Civs in RtR: Thread 2

[Old Harry]

It's not a 60 hammer building though, it's the thing you build first in every city. But as I said I'm really bad at judging this stuff, so I'd want some kind of test to figure it out...

Edit: oh, and with the low early happy cap it lets you focus on foodhammer units more which has a value too.

[Krill]

Look at it this way: a 30 hammer granary that gives +1 culture is basically a monument that gives you the granary effect. That's OP as fuck.

A 60 hammer granary that gives you +1 culture, is just a granary that gives you a monument when it's finished. If I wanted the sodding monument, I'd have built that first in the first few cities (because popping borders to grab a resource can be more valuable than the granary effect, in the period between monument>granary compared to granary>monument), and later in the game, I'll use Caste to pop borders, or build culture, or spread religion. Otherwise, I may just dotmap differently, or play a start with a different strategy. That is to say, I don't see where the power comes from if the terrace is 60 hammers.

Then there are the workers v settlers v granaries decision in the early game, but the culture doesn't really play into that, only a change in price does: a 60 hammer terrace is no different than a 60 hammer granary in that model. There are the two points of the UB that have to be considered, the culture and the food effect, and the terrace doesn't have any effect on that latter one.

[pindicator]

I think it's worth setting it to 45h for Inca. It doesn't seem overpowered, and the real test will be once people get it into the field. Considering we're always willing to change things around I don't think we have to get the power levels perfect. We just want to make sure we're going in the right direction and giving ourselves new and interesting choices for the next pitboss. I like the proposed Inca, at least enough to try them out.

ZULU - I think the Impi got hit a little hard but I'd like to run these through a combat calculator to see how many impi on average it would take to kill an archer in a city. I'm guessing we're nearing chariot vs spear territory here. But I think you chose 40% because that puts archers at 4.2 vs 4 out in the field, in case the Zulu player managed to choke out their metal, this would at least give the defending person something to fight back with after axes are gone. Okay, I'm coming around to it now because that's how Zulu really wins in the early game: denies the metal and then they are able to pick where and how they attack the cities, not just by rushing through with a bunch of chariots, impi, and morale axemen.

CARTHAGE - Carthage is probably fine, but just as a personal note I hate how RtR killed the uniqueness of the Numidian Merc even if it made it easier to balance for multiplayer. I know it was changed because it was just inferior as a city attacker where horse archers are the primary city attacking units during the classical era. Anyway, free C1 is fine, we certainly can leave it as is. Free Drill1 (or 2?) and Flanking 1 would let the unit be a little unique again.

ROME is a solid civ at this point. EDIT: Vikings are too!

CHINA - I'm not sure this is going to give the Pavilion any additional uses. The theatre isn't a great building in most games unless you're creative and have dyes or in specific situations where you want to fight a culture war. I guess it did help me steal that Sugar tile away from TBS in PB38 so I shouldn't knock it too much. If you want to give the Pavilion more weight I think we need to give it an economic boost. Maybe even something as small as +10% gold or +50% trade route yield. Probably need to put it back at Drama if you decide to go this route.

RUSSIA - Don't forget that this is a considerable discount of the base price of a university. PHI Russia can build a super fast Oxford. Non-PHI Russia is almost like PHI anybody else as far as speed in getting Oxford down. I think this is a good power level for a late game UB, wouldn't change it at all right now.

[Krill]

One thing about the impi: it is possible to give it specific attack and defence malus against archers, rather than a blanket malus. Not sure if that is necessary, but it can change the odds slightly.

[pindicator]

I thought the specific attack or defense bonuses were whether or not the unit is attacking or defending. When calculating unit strength is it's a targeted malus/bonus (like vs cities like City Raider promo, or vs melee like the axemen innate) then it is always added to the total bonus for the defending unit.

[Krill]

The XML has the values for both general attack and defense bonuses and unit specific attack and defence bonuses. So we can amend the impi to have an attack malus into archers, and a defense malus for when archers attack into the impi.

[Krill]

Regarding Carthage...there is an option to keep it at strength 6, lose C1, give it a bonus against melee units and the same strength malus against spears. That way it will be a normal HA against other HA and spears, but beat the snot out of axes and swords and also trade well against maces. That could work now that swords have relevance again (the original change originated before the sword buff so it wouldn't have done anything then but will matter now). It would be a great unit to break slowmover stacks.

35% against melee make sense? That way C1/shock NC would have odds on swords on forests but not forest hills.

[pindicator]

I like that change. I had suggested flanking because that was how I remembered using them in SP, but your idea seems better for MP play

[Krill]

I think this is actually quite close to the original version of the NC in base BtS which is always preferable.

I think it is still a slight nerf in a classical HA rush but the NC is actually more versatile later on. I think this is workable.

[mackoti]

What about jaguars? I realy think the 6 strenght HA with combat 1 is excelent, dont see the need of an improvement.Is better then many UUs and i think HA have  a realy long live span.