Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Krill]

Barracks culture is the main reason AGG is viable with most other traits. It needs something to help the early/mid game. If that culture were removed what could AGG have back?

I don't think %age culture helps monuments considering they obsolete. Increasing output to +2 though or dropping cost means borders pop several turns sooner. That increases potential output due to accessing tiles earlier.

[GermanJoey]

Re: moving +1 trade routes from Currency.

I don't think this is really a question about Currency itself. Let me explain. The reason Currency is so important is because it is what lets you REX as hard as you can in the ancient era, which is generally always optimal to do because big empires will tend to eventually out-perform small-but-slightly-ahead empires. Thus, the adage, slingshots aside, "If you're not limping to Currency, you're doing it wrong". Or, to put that another way, if you were to add up all the commerce such a civ generates from T0 to T95ish or whatever turn currency finishes, it turns out to just be barely enough to get there. The fact that both paths to get to it, Alphabet (for research builds and OB) and Mathematics (for better chops into wonders and also is a prereq for Calendar, generally another huge economic tech), are also key economic techs are also a big part of Currency's "deal." Thus, you know that if you want to REX as hard as you possibly can in the ancient era, this is the beeline path you want. It is what allows the snowball.

So, IMHO, I think the question is really, do I like the current REX-till-you-break meta and just want to add more variety to the tech path? If so, then you shouldn't nerf Currency but rather buff some of the other paths economically, e.g. add some extra free unit support to HR, cheapen the Colossus, buff xbows, etc - these are the sorts of things that would make players want to ignore the Currency beeline for other ends, even if it means they have to limit their expansion to get to these alternate beelines without crashing their economy. If you don't like this meta, but want to punish REXers harder, you could just increase the tech cost of Currency itself. If you don't like the meta, but want to reward REXers more by bringing the +1 routes to an earlier tech... well, I don't think that's a good idea. You'd just want to throw down settlers as fast as you can and max foodhammers above all else for as long as you can. And, I mean, yeah, that's sorta what you want to do now, but you pay a price for this in that your economy crashes.

[Krill]

I've been trying to think how best to phrase the response to your post Joey, because in reality I actually agree with you. Currency itself, or rather the +1 trade route, is not itself an issue. It would be wiser to rebalance a tech tree around the free bonuses that you gain as you progress through it, instead of around advantages and bonuses that you have to work to use. That is to say, that stuff you get immediately on researching a tech that have no extre cost should be the "weakest" sort of bonuses that you can research, whereas stuff that has additional cost has additional payoff.

The downside to this, is that when there is one effect that then defines the power level of everything else around it, more changes are needed than most people appreciate occurring (hence the sheer number of people that felt that RB mod went overboard when it was first being designed). Specifically, all those changes to the Classical era techs...still aren't really enough to justify not going for Currency on a beeline.

OK, all that said, I don't think there will be any changes to Currency and the trade route systems in RtR. I don't see the point. SMEG mod had them as a test and RtR is past that point now. Other stuff sure, but not changes to Currency and trade routes.

[Cheater Hater]

How hard would it be to tie the trade routes to getting X (2 or 3) Classical techs? Trade routes seem perfect for this as well since it's more general-knowledge based. That allows you to specialize without having to beeline the best possible option. Granted, I don't know if that would be better-suited for SMEG at this point, but it's just a thought.

[Krill]

I think I mentioned previously the idea of tying certain bonuses to entering a new era in tech which is essentially the same thing. I believe it would require DLL coding, but would basically be beneficial to those players that were focusing on tech rather than REX, plus enable the beeline along alternate tech paths rather than straight to Curency, so would really be the best of both worlds. I'm not sure how to implement it or how players would react to that.

[Commodore]

Makes the Aesthetics line really pop, I'd say. Don't love, but ymmv.

[Krill]

Well, if I were to be completely honest, introducing a system where players unlocked bonuses when they entered new eras would alleviate some stress on the tech tree, and potentially help with civics (caste is still a bit of a bitch IMO but it is still a one right choice in that column). It would involve re-assessing which era each tech belongs to: Aesthetics, Math and Alpha may be reclassified as ancient era techs. May not be. Depends on if it breaks anything. I believe that the classical era techs wouldn't need altering.

What I'd say would be interesting would be something like this:

Classical era: Get 1 new trade route.
Mediaeval era: Unlock 2 free artist/scientist/merchant specialists per city.
Renaissance era: Unlock a further 2 free artist/scientist/merchant specialists per city.
Industrial era: Unlock State Property civic.
Modern era: *fill in blank here* maybe something like a Cristo Redentor national wonder that allows free civic swaps every 5 turns, or just leave it blank. Point is there would be a mechanic in place to solve an issue with the late game if it was judged necessary.

