Because clearly after you won a game with Seven in it the rankings will have to be done anew 
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[SPOILERS] NHs rise to number 4
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Mod changes:
Quote:Traits 
Ok, lets start with the things I think are rather unimportant:
Corporations and Nukes: Might be interesting later on, but I don't see a reason to plan anything around that. Naval Mechanics: Honestly, I don't even know why they exist. I don't see them making ship fighting any more interesting. Rather the opposite most likely. As defender you'll get 10% Defense bonus most of the time. The 15% attack bonus therefore would help to alleviate that and make the attacker stronger even. But you have to attack with your first move. Now, lets think about that: Each player has a galley. A goes first and moves 2S of Bs galley. B could attack but as he needs to move first, he would only have ~30% chance to win. So instead he moves 1S to close the gap between the galleys. But now it is again As turn and he can attack B, having ~52% chance to win. Therefore whoever moves to the position he wants to hold will have the better odds. As attacker you'll therefore still need 2:1 numbers in ships. And as defender you'll still want 2:1 numbers in ships to be save. Maybe I overlook something. And the defense-promos may make it even worse for the attacker (stack a defense and an attack ship and it gets even worse for the attacker). But I don't think it actually changes the dynamics of ship combat. Which pretty much are: Try to avoid it and instead make surprise strikes with small fleets at unexpecting cities. Not to mention that I haven't seen yet a Torusland-map in which controlling one of the many lakes would really give you enough of an edge that the investment is worth it. Espionage: Only matters insofar as that you can use spies to actually spy again. That can be helpful (especially to check on troops before you move further into enemy culture) but with Sentry-units and reading the demos you can get a pretty good feel about your opponent in any case. I don't digress that it can be helpful and it sure is nice to get the option, so that's fine with me. As for the GSpy-bomb: With Spies being available to ... well, spy, I don't see why you would waste a GP to bomb the enemy. Sure you'll get research visibility but I've saw by now some ways to counteract that (1 turning techs till you but a shitload of overflow into a tech to 1-turn it as well the most obvious I guess). Anyhow, I've never seen it being an issue and annoyance and 1500 might not be much less annoying than 3000 (if you have 1500 ep/t you'll not care, if you have 15 both are screwing you hard). Next: Changes that matter (imo)
Checking in.
I agree with everything you've said so far. This mod is essentially: Rebalance the traits A few combat/unit tweaks Bugfixes/loophole closures/minor riff raff I told Seven by PM that I think India sucks at 75h, because the first worker is so essential, and those 15h that early take a long time to pay off. Traits: Cha and Pro seem insane. Not convinced they synergize, though. Agr is solid. Exp is lame now. Fin is still viable.
FIN: +1c on tiles with 3c or more
The change has two impacts as far as I can see. One you need to build a new building and invest 80 hammers to get FIN-bonus on coast. Given 8 coastal tiles each producing 2 more commerce with this building you are at 16 cpt and 5 turns to make the hammers back in commerce (taking only the possibility to produce wealth/research as measure and not rush-buying). Let it be at most 15 turns if you put a 3:1 exchange ratio from commerce to hammers. Given that, I don't think that is that much of a change in that respect. Before you needed Colossus which you could lose out on. And even if you got it, it did cost some hammers obviously, so the new building instead isn't any change at all for the first few cities imo. Yes, there is also the additional tech and stuff - but honestly, even in PB12 Colossus wasn't that big of a deal despite many cities being coastal. The second impact is that riverside cottages need 10 turns to get the bonus, non-riverside 30 turns. After that it is the exact same as before. That does make FIN weaker in the early game but equally strong late game. Basically, it puts the point in which FIN overtakes every other trait at a later date. That might give others a better shot at some of the earlier first-to bonuses and is actually kind of a buff for PHI. Reason being that now you can wait longer to use your additional GP as the FIN-civs won't have run away already when you get to CS. Which in turn means you get more beakers out of your GS (by bulbing techs that are not or just barely researched by a GS). And still I think FIN isn't actually that much weaker than before. Probably around 2000 beakers over the course of a game. EXP: Double speed granaries, +2 health (no harbor or worker bonuses) Losing the worker-bonus is hurting the trait definitely. But the granaries is why you took it and you'll still can gain quite a bit by having double-speed granaries. The health-bonus is also helpful. So undoubtedly this trait is weaker now, but it still is one of the better traits imo. CRE: only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum) I don't think this trait was too strong to begin with, so losing 1 cpt per city isn't helping. It still is basically as good as SH though with the added benefit of several cheap buildings. Of which you'll unfortunately only want to build the