Balance and Gameplay discussion. [Archive] - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

Alsark

Jun 23, 2009, 11:16 AM

Oh, and regarding traits, I posted this awhile ago in the old thread:

May I make a couple of suggestions regarding the traits? We've already touched Expansive and added a trait, so I assume changing the traits a bit isn't out of line. Anyway, Imperialistic and Protective are almost always widely regarded as the worst two traits in the game. May I suggest we buff them a tad? I am making these suggestions based on the Revolutions Mod being turned off:

Protective (Taken from this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=250946) thread)
- Double Speed: Castle, Bomb Shelter
- +1 happiness for: Walls, Bunker
- Free Promo (City Garrison I): Archer, Gunpowder, Trench units
- +50% Domestic Great General points

(( The free Drill promotion would be removed to make up for the other buffs. Alternatively you could get rid of the boost in Great General points and keep Drill. ))

Imperialistic
- Double Speed: Jails
- -20% War Weariness (or -20% cost of distance to capital)
- +50% Faster Settlers
- +100% Great General Emergence
- City Distance Revolution Penalty Reduced

Also, according to the following poll (here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=19728)), I think Aggressive could use to stand a slight buff (Expansive was already buffed through this mod, so we're good on that). Perhaps just Combat I to Armored units in addition to its current effects?

Oh... and I totally think Industrious should lead to quicker factory production. They changed it to Organized in one of the patches, and I never understood why. Perhaps make both Organized and Industrious lead to faster factories? Industrious was also rated one of the worst traits in that thread I linked to earlier (since it does nothing unless you are into building a ton of wonders).

It's cool if you totally don't agree with any of this. I just like things to be a little balanced, so I wanted to touch up on some weaker traits (I'd also touch Financial for being too strong, but I think people would have my head for that one) so that playing as those leaders doesn't feel like a drag since you're basically only playing with one trait (especially in the case of protective).

Oh, I'd recommend creating a "strategies" topic, too, Phungus.

phungus420

Jun 23, 2009, 12:43 PM

What about pikes? Why did they get a +100% vs melee?

vs maces they are equal

6str pikemen +100% = 12
8str maceman + 50% = 12

The main reason is that historically Mideaval armies were mainly Pikes. Now gameplay > historical accuracy, but testing this change it worked well. Pikes are still extremely weak against archery units, and make poor city attackers (especially since max damage and overall strength of seige has been reduced), but they are the best field unit of their time. Pikes have also gone up in price.

bigfatjonny

Jun 23, 2009, 01:19 PM

Is there a list of all the changes from Vanilla BTS, not all the extras Revolutions, Wolf, AI etc - Just a list of changes to units & techs from BTS to LoR?

phungus420

Jun 23, 2009, 01:45 PM

Is there a list of all the changes from Vanilla BTS, not all the extras Revolutions, Wolf, AI etc - Just a list of changes to units & techs from BTS to LoR?

Well to be honest, I sort of did this in the LoR Concepts section in the civilopedia (there was a BtS rules changes section, and tried converting that), but it got too unwieldy so I removed that section. All of the core concept changes are adressed and listed there, in the Civilopedia under LoR concepts. But as far as unit changes and trait changes and what not, it just sort of bogged me down, and I gave up on it. The main changes are axeman are strength 4, and Pikeman get 100% vs Melee as well as mounted, though due to overhauling the tech tree and what not, there is just too much stuff to really list it all.

Roland Johansen

Jun 23, 2009, 04:37 PM

What about pikes? Why did they get a +100% vs melee?

vs maces they are equal

6str pikemen +100% = 12
8str maceman + 50% = 12

Yeah. I can understand getting a bonus against melee, but perhaps not such a substantial bonus. Maybe like a 50% bonus? A Heavy Footman should probably be able to defeat a Pikeman. Since a few of the ethnic style arts have shields, I think a Heavy Footman could easily knock the pike away in order to close the distance (at which point the Pikeman is screwed). Depending on the type of melee, though, the Pikeman may have an advantage (I'd imagine that pike > axe). Although you could give the Pikeman only bonuses to certain melee, I think a 50% against melee all around would make sense (since, depending on the ethnic art, the Heavy Footmen may or may not have a shield).

To add to phungus420 post. This change to pikeman changes the balance of optimal armies in the middle ages so that they'll contain more pikemen, but it will not imbalance the game. The pikeman now becomes the main stack defender in the field, but it won't be the unit to capture cities nor will it be the best city defender. It also won't defeat every contemporary unit.

By the way, it's important for your strategies to know that the unpromoted pikeman will defeat the unpromoted maceman. The way the bonuses are applied in the quoted post in incorrect. The combat mechanics in civilization IV subtract bonuses before applying them so if a maceman attacks a pikeman, then it will be 8 vs 9 (6+50% of 6).

A complete medieval matchup:

Pikemen: strong vs knights and cuirassiers, good vs macemen
Trebuchets: Prime city attackers combined with collateral damage
Macemen: Prime city invaders with good strength and city raider promotions, good vs longbowmen.
Crossbowmen: Excellent vs pikemen, good vs macemen, decent vs longbowmen, good city defenders
Longbowmen: excellent city defenders, in the field decent against pikemen and crossbowmen. Weak in the field.
Knights: Good stack breakers, especially with flanking promotions to retreat or anti-melee promotions to beat pikemen. Strong vs everything except pikemen. Can flank attack siege units.

The only thing that changed is the matchup between macemen and pikemen which is now won by the pikemen while they were being massacred in regular BTS.

Here's the wikipedia entry on pikemen. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_(weapon)). Check the section of the medieval revival and renaissance heyday.

GONdorman

Jun 23, 2009, 04:49 PM

Well to be honest, I sort of did this in the LoR Concepts section in the civilopedia (there was a BtS rules changes section, and tried converting that), but it got too unwieldy so I removed that section.

Oh man...:crazyeye:

You could have simply made a new "LoR Concepts" and keepin the BTS concepts like it was... to give more of a "expansion pack" feel:D

MrPopov

Jun 24, 2009, 01:26 AM

By the way, it's important for your strategies to know that the unpromoted pikeman will defeat the unpromoted maceman. The way the bonuses are applied in the quoted post in incorrect. The combat mechanics in civilization IV subtract bonuses before applying them so if a maceman attacks a pikeman, then it will be 8 vs 9 (6+50% of 6).

I want to be sure I understand this point.

How does the math change if, say the heavy footman was in a forest defending vs the pikeman? will the +50% forest defence cancel out the remaining +50% from the pikeman?

I guess what I am asking here is: are all +/- percentage based bonuses resolved before they are applied to the unit's strength?

Oh and I don't want to sound like I am arguing for or against any side, I appreciate the consideration that went into this change

scu98rkr

Jun 24, 2009, 07:06 AM

Hi,

I've been playing Wolf's mod and then WolfRevolution and I've really been enjoying them particularly WolfRevolution.

I generally play on the LAN against against housemate + AI's. As phungus mentioned the reason we use these mods is they add some new components, unit and leaders without totally changing the game.

I particularly like some of the ships Wolf added as I think these were needed.

We've upgraded to 3.19 last night and thought we'd try the latest version of LOR.

There are some changes I particularly like mainly reducing the poly count of many units and reducing the overall graphic load.

However as Im sure phungus knows this mod obviously needs balancing. I normally play monarch and my housemate normally plays prince and we tend to be even.

Last night I got handed Saladin (Enlightened/Spiritual) I surged away into a lead of almost double the next AI/my housemates score. I imagine this has to do with the +15% science bonus.

Normally Im stopped from getting a religion by playing monarch because my research is slow but it didnt seem to be any problem at all getting one. May be I had a good start but this +15% science seems too much.

But the main point of this post is I think your overstepping your OWN aims phungus

"Overall Legends of Revolution has been built with the idea that more is not better, rather the goal has been to add in needed units for balance, and concepts that enhance gameplay."

Like you say one or two tech some units need to be added but I think you've either added too much or added too much at once.

Especially reading that you have changed axemen to 4 strength in stead of 5. I didnt even realise this while playing because its such a given.

Arguably could have been made when BTS came out but it wasnt now is too late. The Axeman/Spearman/Archer/Chariot balance is now very set most players minds. I dont think changing basic military balances like this is needed in an expansion pack. Little changes are needed but this is too much.

Also units that can move 3 squares like Legio X I know this is a legend unit buts its too much. The whole strategic thinking for wars has changed personally I think this is too different.

I am in total agreement with your aims for this mod phungus and I was convinced it would become THE next "unofficial expansion pack" just like wolfrevolution was before. But I think your going to far I think you need to go back to your OWN original remit and maybe consider reversing some of the changes and making it more like BTS.

Or introduce the changes more slowly its going to a right bugbear to balance this mod by throwing everything into begin with.

Roland Johansen

Jun 24, 2009, 07:34 AM

I want to be sure I understand this point.

How does the math change if, say the heavy footman was in a forest defending vs the pikeman? will the +50% forest defence cancel out the remaining +50% from the pikeman?

Yes.

I guess what I am asking here is: are all +/- percentage based bonuses resolved before they are applied to the unit's strength?

All bonuses are applied to the defender. If the defender has a negative bonus of x, then his final strength will be original strength/(1+x). If the defender has a positive bonus of y, then his final strength will be original strength *(1+x).

The only exception is combat bonuses which apply directly to the strength of the original unit.

A lot can be said about how combat works in Civ4. Read the article Combat Explained (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/combat_explained.php) to get a better idea about how it works.

Oh and I don't want to sound like I am arguing for or against any side, I appreciate the consideration that went into this change

I just wanted to explain what the effects of the change are and I wanted to make sure that people understood that the pikeman with this bonus will beat the maceman one-on-one (although it will be a close fight).

Alsark

Jun 24, 2009, 11:29 AM

But the main point of this post is I think your overstepping your OWN aims phungus

"Overall Legends of Revolution has been built with the idea that more is not better, rather the goal has been to add in needed units for balance, and concepts that enhance gameplay."

Like you say one or two tech some units need to be added but I think you've either added too much or added too much at once.

Especially reading that you have changed axemen to 4 strength in stead of 5. I didnt even realise this while playing because its such a given.

Arguably could have been made when BTS came out but it wasnt now is too late. The Axeman/Spearman/Archer/Chariot balance is now very set most players minds. I dont think changing basic military balances like this is needed in an expansion pack. Little changes are needed but this is too much.

Also units that can move 3 squares like Legio X I know this is a legend unit buts its too much. The whole strategic thinking for wars has changed personally I think this is too different.

I am in total agreement with your aims for this mod phungus and I was convinced it would become THE next "unofficial expansion pack" just like wolfrevolution was before. But I think your going to far I think you need to go back to your OWN original remit and maybe consider reversing some of the changes and making it more like BTS.

Or introduce the changes more slowly its going to a right bugbear to balance this mod by throwing everything into begin with.

I think what he has done is just fine. Why can't an unofficial expansion mod tweak strength values? That seems appropriate - especially one to prevent an overpowered rush like the axemen rush. And the Legio X is fine, too, in my opinion. The fact that it's a legend makes a huge difference. Why bother going for him if there's not something that makes him special?

I don't think he's gone too far at all. I love the mod and what it adds/changes.

achilleszero

Jun 24, 2009, 12:17 PM

Last night I got handed Saladin (Enlightened/Spiritual) I surged away into a lead of almost double the next AI/my housemates score. I imagine this has to do with the +15% science bonus.

Normally Im stopped from getting a religion by playing monarch because my research is slow but it didnt seem to be any problem at all getting one. May be I had a good start but this +15% science seems too much.

Yeah Enlightened is probably the most powerful trait, but thats what were here for. Playtesting before V1.0. You should see the various scientific traits in other mods. Some add a free scientist in everycity. Thats crazy powerful.

Especially reading that you have changed axemen to 4 strength in stead of 5. I didnt even realise this while playing because its such a given.

Arguably could have been made when BTS came out but it wasnt now is too late. The Axeman/Spearman/Archer/Chariot balance is now very set most players minds. I dont think changing basic military balances like this is needed in an expansion pack. Little changes are needed but this is too much.

If you didnt even notice while playing then that would seem to imply that its not much of a change.

The Axeman/Spearman/Archer/Chariot balance that you speak of never really existed in the core game. Oh they tried, but it always wound up being 80% axes with 1 or 2 spears and maybe a chariot and then maybe later an srcher would show up to fortify the city you just routed with nothing but axes. Axes were too domintate in the game. Pretty much every strategy or question about the early game ends in "just do an Axe rush." LoR's set up actually brings the other 3 units in you supposed balance, more into the picture.

Also units that can move 3 squares like Legio X I know this is a legend unit buts its too much. The whole strategic thinking for wars has changed personally I think this is too different.

Well thats pretty much the only one. Roland convinced everyone of the folly of haveing a 3 move UU. So Legio X stands alone. but have you actually played with it. Its just one guy and will still die and get hurt alot. He can kill straglers outside the stack and make it back to safety within the stack but still theres only one of him. He does have blitz but after the first and second attacks he will likely be hurt or possibly be dead. On top of that he only has 3 mp because of the morale promo (which he could esily get with a great general). I would say that he is the best Legend. But until more people complain about him he'll probaly stay as he is.

Theres still lots of things that are still imbalanced and phungus needs your playtime to fix them. But the core game was never really balanced. Firaxis seems to have taken the route of "if we make all the units really lame and dont do much to rebalance our original set up, everyone will think that it was balanced to begin with."

phungus420

Jun 24, 2009, 03:18 PM

bigfatjonny

Jun 24, 2009, 04:13 PM

phungus420

Jun 24, 2009, 04:23 PM

Er... in my version pikemen get +50% to gunpowder not melee.

Im quite pleased with this, because otherwise I thought that it was doing away with macemen being the main medieval unit. I was planning of using only pikemen and seige if this was the case.

Are you sure it has changed in the latest version?
You're playing 0.8.2 ;)

I fully agree with the axes down to str 4, I do still find that swordsmen are underpowered and easily stopped by fortified axes now though - with their combined +75%. Swordmen have also lost their +10% to attacking cities, so maybe they shouldnt have been increased in cost? Or increase in cost but keep +10% city attak or even +20%?
The reason swords lost their city attack bonus is because with the addition of Rams, and the delay of Longbows, attacking cities is easier now, they simply don't need it, and removing it was done for balance. They will not be getting that back.

In terms of cost, I upped them (and lowered axeman cost) by 5 :hammers: to make the choice of building Swords/Chariots/Axes/Spears a difficult one for the player. Due to the cost, and various strengths, the best unit should be hard to figure out, and situational. From the little play testing I've done, I don't find Swords useless or overpriced at all. But certainly more comments on this may change my mind, and cause me to tweak things slightly. Keep in mind though Swords are proportionally stronger against Axes then in default BtS 6 v 7 instead of 6 v 7.5. This is the exactly the type of discussion I'm looking for though, and will help me tweak things into proper alignment for 1.0

bigfatjonny

Jun 25, 2009, 04:04 AM

I agree with the new ancient line up, and think that it makes the player use a mixed attacking and mixed DEFENDING force.

I think the thing that was my finding in my game - when cities are defended properly with a mixed force, attacking them is very difficult. A couple of axemen and archers in a city and you have no easy routes of attack. You need a mixed force heavy on seige and chariots/horsemen. Emphasis off melee and on to cavalry.

Same with the medieval.

To add to phungus420 post.
Pikemen: strong vs knights and cuirassiers, good vs macemen
Trebuchets: Prime city attackers combined with collateral damage
Macemen: Prime city invaders with good strength and city raider promotions, good vs longbowmen.
Crossbowmen: Excellent vs pikemen, good vs macemen, decent vs longbowmen, good city defenders
Longbowmen: excellent city defenders, in the field decent against pikemen and crossbowmen. Weak in the field.
Knights: Good stack breakers, especially with flanking promotions to retreat or anti-melee promotions to beat pikemen. Strong vs everything except pikemen. Can flank attack siege units.

The only thing that changed is the matchup between macemen and pikemen which is now won by the pikemen while they were being massacred in regular BTS.

Footmen used to be the majority of my force, but I really dont see a use for them anymore. Against a mixed defending force, attacking force needs to consist of lots of seige for barrage and collateral damage, no more masses of footmen smashing against everything.
A defending force made up of pikes and longbows, with a knight to counter and take down attacking seige will pretty much be able to handle anything.

My views;

Attacking more expensive - even more seige needed.
City Raider Melee used as part of force not whole of force.
Mixed defending force will cause attcker a lot of trouble.

phungus420

Jun 25, 2009, 04:28 AM

How about this for a mideaval balance tweak:

Pikes -10% vs Archery Units
Heavy Footman +20% City attack

scu98rkr

Jun 25, 2009, 04:44 AM

If you think the default strength 5 axeman was balanced, I don't know what to make of the rest of your post scu98rkr. The strength 4 axeman actually makes it so the other ancient units have a use, rather then just all axes, and maybe a single spear being the only units you need.

I think your missing my point im not saying the change isnt needed or isnt fairer. In fact it you reread through my post I suggest if it happened earlier it might have been a good change. Im just saying that people have got used to the spearman/axeman/archer/chariot balance whether its good or bad. I just think changing this could distinctly change the balance of the early game (which is the most important). I think its less important if your just adding in another ship or submarine as usually by the end stages things are getting settled.

But changing the balance of some of the main offensive/defensive units from ancient + medieval (pikeman) means that people are going to have to relearn how to fight early wars.

From your introduction and previous post I thought the thinking behind this mod was players could pick up start playing this mod with out drastically relearning anything. I obviously am slightly wrong and you are considering bigger changes to the game than I thought.

So its your mod do what you want, feel free to ignore me Im not doing any of the work.

Ok on a similar line of thought I think balancing the early units is most important. Im still not sure about Wolfs additions of the ram/capped ram. The ram in particular seems to be pretty weak. If the AI gets stuck without metal it tends to build alot of rams when frankly it would just be better off building standard melee/mounted units. To be honest I'd get rid of the ram I find it tends to muck up the AI's early warmongering. The stacks arent really big enough at this stage to need siege units.

Enlightened used to be +10% :science:, but the AI sucked with it so I bumped it up to 15%. I do have my eye on enlightened though, but certainly need more oppinions on it before I tweak it any.

Ok I can imagine this will be hard to balance, I think +15% is too much. The final figure is up to you.

Also scu98rkr when I moved all the concepts from BtS over to main game concepts in the civilopedia and created the new LoR concepts I was able to compare the LoR and BtS changes. They are very comperable, I just don't think you realize how much was changed in BtS.

Your probably right here but I was expecting there to be big changes from BTS and it was official and remember that was done in two stages alot of changes were made in Warlords (ie vassals,warlords,unique buildings,Charismatic, Protective and Imperialistic,Ten new leaders) then balanced and if you reread my original post one of my suggestions was you were adding too much at once and balancing might be hard. It might be better to add small amounts balances then add more ?

So I'll conclude this post by saying I'm more interested on specific game balance issues (like the enlightened trait). Telling me I've added to much doesn't say much, other then you're unaware of the actual content changes from Vanilla to BtS.

Well that last sentence is a bit personal and I might conclude by suggesting you dont remember how many changes were made from Vanilla to Warlord before BTS. I might even suggest you did nt buy Warlords and went straight to BTS.

bigfatjonny

Jun 25, 2009, 07:03 AM

How about this for a mideaval balance tweak:

Pikes -10% vs Archery Units
Heavy Footman +20% City attack

I like it. Seems good to my mind.

Footmen will tear through cities defended with longbows only then, CR3 would give 65% (is that right?) plus the 20%, total of +85%. However, stick a pikeman in there, and you might be on an even footing with defenses and fortfied.

Heres an idea - make footmen attacking units and pikemen defensive. Remove all offensive upgrades from footmen and only give defensive, visa versa.

Berenthor

Jun 25, 2009, 08:12 AM

How about this for a mideaval balance tweak:

Pikes -10% vs Archery Units
Heavy Footman +20% City attack

I like this idea, it might balance stuff out a little more, although I haven't played to the middle age yet.
Also on your point of adding some more legends in and leaders, I am planning to do this (have it for old versin of LoR but still need to update and balance some). I especially want to focus on some more leaders to give every civ at least two. This to make sure that when a revolution forces a leader change, the leader will also change. I'm still thinking of which traits to add in (Mercantile and Seafaring from Tsentom I like very much). If you want I can post it here when I have it converted for the new version of LoR and BtS.

Roland Johansen

Jun 25, 2009, 09:24 AM

How about this for a mideaval balance tweak:

Pikes -10% vs Archery Units

I don't quite see why this is needed or what will change due to this small tweak. Crossbowmen will already eat pikemen for lunch. They'll now have a 60% bonus against them instead of 50% but that won't make much of a difference.

Pikemen will likely only meet longbowmen in cities and there the longbowmen will enjoy bonuses due to their inherent city defence bonus, fortification and city garrison promotions. So pikemen will also not be successful in this situation.

So you can tweak the pikeman a little with this penalty, but I don't think it will change how they are used or change their victory odds a lot in most practical situations. In the end, I'm thus neutral in respect to this tweak.

