Total Rebalance Mod Discussion Thread

[Mr. Cairo]

With regards to units "costing pop", do you mean in the way that settlers/workers cost pop in Civ3? As in pop is lost in the city once the unit complete? If so, that's a hard no from me, that's an anti-fun mechanic. I like the idea of pop creating some sort of support pool, ie the more pop you have the more units you can support, but even then I'd make it a soft cap with just much higher maintenance costs (like +200%) for units over the cap.

I think I explained myself here well enough, pop as an actual cost to units would just be unenjoyable. I suppose that doesn't matter to you, but it does to me, and probably to anyone else who might actually want to play this mod. I much prefer a soft-ish cap on units numbers, but not as soft as in vanilla Civ4.

I do not like the idea of Victory Points generally, especially not ones that involve lurker voting or whatever.

I don't know about you, but I still remember the lurker and player arguments we've had here just over turn order. Although it doesn't happen very often, when disagreements do come up it's pretty clear there is no consensus despite it being an issue for literally years. To put something as important as the actual win condition of the game in the hands of the lurkers sounds like a great way to tear this entire community apart at the worst, and at the very best drive some people to stop playing altogether.

[Krill]

With regards to units "costing pop", do you mean in the way that settlers/workers cost pop in Civ3? As in pop is lost in the city once the unit complete? If so, that's a hard no from me, that's an anti-fun mechanic. I like the idea of pop creating some sort of support pool, ie the more pop you have the more units you can support, but even then I'd make it a soft cap with just much higher maintenance costs (like +200%) for units over the cap.

I think I explained myself here well enough, pop as an actual cost to units would just be unenjoyable. I suppose that doesn't matter to you, but it does to me, and probably to anyone else who might actually want to play this mod. I much prefer a soft-ish cap on units numbers, but not as soft as in vanilla Civ4.

I think my opening post should be interpreted as the need for a soft cap on unit numbers. My current assertion would be that the soft cap is best implemented as a reduction on the units built, rather than a drag effect on maintaining the units (which is far more unfun IMO).

One way to reduce this is to reduce hte available build queues, another is to increase unit costs. But high unit costs are also unfun, when those costs can only be met via one currency ie hammers, and the efficency questions when multiple currencies are available ie drafting/slavery which also use pop to build units.

The advantage of just adding a base pop cost to each unit is that it allows a far more tuneable system (as both hammers and pop/food contribute to the units. I feel there are many ways to balance this which also gives more control over fast movers, defensive units, tech costs...it's a very flexible system, and not that different when considering slavery and drafting than what is already in place (also keep in mind the point of aqueducts and hospitals and granaries having saved food adjustments so this is tuneable not just on the unit costs but also on the input side as well).

I do not like the idea of Victory Points generally, especially not ones that involve lurker voting or whatever.

I don't know about you, but I still remember the lurker and player arguments we've had here just over turn order. Although it doesn't happen very often, when disagreements do come up it's pretty clear there is no consensus despite it being an issue for literally years. To put something as important as the actual win condition of the game in the hands of the lurkers sounds like a great way to tear this entire community apart at the worst, and at the very best drive some people to stop playing altogether.
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Take a step back on this one and consider this as two separate points: Using the current VC as a method to just end the game, but not necesarilly be VC themselves, and then an actual score VC system.

The first point should not be difficult to see as helpful as a way to bring a game to a conclusion via different routes, and I don't even see it as controversial.

The second point is that the VC scoring system already exists. It is, funnily enough, called "The Score". It is just calibrated to end the game about 200 turns after any other VC can be reached. This is irrelevant though, because I'm only giving sugestions for how it can be calibrated. It could be changed for each game: Think of the options. It would be possible to build a VC scoring system that promoted aggression and fighting by giving score for capturing and razing cities, and units killed. No longer would the AW games being the most peaceful of all! or another VC points system could one that supported a more peaceful game but did not penalise some forms of aggression. Or even built one that enforced a Five city challenge game on those tight maps like in PBEM34 (which was a 3 city challenge game). Or, as stated, implement an element of lurker interaction. None of this is "Mandatory", or a must, but an opportunity of using such a system.

I agree that the lurker point would be devisive, and would realistically be the hardest thing to implement (would probably need house ruling), but such a vote could be implemented as a UN vote if it were limited to players, for instance.

[Mr. Cairo]

I can see using victory points as a way to drive the game in a certain direction, that could work, as long as it's all very clear before even sign-ups, so everyone knows exactly what they're getting in to. Which I think is the best way to go about something like that. It would have to be very clearly laid out and quantified beforehand, anything to do with victory conditions/points shouldn't be subjective.


With regards to units, I don't think that it's the numbers of units that are causing problems late game, but rather the number of cities and the number of discrete units stacks. Which is mainly an issue with map sizes. For example, the final battle in the last game I played right to the end (PB 43) involved over probably around 500-700 units in an area about 4-5 tiles square. But most of those units were in just a few stacks, and I don't think anyone got to much more than 20-25 cities that game, certainly not much more than 30 at the most. Whereas Amicalola in PB59 was approaching 200 cities by the end of the game, but didn't actually have that many more units than we had in the end-game of 43, but his units were so spread out, and included a huge naval component covering a vast area.

So from what I can see (and my own experiences) the main issue isn't unit numbers, but city numbers and map size. Smaller maps mean faster turns, but also fewer players. If we want larger maps with more players, then I think your proposal of increasing minimum distance between cities and increasing the workable tiles area is a good one.

[BING_XI_LAO]

The design philosophy and aims of this mod sound highly original and interesting, I hope something like this does get made. Especially regarding the real-life considerations of players, and what a player should try to do when they clearly aren't going to win - do they kingmake? Linger as long as possible? it's a topic deserving of additional consideration.

Maybe the mod could have rebellion mechanics seen in other mods, and they could be generally weak but boostable with spies and espionage, with smaller empires having an easier time generating EP and making spies.