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

[Mjmd]

Already done!

[Charriu]

Before I add any more changes to the mod I want to do two things first:

1. Rewrite and structure the changelog to make it more tight and concise.
2. Get rid of some changes that either aren't important, have a minimal effect or just unnecessary

and I want to start with the second point first as it makes the first easier. These are the changes that I put up for debate to remove them:

Forest preserves: +1 commerce, now +1 commerce on the corner of rivers like above

So far I don't see anybody building them or talking about them. Correct me if I am wrong but with the single exception of maybe a national parc city nobody brought them up ever and even that example I can't find. The main problem I think is that there are to few forest when this improvement comes around and/or those forests have a lumbermill on them, which the player does not want to remove. Without Enviromentalism this improvement does not get better yields then a lumbermill even that is only 1 commerce more then the lumbermill, but 1 less hammer (2 less with railroad). I see only two options for this change either it is removed for being meaningless or I significantly increase the commerce output. The question is how much commerce should it be and would that be too much compared other improvements like for example a mill.

Forts build time reduced to 5

I know I had plans to do more changes around the canal function of the fort, but I'm afraid that won't happen. I feel that I could break more stuff in the code regarding the canal functionality and who can use them when. That danger is to high for this change. So without those additional changes I think it's not absolutely necessary to keep this change.

Customs House: Cost 120 instead of 180, also applies to all UBs based on Customs House (Feitoria)

Did more people build those? I did find that many. I'm feeling a bit bad for Portugal removing this though.

Red Cross: Cost 200 instead of 600

I didn't find many people mentioning this wonder. I think the additional hospitals needed to build it also hurt the popularity of this national wonder. But is it worth changing that too? How important is the Medic I promo anyway by this stage of the game with enough Great General Medics around already. And by the way it only grants this promo to human military units.

Explorer: Gains Flanking

I know I loved building those Explorers with easy access to Sentry promotion, but did other players use that too? And is it that important of a change? I somewhat doubt it. I also don't know about any other way to boost the Explorer so that more people use it by that stage of the game.

[Amicalola]

Customs House: Cost 120 instead of 180, also applies to all UBs based on Customs House (Feitoria)

Did more people build those? I did find that many. I'm feeling a bit bad for Portugal removing this though.

Red Cross: Cost 200 instead of 600

I didn't find many people mentioning this wonder. I think the additional hospitals needed to build it also hurt the popularity of this national wonder. But is it worth changing that too? How important is the Medic I promo anyway by this stage of the game with enough Great General Medics around already. And by the way it only grants this promo to human military units.

Explorer: Gains Flanking

I know I loved building those Explorers with easy access to Sentry promotion, but did other players use that too? And is it that important of a change? I somewhat doubt it. I also don't know about any other way to boost the Explorer so that more people use it by that stage of the game.

I don't think any games have really reached custom houses on the tech tree. In a game that did, if I was not PRO, I could see myself building them (I built many in 59).

Same as Red Cross.

I noticed Naufragar had (has?) an explorer in PB64, and I remember being jealous of it.

[Tarkeel]

Forest preserves: As you say, the main issue is that there's not much forests left, and those who have been saved are usually critical production capacity. Honestly, for preserves to be worth it, they'd have to compete with towns, which is what they would be if you hadn't saved the forest.
Fort: While I like that they are cheaper, it's no big loss IMHO.
Customs house: They are still expensive at 120 for a very limited use.
Red Cross: There haven't been that many games that got to hospitals at all. I'd leave it in.
Explorer: I actually forgot that this change exists, but with the barracks XP change it actually is pretty good.

[Miguelito]

Custom houses were decent for some cities in 59, at the reduced price that is.
I have built explorers yes.
Fort reduced build time - it's not super consequential, but I still like it.

[civac2]

I have made an explorer as a sentry unit iirc.

[naufragar]

Explorer: Gains Flanking

I know I loved building those Explorers with easy access to Sentry promotion, but did other players use that too? And is it that important of a change? I somewhat doubt it. I also don't know about any other way to boost the Explorer so that more people use it by that stage of the game.

I noticed Naufragar had (has?) an explorer in PB64, and I remember being jealous of it.

Muahahaha. All part of the plan.

In all seriousness, it's cool that the Explorer can fill the scout niche after Knights have obsoleted Horse Archers and Chariots. It's a choice between a more expensive combat sentry and a cheaper unit just for vision.

[Charriu]

Thanks for the input. I was not aware that for example the explorer was used more by now, if so for a niche use. I think I will remove only the fort change. I will keep the forest preserves change, but as Tarkeel mentioned they would need to compete with towns somehow. For a comparison between those two, by the time you can build a forest preserve we can assume you already have all the techs increasing the output of towns. We have this comparison on grasland:

Town:
2/0/5
Forest Preserve
2/1/1 +1 happiness

Now the town can be further increased with civics as well as the Forest Preserve. That would mean running Universal Suffrage, Free Speech and Environmentalism. That would get us to:

Town:
2/1/7
Forest Preserve
2/1/3
Windmill
2/2/4

As you can see I also put the windmill in as it too benefits from Environmentalism. So the only difference between town and forest preserve are 4 commerce and the 1 extra happiness. The easiest way to equalize that of course is to add 4 extra base commerce to the forest preserve, which would make the forest preserve the better tile because the additional extra happiness. Of course the forest preserve would have the additional downside of producing way less commerce overall compared to the town, which you have worked for roughly 100 turns at least by now. I'm tempted to try a 4 base commerce increase on forest preserves just to see if that changes anything on the players side. So something like this:

Forest preserves: +5 commerce, now +1 commerce on the corner of rivers like above

Also just to through this out there. I was also thinking about the forest preserve increasing the trade yield of its city by +X%, but I think that gets to complicated quickly and unwieldy.

[civac2]

The forest preserve proposal is one of the changes the mod could do without imo.

[Tarkeel]

The forest preserve proposal is one of the changes the mod could do without imo.

Agreed, it's one of the less thought out features of cIV.