Are you happy with RtR?

[Old Harry]

RtR is in a weird place. I think a lot of us liked it in earlier incarnations; when that incarnation was is pretty darn variable. For instance, I have some fairly fond memories of 2.0.7.4, but I'm not sure looking back why that was. It was certainly before the village/town thing and the silly navy and the crossbows.

Yeah, this is why I was thinking that distilling that good old days feeling into a list of bullet points would let us make the mod that most people want to play. So if you have anything specific let me know.

I'll add these to the original post:
- SotL have collateral but are vulnerable to privateers (I quite like this, but it comes under "silly navy")
- Towns act as forts for boats and air units
- Lighthouse, Harbor, Customs house, Dry dock, Moai give XP to boats
- New Naval flanking, drill and sentry and changes to base promotions and movement of boats
- Barb animals get bonus vs melee but never beat scouts (I like this one!)
- Trebuchet on Machinery, not Engineering (I like this one too!)

I have a similar feeling to Commodore. Ever since we started playing most MP games with RtR, I stopped really knowing the rules of the game by hearth, and had to always look up what were the rules for each specific game. It doesn't help that RtR has a lot of counterintuitive (hunting -> pastures; AH -> camps) and inelegant (the +2 commerce in water +3 in land for FIN) changes.

I won't argue for or against specific rules, just against this way of doing things. I also agree with Commodore that 2.0.7.4 or something around that era was fine. After that, I think most of the changes started to be made just for the sake of it.

Ichabod - the changes you mention have been in RtR for a long time now and are fairly fundamental to the balance, so I'm not sure that they're in the scope of the polish I was hoping for. I've got that anything invented before I was 20 is how things should be, while anything invented after I hit 30 is the devil's work feeling about some of the recent changes, so I thought that itemizing them would be the fair way to whip this into shape. Hopefully we can get a shape that won't change for a while so any rules you learn won't go out of date immediately...

By the way - I have a feeling that you'd enjoy a game of CtH so I'll also make sure I ask the question:

The next pitboss game I play will probably be:
- RtR
- Close To Home
- BTS
- I don't [have time to] play pitboss
- Other (text)

[pindicator]

Things I like:

Civ & Trait Balance In general, at least. I'm sure I have quibbles here and there
Animal Husbandry - Hunting worker tech swap While not elegant I like how it really smooths out the early game. Although camping deer requiring animal husbandry feels off.
MoM nerf - having this wonder expire midgame is really needed IMO
A lot of the technology changes - notable exceptions: Astronomy requiring Code of Laws, and the later Meditation/Philosophy changes


Things I don't like:

Barracks giving culture and costing more - bring back the monument as a strategic choice
Castles change - really don't understand why this needed to be nerfed
Temple change - this was one of the later patch changes and at a period where I felt Krill was changing things just to change things
Almost all the later navy changes - in general, I feel like Krill gave out way too much XP to naval units. I feel like naval units have too much movement compared to land units in base BtS and this just made everything twice as bad. In theory I like the privateer-caravel-galleon rock-paper-scissors idea, but practically the right combination of tech requirements hasn't been found yet.

[Old Harry]

Thanks Pindi, I agree with all of that except I'm not sure what you mean here:

Castles change - really don't understand why this needed to be nerfed

Castles (and replacement UB): no longer decrease bombardment rate of catapults or trebuchets. Obsolete at Corporation (Except defensive bonus). Requires Walls. No trait or resource production bonus. Cost 80 hammers.

[Ichabod]

I have a similar feeling to Commodore. Ever since we started playing most MP games with RtR, I stopped really knowing the rules of the game by hearth, and had to always look up what were the rules for each specific game. It doesn't help that RtR has a lot of counterintuitive (hunting -> pastures; AH -> camps) and inelegant (the +2 commerce in water +3 in land for FIN) changes.

I won't argue for or against specific rules, just against this way of doing things. I also agree with Commodore that 2.0.7.4 or something around that era was fine. After that, I think most of the changes started to be made just for the sake of it.

Ichabod - the changes you mention have been in RtR for a long time now and are fairly fundamental to the balance, so I'm not sure that they're in the scope of the polish I was hoping for. I've got that anything invented before I was 20 is how things should be, while anything invented after I hit 30 is the devil's work feeling about some of the recent changes, so I thought that itemizing them would be the fair way to whip this into shape. Hopefully we can get a shape that won't change for a while so any rules you learn won't go out of date immediately...

