RtR_6.0.0.1 Discussion thread

[pindicator]

Yeah, I'd play test a game. Especially a random one.

[scooter]

Scooter, I have spent thirteen years being told that changes go too far, are too weird or are overly complex. Please understand the level of irony I feel when I actually try to move stuff back towards the base game being questioned.

But you are doing the thing people have been telling you about, but I think you don't actually realize it? You aren't moving things closer to the base game. You are moving it further away in an attempt to make one combat interaction's odds closer to the base game. That might seem like a weird distinction to you, but the end result is the change log is longer and definitely weirder for very minimal balance gain, and to some people that's a negative. If that's what you want to do with this mod, that's fine, but I was under the impression you were soliciting feedback.

[Gavagai]

Seriously Gav? You are saying that base BTS elephants are OP because of how they interact with knights?

Well, one of them. In BTS elephants trade with knights excellently despite much lower tech requirements. It is not the biggest problem with them but it is a problem and I do not get why we want to reintroduce it out of nowhere.

[Gavagai]

If everyone wants to leave knights buffed compared to base BTS then just post that so I can laugh at the absurdity of it all.

You already want to make Pikes more accessible if I remember correctly.

[Amicalola]

FWIW (I have never played with rtr), I really like the Engineering change. But I think the one to war elephants (while having a good idea in mind), is perhaps just a bit finnicky. Could we have a different way of slightly nerfing knights instead? Something like -x% strength in cities?

[Gavagai]

I just see little value in ensuring that a unit from an era before, which costs 1/3 less, be significantly stronger than the knight (even with str 7 phants get odds before promotions). Even str 7 elephants with cats make defense against an attacker who's an era ahead pretty simple; the defender needs to be heavily outproduced as well.

Er...you just described spears and HA? And axes and pikes, and arguably archers and swords. And the entire economic model of CIV is capitalistic expansion into mass production...

The difference from spears and HAs is that spears are pretty much useless outside of their counter role. Elephants, on the other hand, are an excellent all-around unit and a counter to knights on top of it.

[Gavagai]

And one last point - if we design it for random maps, nobody is guaranteed to have Ivory resource (you did not change this requirement, right?) so we cannot rely on the elephants to be a counter to knights.

[Gavagai]

No, not the last point. I want to register disagreement with the design philosophy of "flattening" the power of game features in order to add variety to the game. The result, I think, would be that features would just lose the unique feel to them and all gamestyles, despite superficial variety, would look the same. But "flattening" was always the philosophy behind RtR, so it's ok if this comment is ignored.
(If I wanted to nerf knights, I would rather do it by adding power to alternative tech paths. There is already somewhat a choice - whether to go for knighs or for Liberalism, if you think that knights are an obviously superior option, make the liberalism path more attractive somehow.)

[Thoth]

Why the nerf to Stock Exchanges?  I would much rather have a building that provides +65% cash than one that provides +50% gold/+15% science.

As far a wellies vs knights, I don't have a problem with wellies countering knights, it helps make knight rushes less of a One Right Strategy.

I'm up for a test game if the player count is small and preferably sequential.

[superdeath]

Yeah, I'd play test a game.  Especially a random one.

Im a glutton for punishment.