library in most cases. And even that building isn't for every city (like say a Granary...). I wouldn't have picked it before, I still would not pick it. SPI: unchanged ORG: unchanged IND: unchanged The 3 unchanged ones. For SPI I don't think there was any change at all in the mod that affects it. Still good if you can use it, still not as helpful if you don't want to change civics much. With a cottage-economy (which is imo still the strongest) there isn't the need to change civics all that often. Not to say that you wouldn't want to, but I don't think it necessarily has much of an economic impact beyond what you get by being smart with GAs. ORG is still good. Again I see nothing that really changes how it works in base BTS. The "nerf" to FIN might lead one to believe that ORG is now better or as good, but I think FIN is still having the higher economic impact. IND lastly is probably a little bit stronger due to the change to wonder doublers and that it is easier to reach Forges. Are Forges that game-changing though? It still forces you to research a tech that has no economic impact and is actually setting you behind on getting other important techs. I don't know. Wonders are to help your strategy they are not your strategy itself. A trait that is helping to get stuff that should be helping to get what you actually want seems kinda ... well, unnecessary. Just take something that gets you what you want directly... like FIN. PHI: +150% gpp, double speed universities Stronger no doubt. Maybe the 150% bonus lets you actually get another GP more than those without PHI. So approx. 3-4 more. That's nice. 6000 beakers perhaps. Which is probably what you'll get from FIN in 60 turns late-game. Depending on map-size obviously. The real benefit of course is that you can get your first even earlier now. 5 turns of 2 scientists for the first GS on Quick. Before you needed ... 6 turns. Ok, so maybe you'll not get them THAT much quicker. I'm not sure I might have to play around with this, but I don't think that change really does change much on the actual issue with the trait: Due to the GP costs getting higher and higher you can't actually produce that many more over the course of a game than those that don't have this trait. IMP: +100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets and banks +100% GG points is still nice but not really a reason to take the trait. Cheaper settlers are great, especially on cramped maps. And cheaper markets and banks let you get more money which you'll most likely need due to the higher amount of cities you own. I like the change even though it is small. Still, if you ask me if I want FIN or this, I'll take FIN. If you ask me if I want EXP or this - I'll probably take this. But I would most likely have taking it before already over EXP, so its more or less because of my "wrong" evaluation of traits. CHA: +3 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements, and double speed barracks and drydock (no happiness from monuments or broadcast towers) 3 happy is strong, especially on a map with unknown amounts of happy. The other bonuses are imo rather unimportant because you need to war for them to work and you normally only want that if you have a tech-lead and production-advantage. And if you have that you can win the war without these bonuses. Still nice to have, but others give you more benefits over the course of a game. Back to the 3 happy: It lets you go vertical early on or whip more often. That's nice if you have the food. Later you might be able to couple that with a specialist economy as you need more happy for it than for a cottage economy. Still - it doesn't appeal to me. FIN, EXP, IMP are all better imo. AGG: Removed, replaced with AGRICULTURAL (AGR): +1f on tiles with 4f or more I really would need to test this. At the start it makes resource-tiles and FPs stronger. Later on every farm will be 5 instead of 4. That's nice but probably to late. I'm really not sure on this one. I think depending on the start this together with Slavery could be very powerful. But I'm not sure if you can actually get as much of a lead as you'd need because in the mid to late-game its benefit fades. Only with Bio it comes back IF you can transform food to commerce. Which means specialists. 2 Farms can feed 3 specialists. That's 5 citizens producing in Rep 18 beakers. If they were all working FIN-towns that's 35 commerce instead I think. I really can't see how a spec-economy can compete at all late-game. And if you don't get Pyramids for it, Rep itself comes awfully late, making pure specs even weaker. Actually I thought I'd love to play with this trait, but the more I think about it, the less I see how it actually can compete if the map is not overflowing with food-resources. PRO: Removed, replaced with PRODUCTIVE (PRO): +1h on tiles with 4h or more, +50% worker production, +50% workboat production See above, except that there are even less tiles that gain the bonus early on. I think there are more that gain it later on than the food bonus and it comes also earlier and I guess there could be some potential abuse with Workshops and Caste. Together with the worker production it might even be stronger than the new AGR. Or not. Honestly, the two new traits I'm not sure I catch all implications already. But after the first "hype" that I felt when reading about it I've more and more came to the realization that FIN is still the strongest. The new ones might let you get off your start quicker - but I'm not sure that it really is enough to have a lasting impact.
