Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Krill]

Works for me. If currency keeps the tr then both buildings go on compass. If the tr is abstracted out to an era bonus then one of them can go on compass and the other on currency.

[The Black Sword]

Regarding OP trade route talk, I don't think I've ever gone directly Math -> Currency. Monarchy, Metal Casing, CoL and Calendar(I don't think I've personally went Calendar first, but it's easy to see it happening) all make other good targets depending on the situation. Currency generally seems to be the second classical tech I get after whichever one of those I beelined. Obviously it depends on how you balance tech vs expansion in that particular game, but take from that what you want.

[Krill]

The main reason to move the TR onto a global Classical tech bonus is that it doesn't stop the varied tech paths in the Classical era; in fact it should theoretically increase them; as you commented Currency as a second tech still constriucts tech path. The other advantage in era bonuses is that it should be possible to implement free specialists slots into those era bonuses and that should help rebalance Caste without removing the unlimited free specs effect.

All that said, doing this in SMEG mod for a test game is likely the wiser choice.

[Krill]

So I've been working on the 3.0.0.1 list of changes for a while, and after a few nice days off to figure things out, I'm basically done. But before I post it, I feel that I need to know how people feel about some changes around Caste.

Here is the proposed change:

Upon entering the Medieval era, all cities gain 2 artist, scientist and merchant specialist slots in addition to any other slots already available..
Upon entering the Renaissance era, all cities gain 2 artist, scientist and merchant specialist slots in addition to any other slots already available.

The reason for this change is straightforward: to alleviate the lack of specialist slots available if not in Caste. It lowers the opportunity cost of not being in Caste but does not remove it.

I need to know what the thoughts are of this change: Long story short there need to be more specialist slots available. How that occurs I'm not sure of, but increasing the slots available on buildings is not really an option.

[Ruff_Hi]

'Free' GP slots? Shouldn't they cost you something? What about putting a city on 'build a GP slot' and you get 1 GP slot per X hammers?

[Krill]

No, they should not cost something. The point is that Caste gets infinite scientist, merchant and artist slots, plus a hammer bonus on a ubiquitous tile improvement. After the first 75 turns Caste is probably as close to a one right choice that exists in the civic field. Buffs are necessary on Serfdom and Emancipation inasmuch that real choices don't currently exist for long term labor civic usage (although Emancipation is rebuilt to act as a cottage modifier civic it does not effect the Town improvement, it doesn't make sense to run Emancipation long term). The presence of the "free" spec slots is there to add power to those alternative civics because it's duplicating some of the power of Caste but at a later stage of the game (Code of Laws can be the first Classical era tech researched, whereas the Medieval era starts at Music, Philosophy, Civil Service, Feudalism and Machinery).

Nerfing Caste is theoretically an option, but it is one that many people find distasteful. The power issue boils down to the lack of specialist slots (and the cost of those slots is prohibitive), whereas the cost of running Caste is nil once you have enough pop to use workshops to replace slavery hammers. Realistically, any solution involves the addition of cheap specialist slots to the gam on other labor civics, but if it's an issue with all of the labor civics then a cleaner solution is to make the specialists slots available regardless of the civics being run, but still providing a cap on the number so that Caste still has a (frankly quite large) niche.

Note that Caste still has the workshop hammer, so late game Caste provides infinite tiles for each city (because that's what a specialist slot is, it's a tile that provides gold or beakers or hammers, and no food) and the increase in production that the other civics can't match. Unless the other civics provided something of similar late game strength that can't be copied in other manners, then Caste is still probably the best late game labor civic unless you want to grow a bunch of cottages in Free market (in which case Emancipation gives an extra 1 commerce per cottage per turn plus assorted hammers and commerce from mines and farms). The number of workshops generally exceeds the number of watermills and windmills so the hammer bonus from Serfdom is lower, and the worker productivity from Serfdom, well, the niche there is whilst still growing cities, not in the late game.

[sesh]

Has anyone ever gotten RTR mod to work in multiplayer with a mac? Or does mac multiplayer just not work in general?

