A new mod enters the ring - Introducing "Close to Home"

[Charriu]

I'm slightly worried that corporations would still be too powerfull (especially in bigger games), but most games will probably not go that far. I would still rather just ban them (as an extremal example IIRC we had around 45 seafood in pb46, meaning that each city would get over 10 food from sushi).

Would you be open to giving serfdom unlimited specs like in rtr to make it viable option for caste? In that case it would be choice between going for lots of workshops vs faster workers. As an additional note, making civics more balanced in a sense that each of them is really good at something specific which is needed only for short time (like increasing further worker bonus in serf) is direct buff to spi, which does not need buffing. Instead I would keep worker bonus same as it is, give unlimited specs and maybe some small bonus to windmills (say +1 commerce). That would make it completely viable midgame civic comparable to caste and both of those should see use as players transition away from slavery.

Corporations are certainly a difficult case when it comes to balancing, but at the same time PB46 was an extreme case of a map. But that does not make your argument invalid. Maybe I'll add an "No Corporation" game option for those bigger games. I wanted to keep Corporations in the game because like you mentioned they come in late most of the time. Therefore I took inspiration from ToW with the Sushi nerf.

My opinion about the "unlimited specialist" change from RtR has changed after the initial implementation. I now don't like it because it is further away from BtS away, while at the same time feels like a duplicate of Caste System. I think keeping the civics distinguishable is also quite important. So no I would not like to implement that.
I'm aware of the buff to SPI. The main reason for the change is to make farms and windmills even stronger with this civic. But I would remove that change. I think the additions to improvements are more important the buff to worker speed.

[Hitru]

Option to play without corporations would be great as then we can decide in each game if we want them or not.

If you give tile improvement bonus to serf, say windmills and/or watermills or farms (but not both I think), that's fine and does not buff spi too much as you would need to build those improvements and choose if you want to stick with caste or serf. So I'm fine with that from balance perspective. Also giving some free units sounds resonable, but overlaps with vassalage.

[Hitru]

Btw Charriu, please don't take my comments as criticism towards your work or mod itself, I just want to bring up points from balancing point of view.

I think pro might need something better than that. My biggest issue is that the trade route bonus really starts to matter only in late game when we have 4 trade routes which are worth a lot etc, until that it does not really matter that much.

[Hitru]

By not matter that much I mean compared to 50% cheaper settlers or granaries etc, which are the big bonuses from some other civics. Basically it is slower than economical bonus one gets from fin and worse than that (at least) for most of the game.

Compared to other big late game eco trait org it loses lots of cheap buildings.

But this pro is definitely better than base bts pro and step to right direction.

[Charriu]

Btw Charriu, please don't take my comments as criticism towards your work or mod itself, I just want to bring up points from balancing point of view.

Well, I could say the same regarding criticism. Don't worry I've got a thick skin. But honestly so far my thick skin wasn't needed. All the criticism in this thread so far is highly constructive and I can't thank you all enough for your feedback. You already saved me a lot of time by discarding ideas that would have needed code implementations.
I also wanted to mention two things, when it comes to your criticism. So far I only reacted to criticism and not to compliments like "I like that feature" or "This is going in the right" direction. I do notice this and appreciate everything you like about my ideas. I just don't react to them because I want to focus on the stuff that needs improvement.
The other thing I want to mention is that I try to react to every feedback I get from you. I actually have a spreadsheet in which I collect all the feedback I get from you and categorize it, so I can better revisit stuff and remember, who said what. If I sometimes forget to react to somebody, just give me a friendly poke and I will get right back to you.

[Charriu]

If you give tile improvement bonus to serf, say windmills and/or watermills or farms (but not both I think), that's fine and does not buff spi too much as you would need to build those improvements and choose if you want to stick with caste or serf. So I'm fine with that from balance perspective. Also giving some free units sounds resonable, but overlaps with vassalage.

I'm a bit confused at what you mean with "but not both I think", because you mentioned three improvements before that sentence?

I agree that free units does indeed overlap vassalage, which would a reason not go that way.

I think pro might need something better than that. My biggest issue is that the trade route bonus really starts to matter only in late game when we have 4 trade routes which are worth a lot etc, until that it does not really matter that much.