Heavy Footman +20% City attack

I guess this is to make the heavy footman more useful in stacks that attack cities. At the moment, the heavy footman is already the strongest non-siege city attacker. With city raider promotions, it is cheaper and more effective than knights with combat or flanking promotions which is it's only competitor for the role of city attacker. Pikemen are significantly weaker than heavy footman as are crossbowmen and longbowmen. They will all not fare well against the defending longbowmen.

The problem is, that if you arrive with enough siege units, then after they're done the defenders will be so damaged that any unit can finish them. It really doesn't matter at that point whether the heavy footman has an inherent 20% city attack bonus or not. Even axemen or swordsmen could finish the medieval defenders at that point at very good odds. If you want to make strong city attackers needed to take a city, then the damage inflicted by siege units needs to be lessened so that there is still a job to be done.

That's at least what I'm going to do in my own personal modification of this great mod, but it quite a radical change from BTS where enough siege units can weaken a (city defence) stack until anything can kill it. So I don't know if it's something that you wish to do in your mod. You want to create an unofficial expansion pack and that limits the extent of the changes a bit.

phungus420

Jun 25, 2009, 11:26 AM

phungus420

Jun 25, 2009, 11:43 AM

I like this idea, it might balance stuff out a little more, although I haven't played to the middle age yet.
Also on your point of adding some more legends in and leaders, I am planning to do this (have it for old versin of LoR but still need to update and balance some). I especially want to focus on some more leaders to give every civ at least two. This to make sure that when a revolution forces a leader change, the leader will also change. I'm still thinking of which traits to add in (Mercantile and Seafaring from Tsentom I like very much). If you want I can post it here when I have it converted for the new version of LoR and BtS.

Great I can't wait to see a proper modmod that adds some more legends. It seems alot of users really want that :). achilliszero said he planned on working on something like this, you might want to coordinate with him. Feel free to start a new thread on it of course, or just do whatever you want. What mod modders do is entirely up to them.

achilleszero

Jun 25, 2009, 12:38 PM

Wiz4War

Jun 25, 2009, 02:16 PM

I have a question ...which could also be taken as a suggestion...

Is there some way to slow down the rate of Revolution for AI players? At the moment, playing MP with AI's included, the AI's tend to be rather dumb in countering Revolutions. Specifically, I was playing a game not long ago where I started with 3 players and 3 AI's....by about the 1400's there were 24 AI's spawned by Revolution. Now, myself and the other human players were picking off single state AI's like fish in a barrel, but this didn't seem to help a great deal....and tended to slow game play down to a crawl! Even my MP game last night, with only 1 vs 1 and 2 other AI's ended up with 1 vs 1 and 6 or 7 other AI's. (This save game I can post here later tonight if needed).

Not being a Modder myself, I don't wish to mess around with any .ini files ..and on whole, I rather like the Mod as it is. Aside from the AI being to dumb to quash Revolutions to a better degree. Human players seem to have little trouble fixing things before a break away occurs by and large...but the AI is pitiful.

Now if there is some means to change this rate and I missed it ...please tell me where it is, and otherwise ignore this post.
If there is Not a method to adjust this, would it be possible to add some sort of map setup option to limit, or perhaps put a max cap on, the number of AI revolutions?

Thanks!

phungus420

Jun 25, 2009, 02:34 PM

The only real way is by tweaking the ini file. It's fairly easy though (in MP both players must do this). In your LoR folder is a file called revolution.ini open it with regular old notepad. Go to the Edit header at the top of notepad, select find and type in IndexModifier find it. It'll take you to this section of the ini file:

; Adjust rate of rev index accumulation, additional options for human (offset adds that value to each city per turn, keep it small)
IndexModifier = 1.0
IndexOffset = 0
HumanIndexModifier = 1.0
HumanIndexOffset = 0

Reduce the IndexModifier, and since you want the human to stay the same, adjust the HumanIndexModifier accordingly to offset your change. I'm actually surprised there isn't a specific AIIndexModifier, but that's how it goes.

Berenthor

Jun 25, 2009, 03:50 PM

Having two leaders per civ incase of revolutions is actully a great idea for a modcomp. My only concern is that we are nearing our limit of top and 2nd tier leaderheads, atleast in my opinion. To clarify, leaderheads that look as good ar almost as good as ones firaxis made.

I was just interested in making just a small modcomp for people wanting more, not really wanting more myself. But if what I do is only half as good or complete as what others do than I guess making my own would be kind of a waste. Although the lure of having my own knight templar legend wreaking havoc is very tempting.

I currently have the following list for additional leaders. The ones marked with a star are not necessary (because the civ already have more leaders) but I like the leaderheads:

Arabia: Abu Bakr
Austria: Maria Theresa*
Aztec: Atotozti
Babylon: Nebuchadrezzar (might need a better leaderhead although I'm fine with this one)
Byzantine: Constantine and/or Basil
Carthage: Dido
China: Taizong* and/or Wu*
Dutch: Adriaan van der Donck (CivCol)
Ethiopia: Sellassie
Greek: Philip II* and/or old Alexander model leader (whatever fits best)
Inca: Pachacuti
Khmer: Pol Pot?
Mali: Sundiata Keita
Maya: Shield Jaguar?
Portugal: Henry the Navigator
Rome: Marcus Aurelius*
Spain: Charles I (CivCol) or Franco
Sumeria: Sargon
Vietnam: ??
Viking: Harald II (the bearskin leaderhead)
Zulu: ??
India: Akbar*
Persia: Xerxes* (beautiful model)
Japan: Jengu* (not necessary, already enough leaders)

For the greek I'm not yet sure. It would be really cool to split them in Macedonia (with Philip II and Alexander the Great) and Greece (with Pericles and a leader with the old Alexander model) but I'm not sure about the differentiating factors (barrack replacing building of course for Macedonia and the Companion cavalry maybe or the hoplite and give Greece another). This is just some brainstorming.

A civ which I'm also pondering on adding is maybe Gran Columbia (with Simon Bolivar and maybe someone else like that (Santa Anna or is that Mexico?)). But these could always be released seperatly.

For the additional leaders, I do need some additional traits. I like the Mercantile and Seafaring traits from Tsentom. What do you think of those? Also, would the Strategic trait from Tsentom be overpowered (the one with 50% less upgrade cost)?

Also, I would be open to some ideas for legends (I don't want to spam it full, it should still be balanced and special). I already like the Santa Maria caravel. I like all ideas (no matter where they are from (no offense Phungus)).

@Phungus: maybe a wierd question but I always wondered why the Egyptian UB is not very special (the obelisk). The stele and totem pole are much more powerful. Does anyone have an idea how to beef this a little (maybe remove one of the priest options and adding something else?) or is this only me that it is unbalanced for such a cool civ ;)?

bestbrian

Jun 25, 2009, 03:55 PM

The Egyptian UB allows you to run early Priests, which can be very useful (bulbs, shrines, etc).

achilleszero

Jun 25, 2009, 04:24 PM

Berenhor, I think maybe you should start another thread. But to answer some of your questions:

All good ideas for leaders so far (i think it was Smoke Jaguar though).

While Macedonians were very distinct from the other city states, so were all the city states. I always looked at macedon as kind of a region of greece that was looked down upon as uncivilized and boorish, sort of like how the rest of the US looks at me and my ilk in the South. I guess it could go either way with splitting them or keeping them the same. But Making the greek civ into even smaller bits doesnt seem neccesary. Alex carved out a greek empire even tough he used mostly macedonians, and the rest of greece liked that he was destroying persia in the name of greece.

Gran Columbia and Santa Anna of Mexico were both on my lists of Civ/Leaders that I could add.

As far as Tsentoms traits go, both Strategic and Resourceful are very appealing to me but are way too powerful, and thusly need tweaking. Mercantile is promising but it is almost the exact opposite of the civic Mercantilism. I think if you added that one you should change the civiv name. Seafaring (as well as Agricultural) never seemed like good trait ideas. They seemed better as describing a whole culture and not a leader. Also seafaring is kinda weak in its present form, considering how lame navies are (although I use the hell out of them).

I have tons of Legends you could add of you were interested. Phungus mantra of spreading out legends over the wole world is absolutely neccesary for the main mod but you are free to splurge.

bigfatjonny

Jun 26, 2009, 05:06 AM

I don't quite see why this is needed or what will change due to this small tweak. Crossbowmen will already eat pikemen for lunch. They'll now have a 60% bonus against them instead of 50% but that won't make much of a difference.

I'm in the middle of a large scale medieval/gunpowder war at the moment. Roland is right - last night I turned up with 5 bombards per city by the time I had destroyed the city defences and caused collateral damage a few bonuses here and there didn’t make much difference.
I'm using an old version, my bombards do 80% of max damage, has this been changed?

Basically my point is, we are discussing this from the wrong perspective, decide what you want battles to be like and then make changes to match.

It this realistic? Turn up at a castle and you have no chance of attacking if you don’t have a load of siege equipment. Most medieval battles were about prolonged sieges (I believe). CR promotions in my mind represent a well equipped unit with siege equipment, ladders etc but not catapults.

In my battle last night I turned up, bombarded for 2 turns, send in the bombards, then mopped up with CR Footmen, Knights and the defenders that were in my stack but still had 95% chance.

What do we want out of the combat system?

Remove unit spam, particularly axeman rush
Make battles use a mixed force
Create a realistic-ish battle scenario that can be represented in a turn based single unit system.

Do we want scissors-paper-stone style combat where you can use tactics or more realistic "war is expensive" idea where you need to through lots of units against an enemy city to win?

(My other idea – Walls and Castles are underused by most players, in most places in early history fortifications were a very important part of a city, and castles were centres of power. How often do you build a castle?
I feel that these are massively under used, and should be made of greater importance, either my creating stability within the populace or massive defensive bonuses.)

GatlingGun

Jun 26, 2009, 06:25 AM

achilleszero

Jun 26, 2009, 07:27 AM

Regarding the str 4 axemen... I would agree that this causes some gameplay changes I'm not sure whether I like... for instance...

vanilla axes could usually defeat a defending chariot

LoR axes have a hard time killing a defending chariot

Defending chariots are presumably stationary... I think it's a problem if an axe doesn't have the advantage in that situation. I liked the vanilla balance where axes were vulnerable to chariot attacks and chariots were vulnerable to axe attacks. And whats up with defending CR axes? If a CR axe is defending he should die for being ignorant and not attacking a city.

And defending CR axes? Whats up with that, they should die.

Furthermore, the CR promotion for axemen is almost completely nerfed... and defending CR axes are at a greater disadvantage because even with a base +25% against swords, that +25% only gets them to their previously un-promoted vanilla strength.

Take another look what the axeman does. It has +25% vs Swords and +50% vs melee. This way axes still crush swords but their total dominance is brought down. Now swords are the dominate city attacker. Even though in BtS they are supposed to be, a stack of axes could do the same thing.

As far as the axes/chariot thing goes, what good is a counter if they can take each other out evenly. Chariots are supposed to cruch axes. But in BtS axes could easily attack a chariot, provided he could catch it, and win.

achilleszero

Jun 26, 2009, 07:30 AM

Edit: whoops

phungus420

Jun 26, 2009, 09:35 AM

The ancient units are pretty much perfectly balanced at this point. I don't think anything will change there. My main headache is with mideaval units, the balance just seems like it could be adjusted slightly. Mainly I don't see a good role for Heavy Footmen anymore. Maybe I should reduce their cost to 60 :hammers:, I don't know, I haven't gotten a good set up for the mideaval era yet. But I do need to get that figured out by 1.0. On the whole I think ancient/classical/industrial/modern/future era unit balance is good though, other then minor tweaks it's doubtful things will change. Of course I'm always interested in user opinnions and experiences (especially MP players), as it's really playtesting that gives the best feedback in terms of balance and gameplay. I've just played through enough Ancient myself, where I am very satisified with the balance.

achilleszero

Jun 26, 2009, 10:44 AM

Ive always felt like the medieval era was missing a unit or two. But I really dont see a place to add a unit or know what it could be.

Maybe the pumping of the pikeman went too far? Or is the problem solely with the Heavy footman?

phungus420

Jun 26, 2009, 10:46 AM

I was just brainstorming, and came up with this:

Heavy Footman +10% vs Archery Units
Crossbow increase cost to 75:hammers:, targets melee units first in combat outside of cities.

Berenthor

Jun 26, 2009, 11:39 AM

As a question related more to the UB of Egypt: how usefull is the extra two priests? I myself don't really like it as bonus and like the stele or totem pole bonusses a lot better and more usefull and stronger. Is this just me? I know it was original firafix still but maybe this has been brought up before in discussions.

phungus420

Jun 26, 2009, 12:01 PM

I was just brainstorming, and came up with this:

Heavy Footman +10% vs Archery Units
Crossbow increase cost to 75:hammers:, targets melee units first in combat outside of cities.

This wouldn't work the way I want it to. I want archers to still be able to defend melee stacks, I just don't want mounted to defend against X-bows. Fortunately though I can set multiple UnitCombatTargets. So how about this?

X-bow increased to 70:hammers:, targets archery, gunpowder, melee first in combat outside cities.

Roland Johansen

Jun 26, 2009, 12:40 PM

Roland Johansen did you notice seige units were tweaked where max damage is lower? Trebs max at 50%, and Catapults 40% (They also have reduced strengths across the board, but with the lowered max damage this leaves their survival %s virtually unchanged). I did this to make dedicated city attackers necessary. Has this tweak not had the desired effect?

(reply spread over two posts due to picture limit of 10 per post)

Sorry that I didn't reply earlier. I knew that I wanted to take some time to make a good reply and I didn't have that time earlier.

I have version 0.9.3 of LoR installed on my computer and trebuchets and catapults still have the same maximum collateral damage and maximum damage value as in regular BTS (50% and 75% respectively according to the information from the file CIV4UnitInfos.xml from the mod). I do remember some discussion along the lines of limiting the damage of siege units, but apparently it hasn't been added to this version although you think it is. :confused:

Still, if you're really willing to make the main city attackers necessary for taking a city, then you'll have to go a lot further than limiting damage to 50%. A unit that is damaged to 50% of its hitpoints is already weakened to such an extent that any contemporary opposing unit will beat it with good odds even if the weakened unit is the counter unit of its attacker. Hitpoints matter a lot in combat odds.

Since a picture is worth a thousands words, I'll show some pictures of the odds of three attackers attacking a wounded fortified longbowman: a maceman, a pikeman and a spearman. All units are unpromoted as the city garrison promotions of the longbowman cancel out the city raider promotions of the attackers. The city defence bonus is 0 as this can easily be bombarded to that level. The longbowman is fully fortified. The city is on flatlands. These are assumptions, but I can't test every case.
The first three pictures show attackers attacking a full healthy longbowman, the next three a longbowman at 80hp, then at 75hp, the next post at 70hp, then at 50hp, then at 25hp

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219113&stc=1&d=1246062256
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219114&stc=1&d=1246062256
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219115&stc=1&d=1246062256
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219116&stc=1&d=1246062283
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219117&stc=1&d=1246062283
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219118&stc=1&d=1246062283
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219119&stc=1&d=1246062310
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219120&stc=1&d=1246062310
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219121&stc=1&d=1246062310

100hp longbowman vs maceman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219113&d=1246062256)
100hp longbowman vs pikeman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219114&d=1246062256)
100hp longbowman vs spearman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219115&d=1246062256)
80hp longbowman vs maceman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219116&d=1246062283)
80hp longbowman vs pikeman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219117&d=1246062283)
80hp longbowman vs spearman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219118&d=1246062283)
75hp longbowman vs maceman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219119&d=1246062310)
75hp longbowman vs pikeman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219120&d=1246062310)
75 hp longbowman vs spearman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219121&d=1246062310)

Roland Johansen

Jun 26, 2009, 12:43 PM

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219122&stc=1&d=1246063797
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219123&stc=1&d=1246063518
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219124&stc=1&d=1246063518
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219125&stc=1&d=1246063518
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219126&stc=1&d=1246063518
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219127&stc=1&d=1246063518
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219128&stc=1&d=1246063518
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219129&stc=1&d=1246063518
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219130&stc=1&d=1246063518

As you can see, at 25 hp, the current damage limit of trebuchets, even the spearman has excellent odds to win. At 50 hp, the spearman will likely lose but still has a fair chance to win. At 50 hp, the odds of the pikeman are very good. So if trebuchets weaken defenders to 50 hp, then it doesn't matter to take macemen into your stack. Pikeman will defeat the defenders anyway when damaged upto this level. Around 70-80 hitpoints for the longbowman, you can see a clear difference between the odds for the maceman and the pikeman.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I prefer a different balance than Firaxis does. Firaxis created a game balance where a few siege units are lost when attacking cities, but after a sacrifice of several of them, the rest of the siege units can attack with good odds while weakening the defenders further (until very low hitpoint totals 15-25hps depending on the type of siege unit in BTS). The main city attackers can then just walk into the city slaughtering the city defenders. If you bring enough siege units, then you will rarely lose a normal unit while attacking a city. It also means that defending a city with many city defending units is a hopeless case. You'll have to counterattack in your own turn to keep a city against a stack with siege units.

I prefer a balance where siege units will rarely be lost when attacking a city (odds 90+%) but will only weaken the defenders up to the point where the odds for the main city attackers are decent (not good). This way the number of city defenders does matter as they will kill a good number of city attackers.
So in my personal modification of LoR, that would mean that trebuchets will only damage defenders for something between 20 and 25 hitpoints. Maybe, I'll consider a slightly higher value after testing macemen versus their counter unit city defender, the crossbowman. It will take some time to balance this right across all the ages of civ4.

Of course, my preference is very different from the one of Firaxis and thus likely not suitable to this mod. Still the various pictures might give you an idea at how the limit the damage of the trebuchet so that the maceman will be far more attractive as a city attacker than the pikeman.

Also note that even though I will very likely mod LoR a bit to my personal taste, I really think it's a great mod. We just all have slightly different preferences.

70hp longbowman vs maceman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219122&stc=1&d=1246063797)
70hp longbowman vs pikeman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219123&stc=1&d=1246063518)
70hp longbowman vs spearman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219124&stc=1&d=1246063518)
50hp longbowman vs maceman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219125&stc=1&d=1246063518)
50hp longbowman vs pikeman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219126&stc=1&d=1246063518)
50hp longbowman vs spearman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219127&stc=1&d=1246064044)
25hp longbowman vs maceman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219128&stc=1&d=1246064044)
25hp longbowman vs pikeman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219129&stc=1&d=1246064044)
25hp longbowman vs spearman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219130&stc=1&d=1246064044)

bigfatjonny

Jun 26, 2009, 06:33 PM

Some excellent discussion going on here.

The ancient units are pretty much perfectly balanced at this point. I don't think anything will change there.

Yes I agree, ancient seems to work very well, but the footman seems to have lost his place.

However I also totally agree with Roland. Today I steam rollered about 6 cities with the loss of about 5 bombards. My stack was made up of 40% seige and the rest units. I only lost a unit or two by bad luck.

This does not represent a very realistic battle. Seige is there to smash defenses, not destroy the units behind the walls. Collateral damage from seige allows you to attack with very little heavy attacking forces.

Roland Johansen

Jun 26, 2009, 07:31 PM

Weird, the uploaded images in post 45 were suddenly the same ones as in post 46, and the spoiler in post 45 was empty for some reason. That wasn't the case when I had just uploaded them. I reuploaded them and added them again. Lets see if they stay there this time. :confused:

edit: For some reason, I can't have the pictures show in the 2 subsequent posts, but the links to the pictures work.

edit2: Huh, now the pictures are back again. Something on this forum is not working correctly. :confused:

Roland Johansen

Jun 29, 2009, 07:22 AM

This wouldn't work the way I want it to. I want archers to still be able to defend melee stacks, I just don't want mounted to defend against X-bows. Fortunately though I can set multiple UnitCombatTargets. So how about this?

X-bow increased to 70:hammers:, targets archery, gunpowder, melee first in combat outside cities.

I had forgotten to respond to this one and see that no one else has. My main question would be why you want to change the counter for the crossbowman away from knights?

Historically: Mounted units were regularly used to scare away ranged units that moved to the front areas of an army (in order to get the most out of the range of their ranged weapons at the start of a battle). The mounted units would quickly move to their position which would force them back behind other units that could protect them or be annihilated in the charge. So with their speed, knights would effectively somewhat protect slower heavy melee units against bombardment by missile troops (until the armies had moved closer to one another and missile troops could fire at the enemy behind the protection of other troops).
Ranged units would most likely die when their army was retreating as that would be the first moment that they wouldn't enjoy the protection of other units. Mounted units did the most killing during a retreat.
So tactically, mounted units were the counter against ranged units in medieval combat. The heavy melee units wouldn't be able to catch up with them to kill them.

Gameplay: If you remove the knight as a defender of crossbowmen, then there is no contemporary unit that has better than 50% odds against attacking crossbowmen (mjah except maybe the rare elephants). The crossbowman is also a strong unit in the current setup as there is only one type of unit that can reliably beat it: mounted units. Other units have worse than 50% odds against it. So they have a useful role in stacks: defend against melee units, kill enemy melee units in stacks without mounted units.

But I must say: the idea that you can remove some units as potential defenders against other units does offer options to the civ4 combat mechanism. Especially in game settings with lots of different units of the same time period or when you want to represent the special options of some unit. Other combat mechanisms already make sure that siege units aren't targeted first but otherwise this trick could help.

