Tides of War, a balance mod

[Krill]

I think the cheap barracks and dry docks to CHM is fine. Does it still have the happy from broadcast towers?

[TheHumanHydra]

(I like Trading Post.)

[Ceiliazul]

I don't see how you can possibly like General Store more than Frontier Post.

im with noble on this one. also, whatever its called, 2 merchants is too strong, imo.

[pindicator]

There's one way to find out...

[Gaspar]

I don't see how you can possibly like General Store more than Frontier Post.

I dunno, there's something uniquely American about a General Store. Makes me think of the Andy Griffith show or some such.

Also, when are we getting another test game?

[pindicator]

Mercantile was the first thing that popped in my head when it came to quintessential American store. Also, if you need to give it a minor nerf / add some flavor then remove the health bonus that a regular grocer gets. Cause we Americans have healthy food and stuff

[SevenSpirits]

What would you guys think of the following change to the tech cost calculation? The goal here is threefold: 1) Increase later-game tech costs, and do it smoothly. 2) Decrease ancient tech costs a little bit to lessen importance of starting techs 3) Make different world sizes have a more useful effect on tech cost - currently, large world sizes increase the cost of all techs with the justification that players will have more land and thus cap out at a higher tech rate, but having more land doesn't help you with ancient and classical techs.

X is a percent bonus based on world size: 0% for duel up to 50% for huge. Current tech cost modification according to world size is simple: Cost gets multiplied by 1 + X. My proposal is to multiply cost by (1 + the following) instead:

((log(cost of tech) / log (40) - 1) * (1.2X + 0.3)

What does that do? The quick summary is it means the map size multiplier doesn't apply at all to the cheapest techs, applies about as usual to medium-cost techs like paper, and applies by a greater factor to expensive techs.

The first term, ((log(cost of tech) / log (40) - 1), is a number between 0 and 1.5 depending on how far down the tech tree we are. 40-cost techs are 0. Future tech is 1.5 (well, a tiny bit less, but close enough). Paper is approximately in the middle with 0.73. (We are caring about the geometric/multiplicative mean here, not the arithmetic mean. I don't consider advanced flight to be an average-cost tech because it costs half as much as future tech.) The second term, (1.2X + 0.3), is a number between 0.3 and 0.9 depending on the map size.

Multiply these two terms together and you get 0 for a super cheap tech, a number like 20-60% for a tech like paper (depending on map size), and a number like 45-135% for the top end stuff (future tech), depending on map size. Remember this is replacing a number that ranged from 0-50%.

Here's a link to a spreadsheet showing tech costs for variable world size / handicap / etc, compared to how they would look under this formula. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?...sp=sharing
You should be able to make a copy of it so you can try out different variables.

[SevenSpirits]

After seeing feedback I'm thinking:

America: UB is the Frontier Post, a Grocer replacement with 1 free merchant.
Germany: UU is now the Riesengarde, a Grenadier replacement with 15 strength.
Russia: UB is the Research Institute, now a university replacement with 1 free scientist.

And we still have the previously-mentioned changes:

Egypt: War Chariot is a chariot replacement with 2 first strikes. (25% base strength bonus on a chariot is just too good.)
Mali: Skirmisher is a 30h 4 strength archer replacement with zero first strikes. (Archer has 1, old Skirmisher had 1-2. 33% base strength increase is still really strong.)
Sumeria: Starting techs changed from Agriculture/Wheel to Agriculture/Mysticism. (Sumeria is simply one of the best civs due to combination of nice starting techs and very strong UB.)
Vikings: Trading Post gives Flanking 1 instead of Navigation 1. (Vikings are a bit overpowered on maps with water. I want all civs to have a fair shot at naval power and the extra moves are too big an advantage.)
Zulu: Impi is a spear replacement with 50% withdraw chance. (2-move spear is just too hard to balance when combined with a good UB and decent, almost unique starting techs.)

(Only change from last posting is swapping in Flanking instead of Drill for the Vikings.)

Still would like more opinions on CHA and the tech cost change I just proposed.

[SevenSpirits]

Mackoti convinced me the german UU gren should be only 14 strength. Considering that with its starting techs, germany is competing against Ethiopia, Russia, and Khmer, I think this is reasonable. I think those are good starting techs in this mod.

We also talked about CHA and I have another option to throw out there now: +2 happiness, -25% XP requirements, double speed monuments. It even fits the theme really well in my opinion. What do you think, would you pick that trait?

[Gaspar]

After seeing feedback I'm thinking:

America: UB is the Frontier Post, a Grocer replacement with 1 free merchant.
Germany: UU is now the Riesengarde, a Grenadier replacement with 15 strength.
Russia: UB is the Research Institute, now a university replacement with 1 free scientist.

I get why we all felt the way we felt about the Grocer change, but I do think that civs that have "later" UU/UB really need to be very good to get chosen. The problem is you get to a point where you're either nerfing everybody who has Ancient/Classical stuff or your buffing everyone. I mean, these three are clearly the worst because everything was late, but nobody takes Spain either, for example.

Still would like more opinions on CHA and the tech cost change I just proposed.

CHM might just work best with the BTS version but the extra ancient happy moved to a building that 1) is something someone wants to build after the first 50t and 2) isn't provided as a free in every city bonus on a wonder. Maybe Libraries?

The tech cost thing might work but at the same time, I start to worry if this is the point where minimalist balance mod turns into KrillMOD. For me, the largest appeal of this vs. that is that it tweaks as opposed to overhauls.