RtR_6.0.0.1 Discussion thread

[Krill]

It's a return to base BtS levels of strength:

So, to reiterate: this puts war elephants effectively back to where they were versus knights in base BtS. I do not believe that this can be considered a true nerf to knights, if anything making war elephants more available by changing the resource requirements is the greater nerf, yet I think this has been accepted as necessary for balance? I think this begs the question: do base BtS knights need a buff? But the answer to this must be no: war elehants have been nerfed against every other unit in the game due to the loss of strength, and hence should be built to a lesser extent anyway, are somehow making knights any worse despite being essentially the same as before the change in that specific combat scenario?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Make sure to include the Sid nothing/nothing leader and civ. Ive been pushing Charriu to include it as well. <3

Seconded.

[Krill]

I'll include Sid on the proviso that of anyone gets him in a random game that he gets resolved, and anyone that intentionally picks him gets banned from all civ games for 2 years.

Ultimately its useful to have him implemented for testing and sim purposes.

[Gavagai]

It's a return to base BtS levels of strength:

So, to reiterate: this puts war elephants effectively back to where they were versus knights in base BtS. I do not believe that this can be considered a true nerf to knights, if anything making war elephants more available by changing the resource requirements is the greater nerf, yet I think this has been accepted as necessary for balance? I think this begs the question: do base BtS knights need a buff? But the answer to this must be no: war elehants have been nerfed against every other unit in the game due to the loss of strength, and hence should be built to a lesser extent anyway, are somehow making knights any worse despite being essentially the same as before the change in that specific combat scenario?

Why? Base BTS elephants are OP.

[Krill]

Seriously Gav? You are saying that base BTS elephants are OP because of how they interact with knights?

[Miguelito]

I just see little value in ensuring that a unit from an era before, which costs 1/3 less, be significantly stronger than the knight (even with str 7 phants get odds before promotions). Even str 7 elephants with cats make defense against an attacker who's an era ahead pretty simple; the defender needs to be heavily outrpoduced as well.

[Krill]

I just see little value in ensuring that a unit from an era before, which costs 1/3 less, be significantly stronger than the knight (even with str 7 phants get odds before promotions). Even str 7 elephants with cats make defense against an attacker who's an era ahead pretty simple; the defender needs to be heavily outproduced as well.

Er...you just described spears and HA? And axes and pikes, and arguably archers and swords. And the entire economic model of CIV is capitalistic expansion into mass production...

[scooter]

War Elephants being a Knight counter of sorts in base BtS said more about the Elephants than the Knights.

To reframe the problem people are poking at here - if you think Knights are too strong in a world where Elephants are 7str, changing the way they interact with that specific unit only seems like a weird way to handle it. It's the simplest change yes, but it's also a Pastures-at-Hunting type of change that (mostly) makes raw balance sense but not game sense.

And is it really necessary? I think it's ok to have a unit in Knights that are extremely good at quickly stomping backwards players but get slowed way down by tech parity (aka Pikes). If you still think Pikes aren't good enough or are hard to get quickly enough to respond with, maybe that's the path to pursue change. I generally think it's OK that 2-movers rule competitive MP - it's fundamentally baked into Civ4 that movement range is the most powerful attribute.

(crossposted)

[Commodore]

Only one change question...

Byzantium: Fishing/Mysticism. UB: Barracks replacement. Hippodrome. +1 happy from iron, horse. UU: Knight replacement. Cataphract. Strength 11. -15% city attack. (New)

...has Byzantium ever won a game outright? Like, ever?

[Krill]

Com, have you seen that UB? A barracks which gives 2 happy? In a mod designed specifically for use on random maps?

Also the percentages are weird when you run them through the combat calculator. I don't care much either way fwiw.

Scooter, I have spent thirteen years being told that changes go too far, are too weird or are overly complex. Please understand the level of irony I feel when I actually try to move stuff back towards the base game being questioned.

Ultimately this is designed for use on low yield, random maps. The variance is going to be far higher than the maps from the hand crafted maps of yesteryear and there does need to be some extra resilience. Here that is the specific change to WE and the change to Engineering, to reduce games devolving into potential knight rushes.

If everyone wants to leave knights buffed compared to base BTS then just post that so I can laugh at the absurdity of it all.