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

[pindicator]

Just doing my job by reminding you then

[BING_XI_LAO]

Speaking of which, being a noob I'm unfamiliar with the history - why do both RtR and CtH exist? Did you make RtR only for people to prefer something less radical?

[Charriu]

Speaking of which, being a noob I'm unfamiliar with the history - why do both RtR and CtH exist? Did you make RtR only for people to prefer something less radical?

That's a bit of a longer story. Cyneheard and Krill started RtR back in 2010 here: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=3623. Early on T-Hawk started helping out with coding and I know that others helped out too. I tried to collect everybody who worked on it in the credits section of BUG.
Fastforward to 2018. At this point Krill was the only person working on RtR and mainly doing XML changes. I already had asked if there were plans to add BUG to RtR and in 2019 I joined Krill with RtR. I started by merging many BUG features into RtR and later added new features.
Then around the start of the pandemic in 2020 Krill disappeared for a while due to the pandemic. I kept on maintaining RtR for him, so that he can continue with it when it's a good time for him. I few month before the pandemic I already thought about doing my own mod. At this point RtR was already a larger balance mod nicknamed Civ 4.5 by some. I wanted to do something simpler, because I read that some people were turned off by the many changes to RtR. In April 2020 I started with CtH using RtR as a code base for my mod.
RtR is still alive and I intend to keep it alive as long as players will play it, but I won't make any further balance changes there as it is Krill's baby.

[superdeath]

will any of these changes be in pb62? Or is that already "finished"?

[Charriu]

No, PB62 is already fixed and some of the changes need coding.

[Amicalola]

Some didn't like the KTBs giving away information.

I never got the sense that it was a majority of people though...... Maybe separate threads for votes on some of this stuff wouldn't be a bad idea. My main beef is just that this is changing from the base game. I do think its thematic and solves the problem of early game the calculations being less known. I would fully be up for an additional cost reduction to alphabet as it would basically be a required tech now.

What you saying makes sense. There is one additional small issue though. The current implementation of KTBs leaks informationin the early game. Sometimes, you wouldn't have enough base commerce to figure out what the actual KTBs are.

I've never really seen someone explain why they don't like this. Couldn't the early game be enhanced and more interesting with the additional information, where that comes up? I guess what I'm saying is: why is this potential extra information actually an issue?

Edit: I do like the alphabet change as the best of the 'solutions,' since it gives some value to a weak tech. I'm just not convinced we need the change at all, like Mjmd.

[Charriu]

After a good nights sleep I think I will not to the KTB change. It really looks like people prefer it the way it is. Now there are people who don't like it leaking information. I remember that Ramk proposed a change about KTB. For those people I will try to look into implementing the KTB display so that it shows the true number of players according to spreadsheet wizardry. That should solve the problem in the early stages with many players.

[civac2]

You cannot do this properly. The full process involves cranking up your beakers as high as possible. So using scientists whether that makes sense or not, working 1/0/2 coast and every other scrap of commerce you can find to do the calculations. Then you have to revert everything.

[Charriu]

I have to say I start to be really annoyed by all the information that Civ 4 leaks unintended through it's mechanics.  

[Tarkeel]

Regarding KtB, my preferences are (in ranked order):
1: Leave it as it is; the leak doesn't bother me
2: Disable KtB for ancient era techs, same as RtR
3: Enable KtB at Alphabet