're building a work boat. We should be able to get a good idea by checking how many hammers they have invested, so let's do that.



Sabotage production is gone?!? What?? Okay.

*whistle*

Time out.

Krill. Why did you think this was a necessary change? This is not a balance problem. Nobody sabotages production, and nobody has ever complained about it being out of balance. This is just another "changing random things just for fun" issue, and it's obnoxious to play a "balance mod" that makes random changes like this for what cannot be balance reasons when that mission is purely a C&D tool. I like the balance changes in this mod quite a bit. I don't like the changes that have nothing to do with balance, and this is one of them.

Anyway, it's not a big deal here since it's not like it affects our choices this turn, but I guess we'll just have to wait in suspense to see if we get a new city next turn. In case they're stuck, I offered Nakor a chance to save his axe:



Will be surprised if he takes that, but it doesn't hurt anything to offer it.

And now we wait.

[Krill]

Can I sober up first? No? OK then.

You ever tried to build SS when you opponent could sabotage city production? Espionage is such a badly designed mechanic that no matter how a fix is attempted someone will feel screwed over. As it stands you are trying to use this mechanic in a way to that it wasn't intended, so I don't feel bad about the change.

[scooter]

Can I sober up first? No? OK then.

You ever tried to build SS when you opponent could sabotage city production? Espionage is such a badly designed mechanic that no matter how a fix is attempted someone will feel screwed over. As it stands you are trying to use this mechanic in a way to that it wasn't intended, so I don't feel bad about the change.

If you can point to a game here where that's actually happened I'll admit you're right. Until then, it's changing a mechanic to fit your preferences rather than a balance change.

[Krill]

RB is not the only evidence base that is used for the mod. Nor are your or my experiences the only valid ones.

[scooter]

RB is not the only evidence base that is used for the mod. Nor are your or my experiences the only valid ones.

RB is the only place that plays this mod. It's quite literally called RB Mod.

[scooter]

Oh wow. A flurry of lurker posts in the Nakor thread for the first time all game. Awwwwesome.

[Krill]

RB is not the only evidence base that is used for the mod. Nor are your or my experiences the only valid ones.

RB is the only place that plays this mod. It's quite literally called RB Mod.

Just no. We haven't played anywhere near enough games to cover ever single aspect of game balance that exists. And seriously, you're going to state that the mod name is relevant?

I could have called this the smegheads mod if I wanted.

[scooter]

RB is not the only evidence base that is used for the mod. Nor are your or my experiences the only valid ones.

RB is the only place that plays this mod. It's quite literally called RB Mod.

Just no. We haven't played anywhere near enough games to cover ever single aspect of game balance that exists. And seriously, you're going to state that the mod name is relevant?

I could have called this the smegheads mod if I wanted.

No. I'm saying: "This project was supposed to be a rebalancing mod for games here." The rebalancing in this mod where we fixed existing problems (traits, civs, civics, corps, etc) is pretty good. The changes that are made that are either 1) solving problems that don't exist or 2) change for sake of change I do not like. This falls under a little bit of both categories. Games don't go to spaceships, the game is decided before then. This is a problem that doesn't exist, and in order to solve this non-existent problem it removes functionality that some people like. Whether I or you like this use of sabotage production is irrelevant though, because it's not solving a balance problem, and therefore is outside the scope of the mod. In theory. :P

That's my argument. It doesn't prevent me from playing and even preferring this mod, but I know a couple people do skip games with the mod because of stuff like this.

Also, I'm not mad. Most people get more out of sabotage production than me, and it didn't negatively affect me this turn at all. I just think the change is unnecessary.

[Ceiliazul]

Sabotage production is gone?!? What?? Okay.

...

This is just another "changing random things just for fun" issue, and it's obnoxious to play a "balance mod" that makes random changes like this for what cannot be balance reasons when that mission is purely a C&D tool.

Scooter, I agree with you completely about the too-big scope of the mod. Non-balance changes are the reason I don't play the mod, and will likely never will. It's like 4-square at elementary school, where the rules are always changing.

However it's worth noting that there was discussion about this in the balance thread. It seemed to be Plako who led that charge.