[Krill]

It won't work because RtR uses a custom DLL. You need to play on windows (although IIRC someone has gotten it to work in Wine?)

[Krill]

Just realized I made a small error in my script, which gave the baseline the CH's +50% modifier. It doesn't change too much, actually.

corrected plot of CH with +50% yield:



corrected plot of CH with +100% yield:



and here's what CH at 50% yield and Merc at high upkeep, assuming the upkeep difference will be something like 0.5gpt per citizen (I have no idea how accurate that is, btw, since I can't load PB22 right now to check)



looks like making merc high upkeep is good enough...

Code:

% +5% for each point of population of the From city over 10
% +25% if the city From is connected to its capital
% +50% if the city From has a harbor
% +100% if the city From has the Temple of Artemis
% +100% if the city To is on another continent
% for foreign To city, +100% if it is on another continent and the From city has a customs house
% for foreign To city, +3% per turn (up to a max of 150%) since the last war between civs owning To and From

close all;
clear all;

c = ['r'  'k'  'b'];

pop = [10:22];
routes = [4:6];
h = [0 1 1];
ch = [0 0 1];
h_bonus = 0.5;
ch_bonus = 0.5;
ict_bonus = 1.0;
cap_bonus = 0.25;
peace_bonus = 1.5;
fm_multiplier = 1.25;

extra_upkeep_per_cit = 0.5;

popmod = (pop-10)*0.05;
fpopmod = pop/10;

% set to 1 if we want to say the 1 hammer per coast from breakwater is equiv to 1 commerce
% otherwise the hammer is ignored
include_hammers = 1;

% base route yield is 3 routes (base + currency + corp) plus two free rep scientists from mercantalism
route_total_base = 12; % the two scientists
for i=[1:routes(1)-1]
    routemod = cap_bonus + (h_bonus*h(1)) + (ch_bonus*ch(1)) + ict_bonus + peace_bonus + popmod;
    route_total_base = route_total_base + floor(routemod.*fpopmod);
end

route_total_base = route_total_base - extra_upkeep_per_cit*pop;

figure;
hold on;

% calculate the additional commerce from trade routes
% first iteration is just free market (red), second iteration is FM+Harbor (black), then finally FM+Harbor+CH. (blue)
% then calculate the number of quay+breakwater coast tiles we'd need to work to bring in the same much income
% negative values mean that quay+breakwater is always better for a city of this size
for r=routes
    x = r - routes(1) + 1;
    route_total = 0;
    routemod = cap_bonus + (h_bonus*h(x)) + (ch_bonus*ch(x)) + ict_bonus + peace_bonus + popmod;
    for i=[1:r]
        route_total = route_total + floor(routemod.*fpopmod);
    end
    
    route_difference = (floor(fm_multiplier*route_total) - route_total_base);
    num_of_equiv_coast = route_difference/(2+include_hammers);
    
    plot(pop, num_of_equiv_coast, c(x), 'LineWidth', 2);
end

xlabel('city population');
ylabel('number of quay+breakwater coast to generate same income');
legend('base FM', 'FM+H', 'FM+H+CH');

I'm looking at not using the breakwater concept in 3.0.0.1. Quay would need to stay as +1 commerce on sea tiles. Harbour needs to be comparable so I think that it either needs to be a trade route and not much else or a good chunk of +%age bonus. After that things get tricky. Customs house needs to be changed to not require harbour but I think that the proposed implementation works as a standalone building given the civic setmup. That essentially leaves the dry dock which could be changed to require 1 quay and 1 harbour per DD like cathedrals require a number of temples. Or just left as is.

That leaves the question: do the quay and harbour need to be mutually exclusive?

[ipecac]

Realistically, any solution involves the addition of cheap specialist slots to the gam on other labor civics, but if it's an issue with all of the labor civics then a cleaner solution is to make the specialists slots available regardless of the civics being run, but still providing a cap on the number so that Caste still has a (frankly quite large) niche.

What about unlocking slots when cities reach certain sizes?