Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[mackoti]

About OB mechanism i realy likeit how krill has done it,you now can consider alfabet before Math.Map trade at HBR? You need horses to get maps from a player to another.

[Krill]

OK, first of all, what is the map wrap? Because I haven't seen a flat wrap map used for an awfully long time. On a cylindrical map though, Carl would be able to get access to one of the X players at least, so it's basically reasonable to state that all of the start positions are identical in the opportunity to meet other players and have contact. Once you go down that route I think your scenario falls apart to highlight difference from the perspective of map balance.

With regards to the availability of OB and the amount of trade routes needed to cap out, it's ignoring the effect of off shore cities due to islands which is reasonably large (basically the same as OB domestic routes by the time Currency is reached give or take 2 commerce total). Currency comes after Alphabet, so only 1 set of OB is needed by one of the partners to have full TR prior to this point, with OB available at either Alphabet or Writing. But you're ignoring the effect for the X on the Alice/Carl continent. With OB at Writing, he would not get TR whilst the other two on the continent would. Basically 1 person will get screwed over in this situation and have less available free commerce than other players.

I think what you don't like is that there is less free commerce available with later OB. That's not a good enough reason to keep OB at Writing.

[Krill]

About OB mechanism i realy likeit how krill has done it,you now can consider alfabet before Math.Map trade at HBR? You need horses to get maps from a player to another.

I was actually considering putting Map trading on every first rank Classical era tech (Aesthetics, Maths, Alphabet, HBR, IW, Monarchy, MC) and removing it from Writing. The downside to doing this is actually one of the coding for a separate problem; the staggered known tech bonus is linked to the Map Trading XML tag (which is on Writing, and a bunch of later era techs). What would need to happen if this were implemented is that a new method of keeping the known tech bonus system in place, which isn't something I could do, would have to defer to T-hawk and Seven.

[WilliamLP]

OK, first of all, what is the map wrap? Because I haven't seen a flat wrap map used for an awfully long time. On a cylindrical map though, Carl would be able to get access to one of the X players at least, so it's basically reasonable to state that all of the start positions are identical in the opportunity to meet other players and have contact. Once you go down that route I think your scenario falls apart to highlight difference from the perspective of map balance.

The start positions are equal, a priori. Carl can meet someone to the west if the map is Cylindrical. But, that benefit hinges a lot on whether that contact is one of the alphabet merchants. If they are, Carl gets what Alice gets for (nearly) free as well. If they aren't, Carl can research Alphabet at least, but then he's down several hundred beakers vs Alice. So again, several hundred beakers hinge on who plays what in an unstable game matrix, which is basically chance.

(No alphabet for me + Alphabet for you > Alphabet for me + Alphabet for you = Alphabet for me + No alphabet for you > No alphabet for me + No alphabet for you)

Also compared to BtS the chance of meeting more than one sea contact is much lowered. Because after writing, and a couple of people get sailing and move out, everyone will know where everything is anyway. And also borders become more blocking because the free passage part of OB isn't available.

I think what you don't like is that there is less free commerce available with later OB. That's not a good enough reason to keep OB at Writing.

I don't agree with that characterization, but believe there's greater asymmetry due to chance. And I do also dislike the effect of limiting passage and scouting more than the effect on trade routes. But again, I do believe that in a balance mod the onus should be on showing that a change that affects gameplay makes the game more balanced or interesting, rather than the other way around.

Anyway, I think I'm running out of things to say where I'm not just repeating endlessly even more.

[novice]

I was actually considering putting Map trading on every first rank Classical era tech (Aesthetics, Maths, Alphabet, HBR, IW, Monarchy, MC) and removing it from Writing. The downside to doing this is actually one of the coding for a separate problem; the staggered known tech bonus is linked to the Map Trading XML tag (which is on Writing, and a bunch of later era techs). What would need to happen if this were implemented is that a new method of keeping the known tech bonus system in place, which isn't something I could do, would have to defer to T-hawk and Seven.

