Tides of War is a mod for Civ IV:BtS. Its goal is to increase strategic options with minimal changes. Most changes are intended to remove the need for bans - bans which are frequent in Realms Beyond games. This provides new options simply by reintroducing elements of the game which had been lost. A few other changes are aimed at making some previously-unviable options viable. Finally, a few changes have been made in the hopes of making the naval game more interesting.
Between all of these changes, there are several which don't fit squarely into a "balance" mod. This is a conscious decision, and as the title indicates, I focused these changes on the naval aspects of the game. However, it is a major goal of the mod to make only a relatively small number of memorable, high-impact changes, and avoid growing into a long list of every marginal improvement that can be made to BtS.
The mod is ready to use, and it's available for download here:
Note that this is a work in progress, and may not be succeeding in its goal of balancing quite yet. Here is the list of changes:
Traits
FIN: +1c on tiles with 3c or more, double speed banks
EXP: Double speed granaries and harbors, +2 health (no worker bonus)
CRE: only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum)
SPI: unchanged
ORG: unchanged
IND: unchanged
PHI: +150% gpp, double speed universities
IMP: +100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets and grocers
CHA: +3 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements (no happiness from monuments or broadcast towers)
AGG: Removed, replaced with AGRICULTURAL (AGR): +1f in a city for every 4 population in it.
PRO: Removed, replaced with PRODUCTIVE (PRO): +1h on tiles with 4h or more, +35% worker production, +35% workboat production
Civilizations Inca: Terrace loses culture, requires Agriculture instead of Pottery. India: Fast Workers cost 70h, not 60. Egypt: War Chariot is a chariot replacement with 2 first strikes. Mali: Skirmisher is a 4 strength archer replacement with zero first strikes. Sumeria: Starting techs changed from Agriculture/Wheel to Agriculture/Mysticism. Zulu: Impi is a spear replacement with 50% withdraw chance. America: UB is the Frontier Post, a Grocer replacement with 1 free merchant. Germany: UU is now the Riesengarde, a Grenadier replacement with 14 strength. Russia: UB is the Research Institute, now a university replacement with 1 free scientist.
Techs
Agriculture & Hunting cost 40.
Mining & Fishing cost 50.
Mysticism & Wheel cost 60.
(Previously, Fishing was 40, Mysticism was 50, and Agriculture was 60.)
Metal Casting Cost reduced to cost of Alphabet (from 450 down to 300).
Communism no longer gives a Great Spy.
Civics
State Property only gives -50% distance maintenance instead of -100% distance maintenance.
Units
War Elephants reduced to 7 strength.
Swordsmen gain the Combat 1 promotion instead of +10% city attack. Praetorian is now just a 7-strength swordsman.
Scouts require no tech (so all players start with one) and have 1 move. They gain +1 movement point at Hunting.
Workboats require no tech. (You still need fishing to work water tiles.)
Wonders
Great Lighthouse: only +1 trade route per coastal city, not +2.
Colossus: +2c to water tiles only in that city, does not obsolete.
Buildings
New building: Wharf. Requires Compass. Costs 80h. +3xp for naval units, +1c from water tiles.
Wonder/Building Resource Doublers
All wonders/buildings that had +100% production with a specific resource now only have +50% production with that resource.
Corporations
Sid’s Sushi food per resource reduced from 0.5 to 0.2, and culture per resource reduced from 2 to 1, and maintenance per resource reduced by half.
Nukes
ICBM cost increased from 500 to 1500.
Tactical Nuke cost increased from 250 to 750.
Nukes never create fallout on tiles containing strategic resources.
Naval Mechanics
Blockade range reduced to 1.
Circumnavigation mechanic is removed.
“Naval Initiative” mechanic: Naval units that attack with their first movement point from a water tile get +15% attack.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance I. +20% defense.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance II. Req. Vig I. +20% defense.
Espionage
Active missions removed.
Great Spy bomb value reduced by half: 3000 to 1500.
Quick Speed Improvement Scaling
* Quick speed improvement build time multiplier changed from 67% (round up) to 66% (round up). This also applies to chops, and means that actions taking 3t on normal speed now take 2t on quick speed as you might expect them to.
Added Game Options
* Added game option "Tech Cost Scaling".