December 19th, 2013, 01:48
(This post was last modified: December 19th, 2013, 02:07 by NobleHelium.)
All right I'm such a slacker, haven't posted anything.
To be honest I haven't given that much thought to the trait balancing and whether the changes are on the level or not. Here are some impressions though. First on the start. I said that the pick would be heavily dependent on the start and I stand by that. It seems obvious to settle on the PH given what we see. Unfortunately we won't really reveal anything that would make us think otherwise...unless we pick Hunting and get a real scout, in which case we can send it 2E or 2E1N and consider settling on the other PH. So that is a consideration. FIN: +1c on tiles with 3c or more To me this seems like FIN is still quite strong in land where you have a lot of rivers. Without rivers though I think FIN will be quite weak. Villages take a long time to appear. You will get resources of course, but given the pull of FIN towards cottages which on the whole is not that interesting (even though I'm generally happy to cottage spam), I'm inclined to say we should pick something else. If we had a very rivery capital I would say otherwise, but we don't have that much river, and most of it is hill. EXP: Double speed granaries, +2 health (no harbor or worker bonuses) EXP is cheap granaries and cheap granaries, so I'm still happy to pick the trait in cases I would have before. CRE: only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum) This CRE change is interesting. Before you could maybe get away with planting a shitty city with no first ring with CRE, now you can't more than ever. I don't think shitty first ring cities are a good idea early in the game though, old CRE or not, barring very unusual circumstances. Although I have to agree that it seems dubious to nerf CRE when I think it wasn't as strong as ORG. SPI: unchanged ORG: unchanged IND: unchanged No comments here, really. ORG might be worth picking because it's probably relatively stronger. IND's relative buff is nice. PHI: +150% gpp, double speed universities I've never played with PHI, and I've always said that I want to sometime, but I'm not sure when that will be. As I said previously, PHI is stronger on maps with little food, because it's harder to run specialists on those maps. Kind of a bland change really, but PHI was definitely weaker than the standard defined by SPI/ORG/IND, so a buff is accurate. IMP: +100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets and banks Now this is pretty interesting. Double speed markets definitely can potentially fix the IMP curse where you spam too many settlers. Unless you're Commodore who thinks number of cities is king. CHA: +3 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements, and double speed barracks and drydock (no happiness from monuments or broadcast towers) +3 happy seems...excessive. I mean, that's the same as the Rep bonus, and early Rep has unlocked a player from the pack more often than not. And personally I think the +3 happy is often stronger than the specialist bonus... AGG: Removed, replaced with AGRICULTURAL (AGR): +1f on tiles with 4f or more I think AGR could go very well with PRO, and obviously with CHA. I think this is a pretty synergy-reliant trait. On paper it's weaker than say FIN, because +1f or +2f per city is not as good as say +5c per city, but the new FIN is just so slow without rivers. So honestly I'd rather try out AGR and see. PRO: Removed, replaced with PRODUCTIVE (PRO): +1h on tiles with 4h or more, +50% worker production, +50% workboat production I was actually hoping for a hill-heavy capital to maybe try out a wealth-building strategy. Tokugawa. Early MC with its cheaper cost for forges which buffs wealth. Just seemed interesting. The start is a disappointment though, settling on the PH gives us no mines in sight. We could still pick PRO, but it would be for the worker bonus and then the mine bonus later. On game speeds. I strongly think Serdoa's Slaveryless anomaly in 47 was due to the fact that he was Joao on Quick speed. If he was on Normal he wouldn't have been able to do that, but on Quick if you have bonuses to your foodhammer units you can slow build them so quickly (cue novice slowbuilding Pyramids music) that you don't need Slavery. So if we end up on Quick picking IMP is definitely a consideration, possibly even IMP/PRO which is uhhhh some sort of emperor I bet.
