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

[Charriu]

Oh right. While writing this I somehow mixed it up with the PRO bonus. Thanks for pointing that out

[civac2]

The question with praetorians for me is if a neighbour can hold a competently executed attack of AGG praetorians if properly prepared. I'm fairly confident that the answer for non-AGG praets is yes but it may be different with AGG praets. Half-cost barracks and free combat 1 combine to increase their power by a very significant margin.

In PB55 praets were relevant even into the renaissance. (They are buildable longer than normal swordsman.) A 45 hammers 8 strength unit is excellent for providing cheap mass in a collateral exchange deep into the game.

[Mjmd]

The other thing with praets is they are very hard to attack into. In the era of praets I think only Ginger lost cities and most of the time people just don't even think about attacking into Rome and other than Mali whos UU isn't great attacking I can't think of another civ example like it. It isn't necessarily about the rush potential either, they work really well with cats. They also hold up really well into the medieval time period. There is also the fact they have been picked A LOT. I'll point out PB64 was random, but Rome was picked in every other recent game except just PB65? and that was a random block pick, which I don't know if that impacted. Just to get some variety probably worthwhile and mind even with a +5 hammer I think they are still worth playing. Rome also just has fantastic CtH starting techs, which helps a lot.

[Miguelito]

I, and my frustration, also want to talk about GLH a bit. In PB59 we played a Colossus gambit in what should've been a perfect storm - financial, lots of water, lots of tiny islands. And it was beautiful and got us ahead nicely, until we had to obsolete it much earlier than we would've liked, after only ~70 turns, under civac's pressure.
However at some point I realized that even under these conditions GLH would have raked in more commerce empire wide at nearly any given time. It's passive so you don't have to dedicate population to it and can whip them instead, it works also for cities with very little coast, you don't need a lighthouse in every city where you want to profit from it... now the map was of course also perfect for GLH, but generally you can expect it to provide at least 2 coins per city - and it turns out that it's quite hard to break even with that with Colossus coast.

But then GLH has further advantages:

• It comes much earlier, having cheaper techs and a cheaper prereq building that you can also start building while still teching Masonry
  
• The obsolescence is what takes the cake. It's on a fringe tech that you take for exactly one reason, to get to infantry. The tech has a passive bonus, but it's neatly annulled by obsoleting the wonder - which also means that you don't even suffer an actual loss when you obsolete it. Compare that to the obsolescence of Colossus - Astronomy is vital in the same domain (water) that the wonder is geared towards, it's possibly the most popular bulb target (after maths?), and if you see a neighbour taking it you run an existential risk if you choose to delay. And that's absolutely fine and a great thing from a design standpoint (example above - civac could pursue a strategy to, among other things, force us to give up our greatest economic asset). It just compares so horribly to GLH, which as stated also nearly always will provide more commerce and comes earlier.
  

tldr: The water wonders have much different strength levels - GLH produces more commerce, comes earlier, is cheaper and easier to build, and obsoletes at a completely uncritical tech.

petition: make GLH significantly more expensive and change obsolescence to Economics at least, if not Banking*. I think the former is reasonably close to home.


*blocking the Pro double team of GLH plus Mercantilism sounds good, maybe because I don't play Pro

[Amicalola]

+50 hammers and obsoletion at Economics could be a fair trade (thematic in the same way as Corp with +1 trade route on the tech's civic). I also like that it nerfs non-Pro GLH more than Pro GLH, since that's one of pro's rare strengths relative to Fin/Org (Org, by the way, is still too strong. Grumble grumble).

[Charriu]

I, and my frustration, also want to talk about GLH a bit. In PB59 we played a Colossus gambit in what should've been a perfect storm - financial, lots of water, lots of tiny islands. And it was beautiful and got us ahead nicely, until we had to obsolete it much earlier than we would've liked, after only ~70 turns, under civac's pressure.
However at some point I realized that even under these conditions GLH would have raked in more commerce empire wide at nearly any given time. It's passive so you don't have to dedicate population to it and can whip them instead, it works also for cities with very little coast, you don't need a lighthouse in every city where you want to profit from it... now the map was of course also perfect for GLH, but generally you can expect it to provide at least 2 coins per city - and it turns out that it's quite hard to break even with that with Colossus coast.

But then GLH has further advantages:

• It comes much earlier, having cheaper techs and a cheaper prereq building that you can also start building while still teching Masonry
  
• The obsolescence is what takes the cake. It's on a fringe tech that you take for exactly one reason, to get to infantry. The tech has a passive bonus, but it's neatly annulled by obsoleting the wonder - which also means that you don't even suffer an actual loss when you obsolete it. Compare that to the obsolescence of Colossus - Astronomy is vital in the same domain (water) that the wonder is geared towards, it's possibly the most popular bulb target (after maths?), and if you see a neighbour taking it you run an existential risk if you choose to delay. And that's absolutely fine and a great thing from a design standpoint (example above - civac could pursue a strategy to, among other things, force us to give up our greatest economic asset). It just compares so horribly to GLH, which as stated also nearly always will provide more commerce and comes earlier.
  

tldr: The water wonders have much different strength levels - GLH produces more commerce, comes earlier, is cheaper and easier to build, and obsoletes at a completely uncritical tech.

petition: make GLH significantly more expensive and change obsolescence to Economics at least, if not Banking*. I think the former is reasonably close to home.