For instance, the submarine. It would historically go after the weak (measured by armor) ships with high value: transports and carriers. But destroyers and other escort ships would try to intervene. Battleships and other main combat ships wouldn't mess with the submarines as they didn't have the right equipment to do so and would often manoeuvre too slow to intercept submarines. Much of this is already in the game due to the various bonuses that ships have against other ships and due to the flanking attack of the submarines. The only thing is that battleships in a stack are targeted by submarines before transports and carriers which is a bit weird. Not that I find this a real big game problem or something as the current naval setup is a huge improvement over the one in BTS. But I just thought that your idea where you can avoid certain units when attacking could be used here if you wish to do that.

MrPopov

Jun 29, 2009, 10:16 AM

I would like to suggest that Great General points not accumulate when fighting minor civs. It seems the drawbacks of prolonged war with "real" civs do not apply with minor civs (war weariness for example) so it is easy to farm them for xp and great generals among other things.

GONdorman

Jun 30, 2009, 03:21 PM

I have some suggestions as well:

- Longbowmen should be left out. It may sound radically dumb:D, but if you think about it, it makes good, good sense. All units have already got counters (Pikemen>Knights>Crossbows>Melee), so they dont fit in...

- Heavy Footmen AKA Macemen should get +10%:strength: when attacking cities (they arent very useful for the time being IMHO). Alternatively, they could get City Raider I at start...

- It would be cool if Paratroopers got +10%:strength: when fighting in cities (either attacking or defending

- In the early game, years pass to fast methinks. Mainly because in the early game (first 40/50 turns) there´s not much to do. Problem is, these "early game" means from 5000 BC to, say, 1500 BC. At that rythm, wars, big armies and stuff only start appearing by 500 BC. What I mean is, each turn in the early game should represent less years than what it does right now (IE instead of 50 years, 25 yers and such).
· Another solution would be to make the early game longer by adding some more turns...:crazyeye:. Again might sound like radical crap but it´s only a suggestion, and should be taken as such

@Roland Johansen

Good post sir, completely agree with your thoughts:hatsoff:

Alsark

Jun 30, 2009, 03:43 PM

So this probably has nothing to do with LoR per se, but it should be changed nonetheless.

I have attached two pictures both pertaining to the "medicine" event. The second option... doesn't sound particularly favorable.

Alas, my brother made us reload (for about the 502nd time that game, because he kept making mistakes), so while I wanted to try the second option just to see if anything special would happen, I wasn't able to (since events are not seeded [which is a good thing - I always reload when the Barbarian Uprisings occur]).

achilleszero

Jun 30, 2009, 04:26 PM

- Longbowmen should be left out. It may sound radically dumb:D, but if you think about it, it makes good, good sense. All units have already got counters (Pikemen>Knights>Crossbows>Melee), so they dont fit in...

Unlikely that will ever happen. Longbows are integral part of the game. Archers dont have counters really either or musketman. Their the base city defenders, they really dont need counters. Anything you throw at a city that can beat it is their counter.

- In the early game, years pass to fast methinks. Mainly because in the early game (first 40/50 turns) there´s not much to do. Problem is, these "early game" means from 5000 BC to, say, 1500 BC. At that rythm, wars, big armies and stuff only start appearing by 500 BC. What I mean is, each turn in the early game should represent less years than what it does right now (IE instead of 50 years, 25 yers and such).
· Another solution would be to make the early game longer by adding some more turns...:crazyeye:. Again might sound like radical crap but it´s only a suggestion, and should be taken as such:

There wasnt much going on in the world at that time anyway. 500 BC is about right time frame for large empires and armies to be sprouting up. The date system is always off no matter how much you change it. If you make the early turns shorter year interval then it throws off the rest of the game. The date doesnt really matter, its the turns. Try playing epic and marathon. It has a slightly better time scale, but not much.

Roland Johansen

Jun 30, 2009, 04:32 PM

Alsark

Jun 30, 2009, 07:16 PM

It's event 17 in this list (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5789094#post5789094).

I agree that the chance (odds 67% btw) of additional benefits of the extra investment should be mentioned.

Ah, thanks. Figured there had to have been something to it. I didn't even have the third option presented to me, though (usually it's at least grayed out).

Roland Johansen

Jun 30, 2009, 07:26 PM

Ah, thanks. Figured there had to have been something to it. I didn't even have the third option presented to me, though (usually it's at least grayed out).

I think you misunderstood. When you pick option 2 you pay some gold and then get the exact same benefits of option 1 which makes option 2 sound like a worse option. However, there is a hidden potential benefit to option 2, namely the benefits named in part 3 of the event that I linked.

To sum it up:

Option 1: +1:commerce: on tile
Option 2: pay 100 gold, +1:commerce: on tile and a 67% chance of +3 :health: and +1 free scientist in a nearby city.

(The 67% isn't mentioned in the linked list of events, but I got it from the xml-entry of the event. The linked list just talks about a chance, not that it is 67%.)

The problem I have with this is that a part of the bonus of option 2 is hidden (at least when you're not using sources of information outside of the game like I just did). That would be fitting for a roleplaying game, but not for a strategy game.

Alsark

Jul 01, 2009, 10:06 PM

I think you misunderstood. When you pick option 2 you pay some gold and then get the exact same benefits of option 1 which makes option 2 sound like a worse option. However, there is a hidden potential benefit to option 2, namely the benefits named in part 3 of the event that I linked.

To sum it up:

Option 1: +1:commerce: on tile
Option 2: pay 100 gold, +1:commerce: on tile and a 67% chance of +3 :health: and +1 free scientist in a nearby city.

(The 67% isn't mentioned in the linked list of events, but I got it from the xml-entry of the event. The linked list just talks about a chance, not that it is 67%.)

The problem I have with this is that a part of the bonus of option 2 is hidden (at least when you're not using sources of information outside of the game like I just did). That would be fitting for a roleplaying game, but not for a strategy game.

Oh, lol, I did misunderstand. I thought it said there was a chance of getting +3 commerce instead of +1. Not sure how I got that. Thanks!

bigfatjonny

Jul 03, 2009, 09:49 AM

I have some suggestions as well:

Pikemen>Knights>Crossbows>Melee

I dont think longbows need leaving out but I see your reasoning. Do all units need an exact counter? And all units do have a counter, a massive stack of seige equipment that rolls up and smashes everything to bits.

My main question would be why you want to change the counter for the crossbowman away from knights?

Agree with Roland again.

The more I think about it the more Im not sure about the pikeman needs tweeking at all. Even without their upgrades I use pikemen all the time, they are excellent counters for knights.
I understand that pikemen were historically used as an infantry unit and that that is not represented in the game, you wouldn't use them for anything except knights at the moment. Would it not be better to raise their base strength and cut down on the +100% knights?
Also doesn't the Footman also represent a melee unit that could be pike carrying? It used to be called macemen, but this was changed to make it less ethically representative. If the goal is just to represent pikes more, then use a pike name/graphic for the footman, and have the existing pikeman as a specialist in cavelry defense.

I think that Roland's point a page back was much more important. Once you get good siege equipment then conquest gets conciderably easier. The maximum damage of siege does not represent what siege equipment was used for historically. It was for destroying defenses and making an enterance, not for killing the defensive forces.
Against the AI I actually prefer to attack cities than units in the field if I have plenty of siege. You can get all the units together on one tile, suicide the first on or two, then have 99% chance against the rest. Siege with +city and CR promotions get massive bonuses for attacking.

If you want to be able to represent sieges better then we need some way of having a system like in Total War, where the defending forces can only last a certain number of turns and take damage every turn the city is sieged.

Roland Johansen

Jul 05, 2009, 07:32 AM

A plea for a classical age city defender.

Each age in the game has several units that are good at cracking cities. Especially siege units are often required for this job. LoR added siege units to the ancient age and added an earlier classical age siege unit and thereby made city conquest in these ages a bit more viable. When a good city attack stack can be created, the attacker will lose less units to defeat the city defenders. Of course, it does cost some investment to get this city attack stack early in the game.

To avoid making city conquest too easy, the axeman was toned down a bit as main city attacker of the start of the game. However, I think that city defence against the swordsman was overlooked a bit. The swordsman is only weakened ever so slightly in LoR at attacking cities while it shouldn't have to face 20% or 40% culture (or higher) defence bonuses any more now that it is supported by siege units.

The normal Civ4 BTS game doesn't really need a unit that can stand up to the swordsman after city defences are stripped because city defences can't be stripped that early in the game. Thus while the game progresses from the ancient to the classical age, cultural city defences go up from 0%-20% to 20%-40% which helps archers first beat axemen and then swordsmen. However, in LoR these city defences can be removed by siege units and the archer is alone in its task to face the swordsman.

Almost every age in the game has one or more units that are especially good at defending cities while their role outside of cities is smaller:
Ancient: archer
Medieval: Longbowman, Crossbowman
Renaissance: Musketman
Industrial: Rifleman, Squad Infantry, Machine Gun
Modern: Motorised Infantry
Future: Mechanised Infantry

The classical age misses this unit and it shows: Unfortified, the ancient age archer has strength 4.5 when defending a city. Fully fortified it is increased to 5.25. Both of these values are not enough to have a decent shot at defeating a swordsman at strength 6. It has essentially become an obsolete unit at city defence once the swordsman comes around and there is no unit to replace it in this role until the medieval longbowman (which has been delayed in LoR).

One could argue that the counter unit of the swordsman, the axeman could fill this void but it is not really well suited for the job: it can't get the city garrison promotions and thus is not well equiped to stop city raider swordsmen. It would rather fight the swordsmen outside of the city than defending the city. It would be similar to defending a city in medieval times with the new and improved pikemen instead of longbowmen against city raider macemen.

The ancient age archer was initially (normal civ4) designed to face axeman and swordsman which was possible due to ever increasing cultural defence bonuses. Now with the axeman reduced in strength and city raider swordsmen that don't have to face cultural defence bonuses, it has become very strong against axemen (5.25 vs 4) and very weak against swordsmen (5.25 vs 6).

Historically, some improvements were made to the bow between the primitive bow with stone tipped arrows and the medieval longbow. Metal arrow tips and composite bows were both developed during the ancient and classical age. So, I would be in favour of a base strength 4 composite bowman at the start of the classical age (mathematics maybe) while increasing the tech cost of iron working a bit as the swordsman is very powerful when you can get it early. For game balance, it should be easier to get the defending unit than the attacking unit. The normal archer could get a small reduction in city defence bonus from +50% to +25% as it doesn't have to face strength 5 and 6 city attackers anymore.

So:
archer: strength 3 +25% city and hill defence (fully fortified strength 4.5 in cities vs strength 4 axemen)
composite bowman: strength 4 +25% city and hill defence, +10% vs swordsmen (fully fortified strength 6.4 in cities vs strength 6 swordsmen)
longbowman: strength 6 +25% city and hill defence (fully fortified strength 9 in cities vs strength 8 macemen)

BobTheTerrible

Jul 05, 2009, 12:55 PM

I agree with the addition of a composite bow unit, especially given the additional ancient siege units and the AI's additional adeptness at attacks. However, Phungus has stated there will be no new content added to LoR, but if anyone makes the unit and uploads the relevant files I would love to include it in my game.

achilleszero

Jul 05, 2009, 01:39 PM

The composite bows sound like a good idea for my add-on. There were big gaps in the units upgrade paths that I wanted to fill. The composite bowman would fill the biggest gap as the archer>longbow is a 100% jump. Next I wouldnt mind making a filler unit after horseman, as the horseman>knight is +66% jump. Finally the jump from muskets to rifles is a 55% increase. As far as I can tell those are the biggest jumps in power left (besides motorized infantry>MechInfantry). The hardest part for me is making room for them to fit, also proper names for them. Its already crowded in teh tech tree.

Roland Johansen

Jul 05, 2009, 06:05 PM

I wasn't posting this request as an addition for the purpose of adding stuff. I really think it's a bad thing when the only unit that is dedicated to city defence during a period of the game (can get city garrison promotions) is obsolete before it can be upgraded to a better unit. The archer has really bad odds against swordsmen when city defence bonuses have been removed.

I'm posting this request as a game balance issue, not because I want more bow using units in the game. You can't just add siege units to the early parts of the game and think it won't change game balance.

To achilleszero: if you're willing to take a look at unit strengths, then the best way to get a fine grained balance is by starting to multiply all unit strengths by 10. So strength 20 warriors and strength 30 archers and so on. That will make it so much easier to get the exact right balance without the need for weird +10% bonuses just to give one unit a slight edge over another. You could have strength 20 warriors and strength 27 archers if you think that works better.
Of course some bonuses are still a good idea as it makes some units better in some situations and others better in other situations. But you won't be needing small artificial +10% bonuses just to fine tune the balance. I've never understood why the civ game in general always stuck to these low integer values that allow almost no flexibility or ability to fine tune stuff. Are the slightly larger values really scaring away customers?

The increase in strength when gunpowder comes around and is developed into weaponry may be a bit bigger just to translate the historical impact of the invention into the game. I actually think that the game captures the historical significance of the invention quite well and the jump in strength should be at cannons and riflemen, not at bombards and musketmen. (all in my opinion)

The problem with motorized infantry is that the designer of these values tried to capture two thoughts:
Around the end of WW2, infantry were transported a lot faster which made their tactical value a lot bigger (2 movement points), but their actual firepower wasn't increased a lot (low strength increase compared to squad infantry and due to its anti gunpowder bonus kept comparable to elite forces like paratroopers and marines).
I think it's better to look at the motorized infantry, paratroopers and marines as strength 24 units which makes the jump to the mechanized infantry at 32 reasonable.
If the knight would come a bit earlier in the game at strength 9, then the horsemen -> knight -> cuirassier -> cavalry progression would go a bit more smoothly. Now there is a long period between horsemen and knights and after that, technology moves relatively quickly. There's no historical or gameplay justification for that.

achilleszero

Jul 05, 2009, 08:04 PM

I wasn't posting this request as an addition for the purpose of adding stuff. I really think it's a bad thing when the only unit that is dedicated to city defence during a period of the game (can get city garrison promotions) is obsolete before it can be upgraded to a better unit. The archer has really bad odds against swordsmen when city defence bonuses have been removed.

I'm posting this request as a game balance issue, not because I want more bow using units in the game. You can't just add siege units to the early parts of the game and think it won't change game balance.

I get that it was a suggestion for game balance. And it was my point that I wanted to add it for my own thing as a balancer as well. I merely stated that I wanted to use it for an and-on to reassure that I thought it a good idea. Good enough for a mod-mod, As I think it will be hard to convince phungus to add anything to the game being so close to a final release.

To achilleszero: if you're willing to take a look at unit strengths, then the best way to get a fine grained balance is by starting to multiply all unit strengths by 10. So strength 20 warriors and strength 30 archers and so on. That will make it so much easier to get the exact right balance without the need for weird +10% bonuses just to give one unit a slight edge over another. You could have strength 20 warriors and strength 27 archers if you think that works better.
Of course some bonuses are still a good idea as it makes some units better in some situations and others better in other situations. But you won't be needing small artificial +10% bonuses just to fine tune the balance. I've never understood why the civ game in general always stuck to these low integer values that allow almost no flexibility or ability to fine tune stuff. Are the slightly larger values really scaring away customers?

I firmly believe that Firaxis needs to ditch the Warrior=2 strength and so on thing. Its nostalgic but it crappy, for the reasons you just stated. But I dont think I will be messing with that to keep in line with the unofficial expansion theme.

The increase in strength when gunpowder comes around and is developed into weaponry may be a bit bigger just to translate the historical impact of the invention into the game. I actually think that the game captures the historical significance of the invention quite well and the jump in strength should be at cannons and riflemen, not at bombards and musketmen. (all in my opinion)

I think there really isnt a big enough jump when you do hit gunpowder/muskets. Plus I think there should be two Musket type units. The musket we have now should represent the earliest muskets from gunpowders reception to the 1700s or so. And then a rifled type musket to represent the 1700's to right before the American Civil War(which the redcoat unit would be a part of). Maybe having a strength 10 or 11 with some sort of ability against melee. That would still leave a good sized jump to true rifles.

phungus420

Jul 05, 2009, 09:16 PM

Personally I've always thought the Grenadier filled that missing musket role.

bigfatjonny

Jul 06, 2009, 04:45 AM

A plea for a classical age city defender.

Actually I disagree with this one Roland.

Your arguement is based on no city defense (cultural or walls) bonus to defenders.
I feel that If you manage to get a stack over to a city, stand outside for several turns to destroy the fortifications down to 0%, then you are justified to have advantage over the defenders. You have just smashed up all of their defenses, how are archers going to counter you now they dont have any walls to shoot off?

By this time the defenders should have brought over a counter force and knocked out some of your stack.

Secondly, there is a new counter for the swordsman, the axeman - str 4 +75% = 7. You can no longer rely on building a bunch of archer only defenders and thinking yourself safe. Needing to use mixed attachers and defenders must be an improvement over the old system. All the changes are based around reducing unit spam, I think this is an effective way of doing so.

I feel that this issue is based around walls not being used enough due to not being useful enough in the current system. If you have a small ancient city without walls, how are you going to defend against attackers? Where are your archers going to stand to defend? You need to use melee force to keep the attackers out of your city.

However this does not address my biggest problem. Collateral damage from siege renders most defenders totally useless, regardless of the attacker.

When the final release comes out I will mod my version to attempt to get a balance for the following;

1) Higher % chance of siege winning combat, but with must less collateral damage, and much higher maximum damage. (Excellent idea from Roland). Thefore making units more important in city attack/defense rather than just collateral damage from siege.

2) Making walls more useful, and more necessary. Either by;
walls + 50% or even +100%, therefore making siege necessary when attacking walled cities – and giving more time to counter the stack as it sits outside your city bombarding.
Or
Defenders +25% - 50% with walls.

Roland Johansen

Jul 06, 2009, 05:49 AM

I get that it was a suggestion for game balance. And it was my point that I wanted to add it for my own thing as a balancer as well. I merely stated that I wanted to use it for an and-on to reassure that I thought it a good idea. Good enough for a mod-mod, As I think it will be hard to convince phungus to add anything to the game being so close to a final release.

And I just wanted to make sure that my request was not misunderstood.

Phungus doesn't seem to react to this thread as much as you do. You are closer to Phungus, so do you know whether he might add stuff after version 1.0? Many mod developers keep developing their mods and that can also happen with a mod that doesn't want to become bloated. Even official expansion packs are patched where some patches are quite big. I do understand his desire to get a stable version 1.0 out there which defines the concept and scale of the mod.

I firmly believe that Firaxis needs to ditch the Warrior=2 strength and so on thing. Its nostalgic but it crappy, for the reasons you just stated. But I dont think I will be messing with that to keep in line with the unofficial expansion theme.

Glad to have found a similar minded fellow. And I do understand that you don't want to start messing with it even though you don't really like it.

You want to create an unofficial expansion for the unofficial expansion but keep close to the original unofficial expansion concept... right? ;)

I think there really isnt a big enough jump when you do hit gunpowder/muskets. Plus I think there should be two Musket type units. The musket we have now should represent the earliest muskets from gunpowders reception to the 1700s or so. And then a rifled type musket to represent the 1700's to right before the American Civil War(which the redcoat unit would be a part of). Maybe having a strength 10 or 11 with some sort of ability against melee. That would still leave a good sized jump to true rifles.

So the revolution in warfare caused by gunpowder would come through multiple quick changes (at least in a civ-time scale)? That also works, however it does require a lot of upgrading and makes individual jumps in units less meaningful. That's not meant as a point of criticism, just a statement.

There are many (r)evolutions in firearms. To mention a few that I've heard about:
The change from matchlock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchlock) to flintlock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flintlock) muskets, the rifling of the barrel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifle) of a gun, the change from muzzle-loading to breech-loading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breechloading), the repeating rifle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_rifle), and finally automatic firearms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_weapons).

The early gun is represented by muskets. One could separate it into 2 types of muskets, fired by matchlock or flintlock. The rifling of the gun is represented by riflemen. The change from muzzle-loading to breechloading isn't represented in the game, but it historically quickly followed the rifling of the barrel and both developments are related. The repeating rifle is represented by infantry and the automatic firearms by marines, paratroopers and machineguns. If you'd want to add another unit, I would suggest basing it on the introduction of the flintlock or maybe the change from muzzle-loading to breech-loading.

Personally I've always thought the Grenadier filled that missing musket role.

Could you give a short reaction to my post 59 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8235706&postcount=59).

I think the grenadier was just introduced to make the warring in the era of riflemen more interesting as it was in reality, there weren't that many different units as in for instance the middle ages. Firaxis tried to create a game here instead of following history. I just read a part of the grenadier entry in wikipedia and from what I've read there, grenade throwing troops weren't used in the era of riflemen (as they would have been shot long before they could throw their grenades). Grenadiers were just elite riflemen in that era.

Are you going to do small development steps or patches to LoR after version 1.0?

Roland Johansen

Jul 06, 2009, 06:12 AM

Actually I disagree with this one Roland.

Ok, but for this time only. ;)

Your arguement is based on no city defense (cultural or walls) bonus to defenders.
I feel that If you manage to get a stack over to a city, stand outside for several turns to destroy the fortifications down to 0%, then you are justified to have advantage over the defenders. You have just smashed up all of their defenses, how are archers going to counter you now they dont have any walls to shoot off?