When checked, the cost of early techs is slightly decreased and is consistently low regardless of the Map Size setting, and costs of later techs are multiplied by up to a maximum 1.5. The increase is greater for more expensive techs: Future Tech's cost is increased by the greatest percentage, and medium-cost techs like Civil Service and Guilds are increased by half as much.
Specifically, the cost of a given tech is multiplied by 100% + ((log(cost of tech) / log (40) - 1) * (1.2X + 0.3)
instead of being multiplied by 100% + X. X is the map size tech cost multiplier; it ranges from 0 for Duel size to 50% for Huge size, in increments of 10%.
* Added game option "Medium Distance Maintenance".
When checked, distance maintenance is calculated as for a cylindrical map instead of whatever the actual map wrap is, and is thus more middle-of-the-road. This is intended as an additional option for mapmakers.
Background: Distance maintenance is inversely proportional to the longest distance possible on the map, with distance defined as max(xdistance, ydistance) + 1/2 * min(xdistance, ydistance). When a map wraps in a dimension, the longest possible distance in that dimension is N / 2; if it doesn't wrap, the longest possible distance is N - 1. Therefore, more wrapping => shorter longest distance => higher distance maintenance. And therefore, toroidal maps have high maintenance, flat maps have low maintenance, and cylindrical maps have medium maintenance.
This setting, when checked, makes the longest distance calculation assume that the map wraps in the X direction and does not map in the Y direction.
This option is OFF by default.
Included Bugfixes
* Trade route turn order bug fixed - being late in turn order no longer makes you mis-assign trade routes.
* Foreign trade route are no longer permanently lost when your city using those routes is destroyed. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Build culture double production bug fixed. Now, culture builds will not automatically dequeue after border pops and allow extra production into the next item.
* Build wealth/research/culture + production automation double production bug fixed. Now, a city that builds builds a commerce type and has production automated will not put free production into the item it switches to.
* Trade proposals including cities are now cancelled if the city in question is no longer available to trade. This puts the behavior in line with trades of other types of items.
* Fixed bug where production decay counter on a type of build (e.g. axeman) was not reset after completing one in the case where the next item in the queue was of the same type. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Feature growth/disappearance rates, and bonus discovery (mine pop) rates, now scale with game speed. (Per-turn chance is increased on quick and decreased on epic/marathon.)
Please let me know what you think. I will explain my reasoning for the various changes below.
Traits
FIN: +1c on tiles with 3c or more
EXP: Double speed granaries, +2 health (no harbor or worker bonuses)
CRE: only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum)
SPI: unchanged
ORG: unchanged
IND: unchanged
PHI: +100% gpp, double speed universities and banks
IMP: +100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets
CHA: +2 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements, double speed barracks and drydock
AGG: Removed, replaced with AGRICULTURAL (AGR): +1f on tiles with 4f or more
PRO: Removed, replaced with PRODUCTIVE (PRO): +1h on tiles with 4h or more, +50% worker production, +50% workboat production
Civilizations
Inca: Terrace loses culture, requires Agriculture instead of Pottery.
India: Fast Workers cost 75h, not 60.
Techs
Agriculture & Hunting cost 40.
Mining & Fishing cost 50.
Mysticism & Wheel cost 60.
(Previously, Fishing was 40, Mysticism was 50, and Agriculture was 60.)
Metal Casting Cost reduced to cost of Alphabet (from 450 down to 300).
Units
War Elephants reduced to 7 strength.
Swordsmen gain the Combat 1 promotion instead of +10% city attack. Praetorian is now just a 7-strength swordsman.
Scouts require no tech (so all players start with one) and have 1 move. They gain +1 movement point at Hunting.
Workboats require no tech. (You still need fishing to work water tiles.)
Wonders
Great Lighthouse: only +1 trade route per coastal city, not +2.
Colossus: +2c to water tiles only in that city.
Buildings
New building: Wharf. Requires Compass. Costs 80h. +3xp for naval units, +1c from water tiles.
Wonder/Building Resource Doublers
All wonders/buildings that had +100% production with a specific resource now only have +50% production with that resource.
Corporations
Sid’s Sushi food per resource reduced from 0.5 to 0.2, and culture per resource reduced from 2 to 1, and maintenance per resource reduced by half.
Nukes
ICBM cost increased from 500 to 1500.
Tactical Nuke cost increased from 250 to 750.
Nukes never create fallout on tiles containing strategic resources.
Naval Mechanics
Blockade range reduced to 1.