Civilization IV: 21 (Bismarck of Mali), 29 (Mao Zedong of Babylon), 38 (Isabella of China), 45 (Victoria of Sumeria), PB12 (Darius of Sumeria), 56 (Hammurabi of Sumeria), PB16 (Bismarck of Mali), 78 (Augustus of Byzantium), PB56 (Willem of China)
Hearthstone: ArenaDrafts Profile No longer playing Hearthstone.
December 19th, 2013, 02:00
(This post was last modified: December 19th, 2013, 02:13 by NobleHelium.)
An Interlude - Why am I playing this game?
So why am I playing this game? After all, I've been adamantly against playing Krill's mod. But I've also repeatedly stated that I would have great interest in a minimalist balance mod. While some of the changes here are more excessive than I imagined, it definitely has a lot of potential and makes a number of changes that I would never have dreamed of trying, as I had considered them extremely hard to get the balance correct. The AGR and PRO trait changes are the primary examples. But at the end of the day, it comes down to just a few factors: 1) Seven is generally trying to minimally balance the game just so that we don't have to ban anything. 2) Seven, Krill and I are all arrogant people but Krill has something more that borders on conceit, but not quite. To be precise, Krill has a lot of trouble accepting the fact that he could be wrong, while neither Seven nor I do. (You will often have a hard time convincing me that I'm wrong, but I always consider it a possibility and will readily admit it.) I consider it a waste of effort trying to get Krill to change any aspect of his mod. 3) I'm annoyed that newbies keep thinking that we endorse Krill's mod simply because of its arrogant and incorrect name. 4) Krill thinks his mod increases play choices and is thus superior. It does to some extent, but it also very much caters to his playstyle which he subtly admitted in his explanation of how tech trading is supposed to work in his mod. I can't really find the post in his PB5 thread, but in essence that he said that "the game is supposed to be played where you tech for a while, then fight, then tech again." That is drastically different from BTS and something pulled solely from his brain. 5) Krill's mod is balanced such that he expects everyone to act as he does. For example, players who are not the leaders are supposed to trade techs with each other only and not trade with the leader(s). That never happens.
Civilization IV: 21 (Bismarck of Mali), 29 (Mao Zedong of Babylon), 38 (Isabella of China), 45 (Victoria of Sumeria), PB12 (Darius of Sumeria), 56 (Hammurabi of Sumeria), PB16 (Bismarck of Mali), 78 (Augustus of Byzantium), PB56 (Willem of China)
Hearthstone: ArenaDrafts Profile No longer playing Hearthstone.
Now some comments on the rest of the changes. I wholly agree with you Serdoa in that it looks like the Naval Initiative change doesn't really change naval standoffs that can appear. I actually hadn't thought it through and didn't realize that would be the likely outcome. On the other hand, with the nerf to blockade range, the Naval Initiative mechanic actually allows defensive ships to establish a 3x3 zone of control such that an invader would need a stronger fleet to encroach upon to blockade. But it also means that once a blockade is in progress, any fleet coming to lift the blockade will likely be attacked by the blockader (or the blockader retreats). That seems like it would likely mean that blockades are easier to remove, because the damaged ships will likely have to retreat afterwards. I'm not very confident in this theory though, and it also relies on the ships not having the defensive promotions. I think maybe the defensive promotions should require a late tech (e.g. Chemistry or Combustion) to unlock, because they seem better suited for later combat where the increased movement empowers the attacker.
I don't think nukes are fixable unless they are damage and target capped just like any other collateral and I told Seven as much. I have confidence that he'll be happy to change the current implementation once it's been proven broken though, as explained above.
Civilization IV: 21 (Bismarck of Mali), 29 (Mao Zedong of Babylon), 38 (Isabella of China), 45 (Victoria of Sumeria), PB12 (Darius of Sumeria), 56 (Hammurabi of Sumeria), PB16 (Bismarck of Mali), 78 (Augustus of Byzantium), PB56 (Willem of China)
Hearthstone: ArenaDrafts Profile No longer playing Hearthstone.
I'll dedlurk because of the people in this game who can win, I'd most like to see Serdoa win and I probably would have signed up myself if I saw this before it filled.
This probably means nothing, since I am the world's worst dedlurker.
I've got some dirt on my shoulder, can you brush it off for me?
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