That's true for all ages. You can smash the defences and then the defenders have to face you without a bonus (other than fortification bonus). The difference is that this is the only age that after bombarding the defences, the attackers are at an advantage against the main city defence unit. How are you going to justify longbowmen in the medieval era then?

By this time the defenders should have brought over a counter force and knocked out some of your stack.

That is also available in every age of the game. There's nothing special about this argument to justify a disadvantage for the defender in the ancient age. It takes even less time to remove city defences in the ancient and classical ages than in the medieval and renaissance era so there's less reaction time.

Secondly, there is a new counter for the swordsman, the axeman - str 4 +75% = 7. You can no longer rely on building a bunch of archer only defenders and thinking yourself safe.

The axeman was also a part of BTS at strength 7.5 vs swordsmen. But it can't get the city garrison promotion.

My main problem is that the main city defender, the only unit in the two starting ages that can get a city garrison promotion is obsolete before it can be replaced. Players might not even want to build it when axes are available for city defence. Spearmen plus axemen works better. However, you don't want to sit these units in a city where they'll have to face swordsmen as a big disadvantage because of the city raider promotion.

However this does not address my biggest problem. Collateral damage from siege renders most defenders totally useless, regardless of the attacker.

We agree on that point. Thanks for the (not quoted) compliment.

bigfatjonny

Jul 06, 2009, 07:11 AM

the attackers are at an advantage against the main city defence unit. How are you going to justify longbowmen in the medieval era then?

City raider/ defender cancels itself out.

NOT ON HILLS! (think about how many ancient & medival towns were set on hills for defense, more than in civ4, I bet)

Swordsman = str 6
Archer = str 3 + 50% = 4.5 (+ 1FS)

Footman = str 8
Longbow = str 6 + 25% = 7.5 (+1FS)

6 vs 4.5
8 vs 7.5

The attackers have the advantage in both eras, in side by side attacks with no other bonuses, but the differences are much bigger in real terms, so yes I take your point.

How about giving axemen access to city defense promotions?

My view is that in areas of low safety, players (&AI) should be forced to build on hills, and build walls, as in reality - this totally changes the %. Hills were the natural defenses in the ancient eras, think Mycenae and other ancient strogholds. Walls and castles were the advances in the classical & medieval eras.

Therefore, in the ancient eras, cities built on the lowland without proper city defenses deserve to be taken easily. This rewards players who actually use mixed stacks and build the other wise useless rams. Defensive units and technology improves in later eras, making warfare more difficult and strategic.
Cities were attacked and raised much more often in the ancient era than in other eras, Troy was raised and rebuilt nine times before the 1st century BC. The units in the ancient era represents this.

We agree on that point. Thanks for the (not quoted) compliment.

I quoted you at the end by saying that reducing the max damage, and increasing the chance to win.
I think that is a great idea, and will definately try it in my next game.

I've been enjoying your posts, they are very well written and thought out. You have a very good (in my opinion) viewpoint of the game and excellent knowledge.

Roland Johansen

Jul 06, 2009, 08:17 AM

City raider/ defender cancels itself out.

NOT ON HILLS! (think about how many ancient & medival towns were set on hills for defense, more than in civ4, I bet)

Yes, there is an additional defence bonus due to hills. It's a bit unrelated to city raider and city garrison promotions though. It works everywhere where there are hills. Still, you're right that it is sometimes a good idea to build a city on hills if you expect it to be a contested area.

The attackers have the advantage in both eras, in side by side attacks with no other bonuses, but the differences are much bigger in real terms, so yes I take your point.

In your examples, you're leaving out the fortification bonus of +25% which you'd expect the defenders of cities to have.

It changes things to 6 vs 5.25 and 8 vs 9 both with 1 first strike (odds 65%: 2 out of 3 wins, or 25%: 1 out of 4 wins).

How about giving axemen access to city defense promotions?

The available promotions are set by unit type and melee units don't get the promotion.

It would also still leave the archer obsolete when swordsmen arrives which will mean that experienced players won't build it except for garrison duty deep inside their empire where it is not actually needed for city defence.

My view is that in areas of low safety, players (&AI) should be forced to build on hills, and build walls, as in reality - this totally changes the %. Hills were the natural defenses in the ancient eras, think Mycenae and other ancient strogholds. Walls and castles were the advances in the classical & medieval eras.

Natural defences have historically always been important and are actually a bit underestimated in civilization IV. However, it's a strategic game and thus the tactical elements of war tend to be a bit weaker as the scale of warfare is different. Actually, when two armies in civ4 terms meet in a large 100km times 100km area which happens to be hilly (a hill tile), then which army will benefit more from the hills? The game pretends to become tactical here and gives the advantage to the army that was there first. It works for gameplay, but is actually a bit weird when you look at the scale of warfare that the game tries to represent.

Therefore, in the ancient eras, cities built on the lowland without proper city defenses deserve to be taken easily. This rewards players who actually use mixed stacks and build the other wise useless rams. Defensive units and technology improves in later eras, making warfare more difficult and strategic.
Cities were attacked and raised much more often in the ancient era than in other eras, Troy was raised and rebuilt nine times before the 1st century BC. The units in the ancient era represents this.

As far as gameplay goes, I don't think we need to encourage rushing as a tactic. It's pretty popular as it is. In that sense, I think the weakening of the axeman was a good move.

I didn't know that Troy was raised 9 times before the 1st century BC. Thanks for the information. I do know that in ancient times, there were no professional standing armies as in the game, making city defence difficult. Armies were often raised for a certain military campaign but weren't maintained indefinitely. Rome at some point had a professional standing army but that was not the standard and then we're already deep in the classical era and we're talking about the best organized civilisation of the classical era (at least in western civilisation).

In LoR, the issue of the obsoletion of the only city defender of the ancient and classical era actually occurs in the classical age with the appearance of the swordsman, not during the ancient age.

I quoted you at the end by saying that reducing the max damage, and increasing the chance to win.
I think that is a great idea, and will definately try it in my next game.

I've been enjoying your posts, they are very well written and thought out. You have a very good (in my opinion) viewpoint of the game and excellent knowledge.

With 'unquoted' I meant to say that I didn't quote your compliment (I already create such long posts and quoting takes a lot of space). And thanks again.

I think that Phungus wish for LoR to function as a basis for other mods will come true.
If you're really planning on creating such a mod, then I would advice you to allow the later siege units to do a little bit more damage as the city attackers in the later ages don't have access to the city raider promotion.

bigfatjonny

Jul 06, 2009, 10:51 AM

The available promotions are set by unit type and melee units don't get the promotion.

Fair enough. Thats no good then.

It would also still leave the archer obsolete when swordsmen arrives which will mean that experienced players won't build it except for garrison duty deep inside their empire where it is not actually needed for city defence.

I wouldnt leave my cities defended just by axes, I could see a nice chariot attack coming on.
I understand your point, and that there is an opening for a classical archer. However, I think your use of the word "obsolete" is too strong - less powerful and a weakpoint - but not obsolete.

I do know that in ancient times, there were no professional standing armies as in the game, making city defence difficult. Armies were often raised for a certain military campaign but weren't maintained indefinitely.

Wow, im not even going to imagine ways of representing that in the game. Far too difficult.

If you're really planning on creating such a mod, then I would advice you to allow the later siege units to do a little bit more damage as the city attackers in the later ages don't have access to the city raider promotion.

I'm not up to creating a mod, I meant I will change the unit stats to make it more like I imagine it should be.
I'm sure that there is a new gunpowder promotion that gives equivalent to the CR promotions, but I take your point.

Roland Johansen

Jul 06, 2009, 11:48 AM

I'm sure that there is a new gunpowder promotion that gives equivalent to the CR promotions, but I take your point.

It's only a single promotion instead of the city raider 1 till 3, so it's a lot weaker. I think that's nice as it allows the siege units to become a bit more effective at reducing the hitpoints of city defenders without the main city attackers getting really better odds.

achilleszero

Jul 06, 2009, 04:20 PM

Phungus doesn't seem to react to this thread as much as you do. You are closer to Phungus, so do you know whether he might add stuff after version 1.0? Many mod developers keep developing their mods and that can also happen with a mod that doesn't want to become bloated. Even official expansion packs are patched where some patches are quite big. I do understand his desire to get a stable version 1.0 out there which defines the concept and scale of the mod.

I actually have no idea what he plans to do after v1.0. I know he wants other modders to improve upon it with new mod-comps. I fervently hope that it continues on with new updates after 1.0, although they will probably be less than what were used to so far. WolfRev seemed to get updates so one might assume that LoR would too, maybe.

You want to create an unofficial expansion for the unofficial expansion but keep close to the original unofficial expansion concept... right? ;)

Exactly:crazyeye:. Also I have little experience with that type of stuff, so I would want to keep it simple.

I didn't know that Troy was raised 9 times before the 1st century BC.

9 times over 3,000 years. Still thats one every 300 years or so. But there is little evidence to why some of them were abandoned and then built on top of. A couple seem to be because they were destroyed by earthquake. TroyVII seems to be destoyed by warfare, so they think that it would be the one from the Trojan War. also it closely fits the date.

Roland Johansen

Jul 06, 2009, 05:06 PM

9 times over 3,000 years. Still thats one every 300 years or so. But there is little evidence to why some of them were abandoned and then built on top of. A couple seem to be because they were destroyed by earthquake. TroyVII seems to be destoyed by warfare, so they think that it would be the one from the Trojan War. also it closely fits the date.

I actually expected the nine Troys to have existed over a long period in time. And of course this one city doesn't set the typical standard for its time. Still, it was a remarkable historical fact and you've expanded further on that fact. Thanks for that.

Also thanks for the rest of your posts. I now have an idea of your vision of the perfect LoR. It sounds interesting.

stagnate

Jul 07, 2009, 10:58 PM

I have a few little things that I think could be adjusted. To flesh out my comments earlier regarding the transition to the industrial era, I came up with two possible small changes, plus some thoughts on the modern age. Sorry that it's long winded.

The first is to permit steam power without requiring chemistry. There isn't a solid tie in the real world (you don't need chemistry to know that heated water boils, for example), and keeps a few options available to the player rather than jumping through the hoops for those chained techs.

That change alone may be enough, but I am also interested in a change to military science, possibly removing it as a prereq to chemistry. I'm not sold on it from a gameplay or real world standpoint but would take input (possibly make it follow military tradition or something along that train.

On to a bigger problem in the modern era, which is that the Motorized Infantry stats don't fit the role. It shows up too weak and too late in comparison to other units.

The Motorized infantry is on par with armor, but isn't available until people already have Heavy Tank, SAM and AT and are close to Paratroopers and Marines. The only advantage is the two movement, but the Heavy Tank is actually a better build - the MI only has a slight advantage fortified in a city on a hill (assuming the city defenses have been lowered).

After that the Mechanized Infantry appears far too late to be viable; the Main Battle Tank is in full force by that point.

I actually think that having near total domination by Heavy Tanks for a period of time is historically reasonable, but the MI should be beefed up to start providing a reasonable match by the time it appears - and better than the other build options.

I'm not good at balance, but here's a first shot...
Recommendation:
Motorized Infantry strength increased to 22 and cost lowered to 225, and movement reduced to 1.

This gives it a slight advantage against an unpromoted Heavy Tank when defending a city, disadvantage in the field, and leaves the player with the choice of fast moving tanks or a slower stack with additional defense options.

Change the order of techs in the modern/future era to:
Computer -> Robotics -> Quantum Mechanics -> AI
(move the Air Cav and Lab to Computer)

This moves the Mech Infantry up close enough to show up against the Main Battle Tank, moves the free tech plus cottage bonuses back, and makes more real world sense. The problems to be resolved are QM (no unit or building benefits) - maybe leave the lab on QM.

Machine Gun (195:hammers: 18:strength: 1:move: +50% vs mounted and gunpowder, immune to collateral
Squad Infantry (195:hammers: 18:strength 1:move: +25% vs mounted and gunpowder
Anti-Tank (225:hammers: 18:strength: 1:move: +75% vs armored
SAM Infantry (225:hammers: 18:strength: 1:move: +75% vs helicopters, +50% vs air
Motorized Infantry (240:hammers: 20:strength: 2:move: +20% city defense, +20% vs gunpowder
Paratrooper (160:hammers: 24:strength 1:move: can paradrop 7)
Marine (240:hammers: 24:strength: 1:move: +50% attack vs machine gun/artillery, amphib
Heavy Tank (270:hammers: 26:strength: 2:move:)

phungus420

Jul 07, 2009, 11:21 PM

I will make Motorized inf :strength: 24 and 2 :move: and remove all other bonuses from them. Probably make them cost the same as Marines/Paratroopers.

As for Chemistry and Steam Power, I'll see what I can do. The industrial age does seem sort of bottlenecked.

bigfatjonny

Jul 09, 2009, 05:23 PM

Roland Johansen

Jul 09, 2009, 08:18 PM

Something slightly unrelated but...

Playing as Brennus (Celts) tonight; unique unit & building clash!

Unique unit, Swordsman (str 5, not 6) doesnt need iron but starts with Guerilla.

Unique building, Dun (walls) unit start with Guerilla.

So there isn't really any bonus to your unique unit if you already have the building. I just wondered if the free promomotion could be changed to something else, so it doesnt over lap.

Melee units like swordsmen and their unique versions normally can't get the guerilla promotion. So if the guerilla promotion weren't given to the Gallic Warrior expressly, then they wouldn't get it. Axemen, spearmen, pikemen and heavy footmen build by Brennus won't get the free guerilla promotion from the Dun (the heavy footman can get it if it is an upgraded gallic warrior).

By the way, I've seen this remark regularly in the forums as it works the same in unmodded BTS. Many players don't realise that the free guerilla promotion from the Dun wouldn't affect the gallic warrior.

bigfatjonny

Jul 10, 2009, 04:54 AM

I stand corrected. Issue withdrawn.

I'll just hope for lots of hills to defend/attack.

phungus420

Jul 10, 2009, 05:50 AM

Roland Johansen

Jul 10, 2009, 07:06 AM

I'm going to bump back up the woodsman promo. It's just retarded to me that a woody2 unit fights worse then a default unit in woods when attacking. I heard the previous arguments, but that's the thing, under the old system woodsman was a worthwhile promo, now not so much, so its going back to how it was. +90% at woody3.

It was the guerilla promotion that was the biggest problem as it allowed much better bonuses against hill based cities than city raider promotions, so I can live with a better woodsman than guerilla promotion. Although, I don't think these promotions work very elegant now and never worked well in standard BTS.

The core of the problem actually is the huge defence bonus that forests offer and that has been that way since vanilla civ4. A bad design decision by Firaxis if you ask me. +25% would have been more than enough to give woodland defenders very good odds.

When I read your posts, then it seems that you actually want the various woodsman and guerilla promotions to work in a way that they defeat units with lesser promotions in this area. So woodsman I axeman has good odds against unpromoted axeman in the woods, woodsman II axeman has good odds against woodsman I axeman in the woods, woodsman III axeman had good odds against woodsman II axeman in the woods. Similar for guerilla units attacking hill based units.

Both with the standard BTS bonuses and with the LoR bonuses this is not the case. A woodsman I axeman will lose attacking an unpromoted axeman in the woods, a woodsman II axeman will lose attacking a woodsman I axeman in the woods and a woodsman III axeman will lose attacking a woodsman II axeman in the woods.

It is easily possible to give the higher promoted woodsman units good odds against lower promoted woodsman units without needing huge bonuses.

phungus420

Jul 10, 2009, 07:57 AM

A woody 2 axe has a poor chance of taking down an unpromoted axe in the woods. That's bad, should be the other way around. At the very least a woody 2 axe against green axe fighting in the woods the expert woodsman should be the favorite. I'm OK with a fresh woodsman getting poor odds against an unpromoted unit, but the expert woodsman should do better then even in that situation.

Roland Johansen

Jul 10, 2009, 08:45 AM

I'm OK with a fresh woodsman getting poor odds against an unpromoted unit, but the expert woodsman should do better then even in that situation.

Ok. I think the woodsman I unit should already have at least 50-50 odds attacking an unpromoted unit in the woods. With its training it should have at least equal odds against unexperienced units. And I think the expert woodsman II unit should have at least 50-50 odds attacking a fresh woodsman I in the forest. This is easily possible without giving the woodsman III a huge bonus against units in the forest.

For instance:

(forest +25% defence instead of 50%)
New woodsman promotions:
I: +25 attack vs forests, +10 defence in forests
II: +15 attack vs forests, +10 defence in forests, +1 first strike chance, double move in forests
III: +15 attack vs forests, +10 defence in forests, +1 first strike
(bonuses are cumulative)

(Battles in forest: Woodsman I attacking unpromoted is equal odds, Woodsman I attacking Woodsman I loses, Woodsman II narrowly beats Woodsman I unit when attacking and narrowly wins when defending against Woodsman II. Woodsman III comfortably beats Woodsman II when attacking and is equal when defending against Woodsman III)

Main idea: woodsman line of promotions makes it ever easier to attack through woods and every level of this promotion is better in woods than any other promotion in the woods. The promotion line is also somewhat useful outside of the woods (the first strikes of WII and WIII follow those of DrillI and DrillII). The weird healing bonus has been removed (I think the medic II promotion could use a boost).

If I assume that the guerilla promotion stays at the 20-25-30 progression in LoR, then you'll also see that a guerilla II unit has far better odds at beating a unit on the hills than a woodsman II unit at beating a unit in the forest. So being an expert in the hills is helping you more than being an expert in the forest when attacking. That can work, but it wouldn't have my preference.

It seems as if we are looking for a different balance. That's ok, it's your mod. I'm just a fan who gives his opinion.

BobTheTerrible

Jul 11, 2009, 09:01 AM

I actually like the idea of scaling back woods defense to 25%. I'll have to test that in my own games to see how that works out.

JimboVT

Jul 18, 2009, 09:58 PM

phungus420

Jul 19, 2009, 06:31 AM

Well I just played my first game of LoR and I must say I didn't get anything that could really be called a bug although I learned that defying the United Nations is a very bad idea. Now I kind of know what Saddam Hussein felt like after gulf war 1 :sad: About the only thing that I got that might be considered a bug is that I noticed when the AI declared war on me that I would get a notification that such and such leader is willing to sign a peace deal the next turn but when I went to the diplomacy screen that was obviously not true. Its such a minor issue though I am not concerned about it.
The UN behavior is unchanged from BtS. ;)
As for the minor issue with saying will sign peace, that's just something from BUG, it will eventually be fixed, but it's such a non issue I'm not going to worry about it.

I like the concept of the Legendary units although the Red Barron really shut down my war effort when the Romans got him :spear: I suggested this on another board but I would like to see Nelson Mandela be an alternate leader for the game. I was also thinking that if you can put Simon Bolivar as a leader of the Inca's why not Santa Anna as an alternative to Monty.
Personally I'm glad to hear the Red Baron was actually useful, even if that was for the AI. I was worried he might be a "useless" legend, so thanks for letting me know he was a thorn in your side. That's actually good from my standpoint :lol:

As for Santa Anna, definatly not. His claim to fame is loosing massive territory to the US, he just doesn't seem like an influenctial leader. With Mandela I suppose we could use him to replace Reagan, but I doubt it. Bolivar seems like a good fit for the Inca, they are the only South American Civ, and he's considered in modern times as the great liberator of South America from European influence, it just fits. Mandela has no such direct Civ counterpart. Zulu would be the closest, but the Zulu aren't really South African, and definatly don't fit for Ethiopia or Mali. I just can't see the direct connection, so it's unlikely.

1.) This is a general game play question but I couldn't find the answer in Civilopedia. Does the unhappiness penalty for defying the U.N ever wear off? I continues an illegal war against the Koreans when the rest of the world condemned me and was stuck with -5 penalty (the rest of the world considers you a villain) for the rest of the game.
:hmm: you may have stumbled across another aspect of the interdependency bug in RevDCM (all the rest have since been fixed by hardcoding "hack" fixes in the latest RevDCM build). I'm not sure though. Any chance you have a save game? UN behavior is unchanged from BtS, it works like so: If you defy the UN you get the 5 unhappy penalty, but it's supposed to go away after you accept a UN mandate (you vote yes on a UN proposition that passes) a certain ammount of turns (I think it has to be at least 15 turns after you defied) after you defied. So did you ever vote yes on a UN proposition that passed after you defied? If so you have discovered another interdependency issue, and I need to bring this to glider's attention. A save game would be really nice here if you could upload one after you defied the resolution.

2.) When LoR loads I noticed in the screen that there is a thing that says Religioun Options: none. This is the same screen where it tells you if IDW is and revolutions are enabled in the game. What exactly are the "Religion Options"? Is that something that is going to be incorporated in a future version of Lor?
Press Ctrl + Alt + O when playing a game. This brings up the BUG menu. Look under the RevDCM tab, there are a bunch of religious options you can toggle there.

3.) I had a question about the spy promotions. When you get the promotions cause 50% more unrest/poison does that mean a city will suffer a -12 happiness/health penalty instead of 8 when you do those missions or does it mean that when you complete any type of espionage that it will cause some sort of additional penalty to whoever your screwing over?
I suppose so, I never really get into the spy game myself, so have no real experience with the spy promotions. Maybe someone else could answer this.

