A new mod enters the ring - Introducing "Close to Home"

[Amicalola]

As a casual observer, the picture I get is that you buffed everything else to be as good as Financial originally was, and some of those overshot, so now Financial itself needs a small buff too.

I'm not sure that's accurate. FIN has been pretty significantly nerfed in this version, as have EXP and CRE (to a lesser degree). While PRO, AGG, PHI and CHA have been buffed, and the rest largely unchanged. The idea was to bring every trait towards the pre-existing 'average,' which on Monarch was roughly successful (with IMP being perhaps too strong on our uber-lush maps). But it turns out that on Emperor maps (recently the standard), ORG is still significantly better than that old average due to increased maintenance. At least, that's how I would put it. I tend to agree with Refsteel, as I've already stated, that ORG should be nerfed rather than FIN buffed. It's not like FIN is any worse than EXP/CRE/PRO/IMP/etc in its current state. I also think ORG only needs a tiny nudge (still favour making lighthouse boost 50% rather than 100%, or maybe making Civic Discount 40% instead of 50%).

Certainly I would disagree that PRO is fine but FIN needs a buff. I'd say FIN is stronger than PRO in the current version of the mod already, and my impression is that the stats generally back that up. I think the 50% market boost is pretty warranted, while the bank boost is iffy (maybe could be put at 50%?).

[Charriu]

So it looks like I can and will keep the changes to Babylon, Dutch and Native America. About the other civs

America: I realize that no random people brings a lot of its own problems with it. So I will probably go the easy way and just change the building to be replaced. At the same time I will rename it and remove the remnant of its BtS UB. So America would be

America UB: NEW Carnegie Public Library - Library replacement, +3 neutral Great People Points

Germany won't change. I just wanted to hear some opinions about that proposal.

Japan: I will keep my change with the reduced cost. There are some interesting ideas like using Iron Working for it and removing the engineer. I already explained why I think the removal of the engineer is a no go for me. Unfortunately like you already mentioned with Iron Working it becomes to easy to get the Pyramids, which is why I will go with my original proposal.

Persia: Lastly the Persian UB. I would like to go with +50% trade instead of +1 trade route. Mainly because Persia isn't in such a bad spot as other. Their startings while a bit weaker in CtH are not the worst. Their UU is also quite useful. Therefore I felt they just needed a bit better UB. Remember that the BtS UB only gave you +2 extra health on a grocer, which becomes only useful in very late games with modern techs. I also think that +50% can keep up with 1 extra trade route at the time you research currency and can build the first Bazaars. An extra trade route would give you the following at that time:

+1 commerce as a domestic trade route
+2 commerce with intercontinental trade or simple foreign trade route
+3 with foreign trade route and intercontinental trade.

If you would run 100% gold you would also get +2 extra gold from the standard market +25% with just two foreign intercontinental trade routes and one simple foreign trade route or domestic intercontinental.

Now with +50% trade keep in mind that you are at currency at therefore have at least 2 trade routes. Also assume that you are at 9 turns of peace with foreign trade partners, which shouldn't be an issue. With those in mind you would get.
+0 extra commerce for domestic trade routes as well as intercontinental domestic trade routes
+2 extra commerce for two simple foreign trade routes
+2 extra commerce for two intercontinental foreign trade routes

If you would run 100% gold you would also get +2 extra gold from the standard market +25% with just two foreign intercontinental trade routes. So in that regard the +50% option is not worse then +1 trade route.

It's true that +50% trade is a bit weaker then +1 trade route, but what I like about that bonus is that it is more focused towards foreign trade, which was my plan with the bazaar.

I'm mystified by the idea that Financial and Protective somehow need to be made stronger given their existing popularity and success (as others have suggested, if those two seem weak in comparison with Org, it makes more sense to reduce Org's advantages ... or play on maps less-suited to Org than we have been lately.  The other changes seem like good ones to me.  For America's UB, what if we gave it one of each specialist slot?  (Either as a Harbor = Immigration Station or as a Library = Carnegie Public Library)?

One completely random and superfluous request that only matters for single player if at all:  The game option, "Random Personalities" keeps each AI graphical leaderhead matched to their name and traits (and civilization if unrestricted leaders is off) but assigns them all the diplomatic lines, build preferences, peace weight, favorite civic, and so on, of a random other leader instead.  The diplomatic lines (and to a lesser extent, the favorite civics) give away the leader's identity to players who know the game well though.  Might it be possible to either keep the diplo lines (and perhaps favorite civics) matched to the graphics and name or randomize those separately from the rest of the "personality" so AIs in a single player game will still have distinct personalities but the player won't know for sure which one they're facing except by inference from their actions in the game?