Circumnavigation mechanic is removed.
“Naval Initiative” mechanic: Naval units that attack with their first movement point from a water tile get +15% attack.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance I. +20% defense.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance II. Req. Vig I. +20% defense.
Espionage
Active missions removed.
Great Spy bomb value reduced by half: 3000 to 1500.
Included Bugfixes
* Trade route turn order bug fixed - being late in turn order no longer makes you mis-assign trade routes.
* Foreign trade route are no longer permanently lost when your city using those routes is destroyed. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Build culture double production bug fixed. Now, culture builds will not automatically dequeue after border pops and allow extra production into the next item.
* Build wealth/research/culture + production automation double production bug fixed. Now, a city that builds builds a commerce type and has production automated will not put free production into the item it switches to.
* Trade proposals including cities are now cancelled if the city in question is no longer available to trade. This puts the behavior in line with trades of other types of items.
* Fixed bug where production decay counter on a type of build (e.g. axeman) was not reset after completing one in the case where the next item in the queue was of the same type. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Feature growth/disappearance rates, and bonus discovery (mine pop) rates, now scale with game speed. (Per-turn chance is increased on quick and decreased on epic/marathon.)
v1.1
Traits
FIN: +1c on tiles with 3c or more
EXP: Double speed granaries, +2 health (no harbor or worker bonuses)
CRE: only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum)
SPI: unchanged
ORG: unchanged
IND: unchanged
PHI: +150% gpp, double speed universities
IMP: +100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets and banks
CHA: +3 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements, and double speed barracks and drydock (no happiness from monuments or broadcast towers)
AGG: Removed, replaced with AGRICULTURAL (AGR): +1f on tiles with 4f or more
PRO: Removed, replaced with PRODUCTIVE (PRO): +1h on tiles with 4h or more, +50% worker production, +50% workboat production
Civilizations
Inca: Terrace loses culture, requires Agriculture instead of Pottery.
India: Fast Workers cost 75h, not 60.
Techs
Agriculture & Hunting cost 40.
Mining & Fishing cost 50.
Mysticism & Wheel cost 60.
(Previously, Fishing was 40, Mysticism was 50, and Agriculture was 60.)
Metal Casting Cost reduced to cost of Alphabet (from 450 down to 300).
Units
War Elephants reduced to 7 strength.
Swordsmen gain the Combat 1 promotion instead of +10% city attack. Praetorian is now just a 7-strength swordsman.
Scouts require no tech (so all players start with one) and have 1 move. They gain +1 movement point at Hunting.
Workboats require no tech. (You still need fishing to work water tiles.)
Wonders
Great Lighthouse: only +1 trade route per coastal city, not +2.
Colossus: +2c to water tiles only in that city.
Buildings
New building: Wharf. Requires Compass. Costs 80h. +3xp for naval units, +1c from water tiles.
Wonder/Building Resource Doublers
All wonders/buildings that had +100% production with a specific resource now only have +50% production with that resource.
Corporations
Sid’s Sushi food per resource reduced from 0.5 to 0.2, and culture per resource reduced from 2 to 1, and maintenance per resource reduced by half.
Nukes
ICBM cost increased from 500 to 1500.
Tactical Nuke cost increased from 250 to 750.
Nukes never create fallout on tiles containing strategic resources.
Naval Mechanics
Blockade range reduced to 1.
Circumnavigation mechanic is removed.
“Naval Initiative” mechanic: Naval units that attack with their first movement point from a water tile get +15% attack.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance I. +20% defense.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance II. Req. Vig I. +20% defense.
Espionage
Active missions removed.
Great Spy bomb value reduced by half: 3000 to 1500.
Included Bugfixes
* Trade route turn order bug fixed - being late in turn order no longer makes you mis-assign trade routes.
* Foreign trade route are no longer permanently lost when your city using those routes is destroyed. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Build culture double production bug fixed. Now, culture builds will not automatically dequeue after border pops and allow extra production into the next item.
* Build wealth/research/culture + production automation double production bug fixed. Now, a city that builds builds a commerce type and has production automated will not put free production into the item it switches to.
* Trade proposals including cities are now cancelled if the city in question is no longer available to trade. This puts the behavior in line with trades of other types of items.