Roland Johansen

Jul 19, 2009, 11:51 AM

If you defy the UN you get the 5 unhappy penalty, but it's supposed to go away after you accept a UN mandate (you vote yes on a UN proposition that passes) a certain ammount of turns (I think it has to be at least 15 turns after you defied) after you defied. So did you ever vote yes on a UN proposition that passed after you defied? If so you have discovered another interdependency issue, and I need to bring this to glider's attention.

For some reason many many players on this forum think that the unhappiness is related to accepting a UN mandate while this is simply not the case. It is just a 20 turn period of unhappiness and then it simply ends. The Full Member status and the +2 hammers from religious buildings of the AP religion are related to voting in favour of a successful resolution.

If it doesn't work that way, then something in this mod changed it. I hope this will make things clear for JimboVT.

Roland Johansen

Jul 20, 2009, 11:55 AM

User comments about changes made in new builds (such as the fact Crossbows no longer deal with mounted defenses outside cities) help me determine balancing decisions, and tweaks to be made in updates. This is particularly important given we are aproaching the end of the beta stage in development (1 or 2 more full builds before the mod comes out of beta), and once this mod comes out of beta there will be no more balance tweaks made for many months if ever. Just letting you guys know that feedback on new builds is vitally important in the development process, and without it I'm not really sure if some changes (particularly the medieval era unit changes) are working as intended, and/or improve gameplay :dunno:

I actually have many balance requests. Some, I consider important, some less. Some related to LoR, some would be equally valid for regular BTS. I don't expect you to agree with all of them as each player has a different idea about balance. However, I'm one of those players that thinks that game balance is very important, so I'll list some of my requests and balance issues now. Please don't view it as criticism.

I was also wondering why you might not balance the mod after version 1.0? I think that mods that reach the 'finished' or 'polished' state typically attract more players and thus more balance issues will be detected after a while. Some balance issues regarding regular civ4 were also only detected after many players played the game for quite a long time. Perfect balance is probably a utopia, but it is likely that better balance can be achieved and recognized only once the game has reached the 'finished' state for a while. Especially the late game balance issues won't be recognised until the mod has been around for a while.

Issue 1: Ranged bombardment can kill units while regular attack by siege units or bombardment from the sky cannot. In my opinion, ranged bombardment would be far better balanced if it also had a damage cap. Without a damage cap, regular attacks aren't needed anymore as you can bombard everything into nothingness.

Issue 1b: Non-combat units (workers, executives, missionaires, etc) are immune to any form of ranged attack (bombardment by artillery and air and guided missiles) except nuclear attacks.

Issue 2a: Special forces are a fun unit that allows some very special moves. I'm just afraid that their combination of commando and invisibility to most units will make them a game element that is great for the human player but extremely hard to counter for the AI. The unit can move through enemy terrain at a rate of 10 moves per turn while at war. Workers, for instance, can easily be destroyed in large numbers by this unit and I wonder if the AI will understand what is actually happening to its workers and counter with detection mechanisms. However, I haven't been able to test the game mechanic yet.

Issue 2b: Similar to 2a, stealth destroyers are extremely hard to detect. They are actually harder to detect than submarines and can't even be seen by planes (except UAV) which is weird. The only sea unit that can see them is the supercarrier. The civilopedia entry wrongly says that they can be seen by stealth destroyers.
The unit shouldn't have the escort AI as they can't protect anything in a stack as they are rarely even detected by the enemy stack and thus don't defend.
I think the unit would actually function better without the stealth feature. With its ability to carry a scout aircraft, good vs subs, good detection abilities and high strength, they are useful enough. And the 2 first strikes and high retreat odds are enough to symbolise their stealthiness.

Issue3: Archers aren't useful as city defence in the classical age. They can't cope with the combination of swordsmen and the ability to remove defensive bonuses.

Issue4: The serfdom civic hasn't been improved. Many might think that adding an ability like using food to build units is an element that strengthens the civic, but it's not. 1 :food: is worth a lot more than one :hammers:. Whether you use slavery to convert food (population) into hammers or caste system to build powerful workshops, you'll get a far better conversion than 1 to 1 and it can be applied to everything, not only units.
Whenever you use food to build units, it will be an inefficient use of food.
It's a fun concept, but not balanced.
Removing the benefits that the civic used to give (faster workers) and adding bad elements (1 :yuck:) of course doesn't help things.

Issue5: Because crossbowmen ignore knights when attacking, there exists no contemporary unit that can protect your stack against attacking crossbowmen. No unit has better than 50% odds on flatlands.

Issue6a: Late game tile improvements: you can build ectreme climate versions of cottages and farms but not of workshops on tundra, ice, desert. It's not really a balance thing, but I don't see why one tile improvement is allowed in bad terrain and the other not. It's especially weird that it is impossible to build workshops in terrain that is good enough to farm. Is there a philosophy behind this game design?

Issue6b: Late game, the special resource improvements like plantations, camps, wineries and (oil) wells are very poor because all the other improvements have gotten bonuses but they have remained the same. I've always thought this as an oversight in game development of basic civ4. Especially oil wells should be a good improvement which they aren't.

Issue6c: Forests should be able to be planted. This can easily be done without unbalancing the game by requiring the forest to grow for a long time (like cottages) before it can be used. There are other mods that use this idea.

Issue7: Bronze working is still a hugely powerful technology. It allows the powerful slavery civic, the powerful chopping of forests, the visibility of copper and the production of axemen (and indirectly spearmen).
If the visibility of copper would be moved to mining and the slavery civic to masonry, then the balance would be improved. Bronze working would still be very useful, but less overpowered.

Issue8: The espionage cost for changing civics and religions is independent of the size of the civilisation which you influence while the damage that you inflict (both in forcing worse civics and in the potential anarchy cost of reverting back to better civics) is related to the size of the civilisation that is harmed. These missions are also fairly cheap, only slightly more expensive than starting a 1 turn revolt in a single city. These 2 missions are badly balanced.

Issue9: It's very hard to balance corporations because their value depends on the actual map that is used, the amount of resources that are available on that specific map (I'm aware that changes were made to the corporations). This results in some corporations which are better than others. It would be very nice if all of the corporations got their use on a map. Culture corporations in border cities while food and hammer corporations would be used in core cities and gold and science corporations would be used in the Wall Street and Oxford cities and other well improved commerce cities. However, that is not the case, some corporations are just better than others on a map.
If the corporations were capped in their output (and cost), then it would be much easier to balance them against the state property civic and against eachother. If the founding of a corporation would also allow the creation of branche headquartors by other civilisations (national wonders that allow the building of executives but don't offer gold per city with the corporation), then these corporations would maybe be used in more than one civilisation.

Issue 10: The air assault unit is a bit weird. It's very powerful and historically I can't understand it. It's not an easy thing to capture and control a city by only using some helicopters or troops delivered by helicopters. The numbers transported this way just are not enough. They are useful in real life to capture key areas, but not to control large areas. In game, they function like normal civ4 tanks on steroids: city raider promotions on 4 move units. Removing city raider promotions from tanks in LoR was logical as tanks aren't so great in cities. But helicopters surely aren't any better!

Issue 11a: Limited air capacity in land based - cities versus unlimited on water. This is a BTS issue: the carries allows unlimited air units on water and coastal cities with 3 or 4 per carrier while cities can only hold very few airplanes. That's an imbalance at the very core of the combat mechanics and the AI can't cope with it while the human just adds some carriers to coastal cities to overcome the artificial limitations.

Issue 11b: Airports allow the transport of 1 unit per turn but can receive an unlimited amount of units per turn. I think that a limit to the number of units it can receive per turn would help limit the power of getting an airport on a foreign continent. Now when you have one, your amphibious operations can end and everything can be transported by air.
Not all players no this special feature of airports that they can receive unlimited airlifted units per turn.

I've probably forgotten to mention a few things, but this is it... For now. ;)
Good luck with version 1.0! :goodjob:

phungus420

Jul 20, 2009, 02:50 PM

I'm not going to adress all of your list, as it's very long, and some of it I don't consider an issue, or the issue is too complex or minor to adress. But these points I agree and think I have the abilities to fix.
I was also wondering why you might not balance the mod after version 1.0? I think that mods that reach the 'finished' or 'polished' state typically attract more players and thus more balance issues will be detected after a while. Some balance issues regarding regular civ4 were also only detected after many players played the game for quite a long time. Perfect balance is probably a utopia, but it is likely that better balance can be achieved and recognized only once the game has reached the 'finished' state for a while. Especially the late game balance issues won't be recognised until the mod has been around for a while.
I will patch the mod with new RevDCM updates, and after a couple months of the mod being out I may adress balancing issues that arise. Civ4 itself and all of it's expansions have been patched with balancing tweaks. But any balance tweaks that happen after 1.0 will be very infrequent, as in a year to 6 months after the release, as that will allow enough time for issues to shake out. Basically development after 1.0 for LoR will stop.

Of course this is contingent on the mod becoming popular. When 0.8.2 was released it had near 1000 downloads in it's first week, and about 2500 at the end of it's first month. 0.9.4b has only 300 some odd downloads in it's first week, no where near what 0.8.2 had. So it is becoming less popular, and I fear it may just be dyeing a slow death :sad:

Issue 1: Ranged bombardment can kill units while regular attack by siege units or bombardment from the sky cannot. In my opinion, ranged bombardment would be far better balanced if it also had a damage cap. Without a damage cap, regular attacks aren't needed anymore as you can bombard everything into nothingness.
OK, I will talk to glider about this and see about changing the behavior, and adding a ranged bombard cap, or probably I will tie in the ranged bombard cap to max damage. I may not even need to talk to glider about this, I may be able to just track down the code myself and implement it. It'll take a bit though, but this will go on the list of things to implement before the release of 1.0.

Issue4: The serfdom civic hasn't been improved. Many might think that adding an ability like using food to build units is an element that strengthens the civic, but it's not. 1 :food: is worth a lot more than one :hammers:. Whether you use slavery to convert food (population) into hammers or caste system to build powerful workshops, you'll get a far better conversion than 1 to 1 and it can be applied to everything, not only units.
Whenever you use food to build units, it will be an inefficient use of food.
It's a fun concept, but not balanced.
Removing the benefits that the civic used to give (faster workers) and adding bad elements (1 :yuck:) of course doesn't help things.
I'm all ears on suggestions on how to implement a new and improved Serfdom civic. I don't think the AI is aware of the food for military unit build ability, at least it doesn't seem to be, so this was something I was planning on changeing anyway. But I wasn't sure how...

Issue5: Because crossbowmen ignore knights when attacking, there exists no contemporary unit that can protect your stack against attacking crossbowmen. No unit has better than 50% odds on flatlands.
Again I'm all ears for ideas on how to tweak unit balance in the Medieval era.

Issue6a: Late game tile improvements: you can build ectreme climate versions of cottages and farms but not of workshops on tundra, ice, desert. It's not really a balance thing, but I don't see why one tile improvement is allowed in bad terrain and the other not. It's especially weird that it is impossible to build workshops in terrain that is good enough to farm. Is there a philosophy behind this game design?

Issue6b: Late game, the special resource improvements like plantations, camps, wineries and (oil) wells are very poor because all the other improvements have gotten bonuses but they have remained the same. I've always thought this as an oversight in game development of basic civ4. Especially oil wells should be a good improvement which they aren't.
OK, I'll add an exteme climate workshop, and give some late game tech bonuses to plantations.

bestbrian

Jul 20, 2009, 02:55 PM

I'm not so sure that it's dying a slow death. Many folks are probably sitting on the fence waiting for the final release.

Roland Johansen

Jul 20, 2009, 04:11 PM

I'm not going to adress all of your list, as it's very long, and some of it I don't consider an issue, or the issue is too complex or minor to adress. But these points I agree and think I have the abilities to fix.

Sure, it would have been very weird if you agreed on all points. I guess that about every player has a different idea about the ultimate civ4 experience and it's hard to get close to that with modding. I just wanted to make sure that I explained what I considered issues before version 1.0. Thanks for reading through that lengthy post of mine. :)

I will patch the mod with new RevDCM updates, and after a couple months of the mod being out I may adress balancing issues that arise. Civ4 itself and all of it's expansions have been patched with balancing tweaks. But any balance tweaks that happen after 1.0 will be very infrequent, as in a year to 6 months after the release, as that will allow enough time for issues to shake out. Basically development after 1.0 for LoR will stop.

I had understood that you were going for an ultimate version. But I'm happy to hear that you'll consider patching some stuff.

Of course this is contingent on the mod becoming popular. When 0.8.2 was released it had near 1000 downloads in it's first week, and about 2500 at the end of it's first month. 0.9.4b has only 300 some odd downloads in it's first week, no where near what 0.8.2 had. So it is becoming less popular, and I fear it may just be dyeing a slow death :sad:

I understand. It's hard to get motivated to patch stuff when only a relative few players use your mod. But I think you're being a bit too negative here. So I'll give you 2 motivating thoughts:
-I play long games that take many weeks to finish. So for playing purposes, it's useless to keep up with your recent frequent updates. The only reason I downloaded these, was to be sure that I had all the mechanics right when I made a comment about balance. There are bound to be other people that will just download the newest version when they start a new game, not when you release a new update. Make sure that the newest version of your mod is mentioned on the main page of this site when Thunderfall periodically announces the newest civ4 modifications.
-This mod is bound to be used as a basis for various other mods. And people will always go and look at the new and shiny stuff. So when they download a mod based on your mod, then they're indirectly downloading your mod. Just like your mod creates indirect downloads for the mod components that you've used.

By the way, you can also just be proud of the product itself that you've created. It's a bit harder to get a good fan following of the mod now that the game has been out for many years. If Fall from Heaven in its first rougher form was being developed now instead of in 2005-2006, then I don't think it would get the attention that it has been enjoying the last few years. It takes a while to get such a following and it works better when the game itself is new.

OK, I will talk to glider about this and see about changing the behavior, and adding a ranged bombard cap, or probably I will tie in the ranged bombard cap to max damage. I may not even need to talk to glider about this, I may be able to just track down the code myself and implement it. It'll take a bit though, but this will go on the list of things to implement before the release of 1.0.

I'm glad to hear that. If you're able to make this value more accessible (for instance by making it equal to the normal damage cap), then mod mods will also be able to access it.

I'm all ears on suggestions on how to implement a new and improved Serfdom civic. I don't think the AI is aware of the food for military unit build ability, at least it doesn't seem to be, so this was something I was planning on changeing anyway. But I wasn't sure how...

There was some discussion about the nationhood civic (offensive drafting thread) in the betterAI mod recently. Jdog explained how the various civics in this category competed with eachother. He thus understands real well how civic value is programmed in the code. (I still have to react to his post there as we're discussing how the AI could possibly use nationhood better.)

Slavery and caste system both offer additional production in a time period where it's hard to get hammers from the flat land while many profitable buildings become available. Caste system is slower in developing its use than slavery but better for bigger cities and it offers the great specialists bonus. Serfdom has to compete with pretty useful civics.

If serfdom offered the same hammer bonus to workshops as caste system in addition to its normal BTS faster workers, then it would compete. But that's a bit boring maybe.

Another more complicated version is this:

-food can be used as a production resource for all units with a 100% bonus (making a grassland farm equal to a 2 :food: 2 :hammers: tile which is not subject to hammer bonuses). This would be able to compete in productiveness with the other two civics but only for units.
-the +50% faster worker speed.
-farms give +1 commerce

This would be a good civic and would make it hard for me to choose. Learning the AI that the civic is good might be harder. The civic should be more attractive for the AI when at war or planning a war (building units). It keeps the theme around farms and workers which I like for a civic named serfdom.

Again I'm all ears for ideas on how to tweak unit balance in the Medieval era.

I never really understood why you wanted to remove the knight as a counter for the crossbowman as the crossbowman had its uses even with the knight as a counter. It would be the best stack protector against melee units and the ultimate attacker when the enemy stack didn't contain knights. Of course it would be slightly less valuable than the pikeman and heavy footman, but I'd still like to have at least 1 or 2 of them in my stacks even with knights as a counter.
So why did you want to remove knights as a counter?

OK, I'll add an exteme climate workshop, and give some late game tech bonuses to plantations.

You can use similar workshop output on tundra, but will have to think of something new for deserts/arctic as these tiles can't have -1 :food:. I'd suggest something like 2 :hammers: output less than the normal workshop for this terrain as the negative :food: will have no impact. Make sure that the improvement is worse when used on grassland, plains or tundra than the normal workshop.

Note that normal workshops can be build on riverside tundra just like normal farms can be build on riverside tundra, but can't be constructed on non-riverside tundra.

Roland Johansen

Jul 20, 2009, 04:22 PM

By the way, a separate and relatively minor issue that I thought about just now:

The DCM mod added a port bombing mission that allowed airplanes a chance to kill ships in port. But this only works for ships in port which I find weird. Some arguments could be made for lesser manoeuvrability of the ships but equally valid arguments could be made for better air defence in the harbour area. Could the mission be translated to a normal mission that works on ships everywhere?

Baghadur

Jul 21, 2009, 09:44 AM

Phungus, you've done a great job so far and I'm looking forward to 1.0. I think part of the problem with the download count has been the bombshell of 3.19 and the monkey wrench thrown into RevDCM. Almost all of your delays are attributable to waiting on glider and jdog to track down the issues in RevDCM. I think that once RevDCM is stable and you are able to build 1.0 then you will see a rise in downloads. Think alot of people are on the fence until then.

JimboVT

Jul 21, 2009, 11:34 AM

Well I think I found a bug or if its not a bug then it is something that could potentially be a huge game changer in terms of imbalance. I am on my 2nd game of LoR, playing as Mansa Musa. I have decent technology lead. I wasn't really originally planning a conquest victory but everyone on my continent is rather puny and it seems only right that they should bow down and pay tribite to their king :worship: :king:

I am on one of the weirdest continents that I have ever seen playing Civ IV. I used some map called perfectworld12 when making the world. I seemed to have gotten lucky as there is only one religion on my continent anyhow I digress. I have been waging war on the Sioux. In the middle of my war I got a quest from my generals saying that they covet the Iron resource in the Sioux lands. I have gotten this quest in regular BtS and usually it will give me something like a bunch of horse soldiers or swordsmen. Well this worked out perfectly since I already had my forces in place and was on the verge of taking the needed city anyway. When I completed the quest I was given 4 Legio X legendary units :yeah:

The only one on my continent that I think can put up a good fight against me in Quin Shi Huang. He hasn't attacked me yet but I know he is thinking about it :trouble: cause I have so much espionage on him I can see he is building up his cavalry. That punk is going to s**t his pants :eek: when my Legio X units are rampaging through China on a mission of rape, loot and pillage :viking::sniper::run::mwaha::mwaha:

bestbrian

Jul 21, 2009, 11:45 AM

Actually, I'd crap my pants if I saw the AI (or, even worse, a human adversary) running around with a stack of those things. :lol:

phungus420

Jul 21, 2009, 11:53 AM

That's hilarious. I wonder what could be causing that, must be that the event code in the python looks to give you the best units available or something, and fails to check the maxglobalunit tag. I'll have to see what's up with it and put in a fix, thanks for the report. Sounds like fun though, you're pretty much unstoppable now.

JimboVT

Jul 21, 2009, 12:00 PM

On a related note and this is just a general question not so much of your LoR but more of has anyone done this. Is it realistically possible to get true world conquest victory on a normal sized map or larger with Revolution component enabled? It seems to me that the more cities that you conquer that eventually those cities will spawn rebellions and that at some point your empire would cost more to maintain then the revenue you could generate. It seems to me that the only way even realistically have a shot at doing it would be to raze most of the AI's cities unless they had some crucial wonders or a lot of existing infrastructure that could be useful in a few turns after being sacked.

bigfatjonny

Jul 22, 2009, 05:57 AM

Thumbs up to Roland Johansen for your great ideas on balance, I would definately download a mod if they incuded all of your balance issues.

&
Thanks to Phungus for the great mod so far!

Roland Johansen

Jul 22, 2009, 06:17 AM

Thumbs up to Roland Johansen for your great ideas on balance, I would definately download a mod if they incuded all of your balance issues.

&
Thanks to Phungus for the great mod so far!

Having ideas is easier than implementing them. Phungus has already implemented many great ideas. But thanks.:)

thekaje

Jul 22, 2009, 10:05 PM

Really incredible mod, guys. Thanks for all your hard work. This is really what I've always wanted Civ to be!

I have a suggestion pertaining to the Great Wall.

If Minor States are on and you have automatic war through the entire BC era, shouldn't the Great Wall wonder block other Minor States' warriors, etc, from entering your territory? After all, the other Minor States are essentially barbarians during this period, and the usefulness of the Great Wall suffers tremendously if it only keeps out what are technically "barbarians" under vanilla BtS standards...

What do you guys think?

phungus420

Jul 22, 2009, 11:33 PM

How is the Mohawk Sentry? I'm concerned it may be an underpowered unit. Have people found it useful?

How is the Keshik? I'm concerned it may be overpowered.

