Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[NobleHelium]

The more happiness you have, the less likely a given city is going to be against the cap, and thus the less useful another happiness source will be.

[Krill]

Probabilities don't matter at all for this though.

[Krill]

My feeling is it's most valuable at small population sizes for the same reason you whip at smaller sizes, but you don't really whip large cities. The gap between the sizes gradually widens. Once you start hitting double digit in city sizes, it starts taking a lot longer to grow those extra sizes unless the city is ridiculously stacked with food. So I don't know that I totally agree with 1 pop = 1pop, because I value a city's happy cap jumping from 5->6 a little more than I do from 13->14 mainly because you are probably whipping that sz6 city, but you probably aren't whipping that size 14 city.

If the game was all about whipping and drafting we wouldn't ever grow cities above size 6, but it isn't: that extra population working an improved tile still gives valuable output. The question of when you grow the cities and stop whipping I think is always a relevant one, but CHM does help with stacking whip unhappiness prior to that point as well, so it's not like it's only useful for vertical growth.

[Cyneheard]

What if it was +1 happy and cheap libraries, or original CHM + cheap libraries?

[BaII]

I believe it's more of a case of diminishing returns

[SevenSpirits]

Probabilities don't matter at all for this though.

NobleHelium has a perfectly fine point. Your 6th point of happiness will help most of your cities. Your 20th point of happiness will only affect a few.

Also as scooter pointed out, your 6th population point is more valuable than your 20th because it works your 6th-best tile, and it costs less food to create too.

[Krill]

I don't know about you Seven, but I don't often get cities that have more than maybe 2 food tiles, and the rest are fairly interchangeable due to tile improvements, and whilst I can buy the difference in food cost, that granary making each pop cost 1 more food total (with a granary which is fairly obviusly needed for growth beyond size 7) to produce is not really comparable to the output of a tile or specialist every turn. The marginal cost of each additional population point is not, IMO, so great that pop number 6 or 7 in the early game, or 13-14 in the mid game isn't worth growing in most cities, especially when a player has control over dot maps, expansion, and worker labour. I'd also say that is somewhat specious to compare the 6th pop to the 20th pop when the difference here is comparing CHM to other traits.

[SevenSpirits]

My interpretation of this conversion is that people are trying to convince you that you are wrong about this:

I'm having difficulty thinking that the happiness from CHM is worth less if you have an additional few happiness resources: it's not like players grow cities to size 7 and then immediately devalue growing to size 8 or 9. A pop point is a pop point after all.

so that we can return to more useful things like debating the value of CHM.

[Cyneheard]

T0-50:
Large boost: Exp, Cre, Imp, Pro
Useful: Agg, Ind if going for Henge/Oracle/GLH
Weak/Situational: Org, Fin, Spi (mostly saves a turn while 1st settler is moving)
Nearly useless: Phi, Chm

T51-150:
Is Chm top-tier here? Every trait is valuable here, but I'd have a hard time saying that Chm is the strongest trait here.

T151+ (post-land grab, Paper):
Strongest traits: Fin, Spi, Phi?

So here's the thing: Chm is definitely one of the slowest traits out there, and is it better than nerfed Fin when it's at its best? Fin benefits from Water maps too, it's a slow trait, but instead of "up to 2 more pop, 2 more whips, or 1 more draft" it's "multiple commerce each turn".

It's not BtS Pro by any means, but how often would you rather have it than Fin?
I can think of one time: Drafting spree.

[Krill]

OK, fine, the 8th pop point costs 2 more food without a granary than the 7th pop point. That cost however is miniscule on the scale of a 250 turn game, especially when considering the payback of that pop point when working an improved tile, to the extent that I feel the difference in the cost can be considered insignificant.