It would also require that the Ikhanda gets redesigned.
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Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod
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Not a fan of moving Courthouses off ORG to AGG. I understand why you're proposing it, but I think the result are those two traits both lose out on their identity a bit. Sorry, I know that's not the most precise of terms. I kind of felt the same way about CRE losing libraries, but the idea of shifting CRE's library bonus to observatories does seem a better solution thematically.
I guess if I personally had to choose between AGG being more balanced or retaining it's spot as the military trait, i would err on the side of keeping it the military trait. Along those lines,t something like giving AGG a bonus to pillage and/or city capture gold, or reduced unit maintenance costs are ideas. My take on the balances to traits done so far is that they've been only done with +X% bonus to buildings, and we're making all the traits feel more the same by restricting them to this kind of improvement. I don't think this has to be the only way we balance, but if we do decide to balance on this route, why not just give AGG the +X% production to markets you were talking about giving EXP earlier? That would certainly be a boost economically with an early happy building, AGG could use the boost more than EXP in regards to economic balance, and I'd rather see that change then to take over the identity of another trait. Shifting focus a little, I would really like to see Astronomy lose the Paper requirement. Or at least an explanation why we decided we should not be able to GS bulb to pick up an early Astronomy any more. I don't know of any instance where that move was so strong that it required a change.
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Seven originally suggested the change, because with the change in tech costs (50% for the first rank techs then 100% for the rest) meant that Astro could be rushed by a GS and there was no counter to this other than to rush to Astro yourself: basically the side effect of the tech costs was that rushing Astro, on maps where galleons would normally be a good option, became the one right choice because they didn't need CoL, or Aesthetics and Lit to become available so a galleon invasion became a much safer strategy.
Making Paper a prerequisite means that Astro has a similar level of required tech to the other techs at the same "level" as it, but yes, it does remove the GS bulb option. But it removes it for everyone, so this is more of a nerf to those that can't produce a constant bpt rate; that said, Astro is being lowered in cost. The issue with giving AGG a bonus other than a building improvement is that this would have to be an economic benefit to have any effect, but it would also have to be a bonus that had it's main effect early in the game rather than late. The three options you outlined do not manage the weaknesses in AGG, that is almost always unable to reach the mid or late game in a good position. Giving more militaristic boni isn't on the cards, because it will not solve that problem. This is why only a few options are worth considering for AGG, but for EXP they are worth considering. For example, if cheaper markets were given to AGG and EXP did get a decrease on city maintenance, this is how I think it would likely play out: AGG is focussed more on growing cottages and beelining Currency after getting the necessary ancient era techs, making the older cities more productive to fund expansion. This doesn't really encourage an aggressive playstyle, whereas cheap court houses need to be built in distant cities to be effective, thus forcing the AGG player to go out and be aggressive. EXP is perhaps a bit more difficult to explain, because if the %age decrease on city maintenance were too high, EXP would basically just want to spam cities all over the map and play the basic farmers gambit and crush people through weight of numbers, plus having a better tech rate than most empires of the same size. There wouldn't be much of a trade off to the expansion, which is what EXP needs to keep it in check and not OP. EXP has to be forced to turn growth into something other than more growth otherwise it snowballs harder than other traits (except potentially PRO). However, if EXP were to only get, say, -10% city maintenance, then on some maps, this might actually be enough to make the trait useful in the late game without making settler spam too effective. I see what you are saying about AGG, but a good chunk of the last 2 years of this thread has been spent explaining why AGG has specific needs if it is to become balanced, and a lot of what people "want" is effectively irrelevant from a balance perspective. I understand that a lot of people hate the barracks change, but the counter point is that a complete redesign of AGG would mean that everything would have to be changed, including the concept of the trait. I think that's actually worse.
All that said, if everyone hates the court house change, and Seven or T-hawk are willing to code a %age modifier (set to 20-25%) to city maintenance and add it to AGG, then that is probably the best compromise.
Yeah, it is the weakest, basically, though, there will always be a weakest trait and AGG, as mentioned, is darned hard to balance with it's massive boost to a non-economic game aspect, much less notable than CG, Imp's GGs, or even Chm's XP (until later-on, Chm is also a very strong warring trait).
If you're going to the maint route, how about distance maintenance specifically?
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Oh, a nit:
Given the vast numbers of visual mods out there, is it possible to find Minuteman, kanone, and walking-immortal models?
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
Well even that would be much better than the SEAL, Panzer, and horse-ninja at the moment.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out. |