I've put the "Random Personalities" proposal on my todo list, but with lower priority.


I think Protective was warranted a buff. In BtS it is considered the worst trait rightfully so. I only gave it the trade bonus in CtH which helped a lot, but is a lot more map dependent like other traits. For example FINs bonus is also map dependent, but you will get a good or great benefit from FIN on any map. Now with PRO you get a great benefit at the start on almost every map, but that soon drops to nothing on the wrong map. Therefore the market bonus gives it a bit more stability in its map-dependency.
Giving FIN banks is not intended as a big buff, rather it is intended to make FIN a bit more interesting after the recent nerfs.

[Mjmd]

I still kind of like America UB being bank +10% production and hire an engineer. If you are sold on immigration station I would put immigration station at courthouse. Barring that I would probably tone it down if you are putting it as a library replacement to probably +2 instead. That might even be too strong that early.

[Amicalola]

Mainly because Persia isn't in such a bad spot as other. Their startings while a bit weaker in CtH are not the worst.

 

For the most part, I like these decisions though. Agree that the library with +3 might be too strong, but +2 probably ok?

[Ginger()]

My gut says Courthouse and 3gpp is probably better balanced than Library and 2gpp, but we're flooded with court replacements, so a library replacement would be fun.
I was thinking about Persia, and noticed that the Immortal has some... interesting flavor text in CtH.

I think giving Org -40% discount instead of -50% is a more direct and meaningful fix than fudging the lighthouse bonus.
It keeps the identity of hammer saving on big empire infra (you rarely build LH/CH when there's still cities to settle), and it fixes the current elephant-in-the-room of its direct competition with FIN well into the late game.

I'm strongly against any FIN bank bonus. Banks are huge and FIN is in a good spot.

I wanted to comment on the EIM changes for the Dutch, while they look fine, it's probably worth making a note somewhere that if the tech requirements for Galleons change, the EIM nerfs should be reverted.

[Mjmd]

I'm going to just post a thought I had on fin vs org during trait analysis.

"The problem with Org vs Fin is that I still believe that Fin is a better late game trait, org does a lot for free. You don't have to do any work for it. Its better for fast expanding and also early whipping wars . It also is better early game to get to key techs. As well as getting to early wonders and religions (not as good as pro for that purpose, but still good). I'm kind of on bring back 50% bank bonus for Fin. If its going to be the late game ultimate trait, lean into it."

Charriu choose 100% on bank, which is a lot..... but ya Financial is probably the best economic trait in a vacuum, but multiplayer games are not a vacuum. I like buffing other things vs nerfing org.

[BING_XI_LAO]

In terms of theme and gameplay diversity, i think an America UB that boosts corporations could be interesting. Might be bad for balanced and too lategame skewed though.

[Charriu]

As you may have seen I released a new version 3.0.0. Most of the stuff in there was discussed previously here, but there are a few things I wanted to point out:

1. You may notice that I did not make the change that forts work as canals in neutral and open border areas. That's not because I didn't want to but rather because I didn't find a good way to integrate it in the code and I didn't want to wait with this version just for this small change. When I find a way to implement it then it will find a way into the next version.

2. The space elevator no longer has any latitude requirement. I think this needs no explanation for why this is necessary.

3. As you may have noticed I had to revert my change regarding caravels, carracks and east indiaman teleporting out on a war declaration. Because of that I felt the urge removed the movement in rival territory from the Dutch UU. A +2 stronger cargoship with +1 movement that is not teleported on war declaration is a bit heavy.

4. The units no longer loose XP on upgrades was requested by someone. I felt it didn't need a big discussion and just added it. This makes Great Generals a bit stronger in the long run and with that IMP.

5. Lastly I returned to Emancipation. As you can see I removed my happiness related hammer bonus and went for a simpler more close to home bonus. This was proposed here in the thread.

[superdeath]

4. The units no longer loose XP on upgrades was requested by someone. I felt it didn't need a big discussion and just added it. This makes Great Generals a bit stronger in the long run and with that IMP.

[chumchu]

Idea: change the Persian unique building from Apothecary to Qanat. It is an underground aqueduct that spreads irrigation in very dry places. This was a very important development in Persian history as it enabled water supply for cities and irrigation for the large-scale cultivation of cotton which was part of the Persian renaissance in the middle ages.