Yes it's true that the trade bonus has a bigger impact with the later game. When it comes to a comparison between Financial and the new Protective trade bonus I tried to look at it from this point of view: How many extra commerce does the bonus produce per city. With Financial the maximum extra commerce for a single city is 20, if every single tile of the city would be a cottage or otherwise 3 commerce tile. This of course is highly unlikely because of different terrain, other resources and you also need food and hammers. If I would have to guess it would something around 10-15 extra commerce per city.
With the trade bonus and the current set of changes, we can expect the following amount of trade routes that everybody can achieve:

• 1 base trade route
  
• +1 from Currency
  
• +1 from Castle, later Corporation
  
• +1 from the new circumnavigation bonus
  
• +1 from Free Market
  
• +1 from airport
  
• +1 from UN
  

I think it's fair to assume that the last two rarely come into play in an MP game. So we can expect at least 5 trade routes in the later game, of course the circumnavigation does not apply on maps with a lot of land. So we can assume at least +5 commerce per city and I think it's also fair to assume that the base trade value increases with later game netting use at least an additional 1 commerce.

So yes +6 commerce is definitely weaker then Financial. But we also should not forget that aside from Banks, the commerce bonus is the only bonus Financial gets and Protective gets at least additional promotions. But I agree with your next point:

By not matter that much I mean compared to 50% cheaper settlers or granaries etc, which are the big bonuses from some other civics. Basically it is slower than economical bonus one gets from fin and worse than that (at least) for most of the game.

Compared to other big late game eco trait org it loses lots of cheap buildings.

But this pro is definitely better than base bts pro and step to right direction.

In addition to your arguments there is the fact that Walls and Castles also obsolete at some point, leaving Protective with no more building bonuses. Question is which buildings should it receive if any?

• Market: So far nobody has it and it syncs with any commerce bonus
  
• Observatory: Same as Market although the focus is on science instead of gold this time.
  
• Other late game buildings: We could do that, but it won't really help Pro in any significant way.
  

So far Market would be the best, if you ask me.

EDIT: Another quick idea that popped into my mind. Give Protective +1 happiness from Walls.

[Hitru]

I think buffing windmils and watermills simultaneously is ok but would either choose to buff those 2 or farms (depending on how big buff to farms we are talking about, of course. +1 commerce to farms on top of some buffs to windmils and watermills would be ok).

Looking at max bonus to commerce in late game is the wrong approach in my opinion when balancing traits. Most of the game you would have 2 or 3 trade routes per city that are at base worth around 1.5 gold, so you would get somewhere between 2-4 gold on average. Fin beats that easily on watery maps or with cottage economy, and if you pick fin you are usually having at least one of these. So the problem for me is not that much the end game difference but the speed, I think fin helps your eco much faster than pro would.

I agree that pro has upgrades which do let you run slightly smaller military (but note that those upgrades don't help units that usually are built in mp games. If you are building huge amount of longbows it is usually not a good sign).

I think adding cheap walls that give +1 happy (which would not obsolete?) would make sense for pro.

But this is more from balance perspective, if we want to keep this close to bts and not worry too much about it then this pro should be ok.

[chumchu]

I'm not fond introducing the mechanic of free civic swaps as a solution to emancipation being under powered for three reasons.

Firstly, there are no other civics that are free to swap into so this breaks a previously general rule. This is what made spiritual and Christo Redentor unique.
Secondly, I do not think it promotes interesting choices. The trade-off between better/more fitting civics and a turn of anarchy is an agonizing one that I like. To me the decisions seems very obvious: if you have emancipation available you turn it on if you want to grow cottages and then turn it off when you do not need it.
Thirdly, at best this makes it into a transition civic to use a while and then swap out of.

In my mod I played around with a number of different versions of it. I currently have emancipation at:
+ 100% cottage growth.
+ 10% wealth.
Can hurry with gold.

Low upkeep

This gives it a more distinct theme. It is about making wealth and using wealth. It also provides a reason to stay in it after your cottages have matured. Rushing production with gold also fits well in the labor column. I think of it like the free religion of the labor civics. The numbers can be tweaked. I also changed the name of it to wage labor and put it at liberalism but that has more to do with me having a more materialist view of history than Civ.

If you do not agree with this reasoning, consider giving it 10% wealth instead of 10% hammers as it would fit the theme better. You could also consider giving it a bonus to towns as this would fit well with the theme and provide a reason to stay with it. That was the other idea I explored. I rejected this track because that would have left either US or mercantilism too weak.

[Charriu]

I think buffing windmils and watermills simultaneously is ok but would either choose to buff those 2 or farms (depending on how big buff to farms we are talking about, of course. +1 commerce to farms on top of some buffs to windmils and watermills would be ok).

There are three things that I really would like to do with Serfdom and which my changes addressed:

1. I wanted to give a buff to farms, because you already have some of those in place. This would give you an immediate incentive aside from the worker bonus to go for Serfdom. I choose to go with +1 hammer in the end because it also gives a low hammer city some additional hammers. +1 commerce is definitely more in tune with the flavor of the civic, but less of an intensive to switch.
   
