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

[Wyatan]

Well, I don't know what is the limit of *that* good, but when you add +20 % into base strength of an unit, which is already pretty much the best MP unit of if its era.. that is pretty damn good. And the era happens to also be the one where many MP games will be decided.

If it were just add +20% to the base strength, there'd be no debate.
But it's strength 12 vs strength 10 AND immunity to first strike.

Apparently (haven't run the tests myself), losing the immunity to first strike is a pretty big deal when assaulting cities garrisoned by longbows.

[naufragar]

I don’t know where dankok8 is getting his numbers or what he’s doing with them. A vanilla knight beats a vanilla longbow in a city 94% of the time, cataphract wins 95%. Knight beat longbow with fortification 35%, cataphract 64%. Sure, if you look at a 94% chance vanilla versus a 95% chance with a cataphract, maybe you think the cataphract is negligible. Let’s juice the longbow with all sorts of bonuses (fortification, barracks, wall, hill), but in that case, let’s give the knight builder equivalent bonuses. If defender can build walls and barracks, let’s assume attacker can build barracks and stable. In that case, C1 Cover Knight wins against c1 fortified on hill Longbow 24% of the time. Cataphract 28% of the time. This is the least advantageous way to attack: just throwing knights at the cities. If that juiced up longbow has taken just one collateral hit from a vanilla catapult (and if I did my math right ), our previous knight wins 31% of the time. The cataphract? ….61%.

In a real game, there will be a million different details, sure, but don’t take on blind faith that a cataphract is only 1% better than a knight. Bonkers.

Pseudo-edit:

But in other fights that +2 strength turns a number of 30 % battles into 70 % odds, which will lead to significant savings and can turn a losing battle into a comfortable victory.

This is it exactly.

No opinion on balance. I’d like there to be a way to keep unnerfed Praets and Cataphracts in the mod.

Actual edit: Ninja'd! And voila! Math.

[Fintourist]

True, true, the benefit is smaller against PRO leaders and longbows in proper spots can deal with both knights and cataphracts. I think Cataphracts still compete for the best UU title in CtH, so buffs to both Byz's UB and starting techs might be a notch too much. Let's see what the oldies think in the upcoming PBEM 78 snake pick 

[scooter]

I don't think "in one very niche and specific scenario a Cataphract barely out-performs a Knight" is even a serious thought at all. Base strength is incredibly important once you start considering things like promotions. It also matters because they're really hard to attack out against. Ask yourself this - how would you aim to get odds in a hammer-efficient way while attacking a Shock Cataphract? Generally if the only way for your defense to get odds against a human is to hole up in your cities, you've already lost.

[Sullla]

I know that Cataphracts have a solid reputation for being borderline overpowered.
But are they actually *that* good?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/c...t-15763179

(Basically what I take from that is that they're indeed much better than knights in the field, but no better for taking cities. So I guess it depends on which use case is prevalent in your MP games.)

Yes, yes they are that good. Byzantium was universally banned on the MP ladder for Medieval and Renaissance games because the cataphract was so obviously overpowered. Any analysis that rates them as essentially the same as knights should not be taken seriously.

[Charriu]

I was just a few hours gone and this thread just got three more sites. I try to comment about all the topics as best as I can.

Emancipation's main use was as a cudgel against other players. It's other perks are decidedly subpar. It is better now in a vacuum but in BTS you could force other players to adopt it or severely hamper them if they could not/would not.

The main problem with base BtS Emancipation were two things. First the unhappiness bonus was not fun in MP, because there isn't that much counter play for other players. The second problem that I see with base BtS Emancipation is that aside from the growth you as the adopter of the civic don't really benefit from it. You are only adopting it to annoy others. Emancipation is the only civic that does affect the other players more then it does affect you.

Now regarding the discussion NobleHelium and civac2 had about, pillaging your own metal resources to build warriors as well as the overflow stuff. Nobody especially not the mod is forcing you to play any of the two positions. If you want to pillage your own metal you are free to do so. I know this argument started about the usefulness of Quechas, but I don't see anything that the mod should address in this discussion.

So, the other topic I'd like to throw out there is a discussion of the current state of Mysticism and Byzantium. They're nearly impossible to talk about separate from each other, so they should probably be discussed together. In short, I believe Byzantium and/or Mysticism need to be toned down quite a bit.


My initial reaction to 1.4 is that I was fine with Cataphracts being reverted back to their vanilla BtS strength. In general, I don't think Byzantium was actually all that OP in vanilla BtS because it required you taking the worst starting techs in the whole game, which meant you were going to be behind the curve OR you were going to have to "spend" a trait or two on expansion instead of traits that help you get to Guilds faster or power up your army once you get there. I felt like those tradeoffs combined with a UB that was arguably worse than the building it replaced made for a Civ that was generally okay. It was a totally predictable one-trick pony, but that one trick was quite good.