* Fixed bug where production decay counter on a type of build (e.g. axeman) was not reset after completing one in the case where the next item in the queue was of the same type. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Feature growth/disappearance rates, and bonus discovery (mine pop) rates, now scale with game speed. (Per-turn chance is increased on quick and decreased on epic/marathon.)
v1.21
Traits
FIN: +1c on tiles with 3c or more
EXP: Double speed granaries, +2 health (no harbor or worker bonuses)
CRE: only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum)
SPI: unchanged
ORG: unchanged
IND: unchanged
PHI: +150% gpp, double speed universities
IMP: +100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets and banks
CHA: +3 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements (no happiness from monuments or broadcast towers)
AGG: Removed, replaced with AGRICULTURAL (AGR): +1f on tiles with 4f or more
PRO: Removed, replaced with PRODUCTIVE (PRO): +1h on tiles with 4h or more, +50% worker production, +50% workboat production
Civilizations Inca: Terrace loses culture, requires Agriculture instead of Pottery. India: Fast Workers cost 75h, not 60. Egypt: War Chariot is a chariot replacement with 2 first strikes. Mali: Skirmisher is a 4 strength archer replacement with zero first strikes. Sumeria: Starting techs changed from Agriculture/Wheel to Agriculture/Mysticism. Zulu: Impi is a spear replacement with 50% withdraw chance. America: UB is the Frontier Post, a Grocer replacement with 1 free merchant. Germany: UU is now the Riesengarde, a Grenadier replacement with 14 strength. Russia: UB is the Research Institute, now a university replacement with 1 free scientist.
Techs
Agriculture & Hunting cost 40.
Mining & Fishing cost 50.
Mysticism & Wheel cost 60.
(Previously, Fishing was 40, Mysticism was 50, and Agriculture was 60.)
Metal Casting Cost reduced to cost of Alphabet (from 450 down to 300).
Units
War Elephants reduced to 7 strength.
Swordsmen gain the Combat 1 promotion instead of +10% city attack. Praetorian is now just a 7-strength swordsman.
Scouts require no tech (so all players start with one) and have 1 move. They gain +1 movement point at Hunting.
Workboats require no tech. (You still need fishing to work water tiles.)
Wonders
Great Lighthouse: only +1 trade route per coastal city, not +2.
Colossus: +2c to water tiles only in that city.
Buildings
New building: Wharf. Requires Compass. Costs 80h. +3xp for naval units, +1c from water tiles.
Wonder/Building Resource Doublers
All wonders/buildings that had +100% production with a specific resource now only have +50% production with that resource.
Corporations
Sid’s Sushi food per resource reduced from 0.5 to 0.2, and culture per resource reduced from 2 to 1, and maintenance per resource reduced by half.
Nukes
ICBM cost increased from 500 to 1500.
Tactical Nuke cost increased from 250 to 750.
Nukes never create fallout on tiles containing strategic resources.
Naval Mechanics
Blockade range reduced to 1.
Circumnavigation mechanic is removed.
“Naval Initiative” mechanic: Naval units that attack with their first movement point from a water tile get +15% attack.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance I. +20% defense.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance II. Req. Vig I. +20% defense.
Espionage
Active missions removed.
Great Spy bomb value reduced by half: 3000 to 1500.
Added Game Options
* Added game option "Tech Cost Scaling".
Quote:When checked, the cost of early techs is slightly decreased and is consistently low regardless of the Map Size setting, and costs of later techs are multiplied by up to a maximum 1.5. The increase is greater for more expensive techs: Future Tech's cost is increased by the greatest percentage, and medium-cost techs like Civil Service and Guilds are increased by half as much.
Specifically, the cost of a given tech is multiplied by 100% + ((log(cost of tech) / log (40) - 1) * (1.2X + 0.3)
instead of being multiplied by 100% + X. X is the map size tech cost multiplier; it ranges from 0 for Duel size to 50% for Huge size, in increments of 10%.
* Added game option "Medium Distance Maintenance".
Quote:When checked, distance maintenance is calculated as for a cylindrical map instead of whatever the actual map wrap is, and is thus more middle-of-the-road. This is intended as an additional option for mapmakers.
Background: Distance maintenance is inversely proportional to the longest distance possible on the map, with distance defined as max(xdistance, ydistance) + 1/2 * min(xdistance, ydistance). When a map wraps in a dimension, the longest possible distance in that dimension is N / 2; if it doesn't wrap, the longest possible distance is N - 1. Therefore, more wrapping => shorter longest distance => higher distance maintenance. And therefore, toroidal maps have high maintenance, flat maps have low maintenance, and cylindrical maps have medium maintenance.
