Tides of War, a balance mod

[zakalwe]

I seem to recall that it expired with Electricity in some previous Civilization release? Maybe that would be ok. Coincides with commerce bonuses for windmills and watermills, to compensate.

[Gaspar]

Upon further reflection, I think its okay for the Colossus to be sort of weak - I generally think wonders that become available to you because the tech is highly desirable need to be less strong than those where the tech is otherwise mediocre. I do think Astronomy obsolescence actually is a pretty decent balance to Colossus in the BTS - you have this period where you're choosing between researching a highly necessary tech to defend all those coastal cities you planted and obsoleting your shiny which has undone more than one player who built Colossus here. In this setup, probably would be sufficient to just drop the obsolescence or push it forward - but as others say, probably much less important than determining the trait balance. Hopefully the PBEM will go some way towards determining that.

[superjm]

Maybe make it a civ-wide wonder again but make it sort of a pseudo-Great Lighthouse and give it a flat commerce boost to each coastal city rather than a tile bonus?

[Catwalk]

Has anyone ever done a sandbox competition where the same start is attempted with all PRO leaders for 50-60t? PRO just because it eliminates a trait, letting you evaluate one trait at a time. Similar to what SevenSpirits did recently, only with a slightly different focus. It wouldn't be easy to compare apples and oranges, but I think it'd be possible. You could compare all the starts with the Tokugawa starts instead of comparing them with each other, that way you have a base line for what you'd optimally get out of playing with zero traits.

Hi superjm I think that would be too close to the Great Lighthouse personally, it's basically the same effect done slightly differently.

[SevenSpirits]

Some civ tweaks I am thinking about for the next version. The goal here is twofold: mildly nerf the civs that get picked way too often, and specifically make sure that some of the best early UUs aren't too dominant in close quarters or duel environments.

Egypt: War Chariot is a chariot replacement with 2 first strikes. (25% base strength bonus on a chariot is just too good.)
Mali: Skirmisher is a 30h 4 strength archer replacement with zero first strikes. (Archer has 1, old Skirmisher had 1-2. 33% base strength increase is still really strong.)
Sumeria: Starting techs changed from Agriculture/Wheel to Agriculture/Mysticism. (Sumeria is simply one of the best civs due to combination of nice starting techs and very strong UB.)
Vikings: Trading Post gives Drill 1 instead of Navigation 1. (Vikings are a bit overpowered on maps with water. I want all civs to have a fair shot at naval power and the extra moves are too big an advantage.)
Zulu: Impi is a spear replacement with 50% withdraw chance. (2-move spear is just too hard to balance when combined with a good UB and decent, almost unique starting techs.)

[Krill]

Good changes, those.

[Old Harry]

I've never used drill on ships, is it any use?

[SevenSpirits]

It's a low impact promotion. Similar functionality to combat 1 but not as strong. That's especially relevant for boats: combat 1 exactly cancels out the 10% coast defense bonus, but a first strike chance doesn't.

(Still, free promotions are always good.)

[WilliamLP]

I'm just going to throw out a quote from Sirian the originator of RealmsBeyond:

Trimming the tall grass until there's no lawn left is not the best way to balance a game, although sometimes some of the grass does get too tall.

I feel like these ideas are getting close to a game where no civ has any actual game-changing differences anymore, and all play essentially the same, and you would mainly choose one over the other for the starting techs to fit what food resources are in your BFC.

I acknowledge that at your skill level you probably see things differently.

[NobleHelium]

I actually don't see anything inherently wrong with that. In Starcraft you might pursue a particular strategy on a particular map, and your race has maybe a handful of strategies available to it total depending on the opposing race. That same strategy may be completely unviable on another map. That doesn't really make the game less interesting. That said, I am a bit surprised by the Viking change because Seven intentionally nerfed a number of things like fast workers in a way that doesn't remove their uniqueness. But naval balance is so brittle and with circumnavigation removed I don't exactly object to the change. I don't see the other changes as reducing the interestingness of the game, which is the real concern for me.