*blocking the Pro double team of GLH plus Mercantilism sounds good, maybe because I don't play Pro

I was about to write up a similar comparison between Colossus and GLH. Something that I found quite fascinating is that from a pure hammer standpoint both wonders are equal for a generic civ and even somewhat for a IND leader. This is because of the modifiers you get for Colossus aka the wonder resource modifier of now 50% from copper, which you usually have and the forge hammer bonus. Factoring both in you would need roughly 263 hammers for both the wonder the pre-req building forge. For the Great Lighthouse and Lighthouse that's 260, so quiet comparable. Do not that in BtS thanks to 100% resource modifier the Colossus is actually cheaper.

But other then that all the points you mentioned stay true. I agree with you that the biggest problem is the obsolescence. This is where the Great Lighthouse makes all the extra commerce compared to the Colossus. Increasing the GLH cost is only a small bandage that brings it back to BtS levels hammer-wise. Now where to obsolete it is the question:

Economics as you said is the closest to home. It is earlier, but I see a similar reasoning as with Corporation. You only need Economics if you want either the Merchant, civic Free Trade or go up to Infantry. Free Trade is comparable to the extra trade route on Corporation in that regard. So while Economics is earlier it's still a somewhat fringe tech like you said.

Banking as you suggested closes a synergy with Pro. Now Banking is required for Economics and Replacable Parts and itself has the first economics civic. This definitely gets researched earlier then Economics. But I have another suggestion.

Paper. It lies on the bulb path to Astronomy, but one usually tries to avoid Paper to bulb Astronomy. The important difference though to BtS is that the Galleons - one reason for going to Astronomy - now also require Paper in CtH. This brings paper into a somewhat similar decision forcing situation like with Astronomy as without it you can't transport units over ocean. It also comes earlier as Economics and is pre-req to a lot of other important techs. If a Great Lighthouse player wants to avoid obsolescence they would have to give up on Printing Press and everything after it, Education, Liberalism, the Economics tree. They would still be able to defend themselfs on the ocean via Guilds->Gunpowder->Chemistry together with Astronomy giving them better ocean-faring ships

[Ginger()]

Yeah I think praets are pretty nutty and if nothing else, forgiving. Despite completely misplaying my first war with Mjmd in 63, I was still a credible threat bc of Praets and able to secure a favorable peace deal (yes diplo played into that but regular swords would not have threatened Mjmd as much I believe, though he can correct me on that). Whether they are oppressive against a prepared opponent? Idk that’s difficult to say. If it’s PB66 that prompted it, I don’t think it’s spoiler to say that an unbalanced map and players deserve consideration as factors for Agg Roman success

[Tarkeel]

It's worth taking into account that we usually play maps that benefit GLH with loads of coasts; PB61 and 65 being slightly off in that regard.

The obsolescence is what takes the cake. It's on a fringe tech that you take for exactly one reason, to get to infantry. The tech has a passive bonus, but it's neatly annulled by obsoleting the wonder - which also means that you don't even suffer an actual loss when you obsolete it. Compare that to the obsolescence of Colossus - Astronomy is vital in the same domain (water) that the wonder is geared towards, it's possibly the most popular bulb target (after maths?), and if you see a neighbour taking it you run an existential risk if you choose to delay. And that's absolutely fine and a great thing from a design standpoint (example above - civac could pursue a strategy to, among other things, force us to give up our greatest economic asset). It just compares so horribly to GLH, which as stated also nearly always will provide more commerce and comes earlier.

I completely agree with what you're saying here. Because the obsoleting tech gives the benefit to you, you don't see the same kind of hurt, it's just the "lack of benefit" that other civs would have. I've previously argued for giving the same benefit to Colossus, having Astronomy give +1C to coast.

Economics as you said is the closest to home. It is earlier, but I see a similar reasoning as with Corporation. You only need Economics if you want either the Merchant, civic Free Trade or go up to Infantry. Free Trade is comparable to the extra trade route on Corporation in that regard. So while Economics is earlier it's still a somewhat fringe tech like you said.

Banking as you suggested closes a synergy with Pro. Now Banking is required for Economics and Replacable Parts and itself has the first economics civic. This definitely gets researched earlier then Economics. But I have another suggestion.

Paper. It lies on the bulb path to Astronomy, but one usually tries to avoid Paper to bulb Astronomy. The important difference though to BtS is that the Galleons - one reason for going to Astronomy - now also require Paper in CtH. This brings paper into a somewhat similar decision forcing situation like with Astronomy as without it you can't transport units over ocean. It also comes earlier as Economics and is pre-req to a lot of other important techs. If a Great Lighthouse player wants to avoid obsolescence they would have to give up on Printing Press and everything after it, Education, Liberalism, the Economics tree. They would still be able to defend themselfs on the ocean via Guilds->Gunpowder->Chemistry together with Astronomy giving them better ocean-faring ships

Paper is probably the best thematic fit for obsolescence, in the way good navigational maps would make the lighthouses less needed. I am afraid that it might be a bit on the early side, but worth considering. Definitely don't increase the cost if you do this though.

[Mjmd]

From a pure Close To Home / ease of remembering perspective I think a hammer increase would be best. Which solution is best I do not know.

[chumchu]

A simple change is just to nerf it to 1 trade route per city. That works well in RtR and in my own mod. It is still good and worthwhile to build.