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

[Charriu]

Some of you may have noticed that I updated my proposal list here: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid804283

There you can find all the things that were already discussed here and I decided to put in for the next version.

In my mind Emancipation civic is linked with "catching up" theme, so I'd prefer a change that was better for smaller cities, falling off as it grows. Something along the line of +1 hammer per excess health?

I see what you mean there. Of course the "catching up" theme still remains with the improvement grows. Still after this lengthy discussion I want to go with the proposed implementation and keep this one for later evaluation.

Some random thoughts for the mod unrelated to Emancipation:
If you're looking for something that buffs IND, (not suggesting that it needs a buff, it seems solidly middle of the pack), the easiest thing to do would be give it the old EXP worker bonus, although that probably shoots it too far ahead.
I also had an idea to help nudge the balance of the mysticism civs. What would you guys think about giving India back the OG fast worker and then swapping the starting techs of Arabia/India? Giving India Mys/Wheel and an OP UU makes it similar to Byzantium's current state, and Arabia always struck me as having interesting uniques but not as deserving of the tech handicap as the Cataphracts are.

IND was already previously. I will gain +100% national wonder production instead of +50%. This is not strictly a buff as it brings it just back to BtS level of national wonder production together with stone or marble. I think with that we are good for now. I want to keep further trait discussion for after I have the opportunity to analyze the data from PB59.

That India/Arabia change is interesting and I have to think more about it. I would still keep March on the Arabian UU as it makes that unit so much better. The main problem I have is if it would be acceptable to return the OG Fast Worker. I tend to say no. Comparing this to Byzanz. The main weakness of Byzanz is that everybody know the Cataphract will come and prepare for that accordingly or outright attack you before that. The Fast Worker on the other remains strong always and there is no way to counter the economic advantage it provides. So for me the question is would be the current implementation of the Fast Worker together with starting techs Myst/The Wheel appropiate? There is also the tiny tiny issue that it makes mapmaking a bit annoying as you have to keep track of that when filling in players civ choices.

There's been so many suggestions about the happiness thing that I don't know what the current mechanic you're suggesting is; but please make sure the hammer bonus is not usable with a near infinite mechanic like HR. Stacking hammers in a single city is very strong to build national and world wonders. You can't just look at empire-wide output for comparison.

And I find it odd that you're making this many changes to the mod/game, yet you still refuse to fix the "broken" early game of having pastures on AH and farms on agriculture. I think your initial reason was to not confuse new players, but how is a minor change like that more confusing than the recent changes/suggestions to the mod?

The current proposal is:


Emancipation: lose unhappiness bonus, gain +0.2 hammers per happy population in a city (Rounded up)

Now this is theoretical still abusable with HR, but so would be HR+Caste and I don't see that happening on a regular basis, because of the additional limitation of growth and health issues.

Regarding the other statement I see two main critique points of yours:

1. Many changes to the mod
2. "broken" pasture/farms situation

Let me address the first point first. It's true that quiet a few changes accumulated that may be unnecessary, have to little an effect or could be obsoleted by the meta development. Those would be:

- Aqueduct: Reduce cost to 80
- Customs House: Cost 120 instead of 180, also applies to all UBs based on Customs House (Feitoria)
- Explorer: Gains Flanking
- ICBM: Cost 1500 instead of 500
- Tactical Nuke: Cost 750 instead of 250
- Some Civ changes
- All the changes related to War Weariness

I want to briefly talk about the last point. The majority of the last games were played without War Weariness and it becomes increasingly clear that meta goes that way. I personally don't like that direction, but like with other elements of the game the meta solidifies in that direction. Now I still have some new changes regarding War Weariness in the hope of bringing that mechanic back, but my hopes are low for that. If I gave up on that my plan would be to keep and lump all the war weariness changes into a spoiler tag. They would remain there for people that want to play with War Weariness, but that way they would no longer clutter the changelog.

Now as for the second pasture/farms situation. To my knowledge there are two issues with that:

1. It takes longer to connect AH resources in comparison to Agriculture resources, because obviously it is deeper into the tech tree
2. AH also unlocks horses which might push players with an AH resource into a war chariot rush

Now as for the first point. I addressed this somewhat by reducing the cost for Agriculture. Also by removing the worker bonus the fastest way to get the worker out now is 12 turns with regular map creation and a plains hill. Both of this make it more feasible to connect AH resources on an AH-only-resource start. But importantly these issues only are more prevalent if you start with a randomly created map. The meta although has developed so that we almost always start with handcrafted maps. There are some rare cases were we want a randomly generated map, but even then we almost always want to play with a handcrafted starting area.
This of course has multiple upsides and downsides. One of the downsides is that things like settling in place has become the norm thanks to the omnipresent plains hill on every map. This of course gives us the 12 turn worker I mentioned. If you are forced to a 15 turn worker AH-only-resource starts can almost always connect the resources after the worker is finished. The upside of course is that the map maker can make sure that players do not start with a AH-only-resource start and instead can make use of the other available food resource like deer and the other 3 agriculture resources.
As for the second point. Yes it's absolutely possible that someone that has to tech AH early might go down the chariot rush route. But don't forget because they had to research AH the are late to Bronze Working and the Whip to make those chariots faster. It's certainly possible for another player to get to Bronze Working in time to build that defensive spearman thanks in turn to the availability of chops and whips.

Now I expect that somebody will say that RtR found a nice solution by switching pastures and camps on the tech tree. It's true that that solved a lot of issues. But did it because of the change of just because map makers tend to use pigs, sheep and to a lesser extend cows more for their maps? Is it still possible to make a map with a deer only start in RtR and retain all the problems previously talked about. Yes that is possible. The fact that it doesn't happen is because map makers didn't do that.
There is of course one major last difference and that is the presence of pigs as a 6 food resource. Hunting's deer can only ever achieve 5 food. So another solution to the whole issue could be to introduce a new Hunting resource that provides 6 food just like a pig resource. That is certainly possible, but it would make live harder for the map maker as maps no longer would be easily convertible between BtS and CtH.

