Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[flugauto]

Collateral is now based on the unit strength ratios. A catapult collateralizing a rifleman in the open will deal less damage than the same cat against a longbowman. All modifiers apply, so a treb at 4 + 100% attacking a city will deal more than a cat at 5.

Collateral is based on the base strength and collateral multiplier (100% for catapult and trebuchet, 50% for chokonu) of the attacker and the base strength of the defender. Then it is multiplied by the barrage bonus. Then the collateral reduction. No other modifiers. +100% city attack does not modify collateral.

[pindicator]

I don't know, it seems we just don't see many 1-move stacks attacking in the medeival age. You'd likely see more trebs in games if knights weren't so good

[mackoti]

I think zerkers should loose theyr amphibous when they get uppgraded same as impi do loose it when upgraded aor janasay loose they bonus against units.After thinking alot at this i think this a too huge adavantage for vikings, and of cours circumnavigation should be eliminated( i am not saying ths casue i play in pb 13 and becasue i have trouble with vikings, i am saying this becasue other civs dont have anithing to at least compensate a litle bit this).I kkow for the one playing with vikings is excelent but for the others is just unfair and viking dont do some great investment to just deserve that.

[Ceiliazul]

what if cnav could be obsoleted by a tech, such as astronomy or chemistry? it would still be a big first-to target, but not the huge game long swing it now is on water maps.

[WilliamLP]

Collateral is now based on the unit strength ratios. A catapult collateralizing a rifleman in the open will deal less damage than the same cat against a longbowman. All modifiers apply, so a treb at 4 + 100% attacking a city will deal more than a cat at 5.

Empirically, this is not true unless I missed something. I tested under RBMod 2.0.3.4, and the screenshots are shown.

Different collateral vs different defenders with different base strengths is consistent with the formula Seven mentioned, which uses only the base strengths.

Defensive modifiers also don't seem to affect collateral damage in game:

This is consistent with the formula Seven mentioned: collateral = 10 * (3x + y + 1) / (x + 3y + 1)

Cat vs bow is 10 * (22) / (24) ~= 9.17
Cat vs RBMod elephant (str 7) = 10 * (23) / (27) ~= 8.51

So more collateral is dealt to the longbow than the elephant, even a C3G2 bow which obviously has more defensive strength. And the collateral dealt to a longbow is always the same regardless of any defensive bonus.

[Krill]

If anything happens to circum it'll be straight removal. Not implementing changes to prioritise promo removal for just 1 civ.

[Old Harry]

The suggested Trebuchet and Swordsman changes sound like change for the sake of it, so I'd leave them alone.

Nerfing the Vikings slightly on water is a good idea though. Picking one or two from these four would suffice:
- getting rid of circumnav
- making the Viking ineligible to get circumnav (I like circumnav as a reward for getting optics early so I prefer this to eliminating it entirely, but I guess it's a technical no-no?)
- losing amphibious when Zerks upgrade
- changing Trading Post to give Flanking instead of Nav

I'd probably just choose one though, because they're THE VIKINGS, they should be strong on the water.

[Fintourist]

Again for completeness sake, does the amount of collateral damage change if cat or the targeted unit is wounded? Again, I remember hearing that wounded cat does less damage, but I'm not sure it's true. In target unit's case HP should not have impact.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I guess a down side of dropping the cost too much would be that it would make the upgrade to cannons too cheap if there wasn't enough of a base cost investment in building the trebuchet in the first place

Upgrade costs are directly dependent on the difference in hammer cost, so lowering the Treb's hammer cost would make upgrades to cannon more expensive, not more cost-efficient.

That makes sense, I had thought the upgrade costs were coded somewhere. This way is definitely more mod friendly. Knowledge +1.

[Krill]

The suggested Trebuchet and Swordsman changes sound like change for the sake of it, so I'd leave them alone.

Possibly (probably?) true, but here is one possible implementation of the changes:

Sword: Give +50% city attack.

Effect: turns swords into solid city attackers, still valid against longbows so the window of opportunity is reasonable now. Murders archers though, which requires the following change in response:

Archer: +30% against sword.

Effect: Archers still have odds on defence without this so long as you settle on hills, build walls, have full fortify bonus and have CD1...in most cases archers just die. +30% gives archers odds on flat ground provided you do everything possible to improve their %age boni.

Metal Casting: Decrease cost to that of Alphabet.

Effect: IND has a method of accessing forges without Oracle. Opportunity to research MC, build forge and bulb Machinery for any player at cost of no shrine or Academy.

Trebuchet: (decrease cost to 70 is a potential change) and move them forwards to Machinery.

Effect: Machinery enables 2 military units and 2 improvements (neither of which are that good without civics or additional tech). Increases tech path options compared to current state of only researching Machinery once you want to get to Guilds. Also provides a method of slow mover stacks that will murder most things in their path provided you can stick to defensive terrain (counter of HA and cats will still work, numbers dependent).