RtR mod 3.0.0.1 proposed change log

[Krill]

RtR mod 3.0.0.1.f for testing.

Bug fixes, and moved some of the Renaissance era civics around (see first post).

Free Speech: available at Constitution
Mercantlilism: Available at Liberalism
Free Market: Available at Economics

To expand on this, it's basically down to two reasons. The decision to buff the economy civics up to SP standard puts a large stress on the renaissance tech tree because the sheer power of getting into one of those civics creates a beeline target for every civ in the game. The second reason is that with some of the tech tree changes (linking Democracy into Modern era tech, Liberalism or Economics opens up Corp but both are needed to get to Industrialism), it's been possible to put make all of civics except SP available on mandatory techs.

The beeline is acceptable so long as which civic and techs taken varies, that there is no one right choice. The other civics that were on Liberalism, and some of the minor effects from Economics, are split between Lib, Econ and Corp for balance.

[Krill]

Bear mouseover tip reads "+100% against Melee".

[will edit this post if I see anything else]

Thank you for bug hunting Bacchus. It's really helpful fior a second (and third, fourth etc) set of eyes to check for stuff.

In this instance, do people think that bears should be stronger, or is +100% against melee enough? I'm wary of the effect bears can have on fucking up early expansion, you see.

[GermanJoey]

What's their base strength?

[Krill]

All barb animals are strength 1 with modifiers.

[Tasunke]

anything from 100-200 % seems fine. Maybe 150%?

We should probably look at all the different animals, to see what might keep them unique while still keeping your goal.

at +200% vs Melee, you could always have the Lion have +100% vs melee. Do we really want the different animals to be carbon copies of each other?

[Krill]

It's more important to understand the purpose of barbs than to just make blind changes.

Barbs in an MP environment act as a brake to expansion, exploration and have the effect of slowing choke/rushes but also if XP farmed potentially more effective.

The buff to the scouts bonus against barb animals, and lowering of the base health is there to limit the effect on early game exploration, in the first 25-30 turns so players know the basics of the map and how not to fuck up. But further exploration then runs up against barb warriors and archers, that's unchanged. The animals are only there for the first few dozen turns (depends on game settings, it's hard coded). So barb animals are going to come up against scouts and warriors in most cases, and very rarely an archer, chariot or impi.

I don't think that allowing barb animals to have odds on warriors is a good thing because it keeps the aspect of randomness screwing up starts, rather than a players poor decisions ie losing a warrior by moving it adjacent to a S3 bear is just unlucky, whereas not scouting and having a settler die to a wolf is poor play. That is to say, I think that not allowing the barbs to have positive odds against warriors if they are kept to defensive terrain is the ideal balance point.

Because of that, I'd say bears at +150% or +125% against melee and archers might be OK, as it differentiates between bears and other barbs, but keeping warriors on defensive terrain isn't quite enough to get odds. So I'd think that giving those combat modifiers plus a combat malus against forests, jungles and hills for bears is probably smarter.

[Tasunke]

Bears with +125% vs Melee and Archer sounds good.

Onto tech costs ... I've noticed that in 2.0.7.4 you highly increased the tech costs of Renaissance techs (and beyond), while, in 3.0.0.1 you have drastically reduced such costs, to almost BTS levels (but still slightly elevated, for the most part)

Could you tell me what was the reason for the initial Tech Cost increase, and why you decided to significantly scale it back down?

[Krill]

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...#pid465879

[Tasunke]

So ... are you saying that 2.0.7.4 was using the equation perfectly? And that, afterwards, you realized that it made late-game way to costly?

Because, for instance, Engineering tech, at 1000 beakers, has NEVER changed, in any version. So I don't see how it could be with solely the application of an equation. Hence an explanation is necessary (because it wasn't the same changes across the board).

---------------------

I mean yes, its a fine equation, but its not nearly 1:1 for either 2.0.7.4 or 3.0.0.1

like if u had a tech by tech reasoning or just a general strategy, either would be cool ... to yanno ... read about.

[Krill]

The 2.x mod versions had tech cost increases at the start of the renaissance era that ended up scaling to 200% of base tech cost.

The 3.x mod version use that tech cost scaling, plus the renaissance era techs increase in steps of 10% from 100% of base cost to 140% of base cost.

The late era tech costs in 3.x are not as high as in 2.x, peaking at around the cost of Industrialism, and then stay fairly flat. Some other late era techs have had costs altered due to the utility they bring ie Robotics has been made much cheaper. All tech costs now scale much more based on map size, and early game tech costs basically don't scale much at all, and first row techs all cost the same (4 turn techs on Monarch/Normal) regardless of map size. This is the reason that tech cost scaling has been implemented. The overall increase in tech costs compared to base BtS is because it makes tech parity warfare viable in the Renaissance and later eras compared to sitting at home building research to the far future and crushing people with better units

There is an issue with SS probably being more viable than Culture unless culture is started earlier than it was in PB18. Frankly I'm waiting for PB18 to end for the fallout of this change to be argued over. I'm not in a rush.

Edit:

Because, for instance, Engineering tech, at 1000 beakers, has NEVER changed, in any version. So I don't see how it could be with solely the application of an equation. Hence an explanation is necessary (because it wasn't the same changes across the board).

Engineering has a base cost of 1K beakers which is adjusted by game speed, difficulty and map size. The equation that calculates the cost was altered, so yeah, that cost will change between games so long as one of those aforementioned variables changes.