Mod approval discussion wanted. Bugfix / Minor balance changes.

[Blake]

CIV4 Patch 1.61 is becoming rapidly obsolete, I'll cut to the chase. it would be nice to have a minimal bugfix mod approved for optional use.

From the last mod approval discussion thread:
"Does the Mod diminish the educational or comparison value of the report?"

I feel that is a fine start for deciding the legality of the mod.

The short list of changes would be:
1) Whipping bugfix.
2) Tech overflow bugfix.
3) "Ctrl-H" to select all damaged units (if possible).

Or aiming a bit higher:
4) "CS Slingshot nerf" aka Masonry is a prophet tech, Civil Service requires Mathematics.
5) Chariot Axeman Bonus.
(that's higher than I'm willing to aim, but i think very worthy of discussion)


Now the great thing about the educational value - if the bugfix upgrades CIV to Warlords patch-state, then while the educational value might be slightly reduced for CIV 1.61, it would be completely up to date for the current state of CIV balance.

Now in terms of those bugfixes I don't believe the education value will be changed any, other than the minor (and desirable) aspect that one wont learn anything about exploiting bugged whipping.
I also believe that the whipping bugfix is a negative thing for expert players in terms of performance, mainly because "zero hammer whipping" is shut down. That means they will not get better results than expert whipping abusers, in that regard it's a lot like a self imposed variant (somethng to make the game harder yet more enjoyable). The tech overflow bugfix can only benefit the player but the expert player will micro away 95% of the harm anyway and in any case the loss from the bug probably only amounts to 3% of total beakers on standard speed, 2% on epic speed.
The bugfixes WILL benefit a casual/naive/willfully ignornat/paranoid anti-abuser player.

Now that "Select all hurt units"? It's because of me it's in the game at all :D. I want that feature sooo badly for the end game wars! RBEpics are the only games which ever feature mid game wars for me. But Argh! I don't want to spend a whole minute sorting the bomber stack into healthy and hurt!

The technical challenges of implementing and verifying this mod are absolutely minimal and are not really a point of discussion here.

I discovered the whipping bug.
I learnt about it.
I killed it.
I don't want to play with it ever again.

Discuss.

[Atlas]

I would certainly support all of these changes in an RB mod. They are elements of Warlords/new Warlords patch and address some of the issues in 1.61. The Chariot fix, CS Slingshot, and whipping bug are the big ones for me. Bronze Working/axes are already sooo powerful and not addressed through the paper/rock/scissors combat model. The CS slingshot- masonry and mathmatics are good fixes (I would not mind seeing the Pyramids increased in cost too) and I think we have already talked this one into the ground. The whipping bug, we have discussed this one extensively and it is generally recognized to be bad so why repeat those arguements here and a dead horse. I like the fixes, and we can determine if they are unbalancing simply by oberserving their behavior in the new Warlords patch.

[Compromise]

I'm strongly in favor of a mod for the first 3 points. I approve of points 4 and 5 too if there's general agreement that they won't penalize the AI any more than the human. (Would the AI build too many axes in the face of a human onslaught of chariots? And is there any hardcoding of the AI tech path that would become suboptimal with the change in prerequisites?)

[Bede]

I think 1-2 are clearly worth pursuing as I firmly belong in Blake's category of Naive/Ignorant/Paranoid.

[Kodii]

I would agree with all five points. It balance out the things we have problems with and have discussed in other threads.

Also, that way, Sirian doesn't need to think up new plans for each event to remove the CS slingshot. He's going to run out of ideas eventually

[sunrise089]

"4) "CS Slingshot nerf" aka Masonry is a prophet tech, Civil Service requires Mathematics."

I must be playing too much Civ and not reading about it enough, since this doesn't make any sense to me at all. I haven't got the impression that the CS Slingshot was the end-all and be-all path that a required nerf would seem to indicate, but maybe it is at higher levels outside this community.

PS - Maybe Blue Marble could be approved at the same time as this mod? Please

[Galileo44]

I agree with points 1-4. As Kodii said, it will give Sirian a break. Plus it might be interesting to see T-Hawk do his Merchent Slingshot.

[Atlas]

"4) "CS Slingshot nerf" aka Masonry is a prophet tech, Civil Service requires Mathematics."

The reference here involve 2 different ways of getting Civil Service. The first is you generate a prophet from Stonehenge or a running Priest Specialist if you have religion. You don't reseach masonry and then the Priest will discover CS for your instead of going up the middle of the tree Monotheism, Theology, Monarchy etc. The other method involves nerfing the Oracle; you will in the new Warlords patch need Mathmatics to get CS- this means you will need to reseach up to Math-then CoL or Oracle grab CS.

I must be playing too much Civ and not reading about it enough, since this doesn't make any sense to me at all. I haven't got the impression that the CS Slingshot was the end-all and be-all path that a required nerf would seem to indicate

CS slingshot is overpowered read this link it is more than you would ever want to know about CS

all you ever wanted to know about the CS slingshot

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Maybe Blue Marble could be approved at the same time as this mod?

I'm guessing probably not - it doesn't appear to have made a lot of progress recently. Maybe there's a way you can volunteer to help out.

[uberfish]

I'm strongly in favour of 1-3. The whipping bug is an annoyance and the unit selection interface in vanilla civ4 is terrible. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to put game balance changes such as 4-5 or Blake's AI tweaks in an optional mod.