[Tarkeel]

Charriu, in the proposed change log it says that changes since v1.6 is highlighted. Should that be v2.x?

[Charriu]

Of course that should be v2.x thanks

[Mjmd]

Right now I like where AH is at. In my mind you basically have a food based start or a chopping whipping start. I think people like switching camps and pastures because it removes this choice and removes the "feel bad" for not being able to improve the AH resources right away. Now it does matter how tight the map is as going AH has disadvantages on tight maps especially if map makers aren't careful with copper locations. I still like the overall decision making. It also insures that the mining civs just aren't the best. Zulu is a really strong civ but i think a lot of people haven't been picking because they have the two cheapest techs AND map makers haven't been putting strong AH resources at the capital (trying to reduce the feel bad). I am um well known for picking India no matter what, but I've slowly come to the realization I should probably look at my starting resources when picking a civ

India is fine as is. I think base Arabia but change starting techs to fishing/myst would be interesting. Basically a clear "religion plan" civ. I don't like changing their starting techs and leaving them with march on knights. BTW I think Native America can just go back to base with starting techs. I think Charriu has done a good enough job balancing them that this is fine.

[Miguelito]

• The proposed Emancipation bonus I think is not abusable really.  You grow your city from size 21 to 41 and gain 4 base hammers. If anything it is a bit boring because while it's nice you can't really build around it actively because the gains are minor. So even considering that it was my proposal I like a bonus on specialists more (+3g or +2h). An endgame viable specialist economy sounds intriguing. I also like that it would have 2 somewhat competing boni on the same civic (cottages/specialists) and that it feels thematic (emancipated people moving to the big cities and becoming specialists). The question is just, does it become a one right choice.
  
• This might be coming late,  but I think the -25% off corporation maintenance on Free Market should go. It makes FM the one right choice for a corporation strategy because the share of corp maintenance of total costs becomes so once you go into corps seriously. Removing it would have the effects of nerfing corporations across the board (which I think isn't bad, but if needed corp maintenance could be generally reduced), and produce a competition between Merc, FM and Environmentalism for strategies including corporations, while leaving SP as a different route (also buffed implicitly by the corporation nerf). I think all of these would be beneficial. FM of course needs something instead; the easy and boring route would be a +X% on TR (I think RtR has that?). In the RFC:DoC mod there is a wonder that grants international trade routes without OB; I think that could be quite interesting and a very thematic and significant effect on FM (if you want it bigger, allow trade while at war ).
  
• Divine Right could use a significant cost reduction in order to make it a serious alternative/complement to Philosophy and not just a meme choice. Imo it should even be at the same cost or cheaper than Philo, since it has more expensive and less useful prereqs, and is arguably less valuable as well in isolation.
  
• How about Myst/Hunting for Arabia? Less on the nose, and a bit weaker than Fishing maybe, so the CA can keep march.
  
• Please keep pastures and camps where they are. I feel that swap affects identity a lot, and if we want to play that we still have RtR. 
  

Let me address the first point first. It's true that quiet a few changes accumulated that may be unnecessary, have to little an effect or could be obsoleted by the meta development. Those would be:

- Aqueduct: Reduce cost to 80
- Customs House: Cost 120 instead of 180, also applies to all UBs based on Customs House (Feitoria)
- Explorer: Gains Flanking
- ICBM: Cost 1500 instead of 500
- Tactical Nuke: Cost 750 instead of 250
- Some Civ changes
- All the changes related to War Weariness

I feel like all of these are beneficial, save maybe the aqueduct cost reduction (because you also have Exp if you want to play with aqueducts, or probably rather the related UBs)

[Cyneheard]

A minor recommendation:

Get rid of the Space Elevator's latitude restriction. It has no place in an MP game.

[Amicalola]

Let me address the first point first. It's true that quiet a few changes accumulated that may be unnecessary, have to little an effect or could be obsoleted by the meta development. Those would be:

- Aqueduct: Reduce cost to 80
- Customs House: Cost 120 instead of 180, also applies to all UBs based on Customs House (Feitoria)
- Explorer: Gains Flanking
- ICBM: Cost 1500 instead of 500
- Tactical Nuke: Cost 750 instead of 250
- Some Civ changes
- All the changes related to War Weariness

I feel like all of these are beneficial, save maybe the aqueduct cost reduction (because you also have Exp if you want to play with aqueducts, or probably rather the related UBs)

I completely agree. Even the Aqueduct reduction helps out an otherwise very weak building.

[Ginger()]

maybe it’s not my place to be critical as a newcomer, but I think that Emancipation happiness bonus hammers scheme starts straying pretty far from home. There’s simply no other mechanic like it in the game. Copying the Rep Bonus in some form or reducing its civic upkeep may be boring solutions and not create a diverse array of choices, but they have precedent among other game mechanics.

As for all the minor hammer cost adjustments, I think that while the number of changes looks big or unwieldy the fact that they’re just small efficiency nudges in the right direction with no fundamental changes to function makes them much easier to swallow when jumping to this mod from BtS. (Which as a newbie was easy and accessible for me bc of the restricted scope of the mod and I’m thankful for that)

[Miguelito]

Can I add an extended character limit for city names to the wishlist? So many naming themes would benefit. Or are there good reasons against? Fwiw in CFPB88 Ramk manually set a 19 character name for one city which seemed not to cause problems.

[Amicalola]

I agree, that would be a really nice little change. Even just to like 20 characters or so would make a nice difference without gumming up the screen too much.