Anyone have any specific unit balance issues, specifically with UUs/UBs?

phungus420

Jul 22, 2009, 11:35 PM

If Minor States are on and you have automatic war through the entire BC era, shouldn't the Great Wall wonder block other Minor States' warriors, etc, from entering your territory? After all, the other Minor States are essentially barbarians during this period, and the usefulness of the Great Wall suffers tremendously if it only keeps out what are technically "barbarians" under vanilla BtS standards...

What do you guys think?
It's an interesting idea, but it would be far too powerful. Basically this would make you immune to all players who didn't know writing, that would be unbalanced, so it couldn't be implemented.

achilleszero

Jul 23, 2009, 01:08 AM

Mohawk Sentry: Is a little weak. Biggest problem though is the scout itself. You could try pumping it. But maybe it would do better as an explorer? You would have more room to manuver with giving it abilities. Any UU before axes gets weaker the larger the map gets. I get by just fine with only ever building 1 or 2 scouts.

Keshik: I like it. Maybe is a bit powerful. Definitely keep its city raider. For one thing it is an original UU with that. Take it away and what are you left with... apretty lame UU. Youve already handicapped the Mongols by not alowing it to upgrade to cuirassier. Only thing you could do is take away its first strike. But the keshik is like the legion in my eyes. It should be powerful.

Hoplite: Ohh hoplite why must you be a pain. I sound like a broken record but hoplite needs tweeking. It has more abilities than anyother UU but it is missing out on one. The +25% vs swords that regular Axes have. So it actually sucks against swords and totally gets stomped by Legions. Not sure what to do about it though. Looks like you wanted a symmetrical unit by giving it all those +50%'s. Maybe one of those could go to make room for a +50 vs sword, but which one? Maybe the free formation? That might actually be one of its more powerful abilities. Even with the +50 vs sword it would still gets narrowly beat out by Legions, which is how it should be. I dont know, Ive been trying to find a powerful but not OP balance for it since Alpha. Damn yous hoplite.

Holkan: jesus this thing sucks. Immune to first strikes, thats it, thats all it has.

Ronin: maybe it could be boosted a bit now that theres only two japanese UU's. Or maybe you shouldve take out, ronin and left in Daimyo to give them one melee and one mounted UU.

Missile Cruiser: why does the missle cruiser cost 220? Thats only 10 more than the cruiser. The battleship costs 280, so shouldnt the MC cost 300 or more?

Pathfinders & explorers: why cant explorers upgrade to pathfinders? I dont see anything wrong with them doing that.

Thats all I can think of for now.

Berenthor

Jul 23, 2009, 03:50 AM

I actually found that the battleship could use a boost. It is as strong as a heavy cruiser almost (I believe from the top of my head) and less strong than a missile cruiser. I would make them equally strong (40-40 or 38-40 or something). A battleship is a strong ship even against a modern missile cruiser :) (if it didn't have missiles that is).
I actually also think a dreadnought could use a beef. I have had a dreadnought destroyed quite a few times by a protected cruiser (or two). I would beef the dreadnought up to 32 or something.

thekaje

Jul 23, 2009, 08:45 AM

Holkan: jesus this thing sucks. Immune to first strikes, thats it, thats all it has.

I'm not experienced enough to really know for sure whether this is a rare situation, but I was pulling a Chariot/Horseman/Archer attack (?!) in about 2000 BC last night, hoping to wipe out the Mayans, and I foolishly upgraded my archers to Drill 1>Shock to deal with any spears. A lot of my archers only had Drill 1, actually, waiting around for the xp for Shock.

Well, we didn't run into spearmen... we ran into Holkans...

Which were an effective counter to ALL of my units.

I had to pillage his copper source instead. :lol:

Then I discovered that that didn't stop anything. :lol:

By the way, I was impressed by the AI here. He pulled a very effective defensive strategy, and harassed fleeing horsemen really well with those Holkan.

achilleszero

Jul 23, 2009, 09:08 AM

I'm not experienced enough to really know for sure whether this is a rare situation, but I was pulling a Chariot/Horseman/Archer attack (?!) in about 2000 BC last night, hoping to wipe out the Mayans, and I foolishly upgraded my archers to Drill 1>Shock to deal with any spears. A lot of my archers only had Drill 1, actually, waiting around for the xp for Shock.

Well, we didn't run into spearmen... we ran into Holkan...

Which was an effective counter to ALL of my units.

I had to pillage his copper source instead. :lol:

By the way, I was impressed by the AI here. He pulled a very effective defensive strategy, and harassed fleeing horsemen really well with those Holkan.

Against your stack of Horses and archers, normal spearman units would have been just as effective. Drill 1 only gives a first strike chance, and shock only makes the archer a 3.75:strength:, not to mention horses die to normal spears anyway. Also the spears, having higher base strength, would benefit more from promotions and any defensive bonuses.

So maybe a couple more normal spear might have died, but you still wouldve got owned. Archers really arent an offensive unit, unless theyre Mali Skirmishers. You shouldve brought axes and swords. Its also curious why you only ran into holkans and not other units.

Roland Johansen

Jul 23, 2009, 09:24 AM

I have a suggestion pertaining to the Great Wall.

If Minor States are on and you have automatic war through the entire BC era, shouldn't the Great Wall wonder block other Minor States' warriors, etc, from entering your territory?

Don't forget that the Great Wall also gives +100% great general emergence within your own borders and this effect is thus strengthened by the early wars.

How is the Mohawk Sentry? I'm concerned it may be an underpowered unit. Have people found it useful?

Mohawk Sentry: Is a little weak. Biggest problem though is the scout itself. You could try pumping it. But maybe it would do better as an explorer? You would have more room to manuver with giving it abilities. Any UU before axes gets weaker the larger the map gets. I get by just fine with only ever building 1 or 2 scouts.

Agree with achilleszero. You could also opt for two UU's, one based on the scout, the other on the explorer. Then they both don't have to be strong and you have a long period in the game with special unique abilities. In a sense, it would then be a bit comparable to the indian fast worker which would also be weaker if it only got its extra movement point during a small period of the game.

How is the Keshik? I'm concerned it may be overpowered.

Keshik: I like it. Maybe is a bit powerful. Definitely keep its city raider. For one thing it is an original UU with that. Take it away and what are you left with... apretty lame UU. Youve already handicapped the Mongols by not alowing it to upgrade to cuirassier. Only thing you could do is take away its first strike. But the keshik is like the legion in my eyes. It should be powerful.

I won't quickly say that a unique unit is overpowered because a unique unit should be special and hard to counter. However a knights is normally a great unit in the field with only the pikeman that could stand against it. Against cities, they are decent, but because they can't get city raider, they can't face against city defenders with good city garrison promotions. With city raider ...
City raider I promotions will also go to the future units like cavalry, tanks, gunships, so it's not simply a one unit promotion and it allows the further city raider promotions so we'll see city raider III mongolian tanks.
Why not just a +20% bonus vs city without the promotion? It's not that mongols have special tanks and gunships.
(In general, I'm in favour of bonuses that aren't transferred to future units but are only useful for the unique unit itself.)

Hoplite: Ohh hoplite why must you be a pain. I sound like a broken record but hoplite needs tweeking. It has more abilities than anyother UU but it is missing out on one. The +25% vs swords that regular Axes have. So it actually sucks against swords and totally gets stomped by Legions.

:confused: One on one, it's equal in strength to swords (6 vs 6) and it's a little cheaper.

Holkan: jesus this thing sucks. Immune to first strikes, thats it, thats all it has.

It's cheaper and doesn't require resources... But I agree that being cheap and not requiring resources aren't the most interesting bonuses for gameplay. As a player, you usually want something special for using it. Its bonus of course helps a bit against archer defended cities.

Missile Cruiser: why does the missle cruiser cost 220? Thats only 10 more than the cruiser. The battleship costs 280, so shouldnt the MC cost 300 or more?

I always found that one interesting. Battleships were historically extremely expensive and nowadays, ships aren't build with such extreme armour protection. The strength from modern ships in real life is due to their long range deadly missiles and protective measures which aren't based on armour.
You could argue that they should be a bit more expensive than the stealth destroyer. Maybe 240? But it also works as it is now.

Pathfinders & explorers: why cant explorers upgrade to pathfinders? I dont see anything wrong with them doing that.

They do...

I actually found that the battleship could use a boost. It is as strong as a heavy cruiser almost (I believe from the top of my head) and less strong than a missile cruiser. I would make them equally strong (40-40 or 38-40 or something). A battleship is a strong ship even against a modern missile cruiser :) (if it didn't have missiles that is).

Battleships get a 25% bonus against capital ships like heavy cruisers and missile cruisers. This makes them equal to missile cruisers and 25% stronger than heavy cruisers in direct combat against these units.

thekaje

Jul 23, 2009, 09:26 AM

Against your stack of Horses and archers, normal spearman units would have been just as effective. Drill 1 only gives a first strike chance, and shock only makes the archer a 3.75:strength:, not to mention horses die to normal spears anyway. Also the spears, having higher base strength, would benefit more from promotions and any defensive bonuses.

So maybe a couple more normal spear might have died, but you still wouldve got owned. Archers really arent an offensive unit, unless theyre Mali Skirmishers. You shouldve brought axes and swords. Its also curious why you only ran into holkans and not other units.
Do spears have more :strength: than Holkans in LoR? If so, they shouldn't.

I didn't have any copper for the infantry units. I was expecting only a couple of spears, using my tons of archers mainly as defense while my cavalry overran everything else. I think 4:strength: spears would obviously have gone down much more easily than the Holkans did. But this may be a very rare situation--I mean, I didn't have copper. I'll leave it to the judgment of more experienced players. :salute:

thekaje

Jul 23, 2009, 09:30 AM

Don't forget that the Great Wall also gives +100% great general emergence within your own borders and this effect is thus strengthened by the early wars.
That's true. I guess that does a lot to shift the balance around.

phungus420

Jul 23, 2009, 09:46 AM

Re Hoplite: It's meant to be assymetrically ballanced. It is an extremely powerfull UU, yet it leaves you vulnerable to swords. That's the intent, and I like it.

Re Holkan. The ability to build Spears without copper is actually pretty useful. You have to remember I play on random, and have been saved by the Hulkan in a game before, I would have lost without it. I have no intent to change it. Though maybe the Maya could use a second UU, the Atlatatl or however you spell that. A replacement for the archer with a withdrawl chance. Actually yes, that's a good idea, we need a model for this though.

Re Battleships & Dreads: The cost and balance of these units is set up to mirror historical or real world facts (no one uses battleships anymore because they are too expensive) while maintaining gameplay. Remember cruisers are more advanced, ie they come later then battleships, the balance with them is fine IMHO.

Re Keshik: Well no real complaints about it being overpowered.

Re Mohawk Sentry: So you guys want to have the sentry be split into a scout and explorer variant? what should they be called?

Roland Johansen

Jul 23, 2009, 09:53 AM

Re Keshik: Well no real complaints about it being overpowered.

Re Mohawk Sentry: So you guys want to have the sentry be split into a scout and explorer variant? what should they be called?

I think the city raider I of the Keshik is a bit too powerful as explained above.

I have no good ideas for the names of the scout/explorer.

achilleszero

Jul 23, 2009, 10:18 AM

Re Battleships & Dreads: The cost and balance of these units is set up to mirror historical or real world facts (no one uses battleships anymore because they are too expensive) while maintaining gameplay. Remember cruisers are more advanced, ie they come later then battleships, the balance with them is fine IMHO.

I think their power is just fine. Its the cost that concerns me. The cruisers should atleast cost as much as the battleship. Since they come later youre cities will be able to handle the extra hammers better. Also since they are so much more powerful in the game they shouldnt be cheaper. Having them cheaper means a crap load of cruisers getting cranked out. 280 hammers back in the day was a lot more than 280 hammers now. How much did the MC cost in vanilla?

Do spears have more :strength: than Holkans in LoR? If so, they shouldn't.

They have the same strength. They would go down easier, but not by much. I forgot about not needing copper, so thats a plus for them. But your 1-2 first strike shocking archers are still going in for a tuff time against normal spear.

I think the city raider I of the Keshik is a bit too powerful as explained above.

Ok I have to agree with ya. Maybe an innate city attack bonus would be better. CR3 cavalry would be bad. Maybe +30% city attack instead of +20% since they cant increase it anymore if they cant get CR.

Roland Johansen

Jul 23, 2009, 11:14 AM

I think their power is just fine. Its the cost that concerns me. The cruisers should atleast cost as much as the battleship. Since they come later youre cities will be able to handle the extra hammers better. Also since they are so much more powerful in the game they shouldnt be cheaper. Having them cheaper means a crap load of cruisers getting cranked out. 280 hammers back in the day was a lot more than 280 hammers now. How much did the MC cost in vanilla?

Normal BTS prices: battleship 225, Missile Cruiser 260. It's actually the battleship which was made extremely expensive not the Missile Cruiser that was made cheap in this mod. I personally like that as battleships were a major investment for nations in that era.

Carriers/supercarriers are a bit cheap though.

They have the same strength. They would go down easier, but not by much. I forgot about not needing copper, so thats a plus for them. But your 1-2 first strike shocking archers are still going in for a tuff time against normal spear.

And Holkans are cheaper. But I agree those aren't the most awe inspiring bonuses.

Ok I have to agree with ya. Maybe an innate city attack bonus would be better. CR3 cavalry would be bad. Maybe +30% city attack instead of +20% since they cant increase it anymore if they cant get CR.

+30% is pretty strong, but more balanced than the CR promotion line. It would be a strong ability for a unique unit, but the Mongols were very powerful in that era and conquered large areas, so ok.

achilleszero

Jul 23, 2009, 12:13 PM

Normal BTS prices: battleship 225, Missile Cruiser 260. It's actually the battleship which was made extremely expensive not the Missile Cruiser that was made cheap in this mod. I personally like that as battleships were a major investment for nations in that era.

Carriers/supercarriers are a bit cheap though.

Yeah they were huge investments. But somehow nations used to field much larger navies back then as well.

Missle Cruisers are cheaper in LoR, they cost 220. I still think battleships should be cheaper or atleast the same price as missle cruisers. Having a superior unit be cheaper doesnt seem right. My biggest problem with this is that missle cruisers got a hammer reduction at the same time. Boosting the price of the battleship was enough, MC's didnt need to be cheaper. In fact, due to your cities' production constantly getting bigger, MC's should be atleast a little more expensive. In the era of MC's one of your production cities will probably be able to produce probably over 1.5x the amount of battleships you would have been able to produce, with the current 280&220 hammers setup.

+30% is pretty strong, but more balanced than the CR promotion line. It would be a strong ability for a unique unit, but the Mongols were very powerful in that era and conquered large areas, so ok.

I think 30% city attack would be reasonable. Mongols would have the Ger and would easily be able to produce cr2 or even CR3 very easily. So it would actually be a huge nerf. Maybe also they should get back their innate -1 terrain cost, if they lose the CR promotion line (cant remember if they have that anymore or not).

Roland Johansen

Jul 23, 2009, 07:19 PM

Yeah they were huge investments. But somehow nations used to field much larger navies back then as well.

Those same nations used to try to conquer eachother every 20 or 30 years in that era, so a relatively large share of production was invested in ways to kill the other one more efficient. It's probably the reason for such revolutionary jumps in military destructive abilities between 1850 and 1950.

Missle Cruisers are cheaper in LoR, they cost 220. I still think battleships should be cheaper or atleast the same price as missle cruisers. Having a superior unit be cheaper doesnt seem right. My biggest problem with this is that missle cruisers got a hammer reduction at the same time. Boosting the price of the battleship was enough, MC's didnt need to be cheaper. In fact, due to your cities' production constantly getting bigger, MC's should be atleast a little more expensive. In the era of MC's one of your production cities will probably be able to produce probably over 1.5x the amount of battleships you would have been able to produce, with the current 280&220 hammers setup.

Productivity likely won't rise very much anymore in the latest part of the late game because all the production modifiers have already been invented and also implemented in the most productive cities. But yes, it will mean that in the late game, it's easier to build a significant force of ships and possible to build a larger force of ships for the same investment. But that's not a bad thing for me, so you won't convince me that way.

Battleships became obsolete because the heavy armour was very expensive and not that useful anymore. This mod finally obsoletes the unit due to its cost, something that was not done in any other version of civ.

By the way (a bit unrelated), longbowmen were also initially obsoleted by musketmen because musketmen could be trained a lot easier and thus were cheaper. It took a while before musketmen became more effective man for man. It would have been nice if such a thing was in the game. But it's probably hard to balance that. I always imagine that the musketman represents a larger number of men so that the unit is stronger but also more expensive.

The missile cruiser is in real life cheaper and more effective in combat. I don't see a game balance problem by implementing that into the game.

I think 30% city attack would be reasonable. Mongols would have the Ger and would easily be able to produce cr2 or even CR3 very easily. So it would actually be a huge nerf. Maybe also they should get back their innate -1 terrain cost, if they lose the CR promotion line (cant remember if they have that anymore or not).

I had already agreed with the 30% bonus. The unit also gets a first strike and a 15% chance to retreat. All in all a great bonus. It will be very hard to stop it cost efficiently when it attacks cities or in the field. It will definitely be one of the very best unique units in the game. But then, the mongols did a lot of conquering so its thematically correct to give them a unique unit that tests the boundaries of balance.

By the way, not really balance related, but I think a city attack bonus is thematically very weird for a horse archer. These units weren't used to directly attack cities. The Mongols did a lot of conquering but that doesn't mean that this has to be represented by a city attack bonus for their most well known unit.

But I agree with the unit bonuses that we're talking about now from a balance perspective.

bestbrian

Jul 23, 2009, 07:34 PM

The Mongols used their gifted horsemen to annhilate opponents in the open field. They took cities with fear, and failing that, Chinese engineers and siege equipment. Giving Keshiks a City Attack Bonus doesn't seem to fit with that.

achilleszero

Jul 23, 2009, 08:02 PM

Productivity likely won't rise very much anymore in the latest part of the late game because all the production modifiers have already been invented and also implemented in the most productive cities. But yes, it will mean that in the late game, it's easier to build a significant force of ships and possible to build a larger force of ships for the same investment. But that's not a bad thing for me, so you won't convince me that way.

Battleships became obsolete because the heavy armour was very expensive and not that useful anymore. This mod finally obsoletes the unit due to its cost, something that was not done in any other version of civ.

The missile cruiser is in real life cheaper and more effective in combat. I don't see a game balance problem by implementing that into the game.

Ok I may have to conceed this one as I probably wont convince anyone. And I guess it would be more fun to have cheap MC's. But never being one to leave well enough alone, I still disagree.

Yes they seem tohave been obsoleted. But I would think that the missile cruiser having a greater power and ability to carry missiles would be enough. Every other jump in technology gives whatever civ has the lead a better chance by giving them a stronger unit. Not a stronger unit and cheaper unit. It will be a doubly huge deficit for the civ that is behind.

The Iowa class battleships, last battleships to be built, cost 125 million in 1940's. Thats 1.5 billion in todays money (probably more since materials like steel probably dont inflate at the same rate). The Ticonderoga Class Missile Cruisers cost 1 billion in the early 1980's. Thats 2 billion dollars today. So really the battleship costed less than the cruiser. Whats more is the Iowa class cost 60% more than anyother battleship ever built and more to maintain it. So the Cruisers are way more expensive than the battleships, probably due to all its high tech armament. 3 times now the us navy has brought the iowa's out of retirement. And every time was supposed to be the last.

The Mongols used their gifted horsemen to annhilate opponents in the open field. They took cities with fear, and failing that, Chinese engineers and siege equipment. Giving Keshiks a City Attack Bonus doesn't seem to fit with that.

Youre probably right. But until the day comes, when the AI does more than wall up in its cities, something has to give. All the mongol warriors were mounted so mongol maces and pikes doesnt seem to fit either.

Roland Johansen

Jul 24, 2009, 06:52 AM

Ok I may have to conceed this one as I probably wont convince anyone. And I guess it would be more fun to have cheap MC's. But never being one to leave well enough alone, I still disagree.

Yes they seem tohave been obsoleted. But I would think that the missile cruiser having a greater power and ability to carry missiles would be enough. Every other jump in technology gives whatever civ has the lead a better chance by giving them a stronger unit. Not a stronger unit and cheaper unit. It will be a doubly huge deficit for the civ that is behind.

The Iowa class battleships, last battleships to be built, cost 125 million in 1940's. Thats 1.5 billion in todays money (probably more since materials like steel probably dont inflate at the same rate). The Ticonderoga Class Missile Cruisers cost 1 billion in the early 1980's. Thats 2 billion dollars today. So really the battleship costed less than the cruiser. Whats more is the Iowa class cost 60% more than anyother battleship ever built and more to maintain it. So the Cruisers are way more expensive than the battleships, probably due to all its high tech armament. 3 times now the us navy has brought the iowa's out of retirement. And every time was supposed to be the last.

If your figures are correct, then those are very good points. What you're actually saying is that the obsolescence of the battleship due to very high cost is a mythos. Or maybe it's just the obsolescence of thick armour but other new elements also cost a lot.

By the way: in the present setup, the battleship has 50% odds when going one-on-one with the missile cruiser which is not correct. I think it wouldn't stand a chance in reality because it would be destroyed before it ever could fire its big guns (which would of course instantly annihilate a missile cruiser).

