Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Krill]

Has anyone used Emancipation to a major effect in any MP game on this site? The only player I've seen using it at all was Commodore in PB13, but I haven't been around here as much the rest of y'all...

Nope, never used at a point in the game where it gave a relevant advantage. Used after the game was won in base BtS games maybe. Moving the cottage growth effect to Free Speech helps kill two birds with one stone but that requires rebuilding Emancipation. OTOH, if that has to be done anyway...

Even though the decision between Caste and the other options can be pretty easy in the mid/late game I still think that the balance between Caste and Slavery is fine as it is. People still use Slavery in the early game and when is the right time to switch to Caste is already a question, which makes that column interesting.

I wonder if moving Serfdom significantly earlier in the tech tree would make it an interesting option. At least with SPI you could have fun with it in the early game.

I think Caste:Slavery is fine; if only because Slavery is supposed to fall off.

The SMEG mod solution (or perhaps current solution) is to move Serfdom over to Machinery and gives hammer and commerce boosts to windmill and watermill. But at the same time piles so much stuff onto Machinery so that it acts as a jack of all trades beeline aim that gives collateral that is expensive (Treb), ancient era unit destroyer (Xbow), increased worker efficiency, trade routes (Castle)...it's a solution to solve another problem, so I don't think it's an acceptable solution in RtR.

If Serfdom were moved earlier in the tree then it may compete better with Slavery, but how does that change with how it competes with Caste?

Would it be better if Caste gave +2 sci/merc/art specs for free, Serfdom gave +1 spec from each first rank building that gave a spec, and Emancipation get's a complete rebuild that includes similar special slots.

The Emancipation rebuild in SMEG is based around generic tile improvements to cottages to increase the yield whilst they improve into towns. That's something but probably not enough.

[The Black Sword]

Well, I'll chalk that one up for the total removal of free spec slots from Caste then.

Makes Caste too boring for me.

I agree with Fintourist that the column is already interesting enough. You need to decide when to switch from Slavery, and Serfdom is an option in niche scenarios(Fin, a bit of Spi, low food, high hills). So I wouldn't like to see major changes. I'd keep a caste nerf small:

-High maintenance
-pushing the Guilds WS bonus back to Chemistry (really like this one actually, Chemistry feels a bit empty now).

Or as Comm stated, you could buff the other options. Giving emancipation some more screen time would be nice.

[spacetyrantxenu]

The Guilds WS bonus is pretty important to how the mod plays right now. Moving it all the way back to Chemistry would really change the decision point of when to drop slavery. I think it most likely means you'd stay with slavery longer, not necessarily that you'd use the other options any differently, as their uses are more situational (as mentioned above). I really would wouldn't like making workshops weak again because you have to get production somewhere. Forcing it back into hill mines further limits other options, like windmills and serfdom, or as I said, slavery.

[The Black Sword]

You would still want to move out of slavery eventually. Even with BTS slavery you eventually leave it, barring exceptional circumstances. It would make Serfdom more likely to be used, which appears to be the goal. Workshops with Caste would still be 1/3 just like mines at that stage, so I don't think mines would dominate production, both Caste and Serfdom, maybe slavery, would be just as competitive.

[Krill]

Not happening. That change is a change that affects tile balance rather more than civic balance.

Chemistry can take the plus 1 hammer to mines from rp.

[Krill]

Well, I'll chalk that one up for the total removal of free spec slots from Caste then.

Makes Caste too boring for me.

I agree with Fintourist that the column is already interesting enough. You need to decide when to switch from Slavery, and Serfdom is an option in niche scenarios(Fin, a bit of Spi, low food, high hills). So I wouldn't like to see major changes. I'd keep a caste nerf small:

-High maintenance
-pushing the Guilds WS bonus back to Chemistry (really like this one actually, Chemistry feels a bit empty now).

Or as Comm stated, you could buff the other options. Giving emancipation some more screen time would be nice.

High maintenance I've already implemented; that does make sense. Pushing the workshop hammer back from Guilds to Chemistry runs into the same argument you just put forward about limiting specialist slots: if I can't get hammers, then I'm going to be forced even more to use Caste to get the hammers I need from the workshops. I think the sole exception would be in low food areas, like the average of 1 food resource per city situation. But really the main issue is that it skews the tile improvement situation back in favour of cottages, so changes to workshops pretty much can't happen.

I don't believe the issue with Caste is in the mid game, it's that it devalues specialist slots and it is the root cause of the burst GP generation method. My concern is that we've devolved the GP generation gameplay to the point where burst generation in the first two golden ages is a one right choice and that's what I'm partly concerned about.

A large part of me thinks that special slots should be valued more, and that's why the removal of the infinite free specs needs to be considered.

For example, if Slavery is kept as is, I believe it should be possible to make the remaining three civics have both tile improvement bonuses and spec slot bonuses. One example is below (but please don't consider this as anything more than an example).

Caste: +1 hammer from workshops. +2 sci/art/merc spec slots. +1 engineer/spy/priest slots. +1 sci slot from lib. +1 merc slot from bank. +1 artist slots from Theatre.

Serfdom: +1 hammer/+1 commerce from windmill/watermill. +75% worker speed. +1 sci slot from lib, uni, obs. +1 merc slot from market/grocer/bank. +1 artist slots from theatre/monument.

Emancipation: +1 hammer from farms, mines. +1 commerce from cottage/hamlet/village. +1 sci slot from lib, uni, obs. +1 merc slot from market/grocer/bank. +1 artist slots from theatre/monument.

[WilliamLP]

What's the feeling now about map trading at Alphabet? Do most people prefer a game where you have extremely fast vision over the entire world and can get away without scouting much past the opening, or where you have to manually explore as in PB18? (I strongly prefer scouting as a continuing and essential part of the game, but that's because it's an aspect of Civ that is most fun to me, not for any reasons of game balance.)

[flugauto]

Why is Poison Water mission so expensive?

[Commodore]

Why is Poison Water mission so expensive?

Because when used against humans playing Genghis in a PBEM it results in instant war?

[Krill]

Probably to do with the removal of the counterespionage mission and doubling of all costs.

If there are more issues with espionage I'm pulling the active missions.