This setting, when checked, makes the longest distance calculation assume that the map wraps in the X direction and does not map in the Y direction.
This option is OFF by default.
Included Bugfixes
* Trade route turn order bug fixed - being late in turn order no longer makes you mis-assign trade routes.
* Foreign trade route are no longer permanently lost when your city using those routes is destroyed. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Build culture double production bug fixed. Now, culture builds will not automatically dequeue after border pops and allow extra production into the next item.
* Build wealth/research/culture + production automation double production bug fixed. Now, a city that builds builds a commerce type and has production automated will not put free production into the item it switches to.
* Trade proposals including cities are now cancelled if the city in question is no longer available to trade. This puts the behavior in line with trades of other types of items.
* Fixed bug where production decay counter on a type of build (e.g. axeman) was not reset after completing one in the case where the next item in the queue was of the same type. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Feature growth/disappearance rates, and bonus discovery (mine pop) rates, now scale with game speed. (Per-turn chance is increased on quick and decreased on epic/marathon.)
v1.3
Traits
FIN: +1c on tiles with 3c or more
EXP: Double speed granaries and harbors, +2 health (no worker bonus)
CRE: only +1 culture in all cities (still +100% production of library, theater and colosseum)
SPI: unchanged
ORG: unchanged
IND: unchanged
PHI: +150% gpp, double speed universities
IMP: +100% GG points, +50% settler production, and double speed markets and banks
CHA: +3 happy in all cities, -25% XP requirements (no happiness from monuments or broadcast towers)
AGG: Removed, replaced with AGRICULTURAL (AGR): +1f in a city for every 4 population in it.
PRO: Removed, replaced with PRODUCTIVE (PRO): +1h on tiles with 4h or more, +35% worker production, +35% workboat production
Civilizations Inca: Terrace loses culture, requires Agriculture instead of Pottery. India: Fast Workers cost 70h, not 60. Egypt: War Chariot is a chariot replacement with 2 first strikes. Mali: Skirmisher is a 4 strength archer replacement with zero first strikes. Sumeria: Starting techs changed from Agriculture/Wheel to Agriculture/Mysticism. Zulu: Impi is a spear replacement with 50% withdraw chance. America: UB is the Frontier Post, a Grocer replacement with 1 free merchant. Germany: UU is now the Riesengarde, a Grenadier replacement with 14 strength. Russia: UB is the Research Institute, now a university replacement with 1 free scientist.
Techs
Agriculture & Hunting cost 40.
Mining & Fishing cost 50.
Mysticism & Wheel cost 60.
(Previously, Fishing was 40, Mysticism was 50, and Agriculture was 60.)
Metal Casting Cost reduced to cost of Alphabet (from 450 down to 300).
Units
War Elephants reduced to 7 strength.
Swordsmen gain the Combat 1 promotion instead of +10% city attack. Praetorian is now just a 7-strength swordsman.
Scouts require no tech (so all players start with one) and have 1 move. They gain +1 movement point at Hunting.
Workboats require no tech. (You still need fishing to work water tiles.)
Wonders
Great Lighthouse: only +1 trade route per coastal city, not +2.
Colossus: +2c to water tiles only in that city.
Buildings
New building: Wharf. Requires Compass. Costs 80h. +3xp for naval units, +1c from water tiles.
Wonder/Building Resource Doublers
All wonders/buildings that had +100% production with a specific resource now only have +50% production with that resource.
Corporations
Sid’s Sushi food per resource reduced from 0.5 to 0.2, and culture per resource reduced from 2 to 1, and maintenance per resource reduced by half.
Nukes
ICBM cost increased from 500 to 1500.
Tactical Nuke cost increased from 250 to 750.
Nukes never create fallout on tiles containing strategic resources.
Naval Mechanics
Blockade range reduced to 1.
Circumnavigation mechanic is removed.
“Naval Initiative” mechanic: Naval units that attack with their first movement point from a water tile get +15% attack.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance I. +20% defense.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance II. Req. Vig I. +20% defense.
Espionage
Active missions removed.
Great Spy bomb value reduced by half: 3000 to 1500.