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for changes in those specific points. I was pointing out how the constant change, coupled with some very unintuitive changes, makes it very hard to know the game you are playing without constantly looking in changelogs (and RtR never had a good presentation of its changelogs, IMO). Bu there's no need to turn RtR in a completely different Mod (like you've said, CtH and other initiatives can do this) and I agree with your idea of refining it, while keeping the core changes.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

What I like about RTR:
- Rebalancing of certain civs - providing early game options for formerly late game civs.
- Crossbows act as a collateral. This provides an interesting choice between "offensive" and "defensive" collateral. Crossbows should have a smaller melee bonus, however.
- The idea of navy changes - there really should be a cost to moving through oceans, otherwise the game just becomes naval hide and seek, and tedium. See the PB44 lategame.
- Civics.
- Colosseum and jail changes.
- Wonder nerfs.
- Early game worker techs. Apparently people think the BtS balance is somehow better, but I don't believe CtH or base game do a better job providing balance. Civs shouldn't be kneecapped by hunting, and CtH's +1 scout speed isn't a fun design for multiplayer where we custom-make maps and have rules about starting units.
- Tech cost scaling - the renaissance/medieval era goes by way too fast.



What I dislike about RTR:
- Preserving the Inca/India supremacy but through different means.
- Units that build buildings (khmer ballistaphant, trackers, they're just stupid)
- Barracks culture. It feels good to be agg and have a cheap monument that gives XP, but it's really not a good element of gameplay.
- Implementation of navy changes - there was no need to move privateers to be THAT early. At least make them have more prerequisites or something. Too much naval XP given out as well.
- Traits - The later versions of RTR have bloated and arbitrary trait bonuses. Spreading out library bonus over 3 different traits? Giving a bonus to banks for industrious? I really dislike the philosophy applied to trait balance. (revert to 2.0.5.3)
- Slavery nerf - I want to whip.
- Castle nerf, cities should be hard to take.


What I am ambivalent about:
- 5 turn peace treaties
- Barb animal changes.
- Unit changes




The next pitboss game I play will probably be (in order of preference):
- RtR (assuming current 5.0.0.1)
- CtH (assuming the current patch, otherwise, swap with RtR)
- BTS

[pindicator]

Thanks Pindi, I agree with all of that except I'm not sure what you mean here:

Castles change - really don't understand why this needed to be nerfed

Castles (and replacement UB): no longer decrease bombardment rate of catapults or trebuchets. Obsolete at Corporation (Except defensive bonus). Requires Walls. No trait or resource production bonus. Cost 80 hammers.

The no trait or resource production makes them more expensive as most players would have access to stone by the time they come around on the tech tree. For me castles were awkward to build before all this because there's just usually better things to build anyway. And despite how much we see castles slow the AI down, I don't recall any games where players were slowed by the extra bombard defense - usually players just bring a lot of stuff where it doesn't matter as much.

I do like the Corporation change for their expiration, however. Makes the trade route hit go smoother.

[Charriu]

I have a similar feeling to Commodore. Ever since we started playing most MP games with RtR, I stopped really knowing the rules of the game by hearth, and had to always look up what were the rules for each specific game. It doesn't help that RtR has a lot of counterintuitive (hunting -> pastures; AH -> camps) and inelegant (the +2 commerce in water +3 in land for FIN) changes.

I won't argue for or against specific rules, just against this way of doing things. I also agree with Commodore that 2.0.7.4 or something around that era was fine. After that, I think most of the changes started to be made just for the sake of it.

Ichabod - the changes you mention have been in RtR for a long time now and are fairly fundamental to the balance, so I'm not sure that they're in the scope of the polish I was hoping for. I've got that anything invented before I was 20 is how things should be, while anything invented after I hit 30 is the devil's work feeling about some of the recent changes, so I thought that itemizing them would be the fair way to whip this into shape. Hopefully we can get a shape that won't change for a while so any rules you learn won't go out of date immediately...

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for changes in those specific points. I was pointing out how the constant change, coupled with some very unintuitive changes, makes it very hard to know the game you are playing without constantly looking in changelogs (and RtR never had a good presentation of its changelogs, IMO). Bu there's no need to turn RtR in a completely different Mod (like you've said, CtH and other initiatives can do this) and I agree with your idea of refining it, while keeping the core changes.