2. I wanted to give a buff to windmills, not because you can get immediate use out of them, which you certainly can do, but rather to increase the synergy with Environmentalism. I choose +1 commerce instead of +1 hammer, because +1 hammer would make the windmill more into a better mine and together with the watermill would increase the hammer output of a watermill/windmill city even more compared to a farm/mine city while at the same time producing more commerce.
   
3. I only put +1 hammer on the watermill, because it is more restrictive to place and because the farm got +1 hammer.
   

Personally I would want to give it a test run with the +1 hammer and watermill, +1 commerce on windmill. If that turns out a bad idea, I could see me switching the +1 hammer on farms to a +1 commerce, like you proposed.

Looking at max bonus to commerce in late game is the wrong approach in my opinion when balancing traits. Most of the game you would have 2 or 3 trade routes per city that are at base worth around 1.5 gold, so you would get somewhere between 2-4 gold on average. Fin beats that easily on watery maps or with cottage economy, and if you pick fin you are usually having at least one of these. So the problem for me is not that much the end game difference but the speed, I think fin helps your eco much faster than pro would.

I agree that pro has upgrades which do let you run slightly smaller military (but note that those upgrades don't help units that usually are built in mp games. If you are building huge amount of longbows it is usually not a good sign).

I think adding cheap walls that give +1 happy (which would not obsolete?) would make sense for pro.

But this is more from balance perspective, if we want to keep this close to bts and not worry too much about it then this pro should be ok.

You are absolutely right that only looking at max bonus does not show the bigger picture. Still I think the bonus does not have to be as strong as Financial, because if it is Protective would clearly become the better trait then Financial, because of the additional benefits. But Protective should be comparable to Organized. I will have to look up how much of a reduction Organized is in the late game.
I think +1 happy could be another plus for Protective. I would keep the Walls obsoleting at Rifling though, because at that point in the game there are lot more options when it comes to happiness and the trade bonus will come more into an effect. Additional this happiness will be more of an early advantage to Protective, which it is lacking right. I will probably include the happiness with the next version, but just in case I was floating some more ideas:

• +1 culture on Walls, but only for Protective
  
• +1 trade route on Walls, but only for Protective
  
• give the +35% library bonus to Protective instead of Charismatic
  

Every one of these has it's downsides and I would rather go with the happiness bonus

I'm not fond introducing the mechanic of free civic swaps as a solution to emancipation being under powered for three reasons.

Firstly, there are no other civics that are free to swap into so this breaks a previously general rule. This is what made spiritual and Christo Redentor unique.
Secondly, I do not think it promotes interesting choices. The trade-off between better/more fitting civics and a turn of anarchy is an agonizing one that I like. To me the decisions seems very obvious: if you have emancipation available you turn it on if you want to grow cottages and then turn it off when you do not need it.
Thirdly, at best this makes it into a transition civic to use a while and then swap out of.

Those are all very good reasons not to go with. The only reason for this change was to give players a change to recover from pillaging. I can't judge how big of a problem pillaging and restoring a cottage economy is for you. I personally always saw pillaging as an integral part of the game as to hurt an enemy when you can't conquer their cities. I will most likely remove the anarchy change from the next version.

In my mod I played around with a number of different versions of it. I currently have emancipation at:
+ 100% cottage growth.
+ 10% wealth.
Can hurry with gold.

Low upkeep

This gives it a more distinct theme. It is about making wealth and using wealth. It also provides a reason to stay in it after your cottages have matured. Rushing production with gold also fits well in the labor column. I think of it like the free religion of the labor civics. The numbers can be tweaked. I also changed the name of it to wage labor and put it at liberalism but that has more to do with me having a more materialist view of history than Civ.

If you do not agree with this reasoning, consider giving it 10% wealth instead of 10% hammers as it would fit the theme better. You could also consider giving it a bonus to towns as this would fit well with the theme and provide a reason to stay with it. That was the other idea I explored. I rejected this track because that would have left either US or mercantilism too weak.

I agree that hurry with gold would fit very well in the Labor civic tree, but at the same time it's either a duplicate to Universal Suffrage and/or too much of a game changer. When it comes to giving another bonus to towns, I have to say no to that. There are already more then enough bonus aimed at the cottage line of improvements. Yes giving 10% wealth would fit with the theme of the civic, but I have to say the same thing can be said for +10% hammer and the theme of the whole civic tree. At the same time I would rather give the +10% wealth bonus to a civic in the economic branch.

TL:DR I will remove the anarchy change, but keep the +10% hammer.

EDIT: I also want to mention that I really like your changes of Serfdom to AH, Slavery to Masonry and with the later game civics. It's just for the goals of this mod it is too much.

[Charriu]

It begins!