I think the Iowa's wouldn't have been brought back from retirement if the US had been fighting foes that had equally advanced military hardware as they had. But if the enemy doesn't have good military hardware, then those shells are probably cheaper than missiles and your ships aren't going to be sunk by enemy missiles anyway. In the end it's just a calculation of how to kill the enemy the cheapest.

Youre probably right. But until the day comes, when the AI does more than wall up in its cities, something has to give. All the mongol warriors were mounted so mongol maces and pikes doesnt seem to fit either.

The mongol keshik would still play an important part in destroying the enemy SOD. But you're right that civ combat is too much focussed on cities and thus city taking units are very valuable.

achilleszero

Jul 24, 2009, 11:33 AM

If your figures are correct, then those are very good points. What you're actually saying is that the obsolescence of the battleship due to very high cost is a mythos. Or maybe it's just the obsolescence of thick armour but other new elements also cost a lot.

By the way: in the present setup, the battleship has 50% odds when going one-on-one with the missile cruiser which is not correct. I think it wouldn't stand a chance in reality because it would be destroyed before it ever could fire its big guns (which would of course instantly annihilate a missile cruiser).

I think the Iowa's wouldn't have been brought back from retirement if the US had been fighting foes that had equally advanced military hardware as they had. But if the enemy doesn't have good military hardware, then those shells are probably cheaper than missiles and your ships aren't going to be sunk by enemy missiles anyway. In the end it's just a calculation of how to kill the enemy the cheapest.

I like the current LoR set up of the cruiser and battleship, as far as power goes. Missle Cruiser is more powerful but both bombard and the same rate. Its mostly huge imbalance of cost that concerns me. Irregardless of my figures, for gameplay it double rewards the player with greater powered unit and more of said unit.

Dont know if it is entirely a mythos about battleships. Definately most of it is true. Alot of it is "not putting all your eggs in one basket thing." It was supposed to be obseleted by the advent of aircraft carriers. But obviously they still make large capitol ships, just not quite so big.

The US is probably one of the few who could afford to field a battleship, and only barely. I think the high cost of maintanence is several fold. For one they need an enourmous crew, and they are so old alot of thier parts arent made anymore and need replacing. Im just naturally skeptical of military "experts". Twice, that I know of, they said the age of the dogfight is over. When clearly it wasnt and wont be for a while. They went so far as to make F-4's without guns, until they started getting shot down by technologically inferior MiG's.

Roland Johansen

Jul 24, 2009, 12:04 PM

I like the current LoR set up of the cruiser and battleship, as far as power goes. Missle Cruiser is more powerful but both bombard and the same rate. Its mostly huge imbalance of cost that concerns me. Irregardless of my figures, for gameplay it double rewards the player with greater powered unit and more of said unit.

Dont know if it is entirely a mythos about battleships. Definately most of it is true. Alot of it is "not putting all your eggs in one basket thing." It was supposed to be obseleted by the advent of aircraft carriers. But obviously they still make large capitol ships, just not quite so big.

The US is probably one of the few who could afford to field a battleship, and only barely. I think the high cost of maintanence is several fold. For one they need an enourmous crew, and they are so old alot of thier parts arent made anymore and need replacing. Im just naturally skeptical of military "experts". Twice, that I know of, they said the age of the dogfight is over. When clearly it wasnt and wont be for a while. They went so far as to make F-4's without guns, until they started getting shot down by technologically inferior MiG's.

(reality, not the game) I think it's actually a worse case for the navy: I think their whole era is over. Any capital ship can be sunk by powerful ship killing missiles which can be fired from airplanes and land based locations. Missiles exist that stay close to the water and can fly at supersonic speeds over large distances. And such missiles only cost a tiny tiny fraction of what the capital ship costs so you can afford to lose a few to any defensive measures that might exist or are developed.

Aircraft carriers can easily be replaced by airborne refuelling which is far more flexible and a lot faster if you want to suddenly strike a distant target.

The only reason that these ships still exist is because the most powerful nations elect to fight against nations that don't own such missiles or don't have the means to deliver such weapons. In that case, it is nice to have a moveable airbase close to the enemy.

I think that if the world was divided into two powerful nations separated by an ocean with the present technology, then both wouldn't be able to move their navy close the others lands because it would be annihilated. And because heavy material cannot be transported en masse through the air over an ocean, it would be hard to fight eachother with conventional weapons on eachothers lands. The whole war would consist of bombing and missiles and fighter airplanes until one or the other was weakened so badly that it became possible to transport military hardware over the ocean to the others lands. (all of this assumes a conventional conflict without nukes which is probably not even that realistic with that setup).

bestbrian

Jul 24, 2009, 04:48 PM

O/T:

The Battleship was rendered obsolete, because the Aircraft Carrier could do much more, and for a cheaper price (less steel, less crew, etc - more bang for your buck). The Iowa-class Battleships were taken out of mothballs in the '80s principally at the behest of the Marines who wanted the gunfire support for amphibious landings, and the advent of the Tomahawk cruise missile which made the Battleships decent weapon platforms for surface engagements with the Soviet navy. With automation increases, the crew was able to be cut, as well. With the end of the Cold War, the expense of the platforms was unjustifiable and they were retired for good. Oh, and in reference to the lack of parts mentioned earlier, this actually occurred. One of the great impediments to the idea of bringing the Battleships back on line was the lack of Barrel Liners for the 16" guns (which couldn't be manufactured anymore). Luckily, the Navy lucked into finding a warehouse full of the things.

phungus420

Jul 24, 2009, 06:05 PM

(reality, not the game) I think it's actually a worse case for the navy: I think their whole era is over. Any capital ship can be sunk by powerful ship killing missiles which can be fired from airplanes and land based locations. Missiles exist that stay close to the water and can fly at supersonic speeds over large distances. And such missiles only cost a tiny tiny fraction of what the capital ship costs so you can afford to lose a few to any defensive measures that might exist or are developed.

Aircraft carriers can easily be replaced by airborne refuelling which is far more flexible and a lot faster if you want to suddenly strike a distant target.

The only reason that these ships still exist is because the most powerful nations elect to fight against nations that don't own such missiles or don't have the means to deliver such weapons. In that case, it is nice to have a moveable airbase close to the enemy.

I think that if the world was divided into two powerful nations separated by an ocean with the present technology, then both wouldn't be able to move their navy close the others lands because it would be annihilated. And because heavy material cannot be transported en masse through the air over an ocean, it would be hard to fight eachother with conventional weapons on eachothers lands. The whole war would consist of bombing and missiles and fighter airplanes until one or the other was weakened so badly that it became possible to transport military hardware over the ocean to the others lands. (all of this assumes a conventional conflict without nukes which is probably not even that realistic with that setup).

It's worse then this, submarines would also destroy all surface vessels that were far enough out or protected from aircraft. A war between any of the major powers would lead to the destruction of pretty much all surface vessels within the first day of hostilities. Subs are the only thing that would stay at sea.

Of course the Navies of the major powers are designed and exist solely for proxy conflicts, as a world war between the major powers would also see the use of nukes and the anhilation of civilization as we know it, the loss of surface vessels would be the least of anyone's problems. And none of this is pertinent in game, because it's a game, and not a realism simulator.

Roland Johansen

Jul 24, 2009, 06:31 PM

And none of this is pertinent in game, because it's a game, and not a realism simulator.

Very true. But still, we try to think of it as a recreation of the period of 4000BC till now, so we want some level of realism. It's just where you want to draw the line. That's probably different for everyone.

xchen08

Jul 25, 2009, 07:03 PM

It's worse then this, submarines would also destroy all surface vessels that were far enough out or protected from aircraft. A war between any of the major powers would lead to the destruction of pretty much all surface vessels within the first day of hostilities. Subs are the only thing that would stay at sea.

Of course the Navies of the major powers are designed and exist solely for proxy conflicts, as a world war between the major powers would also see the use of nukes and the anhilation of civilization as we know it, the loss of surface vessels would be the least of anyone's problems. And none of this is pertinent in game, because it's a game, and not a realism simulator.

I'm thankful that game balance is being placed above other concerns.

However, I'd like to point out that all the claims about how surface navies are obsolete thanks to aerial refueling, submarines, missiles, etc, are massively overblown. There is currently nothing that can match a carrier in power projection. Aerial refueling is massively expensive in tankers (in fact the only nation with close to enough for extended operations is the U.S.) and the long distance flights are tremendously taxing on both maintainance and pilots as well as limiting sortie rates. Submarines are only a threat thanks to their stealth, which is lost at speeds greater than ~15 knots. At speeds greater than ~20 knots, submarines are blind as well as easily detected. Considering a carrier group in wartime would be expected to maintain 25+ knots in an unpredictable route, a sub would have a devil of a time engaging a surface force in the open sea, and we are only talking nuclear subs here. Conventional boats are basically mobile minefields, not true ocean combatants at all. And shore based missiles are tremendously limited by the need for targetting data. Finding a carrier group pretty much depends on having air superiority, or your scout planes don't live long enough to provide good targetting information.

A well handled carrier group is quite capable of facing a modern and well armed opponent assuming no nukes, as long as it uses high speed hit and run and avoids congested waters.

bigfatjonny

Jul 26, 2009, 03:37 AM

OnmyojiOmn

Jul 27, 2009, 04:16 PM

Anyone got any feedback on the new chariot changes?

Cost increased 30>45
-20% in cities
+50 Melee

Personally, I dont like it. I thought the old chariot filled the gap perfectly and the new one is too powerful and difficult to counter. It is 6 vs 8 against a spearman, so not massive odds to the spear.

I understand some of the thinking, increase the cost but give better stats to keep the chariot around for longer.

What are other peoples thoughts?
Chariots should just be about having a mobile attacker before the other guy. Maybe they could keep the penalty vs. cities but flank archers instead of catapults, or in addition to. Personally I'd like to use horsemen sooner, or like, at all. Same with knights. Make Horseback Riding less painful to get, and move knights to Feudalism.

stagnate

Jul 27, 2009, 08:01 PM

achilleszero

Jul 27, 2009, 08:51 PM

I don't follow the MC/Battleship discussion. It may be due to my play style, but here's the way I look at it:

The Battleship costs more than the MC, but will always beat the MC in a 1-1 battle and has all better stats (I think?). You can choose to build 2x MC for each Battleship that you would build, but that costs more production and is not as flexible (two units have to stay together, would attack Battleship at disadvantage so more chance of losing both battles than an even fight, etc).

I don't do much with sea so I could be really off, but my assessment was that building a combination of Battleships and Destroyers was the best approach.

In BtS they have the same stats. But they are only really even when the MC is on defense. Since when the MC is on offense it can first use its missiles, so it has a supreme advantage there.

In LoR the MC hands down beats the battleship, which it should. MC=40 str, Battleship=32 str (with major boosts against all pre MC ships). So the whole point of the discussion was whether or not having the missile cruiser also be cheaper was justifiable.

So in LoR and BtS, once you are able to build/upgrade them, MC's is always the better choice (also having superior movement). But in BtS MC's are more expensive, and in LoR they are way cheaper than the ship they obsolete.

Roland Johansen

Jul 28, 2009, 06:48 AM

In LoR the MC hands down beats the battleship, which it should. MC=40 str, Battleship=32 str (with major boosts against all pre MC ships).

I was wondering if you had realised that the 25% bonus of the battleship against capital ships also applied to the missile cruiser. The way you worded it in your previous post made me wonder. With the various bonuses that the battleship gets, the missile cruiser is mainly more powerful against submarines in direct combat.

Of course the missile cruiser still holds the advantage due to its missiles and greater speed although I never found the missiles to be that overpowering. You still need to build them. Ultimately, every unit is a way to convert hammers into enemy unit destruction and the missile is often not the most efficient way to convert hammers into enemy unit destruction. The construction cost between both ships is probably the biggest difference.

achilleszero

Jul 28, 2009, 11:29 AM

Roland Johansen

Jul 28, 2009, 12:01 PM

No I wasnt aware it was also a capital ship now. Im still stuck in a old version of LoR (probably WolfRev) where Missile Cruisers were classified as a Nuclear Age ship:crazyeye:. I need to catch up with the times.

That does weaken my argument alot, but not totally. Agreed that missiles arent overpowering, especially with ranged bombardement. Still the MC is a superior ship with better base strength, able to beat subs, missiles, better air interception, and cheaper. The huge hammer difference between them, almost the inverse of what it is in BtS, is still what I see as the problem.

I wasn't aware that it used to be a different class of ship. I understand that it is still a significant jump in power due to the lower cost and other factors. At least some of our difference in opinion is cleared up now.

While they have the highest aerial interception value of all of the ships, they're still not very good at it when facing contemporary units like strike fighters. This mod allows air units with extremely high evasion percentages with the right promotions and when units have interception percentages around 50, then an interception is rarely fatal. A fleet really needs carrier protection, it cannot rely on aerial interception by ships. The balance is in this mod just isn't created that way.

By the way, there's also a smaller negative hammer jump in the ship upgrade path.

achilleszero

Jul 28, 2009, 12:32 PM

phungus420

Jul 28, 2009, 12:34 PM

How are missiles nerfed in LoR?

achilleszero

Jul 28, 2009, 12:43 PM

How are missiles nerfed in LoR?

Not that they were nerfed directly, but ranged bombardment makes them not as good. You can almost achieve the same effect by blasting the crap out of a city with your 16 inch guns, and thats free. Granted Ranged bombard doesnt target the strongest guy or kill anyone, but still it takes a bite out of the missiles niche.

Roland Johansen

Jul 28, 2009, 01:41 PM

So armed with this "new" knowledge; ie: correct knowledge. I would say a better hammer balance would be: battleships between 260-280 hammers; missile cruisers around 240 hammers. Since more hammers are needed to give it the missile advantage, which even though missiles' power in LoR are nerfed, can down right kill things before the Cruiser ever has to engage personally.

Which other ship upgrade has a negative hammer cost?

Ship of the line to ironclad gunboat (110 :hammers: to 100 :hammers:). It's fairly minor compared to the negative jump of battleship to missile cruiser (280 :hammers: to 220 :hammers:), but the ironclad gunboat is effectively strength 18 vs strength 8 in combat with ships of the line. I don't really have a problem with this though as I can't see how in reality a ship of the line is going to destroy an ironclad gunboat and the ironclad gunboat can't move onto ocean tiles. Ships of the Line were just like battleships really costly.

In the comparison between missile cruisers and battleships, I'd rather see a missile cruiser that is actually stronger but doesn't differ very much in hammer cost from the battleship (slightly cheaper, 20 :hammers:).

In my view of the guided missile, it represents a barrage of cruise missiles. The missile cruiser in reality also has other missiles to destroy ships that cost almost nothing compared to the cost of the ship, similar as to how the shells from a battleship cost almost nothing compared to the battleship itself. So I think the missile cruiser should be a stronger unit in a direct confrontation than the battleship because in reality it can kill it without ever getting within range of the big guns.

Not that they were nerfed directly, but ranged bombardment makes them not as good. You can almost achieve the same effect by blasting the crap out of a city with your 16 inch guns, and thats free. Granted Ranged bombard doesnt target the strongest guy or kill anyone, but still it takes a bite out of the missiles niche.

At present, ranged bombardment is lethal (point 1 from my mega lengthy post 87 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8282063&postcount=87)). But Phungus said in his reply he was going to look at that.

achilleszero

Jul 28, 2009, 01:51 PM

At present, ranged bombardment is lethal (point 1 from my mega lengthy post 87 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8282063&postcount=87)). But Phungus said in his reply he was going to look at that.

Ok so ranged bombard is an even bigger threat to the role of the guided missile than I thought.

Roland Johansen

Jul 28, 2009, 01:54 PM

Ok so ranged bombard is an even bigger threat to the role of the guided missile than I thought.

Yes, although that depends a bit on what Phungus is going to change about it.

stagnate

Jul 30, 2009, 12:23 AM

NM I was getting confused with the Heavy Cruiser. Ignore me.

rkade8583

Jul 30, 2009, 12:59 PM

Gresharas

Jul 30, 2009, 03:43 PM

"Tweak to Serfdom, Farms +1 Hammer, -2 Health, Hight Upkeep, +100% Revolution Distance Penalty"

That doesn't sound like much of an upgrade, in my opinion. I VERY rarely build farms, personally, and the 100% penalty and high upkeep are damning...

Caste system/slavery for me :)

I've actually retrofitted Serfdom in my games, because the actual one [fod to military prodand -1 healt] doesn't add anything really useful - since civ is a city-spec game my military ones aren't food-rich - and the others aren't military-enhanced. Either for the "draft city" I can use slavery a bit longer and wait nationhood already.

The old +50% to worker, on the other hand, it is really useful if I have a large post-war empire that need to be rebuilt or re-cottaged or re-fitted for a new purpose. And it was unique because there is no other "cheap" way to speed up things. Never foud useful or hammer-proficient Hagia Sofia - just build more workers with those hammers!

But I Like the idea of an hammer or food enhancement for serfdom. Too many times it is totally skipped for a Slavery -> Emancipation or a Caste -> Emancipation game. [I never end the game out of emancipation if it last ong enought - I really hate those -onehundred :mad: for city :crazyeye:]

History-wise [which is far from game-wise, but I can't shut up on it :mischief:]: in Europe serfdom had his "pinnacle" from the XII and XVIII. Western europe used it a lot in the XII to XV century [think the french "corves"] and it is probably what it was intended by firaxis in the first place.

In the eastern europe [poland, russia] it lasted until XVIII [maybe more] and it was really brutal - in some places the farmers were supposed to work 5 day out of 7 in the "baron" land and had only one-two days for their own. It was one of the causes of the endless russian revolts that in the end led to the revolution[s] of early XX cent.

Possibly the last serfdom in history to pop out is the carribean one. Slaves became costy and, in a way, protected by consuetudes. Thus many poor from europe and indocina [collies, expecially for shugar production] get contracts to work in the plantations for some years in almost-slavery conditions... in exchange of a ridicolous ammount of money. IT was not slavery, it was not standard employment...

Until with industrialism slavery come back... for a brief time [think Dickens, then think Nazi].

Game-wise i think that serfdom could [one of the following]:

- stay the same [vanilla-like improving, the speed of stuff popping around]

- give an hammer to woodmill and farm [west-like, improving overall production]

- give extra food to farms and maybe vanilla bonus [east-like]

-give extra commerce to plantations [carribean-like]

Options 2-3-4 might have a very high cost of maintenance - in fact they were left above when the overall economy of the world improved: serfs didn't work well as emancipated workers, expecially in high-skill manifacturing.

rkade8583

Jul 30, 2009, 04:10 PM

achilleszero

Jul 30, 2009, 05:00 PM

What kills it for me is the fact that it has a bad drawback. It was unhealthiness which is easy to fix but now it's a revolution issue which isn't as easy... although that's more preference and playstyle I guess.

I'd like to see it be a positive without a negative (save the upkeep cost naturally.) I mean what's the downside to Caste System? Either make all of them have a drawback or none of them, you know?

Several civics in other categories have draw backs. Mercantilisma and State Property come to mind. Its not the drawback itself, its if the benefits outwiegh the drawback, that should be the concern. I never use serfdom, but some people do, and it fits some strategies well.

jakob51

Jul 30, 2009, 08:34 PM

This is more of a question than a suggestion, but are aircraft (mainly Light Bombers and then Jet Fighters and Strike Fighters) capable of sinking ships in LoR by directly attacking them like in Wolfshanze mod?

You mention that this mod was conceived out of a number of others including Wolfshanze which has this concept of 'lethality' whereby specific aircraft types are able to sink a ship. In terms of balance 1 aircraft should not be able to sink 1 ship, but say 3 or 4 should be required to sink a major asset such as a super carrier or missile cruiser/battleship (obviously if you attack an older ship like a caravel then 1 aircraft would be more than enough to sink it, but this would also reflect the increase in armour and protection offered to ships as naval technology advanced through the ages).

Just to give some perspective at the Battle of Midway in 1942 an entire squadron of SBD Dauntless dive bombers from USS Enterprise only scored 6 bomb hits on two of the Japanese flat-tops, causing them to be engulfed in flames and abandoned but this did not of itself cause the ships to sink then and there. Also in 1945 off of Okinawa an entire air wing of some 60 odd aircraft was required to sink the massive Japanese battleship the Yamato due to its ferocious anti-aircraft fire and very heavily armoured decks, and they did not do so without losing some 12 aircraft to the anti-air fire from it and its escorts so it wasn't a totally uneven contest.

So my point is that if 'lethality' is not active it could be made to work though by requiring the AI and player to have 'squadrons' of coastal defence aircraft based in forts all along the coastline in order to inflict some damage and losses upon an invading fleet, but at the same time not enough damage that the use of ships is not required for defense of your or the AI's coastline as well.

I played the Merged Mod a few months ago which incorporates the Wolfshanze mod and found that it was very well balanced with this particular asset; I had to have a lot of forts and attack planes to counter any naval incursions into my territory but still had to keep large naval forces handy as well to finish the weakened enemy fleets off, and thats what I like about the concept because it reflects the co-operation required between navy and airforce for coastal observation and defence.

phungus420

Jul 30, 2009, 08:41 PM

Only the UCAV can do lethal air strikes, and that is an end game unit.

jakob51

Jul 30, 2009, 10:07 PM

Cool, then the UCAV is definitely worth waiting for :)

Berenthor

Jul 31, 2009, 04:05 AM

Just as a heads-up: Ekmek just released a new version of Ataturk. He really looks cool and different from other leaderheads :).

achilleszero

Jul 31, 2009, 08:50 AM

Just as a heads-up: Ekmek just released a new version of Ataturk. He really looks cool and different from other leaderheads :).

