Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[mackoti]

Well krill , like a player in pb13 were i tryed near all posible civics i would say this:


- nerfing SP is not a good ideea cause right now Free market is same strong if not stronger then SP so in this case FM will became the king without anithing to dispute it.

-So what could be done for Free spech? Dont know, maybe 1 hamer for farms?

-about mercantilism , i think 1 free specealist and having foreign trade routes makes it competitive.I am sure free market and Sp is still stronger but with free specelist is good too.

Btw Krill can i have your gtalk so we can discus this over gmail sometimes?

[Krill]

I can buy the SP point, but to play devils advocate workshops have a lot of their power upfront compared to cottages. If a player makes a significant amount of workshops and neglects cottages then the player should have a late game deficit of some kind. If they fail to snowball, anyway. I'm not so sure on the power of FM on other maps beside PB13, that is just about the perfect map for it. But yes it is pretty strong.

Merc doesn't need to compete on every level with the other civics in the Economy section. It is available much earlier than the others. It just needs to be usable. Not losing Foreign routes and being Low/No cost is probably enough for that. There may be other options though, so still worth considering them.

For Free speech it is basically a buff that isn't to cottages, commerce, culture, or rush buying. Could be a buff to farms, not sure how much that would do though. Windmills would be fine. Maybe watermills but then there is the possibility of uber watermills with Serfdom which is almost certainly broken. Although environmentalism did originally have a boost to windmill commerce, so on second thoughts that might be legit.

[mackoti]

I can buy the SP point, but to play devils advocate workshops have a lot of their power upfront compared to cottages. If a player makes a significant amount of workshops and neglects cottages then the player should have a late game deficit of some kind. If they fail to snowball, anyway. I'm not so sure on the power of FM on other maps beside PB13, that is just about the perfect map for it. But yes it is pretty strong.

Merc doesn't need to compete on every level with the other civics in the Economy section. It is available much earlier than the others. It just needs to be usable. Not losing Foreign routes and being Low/No cost is probably enough for that. There may be other options though, so still worth considering them.

For Free speech it is basically a buff that isn't to cottages, commerce, culture, or rush buying. Could be a buff to farms, not sure how much that would do though. Windmills would be fine. Maybe watermills but then there is the possibility of uber watermills with Serfdom which is almost certainly broken. Although environmentalism did originally have a boost to windmill commerce, so on second thoughts that might be legit.

On this map, pb13 if you have food, like other players have beside me and dtay have FM is very strong, i remeber when i chached my reasearch took a serious hit and i mean serious,for example some players are getting to theyr capitols 4 trade routes at 13 gold turn and i get like 11 9 9 in best city with trade routes so FM is realy strong and i think will be strong on other maps too, not that strong i hope cause otherway is too strong.

I think FS getting 1 prod for farm is very good , as you have the posibility pair with enviratolism and this and Us wich i consider will make for a decent production empire and science as well.

[The Black Sword]

I remember in PBEM53, I was evaluating the choice between Merc and State Property at the end of the game and while SP was a bit better, it wasn't enough to justify the beaker cost of Liberalism and Communism. I was unusually weighted toward Merc there, since I had representation and org courthouses everywhere but the main difference between that and PB13 is the value of all the foreign trade routes.

So, I think Merc is ok as it is, it comes earlier in the tree and it has uses in different type of games. Opening up foreign trade routes is probably fine, so that it's always a net positive, at least in the period between Rep and FM.

Similarly, just moving Free Speech back to Liberalism would surely see it used more often. High upkeep state property could also make sense if you're worried that it is the One Right Choice.

[Krill]

I was hoping someone would answer this for me. Obviously not.

I think that one of the aspects of games with fewer players such as PBEMs is that they end much quicker. People just fall behind, and there aren't enough people around to keep the game going. Because of that, it's much more of a "win early" mentality and hence Merc isn't pretty much neither here nor there. It doesn't help nor hinder a victory, it plays no part at all. I don't think PBEMs are the sole balancing point because of that.