The problem is that CTH has since "fixed" Byzantine's UB by making it actually vaguely useful, and it's now made Mysticism a very solid starting tech. Mysticism costs more, so the opportunity cost to not having it is higher. Some of the most important growth techs (Agriculture and Fishing) are cheaper, and Fishing is not required to actually build the work boat. These changes reduce the opportunity costs of not starting with them, which inherently makes Mysticism more attractive. All of this alone is probably more than enough to make Mysticism a good starting tech, but in addition it picked up the +1 commerce in capital bonus, which is one change that seems especially unnecessary. In PB54, 6/11 players selected Mysticism civs, which is a shockingly high number. Mysticism should be a starting tech that has some downsides, because it opens the gate to a bunch of good stuff. I think a world in which it's one of the best starting techs is not really healthy. Access to Monuments, Stonehenge, and religion should have some serious drawbacks.


As a result of all this, in Byzantines we have the best UU in CTH right now, an average UB, and decent starting techs. I think that's way too good. In terms of balance, I think I prefer we find a way to keep the Cataphracts pretty strong while toning the civ down in other ways. I think civs are most interesting when they have something that's strong and unique, but that requires that their other goodies be pretty weak to compensate. I think at minimum the commerce bonus at Mysticism needs to go, but I don't think that's enough here.

Now on to the big topic of Mysticism and Byzantine. I start with Mysticism as it affects more things. I initially put the +1 commerce in for multiple purposes:

• I wanted to buff the Mysticism civs, which were picked less in the past due to starting techs.
  
• If you have an animal husbandry start, you were more or less forced to choose Agriculture or Hunting. With this change I wanted to give more help other starting techs to be more viable for Animal Husbandry starts.
  

The thing about the commerce bonus is that it only is a temporary bonus in the sense that as soon as all players have Mysticism, nobody has an advantage anymore. From the small data set I have so far it looks like on average this bonus results into 40-70 more commerce for the Mysticism civs. If I remove the commerce bonus it's worth looking at all the Mysticism civs:

• Arabia: I'm a bit concerned that Arabia still needs something to go for it, if the commerce bonus is gone.
  
• Aztec: The UB and to a lesser degree the UU are interesting enough, that it could live without the commerce bonus. It also has Hunting, which is buffed in CtH.
  
• Byzantine: Special case
  
• Celts: With their UB now having +1 culture it definitely can live without the commere bonus.
  
• Holy Roman Empire: Same as Aztec.
  
• Inca: Are a special case as their UB is still in flux, but if I return back to culture on the UB, it does not need the commerce bonus
  
• India: Their UU will be reverted to base cost, so they could be fine.
  
• Korea: I think that could be fine without the commerce bonus. Mining is still a good starting tech
  
• Maya: Same as Korea, but I think they have more going for them then Korea. No problem without the commerce.
  
• Spain: It remains to be seen how their buffed UB will be evaluated in the future.
  

There are some civs that I'm concerned about, but they are not the majority. Now what about the Animal Husbandry start.

I still think that players with an Animal Husbandry start need something more to make them compete-able. To that extend I have the following ideas:

1. Sane idea: Give +1 commerce for palace to AH. The benefit will be smaller for early adopters compared to Mysticism as Animal Husbandry is definitely a tech that is researched rather early and you don't get it immediately. I also don't suspect somebody going for it as their first tech if they don't have AH resources, because the investment is huge and you better tech other starting techs first.
   
2. Totally crazy idea: Give Tribalism +1 on pastures. I know totally crazy, very much not close at home. Gives things to the early civics that are normally useless. You know what forget about the idea again. I just wanted to mention it.
   
3. Slightly less crazy idea: Give Animal Husbandry additional OR tech requirements in Fishing or Mysticism. The idea is to make more civs viable with an AH start.
   

I think I will try out the 1. Sane idea. To that extend my decision regarding Mysticism is:

Remove the commerce bonus, but keep it at 60 beakers.

Now what about Byzantium. First of all Wyatan mentioned that they are strength 12 and Immune to first strike. If they are immune to first strike, then that's a mistake on my part as they should be back to their base implementation without immunity. Other then that I already addressed Mysticism. Their UB still isn't amazing like scooter mentioned and I doubt the bringing the UB back to the artist slots of the building it replaces isn't that big of a factor in the overall evaluation of Byzantines. In a previous version the cataphract was at 11 strength with immunity. I could go back to that, if that is considered better for balance, but will anybody pick them with that?

[NobleHelium]

Base Knights are immune to first strike. Cataphracts are not. Wyatan was linking to a post saying that the loss of first strike immunity was a big deal.

[Old Harry]

For the AH sane idea are you saying you get +1 commerce once you research AH or while researching it?

[Charriu]

Once you finish researching AH, just like you get +1 commerce from Mysticism right now.

[Charriu]

Base Knights are immune to first strike.  Cataphracts are not.  Wyatan was linking to a post saying that the loss of first strike immunity was a big deal.

Ah ok, thank you. In that case I misunderstood Wyatan. Sorry.