Create a new resource called "Increased Known Tech Bonus" which yields 1 beaker and doesn't occur naturally (see the Hit Singles resource for reference). Let the desired tech reveal this resource. The tech screen will say "Reveals Increased Known Tech Bonus". The code that calculates the known tech bonus counts the number of techs in the player's possession that enable resources that yield 1 beaker, and multiplies this number with the XML value for known tech bonus.

EDIT: Looking at the xml (C:\Program Files (x86)\2k Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Assets\XML\Terrain\Civ4BonusInfos.xml) it appears a resource can only be revealed by one tech, and can only yield food, hammers and commerce. So multiple "Increased Known Tech Bonus" resources that yield e.g. 10 commerce might be the way to go.

[Krill]

OK, first of all, what is the map wrap? Because I haven't seen a flat wrap map used for an awfully long time. On a cylindrical map though, Carl would be able to get access to one of the X players at least, so it's basically reasonable to state that all of the start positions are identical in the opportunity to meet other players and have contact. Once you go down that route I think your scenario falls apart to highlight difference from the perspective of map balance.

The start positions are equal, a priori. Carl can meet someone to the west if the map is Cylindrical. But, that benefit hinges a lot on whether that contact is one of the alphabet merchants. If they are, Carl gets what Alice gets for (nearly) free as well. If they aren't, Carl can research Alphabet at least, but then he's down several hundred beakers vs Alice. So again, several hundred beakers hinge on who plays what in an unstable game matrix, which is basically chance.

It's not chance when Bob can demand a map trade and knows exactly where to send a galley/scout to get contact. After the first 10 turns of the OB are complete and he has contact with Carl/X/anyone else he can cancel the OB and renegotiate from a position of strength. At that point Alice, to continue to benefit from trade routes, has to either pay gold, gpt, or resources. There's no free lunch here, the combination of map trading and OB ensures that contacts should be made quickly. Even without OB however, it should be possible to make a few more contacts to, well, manipulate players to pay for even the first OB set.

(No alphabet for me + Alphabet for you > Alphabet for me + Alphabet for you = Alphabet for me + No alphabet for you > No alphabet for me + No alphabet for you)

Technically correct only when considering absolute commerce, but not true when considering opportunity costs or anything else.

Also compared to BtS the chance of meeting more than one sea contact is much lowered. Because after writing, and a couple of people get sailing and move out, everyone will know where everything is anyway. And also borders become more blocking because the free passage part of OB isn't available.

Joys of map trading directing scouts, but I wouldn't say this is strictly true; it's more map dependent than anything else.

I think what you don't like is that there is less free commerce available with later OB. That's not a good enough reason to keep OB at Writing.

I don't agree with that characterization, but believe there's greater asymmetry due to chance. And I do also dislike the effect of limiting passage and scouting more than the effect on trade routes. But again, I do believe that in a balance mod the onus should be on showing that a change that affects gameplay makes the game more balanced or interesting, rather than the other way around.

That's what it devolves into though. OB at Writing is available earlier than OB at Alphabet and more people can have OB, so there is more free commerce available. The only exceptions are in 2 player games or if there are literally no trade routes possible until or after Alphabet is researched (and that would require one really weird map layout). There just always will be more commerce available, form an earlier turn, so there will be greater asymmetry in base BtS. With effective diplomacy (even in AI diplo) there shouldn't be that asymmetry even with intercontinental trade routes.

[novice]

Here's a screenshot and xml changes showing how I would implement the incremental known tech bonus. The dll would still need to be modified though, I only did the XML changes.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1521....0.3.6.zip




I modified the Terrain\Civ4BonusInfos.xml and the Technologies\CIV4TechInfos.xml (to change Map trading back to only being enabled by Writing).

[Krill]

Would that change require a change to the save format novice?

[novice]

Would that change require a change to the save format novice?

No. Not that saves are compatible across mods anyway, but the change doesn't require fiddling with the code related to saving games.

[Krill]

Cool. To paraphrase Heinlein, "I need a solution. That's it until it fails or I find something better."