Quick Speed Improvement Scaling
* Quick speed improvement build time multiplier changed from 67% (round up) to 66% (round up). This also applies to chops, and means that actions taking 3t on normal speed now take 2t on quick speed as you might expect them to.
Added Game Options
* Added game option "Tech Cost Scaling".
When checked, the cost of early techs is slightly decreased and is consistently low regardless of the Map Size setting, and costs of later techs are multiplied by up to a maximum 1.5. The increase is greater for more expensive techs: Future Tech's cost is increased by the greatest percentage, and medium-cost techs like Civil Service and Guilds are increased by half as much.
Specifically, the cost of a given tech is multiplied by 100% + ((log(cost of tech) / log (40) - 1) * (1.2X + 0.3)
instead of being multiplied by 100% + X. X is the map size tech cost multiplier; it ranges from 0 for Duel size to 50% for Huge size, in increments of 10%.
* Added game option "Medium Distance Maintenance".
When checked, distance maintenance is calculated as for a cylindrical map instead of whatever the actual map wrap is, and is thus more middle-of-the-road. This is intended as an additional option for mapmakers.
Background: Distance maintenance is inversely proportional to the longest distance possible on the map, with distance defined as max(xdistance, ydistance) + 1/2 * min(xdistance, ydistance). When a map wraps in a dimension, the longest possible distance in that dimension is N / 2; if it doesn't wrap, the longest possible distance is N - 1. Therefore, more wrapping => shorter longest distance => higher distance maintenance. And therefore, toroidal maps have high maintenance, flat maps have low maintenance, and cylindrical maps have medium maintenance.
This setting, when checked, makes the longest distance calculation assume that the map wraps in the X direction and does not map in the Y direction.
This option is OFF by default.
Included Bugfixes
* Trade route turn order bug fixed - being late in turn order no longer makes you mis-assign trade routes.
* Foreign trade route are no longer permanently lost when your city using those routes is destroyed. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Build culture double production bug fixed. Now, culture builds will not automatically dequeue after border pops and allow extra production into the next item.
* Build wealth/research/culture + production automation double production bug fixed. Now, a city that builds builds a commerce type and has production automated will not put free production into the item it switches to.
* Trade proposals including cities are now cancelled if the city in question is no longer available to trade. This puts the behavior in line with trades of other types of items.
* Fixed bug where production decay counter on a type of build (e.g. axeman) was not reset after completing one in the case where the next item in the queue was of the same type. (Fix is taken from BTS unofficial patch.)
* Feature growth/disappearance rates, and bonus discovery (mine pop) rates, now scale with game speed. (Per-turn chance is increased on quick and decreased on epic/marathon.)
(December 16th, 2013, 14:51)SevenSpirits Wrote: Naval Mechanics
“Naval Initiative” mechanic: Naval units that attack with their first movement point from a water tile get +15% attack.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance I. +20% defense.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance II. Req. Vig I. +25% defense.
I don't understand the purpose of this. It looks like these mechanics push in opposite directions and end up just about where we are now - except that you need to spend some naval XP to get there.
The area of the game which could benefit most from balance work is the very beginning - the balance between different leaders and civilizations. BtS leader traits are very imbalanced. Even if you completely forget about aggressive and protective, I consider the best remaining trait to be more than twice as good as the worst one. Traits are very strong, and imbalances in them are necessarily met by players either choosing their leader very predictably, or having large advantages over each other before the game even begins.
FIN is arguably the strongest single trait, and I reduced its power in a very simple way which would not work out at all in base BtS. The problem is that this new FIN's power hinges dramatically on whether you can land the Colossus or not. In this mod, I already moved the Colossus's effect onto some buildings, because Colossus is so good on naval maps that it simply gets banned. I believe that this change makes FIN3+ a viable change.
I aimed to balance traits at the level that BtS has SPI and ORG at, approximately. EXP is simple to fix for this because I consider its granary bonus to be approximately that strong. The only other significant part of EXP is the worker bonus, so removing that brings it to the right power level. Keeping or removing the health and harbor bonuses was mostly a matter of taste. I kept the health bonus so that every trait has an effect which isn't just a building bonus.
CRE could be balanced in one of two ways: reduce the culture from 2 to 1, or remove the library bonus. I decided to reduce the culture, for two reasons. First, I like that creative has more than one thing going for it. And second, I think it improves the game if CRE cares a bit more about secondary sources of culture.
