Trait Balance: A Poll

[Krill]

I have created a quick poll involving a few questions based around traits that people have asked me about. If anyone is interested in helping me find a consensus and to understand the community opinion, I would appreciate it if you could spend a few minutes to complete the form linked to below:

Trait balance poll form

[Dp101]

Is there any way to view results?

[Krill]

I plan to release the results (minus user names) towards the end of the week.

[Krill]

So I have a fair few responses, more than I hoped to get, but I think I'm going to leave this open until Friday for anyone else that wants to comment and put forth their opinion. At that point, I'll edit the results to remove written comments and names and post a link to the spreadsheet here.

[Krill]

I have now closed the poll, it's been open for over 5 days, and there were a total of 14 responses. I don't quite know how many responses I was expecting, truth be told. Here is a link to the spreadsheet results

Long story short, the most interesting issue was that there was an almost perfect split between the PHI changes.

[Krill]

Quick question: What would be peoples views of the Colosseum giving free Formation to units built in that city? Or another free promotion? (and don't anyone suggest a free combat 1-4 promotion, but free CR1 might be OK).

[Commodore]

Quick question: What would be peoples views of the Colosseum giving free Formation to units built in that city? Or another free promotion? (and don't anyone suggest a free combat 1-4 promotion, but free CR1 might be OK).

Drill 1? Giggles, at least, can live the old-Pro dream...

[Krill]

I'm giving PRO back D1 on Archery and Gunpowder units anyway. It only got removed because PRO had so much bloat on it, and that was before AGG and EXP got buffed. Free D1 barely makes a dent in the strength of PRO.

[Commodore]

Oh, cool!

Then clearly...Leadership!

(not actually joking)

[Krill]

OK, I'm fucking knackered (it's a technical term, it means sleep deprived and over worked) so here is a tl;dr of trait balance IMO:

The majority of traits are fine in terms in balance. Some traits are fine for balance but players don't enjoy them, which is a flavour issue and not a strength issue (Charismatic I'm looking at you). Some seem just a little on the week side but just need very minor buffs (and not on the scale of cheap libs). And then there is PHI, which is really weird and actually works fine in some games and in others is actually broken for most players due to metagame reasons.

I'll start with the easy stuff first.

Financial

Fine for the most part. I know the lack of river commerce is jarring, I feel that myself, but I do acknowledge that it does work for nerfing the early game power of FIN. I think that as it is currently implemented there are no valid changes due, however I will go on record as saying I prefer the ToW implementation with the Wharf city improvement, just I don't think that's suitable for this mod given the constraints of no new buildings. I don't intend to make any changes here.


Creative

I think CRE can function with either +1 culture/city and cheap Libs, or as +2 culture/city and cheap Observatories. They effectively fall into two slightly different game styles and favour different trait pairings, but I feel the +2 culture is the core identity of the trait and looking at the results of the poll people tend to agree. However, CRE does seem to lack a little bit of mid game strength and that is something I want to adjust. The obvious place to make the changes are at the Colosseum, as that is a building that has no niche and is already attached to CRE. I intend to adjust the Colosseum, but I'm not sure of the best way to do this. The majority of the people responding to the poll seemed happiest with +2 happy on the Colosseum, but that makes rebalancing the relevant UB difficult as the Mayan UB basically needs rebuilding as well because +4 happy on one building is broken as all hell, and even worse as CRE for 10 hammers/happy. As much as I want to give it happy, I don't think that's a great solution, but it is a potentially workable solution.


Charismatic

I don't think CHA is weak, but I do feel that the majority of players do not appreciate it for the late game strength it gives in unit flexibility; for instance I won PB5 because of CHA helping me, not because of SPI or the UB. Giving more and more happiness to it isn't really that useful on high happy maps and on low happy maps would probably break the game. Again, I have a few ideas for tweaking the Colosseum (effectively stolen from Seven, anyway, not really my ideas) give a bit more flavour to CHA, but will not be based around extra happy. They will likely be based around the high XP unit theme of the trait.


Philosphical

Oh god where to start.