The advantage of this? Caste power could be weakened considerably. Maybe swap the +1 workshop hammer and +1 windmill/watermill hammers between Caste and Serfdom as well. Maybe just duplicate the +1 hammer for watermills/windmills on both Caste and Serfdom, but Serfdom also picks up the +1 workshop hammer. But the burst GP generation is still available at Caste yet the other civics in that column would not be punished so harshly for simply not being Caste.

[Krill]

I wanted to discuss some other potential changes for 3.0.0.1, but I don't have the full change log in front of me.

I think there are 2 main changes that I'm still considering.

First of all is the Heroic Epic and Colosseum:

Heroic Epic: +75% unit production. Cost 150 hammers. +50% production with marble. Requires Literature. Requires Colosseum in x cities.

Colosseum: +25% land unit production. +1 happy. Cost 80 hammers. Requires Construction (maybe Barracks?). +100% with Charismatic.

Reasoning: The removal of the level limit removes the lottery/mini-game of barb farming giving a strong pay off if successful (although barb farming is still good because promotions are good). Colosseum is passed over to Charismatic, so that a trait that is usually passed over as boring has something new going for it.

The downsides: I'm not quite sure how players will take this. The poll that was run a year ago showed that most people do not like the Colosseum gaining +25% unit production, but that was without the implementation within the larger HE and trait changes.

The other change is the much larger implementation of the harbour mutually exclusive building system, but with changes. Not the pier stuff from SMEG, just the Harbour+Customs house, Quay+Breakwater...oh, I'll just right it out again, minus the UB.

Harbour: +1 trade route. +1 health from crab/clam/fish. Cost 80 hammers. Requires Compass. Mutually exclusive with Quay. +100% production with Expansive.

Custom house: +1 trade route. +50% trade route yield. Cost 120 hammers. Requires Harbour, Economics. Mutually exclusive with Dry dock. +100% production with Imperialistic.

Quay: +1 commerce on sea tiles. +1 health from crab/clam/fish. Cost 80 hammers. Requires Currency or Compass (not sure which due to stuff discussed in previous post). Mutually exclusive with Harbour. +100% production with Charismatic.

Breakwater: +1 hammer, +1 commerce from sea tiles. Cost 120 hammers. Requires Quay, Replaceable Parts. Mutually exclusive with Dry dock. +100% production with Financial.

Dry dock: +50% production of naval units, +4XP for naval units. +1 unhealthiness. Cost 120 hammers. Requires Steel. Mutually Exclusive with Breakwater, Custom house. +100% production with Aggressive.

Reasoning: The Quay/Harbour choice gives players more control over the dot map: players that are trialling this system in PB26 have given me positive feedback (at least, those people that speak to me have). The Quay giving coastal commerce allows FIN to be adjusted back to +1 commerce on tiles that produce 3 commerce, and have that effect on river tiles, which should help people have fewer headaches.

The additional of the Breakwater/Custom house/Dry dock system is there to stop the spamming of dry docks in all coastal cities and making naval warfare a battle of production rather than tactics by creating an economic incentive to build competing buildings.

This is a slightly different implementation from that which is being used in PB26, and I've not included UB (for Portugal, Netherlands and Carthage) but the UB for RtR would be different to those used in PB26 due to the different mechanics and values involved in SMEG mod.

[Gavagai]

Actually, I think I like both changes very much: it will also allow more specialization, both on the level of individaul citites and empire-wide.

[GermanJoey]

Hmmm... I like the idea behind the changes, but I'm not sure about the balance. If I'm doing the math right, a city needs to produce 4 raw hammers for every water tile in its BFC for a drydock to contribute more total hammers than a breakwater in the industrial era (assuming forge+factory+coal) when building ships - and the breakwater's hammers can be used for anything, not just ships. (plus produces commerce on top of that too!) So, the only advantages of the drydock are that a.) you can build it without needing a harbor/quay (although you probably want the harbor anyways in a dedicated hammer city, for the easy health) and b.) the XP. The XP is a big deal of course, and you'll definitely want a drydock in some key naval pumps. However, I think this doesn't completely solve what you're trying for, to make naval warfare not be about production rather than tactics, because the drydock now looks better for its tactical contribution (the free promos) than its production bonus.

Whether Harbor+CH vs Quay+Breakwater is better for commerce seems interesting too, I'll have to look into that tomorrow...