SPI, ORG, and IND are unchanged. While I think SPI and ORG are about on the same power level, BtS's IND is weaker in my view. However, there are some changes coming up which make IND in this mod a little bit better.
PHI and IMP needed some minor improvement and I have them Banks and Markets respectively. Basically I think those changes are approximately big enough, and fit the themes of those traits.
CHA was also needing a bit of a boost, and the happiness bonus for monuments is a bit sketchy for a multiplayer game, since only one player can get stonehenge. So, I simplified the happiness boosts into a flat +2, and added the building bonuses that AGG lost.
AGG and PRO were, IMO, hopeless causes in BtS. Their effects could not be strengthened enough for the trait to be good, without really throwing off the game dynamics, because you need to fight and do well against other players to take advantage of them. In a free-for-all multiplayer game this is not a desirable dynamic. Rather than tack on unrelated bonuses, I decided to completely remove the traits and replace them with differently-themed ones. I chose names which shared the same starting letters so it's as easy as possible to adjust. These new traits need to be tested and probably tweaked, but I think they're in the ballpark.
CIVS
A lot more could be done here, but I wanted to keep it simple for the moment. India and Inca are the only two civs that routinely get banned, so I nerfed them. The values of the other civs get kind of shaken up anyway by the changes to starting tech costs. Some civs, like Germany, remain terrible, but the desire for a compact set of changes trumped my desire to have 1 more interesting civ when there are already quite a few.
The India change allows India to keep its super fun fast workers, and is easily adjustable if it turns out to be too much of a nerf. The Inca change is simple, and something I thought could be interesting.
TECHS
I tried to make the different starting techs more similar in value to one another. Agriculture and Hunting remain the most important ones, since they are needed for AH, so they are the cheapest. Mysticism remains the most useless one so it's the most expensive, along with The Wheel, which doesn't allow you to improve food or research BW. Making workboats buildable from the start means that sea resource starts aren't screwed if they lack fishing. This also lets us raise the cost of fishing so that starting with it when it's not needed isn't so bad. Hunting's "benefit" of starting with a scout instead of a warrior has been turned into a real benefit. Now, everyone else has a 1-move scout (which could gain a second move later), but a hunting civ has a 2-move scout from the beginning. I think this makes it an interesting and viable starting tech which can be justified despite the low beaker cost, and it makes Hunting compete with Agriculture as the best prerequisite for AH.
Metal Casting's cost is also reduced. In almost every game ever, one person gets MC ages before anyone else due to the Oracle. The cost reduction is intended to make it less of a "one right choice" as an Oracle target, as well as allow non-Oracle-builders reasonably concurrent access to the tech. This is important for two reasons: 1) MC is a critical tech for IND leaders, and the fact that only one of them gets to go Oracle->MC has made taking the second or third industrious leader a really bad idea in a lot of games. All IND leaders should have access to forges. 2) MC is a powerful naval tech. Again, when one person gets it with Oracle and the other players forgo it for a really long time, this can be pretty dumb on a naval map. I tried to keep tech cost changes to a minimum because they are easy to forget about, but this one just screamed to be made.
UNITS
War elephants are always banned because they're good. At strength 7, they don't have to be banned!
Swordsmen are an interesting case and one of the least necessary changes here. But here's my reasoning: as we've moved away from diplo games, classical warfare has become more and more of a thing. And time has shown that Horse Archers and Catapults are really, really good, and Swordsmen are almost never worth building at all. Since the classical era already has so few units, I thought it would be a big improvement to add in one more viable option. My experience playing with Praetorians led me to think that just raising the base strength a bit would make for an interesting change, but 6.6 strength and ability to take some more esoteric promos is more interesting than just 7 strength, and gives swordsmen something that only they have. This change is possible in part because of the removal of AGG.
I already talked about the scout and workboat changes in the techs section.
WONDERS
The great lighthouse and colossus don't get banned in every game, but they get banned in a pretty high percentage of naval-heavy games. And the colossus is part of the reason that oracle->MC happens in every game. With these changes, my intent is to make them a bit less dominating.
BUILDINGS
I decided that 3c coast is something that everyone deserves the opportunity to get, not just colossus owners and not just FIN players. I put it at compass, because compass is a terrible tech that rarely gets researched before optics is needed, and I put it on a separate building from the harbor because that would be too many things on one building. Well, that plus the XP boost anyway. Naval combat is pretty boring early on, and the 3xp here is part of my effort to spice it up a bit.