Improving the changelog is something that can definitly be done. Any feedback and improvement regarding the presentation of RtRs and CtHs changelog is always appreciated.

[Hitru]

Going through list of things that have been touched in discussion and will cast my vote on them.

First of all, the big one. I hate the latest naval movement stuff. Take xp away (or reduce a lot) and change movement rules as they were. If you are afraid of enemy coming towards you over ocean use sentry net, just like you would do over land. This implementation just leads to annoying mini game where you want to find maximal number of coastal tiles for your ship routes. This is biggest thing annoying me.

Unpillagable villages/towns. Bad idea IMO, they should be pillagable. I think Krill added this as he was annoyed with 3rd party coming to pillage towns under the attacker but that IMO is fair game, if the attacker wants to stop that declare war and kill his units. Attacker is responsible to protecting his gains.

Inca/India granaries. I'm pretty fine with them as they are (45 hammers) or setting them back to 60/30 hammers with PRO. Also Babylon could keep discounted granary. What I would liek to see is a UU that's bad cming with them, so at least Urukku needs a nerf (Quechua has use as cheap mp unit but nothing else).

5 turn peace: Could go either ay with this but it did what it was supposed to do, war-peace stopped after this change.

Xbow: Lets just go back to Normal. Collateral from ships for everyone is not something I like (big nerf to China).

SotL: Only naval change I like . I think it's good balance that privs are good vsSotL as then you can't just mass only SotL and Frigs without risk but need more balanced composition.

Barb animals vs scouts: I like this one, makes one ctually do harder choices in which units to build.

Treb: I like it on machinery.

Barracks: I think it is important that it gives culture to make Agg have some semi viable way to get border pops. Building a monument is not strategical choice, it is a punisment and a sign that you have messed something up in your micro (I HATE monument, and spending hammers on that in early game is just horrible). In big games we need lots of different ways for players to pop borders, this is one of them (and buffs AGG, which is needed).

Temple: Revert back to normal IMO.

Worker tech changes. Absolutely needed for making starting techs more balanced.

FIN: I think financial is fine in RtR. It needs some nerf compared to vanilla and this does that in resonable way while keeping spirit of it.

Towns acting as forts for navy and air. Fine but woud not complain if reverted back.

MoM nerf: Needed

Trait/civ balancing: Mostly good and definitely needed

Slavery nerf: Needed and should be kept

Castles: Should get stone bonus back.

[Old Harry]

Thanks guys. I've made a form to collect opinions more easily - hopefully I've included all your points. I'll leave it up for a week or two before trying to analyse anything. Should I advertise it anywhere else?

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ...sp=sf_link

Results will be collected here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...p=drivesdk

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Xbows now cause collateral damage which makes them compete with Catapults. So - which unit is better for stack combat? The picture kind of spoils my conclusion to you but I am not confident in it. Hear me out.
The key thing is that Catapults can trivially take Barrage 1 and a bit later Barrage II which puts them at higher pure collateral output than Xbows. And they are cheaper. Also, their collateral damage goes deeper, 50% vs 40% but this is rarely relevant, unless you are trying to collateral away something like Rifles. Of course, Xbows have higher base strength but this is mostly irrelevant. And Xbows are good against melee-based stacks but you do not expect to see those at this point of the game. So... Catapults are better?
Yes, they are, if you assume that you are on defense and attacking enemy stack first. That was my assumption as I was primarily concerned with the defense against Commodore. However, if you are on the offensive, then you need to survive the enemy attacking you first. For that purpose, Catapults provide you with the benefit of soaking up collateral damage while also providing you with the disadvantage of being vulnerable to flanking and having no defensive bonuses. The relative importance of those factors depends on the era but in the Knights era the vulnerability to flanking, of course, is much more important. So, if you picture yourself attacking, Xbows are better. Commodore builds exclusively Xbows, by the way, but I am not sure that he came to the same conclusions as me.
Why is it on my mind now, even though the decision was made long ago? I am thinking that there is quite a lot of value in the flexibility of Xbows: they can be decent city defenders, thanks to the garrison promotions AND cause collateral depending on your needs. So, may be I should have built some. The overall conclusion is that change to crossbows is actually very good, makes you consider some rather interesting choices.

I think looking at the crossbow changes simply as "collateral from ships" is an oversimplification. What it really creates is two distinct options for attacking/defending with collateral.