Civs in RtR: Thread 2

[Krill]

All civs will be reviewed, Aztecs through to Zulu.

This potential change for Carthage is really a small nerf: C1 or [+35% against melee and -35% against spears]. This puts it closer to the original Numidian Cav. It is not an improvement.

It's worth discussing Mack.

[Krill]

I'm going to implement that Carthage change unless someone gives a reason not to.

[Krill]

OK, moving on:

Babylon: Agriculture/The Wheel. UB: Granary replacement: Garden. Requires Agriculture, cost 45, no bonus production from trait. UU: Archer replacement. +50% against melee, no free strike, starts with Drill 1 and 2.

Suggestion of changing the Babylonian UB to an early granary. It fits between Inca and Mali for UB and UU respectively, so they are the closest civs to compare to.

The granary would be available from T0. I don't see this as a problem: worker or workboat first is still better. The point of the UB is that you don't need to rush Pottery in any way, except for needing cottages. This opens up earlier players for Archery, AH or Sailing depending on how the situation. It is interesting because how you use that advantage varies significantly game to game, and will require constant evaluation, but the general power comes from the 15 saved hammers giving a turn advantage (except against PRO). To put this in context and give credit to the idea, the granary at Agriculture was Sevens idea for Inca in ToW.

The UB has to be compared directly against the skirm, and honestly I think the skirm is better, it can defend against a chariot rush but archers and bowmen can't.

I imagine that Babylon in this form would be picked by someone that had a later game trait pairing, and needed something to help guard against a rush in the early game, because bowmen are not great rushers, or even chokers. Pair it with double early game traits and it runs into the wall that is city maintenance limiting horizontal expansion.

[Charriu]

Will the garden keep it's health bonus or is it just an earlier and cheaper granary? I like the change for flavor, but comparing it to the Inca UB I think at least the health bonus needs to stay in addition.

[Krill]

The majority of the power is available early on: accessible from T0. The civ needs to fall off power wise, and free health is actually really useful late game, and under appreciated IMO: once factories and power plants exist, every point of health that matters is an extra production tile that's available.

[Charriu]

It comes down to what is more useful. The only difference between terrace and garden is that the former has +1 culture and the later is available earlier. Between those two I find the culture more useful. It's a strong bonus in the very beginning and it at least remains a bonus - if so minor - across the whole game. In comparison the garden is just available earlier, but not by that much. You said it yourself that this is more a kind of you-don't-need-to-rush-to-pottery. You will eventually tech pottery for the cottage. At the point the bonus is irrelevant.
I also want to compare it to the sumerian ziggurat. It's also available earlier, but in this case you are at a point in the game, at which it makes more sense to build some buildings in comparison to T0.

Keeping the health bonus is most of the time a (very) late game bonus as you have mentioned. It also keeps the UB a bit unique. Mh maybe you only give the health bonus at ecology, but then again that's way too late to be relevant.

EDIT: If the health bonus turns out too strong in most games, then we can still take it away in a future version.

EDIT2: Oh and I like the changes to bowman.

[Krill]

I don't really have a problem with it keeping 1 bonus health. That probably rounds the civ out well enough.

It's not a case of comparing UB to UB though, but the UU+UB combos. Inca has a what is close to a junk UU as most of the power is on the UB, but the bowman has odds against a base sword on defence, at equal promotion level of it has fortification. That is power that can't be on the UB.

[Charriu]

Ok that's right the babylonian UU is much better then the incan UU.

[pindicator]

I think the original proposal is a good power level. But I like keeping some of the original UB flavor on the building (like Carthage). I guess we can add it on and if it turns out to be too strong that's the first thing that we nerf off of Babylon?

[Krill]

I think that's a reasonable way to do it. Ultimately, the +1 health is not going to be a reason to pick it. If it's broken it's going to be either that the bowmen is some immoveable force on defence or a choker from hell (neither of which is true when the skirmisher exists), or the granary just holds too much power. In that case, we likely nerf the garden to 50 hammers (the extra 5 hammers is 2 turns delay on getting the granary in most situations unless you double chop after maths or triple chop before, which has it's own costs.