RESOURCE DOUBLING
Marble and stone don't get BANNED, per se, but mapmakers sure go through a lot of contortions to make sure people don't get them! They need to be balanced among players, and often mapmakers try to hide them as far from players as humanly possible, and sometimes they deliberately leave them off the map entirely. I think it's pretty similar to if people sometimes banned them.
At the same time, some of the wonders which have doublers are a bit overpowered for their cost. Taj Mahal, MoM, Pyramids... all of these and more have warped games in the past.
And finally, IND is a bit underpowered. Reducing the standard +100% production to +50% production makes IND a little better, makes all those wonders a bit less game-warping, and saves mapmakers some headache. It's a blanket change because that's way simpler to adjust to than if I were to reduce some wonder bonuses to 50% and keep others at 100%.
CORPORATIONS
Corporations are frequently banned, but IMO without great reason. I've looked through lots of my past PBEM saves and the only one which seemed really ridiculous, and unbalanced compared to State Property, was Sid's Sushi. Sid's Sushi is also routinely banned on water maps even if other corporations aren't. This change approximately makes every appropriate resource only count as half a resource for SS, compared to before.
NUKES
Nukes are frequently banned. This change attemps to fix them simply in the hopes that people won't ban them anymore. The basic idea is simply to increase their cost threefold. Not creating fallout on strategic resources is specifically a response to the idea that the first nuke gets to nuke the opponent's uranium, creating an unfairly asymmetric situation. The war weariness change is unnecessary. Maybe I should drop it. (EDIT: I dropped it.) But then, who would ever notice? The number of competitive games here that have involved nukes is miniscule.
NAVAL MECHANICS
Blockades are frequently banned, and reducing their range is probably enough for people to not ban them. It also means that if you want to blockade the same area, you now need to split your boats up into more, smaller stacks. That should improve naval combat.
The circumnavigation mechanic was unfair, and while it was impossible to ban it, numerous maps have been made specifically with just enough land that circumnavigation is removed by the game rules.
Naval Initiative is a mechanic which I hope will lead to some actual maneuvering in the seas pre-combustion. The two new naval defense promotions are just there to supplement this mechanic.
ESPIONAGE
People always ban these, so I fixed them by... removing them. Yeah, I didn't have any better ideas that weren't way too complex. This change is here so you can theoretically start a game without discussing bans.
I realize that many people don't share my view of exactly how much espionage to ban. Some people like the missions, and more still don't like the missions but also don't like the spies at all. My theory is that everyone will come around to my point of view given enough time.
(December 16th, 2013, 15:26)Bobchillingworth Wrote: No changes to civics?
Correct! No one was banning any civics, and I think that the current civic dynamics, while not perfect, are perfectly OK.
(December 16th, 2013, 15:28)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Does CRE still receive double speed theaters and Colosseum's?
Edit: and libraries. I have no idea why I forgot them and not the others.
Yes.
(December 16th, 2013, 15:29)novice Wrote: Nice.
What is an active espionage mission? Anything that requires a spy?
Is the productive bonus hammer applied before or after golden age hammers?
Yes, "active" here means "using a spy". The productive hammer bonus works the same way as the financial commerce bonus - it's applied before the GA hammers/commerce.
(December 16th, 2013, 16:04)Krill Wrote: Still need AH to pasture animals?
Yes.
(December 16th, 2013, 16:17)Mardoc Wrote:
(December 16th, 2013, 14:51)SevenSpirits Wrote: Naval Mechanics
“Naval Initiative” mechanic: Naval units that attack with their first movement point from a water tile get +15% attack.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance I. +20% defense.
New Naval Promo: Vigilance II. Req. Vig I. +25% defense.
I don't understand the purpose of this. It looks like these mechanics push in opposite directions and end up just about where we are now - except that you need to spend some naval XP to get there.
You only get an attack bonus if you're adjacent to the enemy ship at the start of the turn and therefore attack with your first point of movement. The defense bonus applies regardless. Also, not every ship will take the defense bonus. It's a strong effect, but as there is a mechanic which says that ships can move next to other ships to force either combat or running away, there's extra value in having promotions which apply to attack as well as defense. There are a lot of things the Naval Initiative mechanic is supposed to do; we'll just have to see if it works how I expect!
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