Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Krill]

Maybe you could just make circumnavigation bestow a free sentry promotion on every naval unit (in existence, and produced henceforth).

Sentry doesn't enable any other promotions so I don't think that would really break anything. It would also make it slightly anti-synergistic with the Vikings' free flanking promotion, since they are already able to promote directly to sentry if they wish. Which is fine, IMO.

Probably the best kludge is the free sentry.

T-hawk, yeah, it's fine that the ancient era starts with no known tech bonus, but depending on how Plako coded it, it should be possible to tweak the numbers in the future to give a better curve, opposed to the linear function it is (as it needs to be high later on in the game, but it's pretty irrelevant in the first 100 turns). Really, the numbers just need to be large once someone hits the Renaissance; I wasn't sure what to set the known tech number at, but much larger than 50 and the numbers become insane for the Ind era. So maybe changing the numbers for the era variable might something to look at for the future.

[zakalwe]

That does also remove having super-sight ships with +1 vision from both Circumnavigation AND Sentry.

Indeed. But it sounds like having the visibility bonuses stack like that was proving tricky, anyway. This might be easier to implement.

[plako]

T-hawk, yeah, it's fine that the ancient era starts with no known tech bonus, but depending on how Plako coded it, it should be possible to tweak the numbers in the future to give a better curve, opposed to the linear function it is (as it needs to be high later on in the game, but it's pretty irrelevant in the first 100 turns). Really, the numbers just need to be large once someone hits the Renaissance; I wasn't sure what to set the known tech number at, but much larger than 50 and the numbers become insane for the Ind era. So maybe changing the numbers for the era variable might something to look at for the future.

It would be very easy to give exactly the multipliers you want for each Era. Just list them here and it could be changed.

[Krill]

I think that for the mod itself, the numbers are fine: it has to work for everything from a 5 player PBEM to a large PB, so I really don't want to change the numbers without more games played.

For PB18 though, I'm much less sure. For example, once someone hits the the Ind era, a tech deficient player researching a tech that only 5 people know, gets about a 30% boost to bpt, if all players are still alive. Is that enough? Is it too much? We could simply change it so that it goes from 0/50/50/200/200/200 (anc/clas/medi/ren/ind/mod era), but does that really do anything? If the numbers get put too high then it can be really hard to gain any meaningful tech lead against other strong players.

I'd probably just leave them as they are for PB18. They are "good enough" as a first guess for the values, and there isn't much to support any changes (or even if these values are the best) but they are much safer than doing some crazy stuff that breaks the game towards the end.

[plako]

IMO These percentages won't be too high for 34 player game. In PBEM they will be. However tuning the xml variable smaller should make these also functional.

e.g. in 34 player game (50% in xml):
- Highest era is reneissance -> bonus is ~4.5 %/player knowing it
- Highest era is industrial -> bonus is ~5.9 %/player knowing it

If you're competitive at these eras you'll be mostly researching techs that at most 5-10 people know and often just 1-2 other players. Of course waiting for others to finish techs is wortwhile, but then you aren't collecting much 1st to bonuses or attacking with tech advantage. The players way behind will benefit a lot, but this is needed to handle the inflated tech costs after and during Reneissance era for those dragging behind.

In 5 player game (50% in xml):
- Highest era is reneissance -> bonus is ~30 %/player knowing the tech already
- Highest era is industrial -> bonus is ~40 %/player knowing the tech already

[Fintourist]

Can someone confirm that the "total amount of players" that is used in the known-tech-bonus calculation changes as civs are eliminated?

Assuming the above is true, then as the no. of civs decreases and game gets into later eras those 30-50 % bonuses per civ knowing the tech are maybe too brutal. I would probably at least slow it down like this:
0 = ERA_ANCIENT
1 = ERA_CLASSICAL
2 = ERA_MEDIEVAL
2.5 = ERA_RENAISSANCE
3 = ERA_INDUSTRIAL
3.5 = ERA_MODERN
4 = ERA_FUTURE

But my guess is as good as anybody's and in the end the rules are same to everybody..

[plako]

Can someone confirm that the "total amount of players" that is used in the known-tech-bonus calculation changes as civs are eliminated?

Assuming the above is true, then as the no. of civs decreases and game gets into later eras those 30-50 % bonuses per civ knowing the tech are maybe too brutal. I would probably at least slow it down like this:
0 = ERA_ANCIENT
1 = ERA_CLASSICAL
2 = ERA_MEDIEVAL
2.5 = ERA_RENAISSANCE
3 = ERA_INDUSTRIAL
3.5 = ERA_MODERN
4 = ERA_FUTURE

But my guess is as good as anybody's and in the end the rules are same to everybody..

For this calculation total amount of players will stay at 34 all game.

[T-hawk]

Can someone confirm that the "total amount of players" that is used in the known-tech-bonus calculation changes as civs are eliminated?

As plako said, it does not. It did in Civ 3. But it was changed for Civ 4 in reaction to complaints that people "had" to eliminate weak AI civs "to stop them dragging down my tech bonus." (Now even dead civs drag down your tech bonus.)

[Mardoc]

Why keep it tied to # of players? From a balance standpoint it seems to make more sense to be a bigger bonus in bigger games

[Fintourist]

Ok, thanks, then the current solution sounds good at least for PB18.