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

[civac2]

A 90 hammer forge is already a real advantage. Extra XP on top is nice too, relevant due the way breaking points work out.

Moving the tech requirement to Iron Working may well be nerf.

[Ginger()]

The difference is 100 beakers between IW and MC, as well as losing access to Colossus and Triremes but gaining access to Iron tiles, Swords, and Jungle tiles. It’s a side grade and Civac’s right that on water maps it’s a nerf. Which is a bit of a problem given Japan’s starting techs.

90hammers no engineers is very interesting. I like it. Would that be at MC or IW in your minds?

As for the American UB, a Bank that can hire engineers might well be better for production than a 10% boost, though I can see both together being fine.

[Mjmd]

I mean you certainly wouldn't go into the game wanting to Oracle MC. IW is a cheaper tech and for 90h forges I would certainly be interested in addition to gaining access to iron and chopping jungle.

You could also do 90h forges with engineer at MC fairly safely. I think in either case I would probably drop the coal bonus as 90h forges with melee exp are already pretty interesting in my opinion.

[Charriu]

Removing the engineer is not an option. The forge is the only building with which you can run an engineer in the beginning and therefore spawn a great engineer. The next building that has engineer slots is the factory. Therefore removing the engineer slot would be a serious nerf on the building.

[Amicalola]

I mean, that's ok though, right? If we make it 90 hammers, and the melee bonus, and unlocked at Iron Working, those are all pretty significant buffs to make up for no Engineer. It just makes the building used in a different way to the normal Forge, which seems great to me. I really like the Iron Working/90h/no engineer idea too!

In general I really like the idea of moving the tech requirements for UBs, since it changes the way you play the game a lot. What about if we moved the Immigration Station up on the tech tree, to Sailing or something? Well, Sailing is probably too early. Metal Casting? The garden/bazaar could go to Mathematics? There are so many possibilities here!

[Mjmd]

I think its also fine at MC at either 90h or 100h with engineer.

It is pretty significant to take away the engineer slot and put at IW (even if I do like it), so the MC option would probably be better.

Edit: I do not hate the idea of moving UBs around if thematic and they need the boost. I wouldn't want to do it too often, but a handful is probably fine.

[Ginger()]

The immigration station actually strikes me as a reasonably strong building. 80h for 3GPP seems remarkably solid. The only problem with it is that it’s just not particularly inspiring. You’re not going to make a plan around it, and it’s on >600 beaker tech that otherwise exists just as a prerequisite. A lot of civs have just a flashier toolkit. Notably for Agr/Fish starting techs and a watery map, there’s also the Dutch, who ALSO incentivize a PHI leader and have arguably better rewards for going down Compass

[RefSteel]

I'm mystified by the idea that Financial and Protective somehow need to be made stronger given their existing popularity and success (as others have suggested, if those two seem weak in comparison with Org, it makes more sense to reduce Org's advantages ... or play on maps less-suited to Org than we have been lately.  The other changes seem like good ones to me.  For America's UB, what if we gave it one of each specialist slot?  (Either as a Harbor = Immigration Station or as a Library = Carnegie Public Library)?

One completely random and superfluous request that only matters for single player if at all:  The game option, "Random Personalities" keeps each AI graphical leaderhead matched to their name and traits (and civilization if unrestricted leaders is off) but assigns them all the diplomatic lines, build preferences, peace weight, favorite civic, and so on, of a random other leader instead.  The diplomatic lines (and to a lesser extent, the favorite civics) give away the leader's identity to players who know the game well though.  Might it be possible to either keep the diplo lines (and perhaps favorite civics) matched to the graphics and name or randomize those separately from the rest of the "personality" so AIs in a single player game will still have distinct personalities but the player won't know for sure which one they're facing except by inference from their actions in the game?

[Mjmd]

I also am of the opinion protective doesn't really need a boost, but eh. Financial I think needs a little something. 100% banks is maybe too much but also eh.

[T-hawk]

As a casual observer, the picture I get is that you buffed everything else to be as good as Financial originally was, and some of those overshot, so now Financial itself needs a small buff too.