FS people have commented on the actual output including comparisons to SP. It doesn't stack up, and moving it earlier in the tech tree doesn't help the comparison to FM either, as with fewer turns in the game there will be fewer cottages to benefit from it. FS needs a further buff.

[The Black Sword]

The point was that in a situation where foreign trade isn't so valuable(because of a lack of trade partners), Merc can be pretty competitive for a long time. So, allowing foreign trade should be enough, or leaving the current situation where it's value is dependent on the game setting, either options sounds good to me. I agree PBEMs shouldn't be the sole balancing point.

Regarding FS at Liberalism, it is quite possible for people to get access to FS there before FM or even Merc. So then they might as well use it instead of the default civic and once there the opportunity cost of switching to FM(or SP) is higher. Whether it would need further buffs, I don't know. Improving Liberalism probably isn't a good thing though.

[Krill]

Oh I agree that foreign trade is the core issue and that the amount that is allowed is the main choice. If it is allowed completelt then low cost and 1 free spec may be enough. If Sevens suggestion of one foreign trade route per city was usedthen maybe it needs no cost and 1 free spec. Or low cost 1 free spec and 1 extra trade route which is forced to be a national one.

I think that FS at lib does mean that for a lot of people lib is still not worth getting instead of Economics.

[WilliamLP]

I haven't analyzed the issues as much as others, so take for what it's worth. But I'm with the group who doesn't see why Free Speech and Environmentalism had to be swapped. As far as I can tell, neither have had a relevant impact on PB13. I admit part of what I don't like is just thematic. But if the root problems to be solved are that Enviro sucks and is too late, and FS is too much of a one right choice, then I'd prefer to see them left where they are but rebalanced thematically. The move of Env to Scientific Method is good though.

E.g. there could be a thematic change to Environmentalism to actually make it as good as the other Econ Civics, throwing out an idea like eliminating number of cities maintenance.

[Krill]

Perhaps the simplest way for me to explain it is this: There is a contrast between workshops and cottages in tile improvements, that can be used to define strategies. Cottages require investment, and late game can be considered as the ultimate tile improvement but you have to survive to get there. Workshops are upfront power that fall off in output but help you snowball an advantage through production into units and more stuff NOW.

Free Speech and State Property being available in different columns skews the civic choices such that it is generally always right to snowball with maximum workshops (EDIT: perhaps better phrased as minimum cottages to fund expansion and tech to Currency) to capture cottages from others, and then get the bonus from FS because there are no other relevant civics to use in that column.

Nerfing FS down to the general power level causes even more of a skew in the cottage and workshop balance. Putting that power in cottages in the early game in an attempt to balance this limits the meaningful choice between cottages and workshops. There is a consequent move back towards cottage cheese strategies, where growing pop on cottages is generally the right choice unless you have dire food surplus due to food poor maps so farms become more useful. It also makes mines less useful with the increase in the power of slavery etc. Putting the strength of FS into the Town tile does solve the issue either, as the profit from running workshops and taking cottages is not changed...and even enables the use of other civics so can be even more profitable.

Meanwhile buffing Environmentalism...well, how do you buff it? In the context of cottages and workshops there doesn't seem to be much that you could do that wouldn't involve making even more changes than moving the column it's in. If FS is nerfed and you transfer some of the power from FS to Env, then it would be apparent that cottages are still nerfed because you need to use at least 3 civics to fully buff them (US/FS/Env) compared to Caste/SP for workshops. Buffing cottages even more would probably have the even more bizarre effect of making it harder to snowball to victory (If you were a lurker in PB13 you'd have access to more information about that bit).

Realistically, the bonus commerce to Towns at FS needs to stick at +2, and it needs to be in in the Economy column. But that isn't enough on a civic to make it viable compared to SP. But it can't really take more buffs to cottages without breaking tile valuation in the early game, so it needs a buff that affects other tile improvements. +1 hammer to farms and pastures (so basic food improvements get it) is probably going to be enough.

[Krill]

However that said, people have said Environmentalism where it is currently could do with a minor buff and giving that something like +2 health would be a reasonable change to make.