I think most people accept that PHI at +100% GP points is too weak. It's also a very basic trait that doesn't give most people many options: it almost forces players to run down Education and bulb Lib. In this way, PHI can be defined as a snowball trait in that it makes you get GP out sooner and bulb to gain a tech advantage based on first to advantages (after the first Academy because that's generally the most efficient play). There aren't other GP options for most people unless you are Egypt/Arabia and want a Prophet for a religion bulb (Theo or CoL if double bulb) or more likely a shrine. But that is based on the ability to get religion. Waiting for Caste to get the first GP is often delaying the snowball from starting, and leads to the PHI player that didn't get the early GP out not getting the tech lead. And finally, because of the method of cost scaling for Great People, long term PHI will get more GP than none PHI players, but in reality it might be enough to get the fourth GA, rather than capping out at the three person GA.

I think that the main issues with PHI are then based around several points: There aren't options in the early game, so the early game is a race to get GS out, and if you are competing with others for the first to boni (like...multiple PHI players) then most PHI players are going to lose.

I think the three options shown in the poll are each viable, but all have issues.

• 150% GPP means that the race still exists, and that there will not be a significant increase in the number of GP generated due to cost scaling. I think that the four person GA is fairly certain, and more because the GP are produced quicker cities can get back to growing sooner (really noticeable on the second and third GP, the first it's like 2 turns). The race to first person boni still exists, and is perhaps even exacerbated in this model. Favours wonders and running 2 specs over other options (ie 1 engineer, 1 priest from temple).
  
  This model thrives IMO in games with fewer players such as a PBEM up to 10 player PB game where there are not many PHI leaders, or players can choose leader/civ combos to enable specific strategies from T0. Because of this, I'm fairly sure that this model needs changing this the RtR mod.
  
  
• +2 beakers per spec/+100% scales incredibly well into the late game. In fact, I ran the numbers compared to the example below and came to the conclusion that it has to run 8 specs (of any type including settled specs) to match the per turn output of the model based off free settled great people for each GP produced. It scales with Merc, it scales with total pop. And it's not a slouch early on either, the total beaker output over 30 turns of working 2 scientists is the same as the free settled GP if that GP is a scientist, plus because the beakers are not based on a bulb it does not focus so much on first to boni. Late game, +2b/spec is of unknown value but it will be higher than either of the other two models. Don't know if it's too strong though. This model does have a completely unbiased gpp generation %age though.
  
  As this model favours (IMO) focussing on grabbing Mids and running mass specialists everywhere, it's not really targeted at any single game type or size, except it really needs time to set up and would have difficulty working in a game where there is no time to set up the necessary infrastructure (libs significantly improve effects, Caste not ideal substitute).
  
  
• Free settled great specs for each GP produced naturally (not from techs etc)/+67% (so +5gpp/spec). Biased towards slightly individual specs, and against wonders, and definitely against national wonders. The beaker output of this model peaks using a single strategy, which is that of the popping 2 GS from the same city and dumping an Academy in them. It is weaker if you limited to move the capital, put the Academy somewhere else, pop GP from separate cities, pop different GP, the output is significantly lower (ie after 30 turns, 2 GS from same city with 1 Academy present=21bpt. No Academy=15bpt. Separate cities=15bpt but 90 more hammers). Due to the lower %age bonus to GPP, the cost scaling for GP is less of a concern (ie you will not generate that much fewer GP). The main aim of this model is to give the PHI player a consistent, per turn boost to economic output and still enable players to generate the GP they want to fit the macro game. One downside is that settled Great Artists would have to have output rebalanced away from per turn culture towards gold and beakers (eg from 3gpt+12cpt>2bpt+4gpt+7cpt).

This model probably thrives in games with a large number of players, and that last ages. Because there is no additional input required once the GP is produced, the benefits are game long and will continually stack up. But that also means it functions well in a game where there are no resources to devote to widespread specialists, can focus on a NE Über city that spams out Great People, and on a small map where the total pop is limited.

The thing that makes this more difficult is that the poll was basically split evenly between all three models. I'm not 100% sure what are the best methods of fixing PHI.