(August 5th, 2014, 13:38)GermanJoey Wrote: If you wanted players to focus more on research over expansion early, wouldn't it be easier just to fiddle a bit with standard RB Pitboss map settings? For example, any of the following map settings would have a big effect on the tradeoff calculation here: Torodial wrap but with no coast-accessible islands, Deity difficulty (but no barbs) to increase maintenance, normal size despite being a bigger-than-normal map, sparser food density (especially seafood), no gems/gold/silver/furs found anywhere near any capital's BFC.
that type of map sounds like a terrible idea ...
or rather, I don't think it would be very fun :/
How about making the starting BFC really nice, and making the rest of the land really crap? Or rather, relatively crap that doesn't have any river access ... needing either Civil Service or Biology to be made serviceable?
(August 5th, 2014, 16:30)Krill Wrote: Couple of reasons, but they are more based around the idea that more decision to make, is what makes games interesting.
- Islands give players more land to fight over, not just in a linear line between capitals, and bring in some amount of naval warfare.
- Toroidal wrap and flat maps have the same costs as cylindrical maps (one of the first changes, IIRC).
- Sparser food resources generally has the effect that there is much lower flexibility in dot maps, which then leads onto set front city positions and then this iterates down to forced warfare due to indefensible front cities due to culture output. Note, this doesn't actually change the tech rate versus expansion rate much, it just slows the entire game down due to slower pop growth.
- Good luck finding a map maker that will actually do that /s. Seriously, I know map makers fuck this up consistently, but even if they are placed 10 tiles from one persons capital...they aren't going to be 10 tiles from another players capital, not with around 200 land tiles per player. It's simply not possible to have these resources be as far as possible without placing them in "disputed" positions, which can then also cause players to prioritise settling those positions and create an imbalance and snowball problem.
- Difficulty...this generally has the effect that players lose options on expansion, such as forcing players to focus on a strategic resource and then on a happy res, because you can't have more than 3 cities without effectively losing due to the tech costs. And good luck for those players that need 4 cities to grab a happy, copper and horse, compared to the player that only needs three...or the player that has his resources placed towards an opponent, opposed to behind him, on the coast. Having less painful commerce costs to expansion is helpful, and frankly, Monarch is a good balancing point, there is a cost but there are a variety of potential options.
The stuff I was talking about earlier isn't for RtR. RtR is at a fairly reasonable point given standard settings...although people should stop being wimps and play on toroidal. PB18 is, IMO, a farce because it isn't.
I suppose all this is redundant though: if it turns out pitboss games are DoA then I don't see any reason to carry on mod development.
Why is Toroidal so important? And anyways, if we all knew that maintenance on Toroidal was no longer an issue, then everyone would be more than happy to play on it I should think ...
So anyways, while I don't think any PB without Toroidal is a 'farce' ... certainly the NEXT one should be Toroidal.
(August 5th, 2014, 08:09)Krill Wrote:(August 5th, 2014, 07:54)Old Harry Wrote: Having an XP effect expire with Military Science would be thematic and (perhaps) alleviate the Commando issue.
I don't think that Construction needs an economic aspect - its a war tech and gets researched when needed/wanted. I like looking at someone who's just got it and thinking "Ah, war".
Boudicca needs 13 XP for Commando on melee/gunpowder untis and can always upgrade after taking promotions. She can get 10XP just from Barracks/Vassalage/Theo/SoZ. Even 1 XP to melee/gunpowder units makes it somewhat trivial to get that magic 13XP.
Quote:Would your HR happy Colosseum give happy if the player isn't in HR? How about a reverse war-weariness effect giving happy instead of unhappy faces the more units you lose in foreign lands? Again it'd need to expire before the modern era... Oh, and an extra trade route at writing would stop anyone ever crashing their economy.
- Yes, work even if not in HR.
- TBH it sounds somewhat boring, and potentially cheezy if you want to throw away old, junk units for happy.
- I do rather dislike ordinary buildings that expire, as a falvour issue.
In all honesty, I'm surprised how people never make that comment about crashing the economy in base BtS when sometimes players could get 3 commerce trade routes at Writing for no cost, which to beat with 2 normal routes would require a player strech themselves to settle an islandm, with te consequent difficulties that entails.
Hmm, so are you saying that 3 commerce trade routes are coming from Roading to an AI in bts? Sounds phenomenally difficult to pull off in anything other than a really crowded map.
But yea, an extra TR or two at Writing could be fun.
In my own mod for vanilla, many medieval buildings give xp to melee (and mounted) units specifically. Making commando only accessible for Gunpowder units would completely remove any potential exploits.
(I have walls give xp to archers, castles give xp to melee and mounted, forges give xp to melee, and stables give xp to mounted)
and it doesn't need to expire (imho) because Castles,Walls,and Stables would expire anyways, and melee units are outclassed fairly early on. The only downside (if it can be called that) is that Renaissance cavalry get extra XP until castles expire ... but imho that is simply more thematic and fitting than anything. (aka Polish Cav) ... and if Poland was its own nation, and not partitioned during the first partitioning, during the Napoleonic Era I have every confidence that they could have defeated Napoleon, or helped defeat him at one of the early battles (the Battle of Jena comes to mind, if the Polish were up for helping out the Prussians)
