Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Hashoosh]

Also the my games folder is a clever ruse by windows to make you pull your hair out. The mod needs to go into your civ/bts/mods folder in program files, not my games. It will appear to work until you try to log on to pitboss.

Wait really? It even works for PBEMs

[NobleHelium]

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.

Is it because you changed it to be that way?

I just checked in Vanilla and killed civs do not get counted in the total number of civs in the game used to calculate the known tech bonus.

I gave myself a super city and contact with the other 17 civs in the game. I gave 16 opposing civs Bronze Working, and set tech to Bronze Working. GNP = 1773 to start. I then killed the 17th opponent whom was without BW, and GNP went up to 1797 immediately.

[novice]

Vanilla as in vanilla, or vanilla as in BTS?

[SevenSpirits]

I think he means BTS, as opposed to vanilla beans, artificially flavored white ice cream, Civ IV with no expansions, or the previous version of the mod.

[Fintourist]

This known-tech thing is kind of important. If the no. of total civs does not change multipliers are maaaybe acceptable for PB18, if it changes as teams get eliminated I think the bonus is way too big. Below is the quick analysis I made:

So let's assume the following situation:
- The leading player has reached Industrial Era
- Half of the teams have been eliminated (17 out of 34 left)
- I am behind and am teching e.g an important reneissance tech that eliminated civs did not have but already 12 competitors have
- If the total amount of civs divided does not change, I'm getting 70.6 % bonus for my teching (already pretty damn big)
- If the total amount of civs changes, my bonus is doubled: a ridiculous 141.2 % boost

For PBEM purpouses where there are ~5 players current bonus system is way too generous. PB18 might just handle it if the total number of civs multiplier does not change. And even if it does not change I think the bonus is probably still too big. Do we really want that being behind gives you 50-100 % extra bonus for teching when the leader reaches reneissance/industrial era?

[Krill]

Well, I have the DLL from T-hawk for the expression of the Circumnavigation limit in the XML, but there is not going to be anything further done on that front.

I think I'll wait for confirmation from Plako about the #of civs boost being affected by dead civs before doing anything else. Worst case scenario we can tweak the per era numbers in the DLL slightly and then change the XML for the total known civs bonus, and get that final mod posted this evening.

---

So let's assume the following situation:
- The leading player has reached Industrial Era
- Half of the teams have been eliminated (17 out of 34 left)
- I am behind and am teching e.g an important reneissance tech that eliminated civs did not have but already 12 competitors have
- If the total amount of civs divided does not change, I'm getting 70.6 % bonus for my teching (already pretty damn big)
- If the total amount of civs changes, my bonus is doubled: a ridiculous 141.2 % boost

For PBEM purpouses where there are ~5 players current bonus system is way too generous. PB18 might just handle it if the total number of civs multiplier does not change. And even if it does not change I think the bonus is probably still too big. Do we really want that being behind gives you 50-100 % extra bonus for teching when the leader reaches reneissance/industrial era?

I know the number looks huge, but really, looking at the states of various peoples bpt rates in PB13 I wouldn't be unduly concerned about huge numbers because of starting from such a, well, pitiful base. For PB18 anyway, yeah, the PBEM it's more of a problem, but really in most PBEMs the game is over before the Ind era anyway.

[plako]

Checked the code and indeed dead people won't be part of the calculation of the known civ bonus. I don't know why I mistakenly thought otherwise. The equation is currently
iKnownCount = Number of civs knowing the tech
IPossibleKnownCount = Number of alive players
TECH_COST_TOTAL_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER = Comes from Xml - Krill has it now 50%
highestEra = The era of the most techonolically advanced player (0...6)

iModifier = 100 (This just means no modifier) + (highestEra*TECH_COST_TOTAL_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER*iKnownCount/iPossibleKnownCount)

I think 50% would work ok for 34 player game. Assuming e.g. 10 players eliminated and best player at industrial era we get ~8% known civ bonus increase/player knowing the tech. However I wouldn't mind decreasing the TECH_COST_TOTAL_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER to 30-40% to make it a a little bit smaller change from PB13.

The point here is to make game a bit more meaningful for the small nations and less of a stomp at reneissance for the strong ones. The map trading approach is practically meaning that only very strong nations are benefitting from the bonus, because small ones won't reach SciMet or Corporation in reasonable timeframe.

[plako]

Also I can make the changes to era-multipliers this evening, if considered nescessary.

[Krill]

Quick question. Would it be possible to change the equation to use total number of players the game started with rather than the total still alive? Or even to just a constant?

[Fintourist]

Plako:
The point here is to make game a bit more meaningful for the small nations and less of a stomp at reneissance for the strong ones.

I very much agree here and like the approach. I think it's now only about tweaking.

Checked the code and indeed dead people won't be part of the calculation of the known civ bonus.

I think 50% would work ok for 34 player game. Assuming e.g. 10 players eliminated and best player at industrial era we get ~8% known civ bonus increase/player knowing the tech.

8 % per civ is still quite much when there are 24 civs alive. At the time when somebody reaches industrial era it's very possible that people have contact with most of the civs and if you are roughly in the middle of the pack there will be techs available that ~half the people know, which provide 100 % boost. Last players get 200 % boost when they grind their way finally to Feudalism or something, but I guess that's ok.

Krill:
I know the number looks huge, but really, looking at the states of various peoples bpt rates in PB13 I wouldn't be unduly concerned about huge numbers because of starting from such a, well, pitiful base. For PB18 anyway, yeah, the PBEM it's more of a problem, but really in most PBEMs the game is over before the Ind era anyway.

It's not too much of a spoiler to say that me and OH are far from leading the PB13, but not playing OCC yet either. There are currently 12 civs left in the game and with the new system we would be using the industrial era modifier. With this era system we would pretty much always be getting 50-67 % known-tech bonus boost (3-4 civs know the tech) and even 100 % to some relevant techs (when 6 players know the tech) (and up to 183 % if we backfill something that everyone has). While not perhaps totally game-breaking, I think that this would simply be a bit too much free beakers and not fair to tech leaders.

plako:
However I wouldn't mind decreasing the TECH_COST_TOTAL_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER to 30-40% to make it a a little bit smaller change from PB13.

When thinking about PB18, I like the increase in TECH_COST_TOTAL_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER, because it makes known-tech bonus a bit more relevant in the early game when people only have contact with, say 6/33 other civs. I mostly think that the era modifiers get too big from renaissance (or latest industrial era) onwards.

But yeah, it will be same for everybody and in the end I'm fine with whatever you guys end up with.