Thats actually one of the LH's that phungus wanted me to fix, just saved me some trouble. :D
EDIT: wrong thread Berenthor:crazyeye:

bestbrian

Aug 02, 2009, 01:24 PM

Just a couple of off hand notice from my current game. When Radio comes in, I can't build Mounted Units anymore, but I can still build Stables? I know Stables obsolete with Rocketry, but they should probably go out with Radio as well. Also, and I haven't gotten to this point in my current game yet to play it out, but Whale's obsolete, but then there is a tech that gives a bonus to Whale boats? Is this intentional (to make up for the now useless resource, but the boats are still there), or an oversight?

Has anyone looked into the upgrade costs assosciated with Naval units? They seem to be quite high (like Outrageously high). Also, Explorers dissapear from the build list, and are replaced by Pathfinders, but they also dissapear. I miss them as I use them as late game 2-Move Stack Medics. Might I suggest not obsoleting the Pathfinder, or adding a late game Medic unit (call it a field hospital, or MASH unit), to fill this void.

Never gotten this deep into a game of LoR (or Wolf, for that matter) so it shall be interesting.

achilleszero

Aug 02, 2009, 02:04 PM

Also, Explorers dissapear from the build list, and are replaced by Pathfinders, but they also dissapear. I miss them as I use them as late game 2-Move Stack Medics. Might I suggest not obsoleting the Pathfinder, or adding a late game Medic unit (call it a field hospital, or MASH unit), to fill this void.

Are all your stack medics dying or something, and how many do you need? Pathfinders should upgrade to cavalry and still be a 2MP medic, not sure if medic is availabel to cavalry in LoR, but they definitely get it from upgrades.

bestbrian

Aug 02, 2009, 02:19 PM

Are all your stack medics dying or something, and how many do you need? Pathfinders should upgrade to cavalry and still be a 2MP medic, not sure if medic is availabel to cavalry in LoR, but they definitely get it from upgrades.

No; they don't die (very often). I just use lots of smaller stacks (about 18 to 20 units per), and some games I've had as many as 25+ such stacks; each stack gets a medic. Early in the game I use Spears/Pikes as Medics, later in the game (after Pikes obsolete) I switch to Explorers as they are available, two moves, and never defend. In BTS this isn't an issue, because Explorers don't obsolete. With LoR, Explorers and Pathfinders obsolete, leaving neither unit for use as a stack medic, which entails using a combat unit - not something I prefer to do. And, like I suggested, since everyone uses stack medic units, when not just have a unit that does nothing but? Say it comes in with Medicine, 1 strength, can't attack, starts with Medic I, and has the whole Medic line open to it. It won't upgrade through combat, but with settled GGs, West Point, et al, it should start right out as a decent medic unit.

Then again; scratch that - the AI would never be able to use it properly.

phungus420

Aug 02, 2009, 10:21 PM

I always considered the medic explorer in the late game as a cheese strategy, so I got rid of it. When Cav become available, there is no reason to build pathfinders.

Upgrades are reduced by 33% from BtS if the unitcombat doesn't change, but if the upgrade changes the unit combat type the cost is doubled, so with the base 33% discount from standard BtS, this means upgrading to a different unitcombat costs about 60% more then a stock BtS upgraded, it's intentional.

As for stables, not sure about that, I'll have to think on it, there really isn't a good way to deal with that.

bestbrian

Aug 03, 2009, 12:28 AM

Good enough, but why Cav? Why not have Pathfinders obsolete and upgrade with Special Forces? The promotion path seems more simpatico between the two.

achilleszero

Aug 03, 2009, 12:34 AM

Good enough, but why Cav? Why not have Pathfinders obsolete and upgrade with Special Forces? The promotion path seems more simpatico between the two.

Dont know the real reasons why phungus has it like this but:

1) there is a big time and technology gap between the 2 units.

2) Spec Ops is already really powerful

3) Who wants medic Spec Ops. They need to be out there killing stuff.:lol:

4) Making them upgrade to Cav, makes them not a dead unit for a long time. True they are used as medics alot. But medics are boring one trick ponies, albiet useful ponies. There are lots more fun things to do like cavalry charges. And with red cross you can have oodles of medic 1 guys.

5) I do agree with you on pathfinders upgrade seems a little off. Maybe letting them also upgrade to rifles or infantry???

bestbrian

Aug 03, 2009, 12:46 AM

Actually, I've thought the SF unit to be totally out of proportion to RL anyway. Maybe the current SF could be renamed as Ranger, and the Pathfinder upgrade to some lower strength new SF unit? Just seems weird that SF takes the place of the Para Division; an 18 man A team compared to 10,000 just doesn't stack. Frankly, the Paratroop shouldn't obsolete and the SF should be somethng different; some sort of low strength Spy/Pathfinder/Paratroop hybrid.

achilleszero

Aug 03, 2009, 12:54 AM

I actually think having paratroopers not obsolete, but still be able to upgrade to SF would be a good thing. Afterall we still have regular ole paratroopers today. And having them still be available through the end game but could also be upgradeable to SF would be fairly realistic.

THey do seem out of proportion to RL. But the SF is a whole lot weaker strength wise compared to a paratrooper. But they are a niche unit. They are supposed to take out defenses like the trench and arty. So they have to have the strength they do to take them out and not be totally useless otherwise.

Roland Johansen

Aug 03, 2009, 08:12 AM

If paratroopers were to be available in the late game, then the game would need a more modern version because otherwise they can't compete (in strength) anymore. I guess that the special forces in LOR represent multiple real life units like special forces and modern paratroopers working in unison to accomplish a goal. However, it's a bit hard to imagine a unit with such high striking strength remain undetectable by almost every enemy unit.

esemjay

Aug 03, 2009, 08:34 AM

Some countries use massive, massive amounts of what (by definition) consist of Special Forces. As in, damn near half of their military consists of guerrilla warfare (invisible) conducting paratroopers. To the point that it's really their MAIN threat, alongside artillery.

Roland Johansen

Aug 03, 2009, 08:37 AM

esemjay

Aug 03, 2009, 08:53 AM

Do they wear cloaking armour like in the movie Predator?

No, but they will wear matching uniforms to the country they invade. Or civilian clothes. I would imagine it is pretty hard to notice the difference between a North Korean SF unit wearing South Korean uniforms, and a South Korean unit wearing South Korean uniforms.

EDIT- Don't get me wrong, conventionally, unconventional forces are small units who stir up trouble behind the lines to weaken the front lines; but some countries just take that concept to a much larger scale. The only real gripe I have for the SF unit isn't the strength, it's the fact you can upgrade another unit INTO an SF unit. It takes 8 weeks to train an infantryman, and the majority of applicants make it through. It takes 2+ years to train a SOF soldier, and the majority of applicants are weeded out. That's the only reason that, proportionally, there are so few SOF in most militaries.

I'm just saying that there are, in fact, SOF units in existence who are intended to be able to fight on-par with a conventional force.

Roland Johansen

Aug 03, 2009, 09:25 AM

No, but they will wear matching uniforms to the country they invade. Or civilian clothes. I would imagine it is pretty hard to notice the difference between a North Korean SF unit wearing South Korean uniforms, and a South Korean unit wearing South Korean uniforms.

EDIT- Don't get me wrong, conventionally, unconventional forces are small units who stir up trouble behind the lines to weaken the front lines; but some countries just take that concept to a much larger scale. The only real gripe I have for the SF unit isn't the strength, it's the fact you can upgrade another unit INTO an SF unit. It takes 8 weeks to train an infantryman, and the majority of applicants make it through. It takes 2+ years to train a SOF soldier, and the majority of applicants are weeded out. That's the only reason that, proportionally, there are so few SOF in most militaries.

I'm just saying that there are, in fact, SOF units in existence who are intended to be able to fight on-par with a conventional force.

If the North Korean special forces have the same training and selection criteria as the small groups of special forces in western countries and still half of their larg military consists of these forces then their country must consist of super men. :eek:

;)

You're using 2 different definitions of special forces.

bestbrian

Aug 03, 2009, 09:43 AM

Finished the game I was playing (Cheese Diplo Win in 1812); didn't get far enough to check on the Aquaculture-Whale Boats thing.

I also noticed that Mot Inf (and damn that's a BIG model :lol:) upgraded to Tanks - is this intentional? It would seem the progression would go Rifles - Infantry - Motorized - Mechanized. Why Tanks?

Oh, and Achilles, I mentioned it before, but not sure if you saw it, great job on the art. The Barbary Corsair in particular is really cool. :goodjob:

esemjay

Aug 03, 2009, 05:34 PM

If the North Korean special forces have the same training and selection criteria as the small groups of special forces in western countries and still half of their larg military consists of these forces then their country must consist of super men. :eek:

;)

You're using 2 different definitions of special forces.

Maybe- but the military officially designates them as SOF as well. Even though they have a ridiculous proportion to conventional forces. My gripe about the upgrades is based on US training standards- that conventional training and unconventional training are simply too different to realistically represent an instant cross-train by using a little money.

stagnate

Aug 06, 2009, 11:44 PM

achilleszero

Aug 07, 2009, 12:56 AM

Well theres lots of reasons that enlightened is so good. Most of it is how much it dominates the early game. Your above examples are also assuming your running 100% science. Alot of the time you wont be so, financial is actually a little worse than your example shows.

Financial takes a good while to start going. It is quite a while before you can even start making cottages and even longer till they mature. Right off the bat Enlightened is giving you 10% more science. So at the beginning of the game, when there are no other science booster buildings involved, you will have studied 11 techs in the same amount of turns it would take you to study 10 with any non-elightened trait. It gets even worse when you start getting enough population to start assigning scientists. Scientists are a huge boost early in the game, even better in than cottages.

Later in the game the extra 10% starts to get dilluted when you have other buildings like libraries and Universities. When you have those two buildings in a city, an extra 10% tacked on to their 75%, cuts its effectivenes by like 40%. But the damage is already done. By that time you can be 5 techs ahead by playing at the exact pace of a non-enlightened AI.

Straight science boosting traits have always been a problem. With financial you have to commit to building tons of cottages, so your lacking in other fields. With enlightned you can do whatever you want and still be ahead. Its the ultimate hybrid economy trait. And thats just its main ability. The culture part totally rocks. And you get a couple of cheaper buildings. It may not be the best trait, but its pretty damn close.

Roland Johansen

Aug 07, 2009, 07:20 AM

I have a question about the enlightened trait. It was nerfed from 15% to 10%, but I am having some trouble seeing the balance issue. It might be due to my play style (generally that's what I find), but in comparison to financial:

On a plot with no gold, they are even.
On any plot with more than 1 gold financial wins (50% increase in a 2 gold plot to 10% in a theoretical 10 gold plot).
Each plot with only 1 gold is a .1 advantage for enlightened. However, the number of these in an 'average' city is not likely to result in more than a +1 beaker increase - offset by a single 2 gold tile.

Anything that generates pure beakers (specialists) will benefit from the trait, as will the base 8 gold from the palace (+.8 from the start of the game).

Is it a case where playing with a bunch of settled scientists breaks the game, or is there another component that I'm missing? Financial has the additional advantage of being flexible - culture, espionage, gold, or science...

First of all, the financial trait shouldn't be the minimum to compare all other traits to. In every poll on this forum about the most powerful trait, it was voted as such, mostly with overwhelming numbers. Of course, I'm in favour of trying to equalise the traits. But if a trait cannot compete with one of its additions with the only effect of the financial trait, then that doesn't make it underpowered.

There are 2 main reasons that the enlightened trait is a lot better than you make it seem. One is mentioned by achilleszero: it has far more bonuses than just the +10% science. Especially the production bonus for building various science buildings is very powerful. It means a lot of hammers that your science cities never have to spend on constructing these buildings and thus a faster development of your science cities.
The other is related to the sources of commerce. You make it seem that it's 99% based on 2+ commerce tiles which just isn't true. A small part is based on 1 commerce tiles, depending on playing style a small up to a huge part is based on specialists and a very significant part is produced by trade. All of this commerce and science is effected by the enlightened trait but not by the financial trait.

Achilleszero also has a good point that the enlightened trait will have its effect independent of the playing style of the player and this effect will kick in directly at the start of the game while financial requires that the player focusses on developing 2+ commerce tiles.

Well theres lots of reasons that enlightened is so good. Most of it is how much it dominates the early game. Your above examples are also assuming your running 100% science. Alot of the time you wont be so, financial is actually a little worse than your example shows.

:confused:

This is an argument to show that financial is stronger but in some weird logic step, you make it seem to be an argument to show that enlightened is stronger.

Financial applies to the base commerce output of tiles. A 1 commerce gain can be fully applied to science (if you so desire). It's not so that if the science slider were at a certain percentage that it would have to remain at that percentage when more commerce is produced. The slider can be shifted so that an equal amount of commerce is used for gold and the extra commerce is used for science.

Enlightened only applies to the science output so it depends how big share of your commerce you can use for science. If 50% goes to science, then the effect on total commerce output is just +5%.

achilleszero

Aug 07, 2009, 11:29 AM

:confused:

This is an argument to show that financial is stronger but in some weird logic step, you make it seem to be an argument to show that enlightened is stronger.

:lol:. That was part of an edit at 1 AM in the morning. Now that I read it it doesnt make much sense in a post where I was trying to show the superiority of enlightened. That should have been its own paragraph and had 4 more sentences folowing it. Just ingnore that part of my post.

OnmyojiOmn

Aug 07, 2009, 11:35 AM

Alsark

Aug 07, 2009, 11:45 AM

Of course this will all be moot when/if BULL is merged with RevDCM, since we'll be able to easily prevent the city governor from using spies.

O.o. There is going to be something to disable the adding on of specialists? Awesome :). I've always wanted that (and don't know why Firaxis didn't incorporate it).

OnmyojiOmn

Aug 07, 2009, 12:07 PM

O.o. There is going to be something to disable the adding on of specialists? Awesome :). I've always wanted that (and don't know why Firaxis didn't incorporate it).
That's my understanding. I'm not 100% sure, since the BUG team has been pretty quiet about features.

Alsark

Aug 07, 2009, 12:14 PM

That's my understanding. I'm not 100% sure, since the BUG team has been pretty quiet about features.

Oh, very nice! Well I'm hoping! I always hated when specialists get added and I don't realize until it's too late.

achilleszero

Aug 07, 2009, 12:50 PM

Hi,
I play random civs and I cringe when I get Iroquois because of longhouses. Culture on a barracks is great, and so is the priest, but the spy is horrible.

Well what about the people who want the spy specialist? Its not fair to remove that just because you hate spies and like priests. Spies have thier uses.

It shouldnt be about wether you like them or not, but more about whether two types of specialists is too powerful (no idea if it is or isnt). Less micromanagement is a good thing But Super spies is part of the mod and you need to have the option for more spies somewhere.

Roland Johansen

Aug 07, 2009, 01:01 PM

:lol:. That was part of an edit at 1 AM in the morning. Now that I read it it doesnt make much sense in a post where I was trying to show the superiority of enlightened. That should have been its own paragraph and had 4 more sentences folowing it. Just ingnore that part of my post.

Been there, done that. Some things are just far more logical at 1 AM.. ;)

OnmyojiOmn

Aug 07, 2009, 01:24 PM

Well what about the people who want the spy specialist? Its not fair to remove that just because you hate spies and like priests. Spies have thier uses.

It shouldnt be about wether you like them or not, but more about whether two types of specialists is too powerful (no idea if it is or isnt). Less micromanagement is a good thing But Super spies is part of the mod and you need to have the option for more spies somewhere.
My point is that the added micro required outweighs the benefit of the spy. Obviously the building is technically better in the mid/late game with the spy, but I think it makes the civ much less fun to play.

Alsark

Aug 07, 2009, 02:22 PM

My point is that the added micro required outweighs the benefit of the spy. Obviously the building is technically better in the mid/late game with the spy, but I think it makes the civ much less fun to play.

I agree with Achilles that it's nice to have the option for the spy, but I see where you're coming from, too. If it bothers you quite a bit, you can always do this:

Go into the LoR mod folder, then: Assets -> XML -> Buildings -> Civ4BuildingsInfos.xml. Do a search (ctrl + f) for longhouse. Under that entry find and remove:

<SpecialistCount>
<SpecialistType>SPECIALIST_SPY</SpecialistType>
<iSpecialistCount>1</iSpecialistCount>
</SpecialistCount>

This should, I believe, get rid of the added spy.

Gresharas

Aug 09, 2009, 04:18 AM

Hi,

I play random civs and I cringe when I get Iroquois because of longhouses. Culture on a barracks is great, and so is the priest, but the spy is horrible. It adds so much micromanagement to the early game that I can't stand the civ at all. I know fans of scientists probably think the same thing about priests, but I personally don't mind them because you see them early on with temples anyway.

I have played Iroquois and found the longhouse very intresting. It give you the option to play a few early great spyes, and since they are really effective BEFORE democracy is discovered, the sooner you have them the better. In fact, I would like a 2-spy longhouse qith no priest, but this will nerf the longhouse since it leave her flexibility.

A note about the Iro. UU: it is a nice one, but it have some problems: first it die pretty fast if you play with "minor civs". Second his spec forces upgrade is never useful - you can't simply produce 12 of them and then park somewere until laser is discovered... just for saving some "special" promotions.

It could be an idea to remove the upgrade and give him woodsman and guerrilla I, maybe at the expenses of morale?

Another thing that bugs me to no end - Scout can now attack. this mean that sometimes you keep your worker undefended because "there's nobody aroud" and suddenly a scout pop out of nowere and kill him. Now, protecting workers is a must, I usually do it, but there are times when you must choice between defenting that pasture-gold-iron-something and your worker.... but the AI alwais know what is defended and undefended [it cheats, amen].

phungus420

Aug 09, 2009, 04:45 AM

Alsark

Aug 09, 2009, 01:57 PM

I just noticed something...

"Abu Bakr" is in the list of Great Prophets, which is a little weird. Abu Bakr happened to be in my game, and I was momentarily confused when it said, "Abu Bakr (Great Prophet) has been born in a far away land!"

Also, just in my opinion, I'd give Abu Bakr more Muslim-sounding music (rather than just using Saladin's) since he was a very prominent figure in the Islam religion.

achilleszero

Aug 09, 2009, 03:46 PM

I just noticed something...

"Abu Bakr" is in the list of Great Prophets, which is a little weird. Abu Bakr happened to be in my game, and I was momentarily confused when it said, "Abu Bakr (Great Prophet) has been born in a far away land!"

Also El Cid is in the great general list. Thats the problem with having so many leaders. We cut into the list of great people. Like I know berenthor is adding Sargon, he too is a GreatGeneral. It would be nice to replace all the leaders in the GP lists.

bigfatjonny

Aug 10, 2009, 07:12 AM

Hi

I'm playing in the modern era now, and i've just hit corporations in LOR for the first time. I'm trying to figure out the differences between regular and LoR.

The bonus given per resources have changed, and are shown in the pedia. These seem good changes, im running cereals at the moment. The change from 0.75 bonus per resource to 1 seems balanced. I did a count of the resources avaliable on my standard pangea map and decided not to wait for Sids.

What about the minus gold per corperation? Is this new, or just the way it is represented? The -gold which is shown next to the bonus resource doesnt seem to add up with the extra maintainence, where is this deducted from?

Can anyone explain this or am I missing something?

achilleszero

Aug 10, 2009, 11:03 AM

Gresharas

Aug 10, 2009, 11:32 AM

Here is my thinking behind your issues. Please feel free to poke holes in the logic, because if it is flawed, I will change it. This is merely to convey the purpose behind them:

Re Mohawk Sentry:
This is designed to be a unique unit like the fast worker. It is not designed to gain you power in the conventional sense. Instead you have the ability to scope out anyone anytime, so long you are not in declared war. It is virutually a spy immune from getting caught, it's reason for not being able to upgrade is so that you may build it up until the end game and be able to keep survailance on rival SoDs at all times with impunity, an ability no other civilization has.
I am aware of the issues with start as minors. I see two solutions to this. The first would be to make it invisible as a covert unit, like special forces, but this brings along with it many issues. The issues are numerous and suffice it to say it would take significant SDK modding to get around, too much for me to consider viable. The second idea I think I will implement is to give the Sentry a +100% defense against Warriors. How does this sound?

Re Scout can attack:
This is just simply to make the early game more interesting, and to put the human at the same disadvantage as the AI has in defending against worker steals. Yep you need to defend your workers. And in old ancient times empires couldn't just send off massive work parties to build roads without military escorts either. Of course gameplay trumps realism, but in this context, the fact it forces humans to defend workers just like the AI has to seems like an improvement in balance.

I have played a bit more scouting around with the Mohawk Sentry. It usually ends with a few "must" and a few proper game issues.

1) Micromanagement is now enforced on it. On auto-scout it simply kill himself parking on a flatland near an enemy city/warrior/barbarian. The problem here is that the game pathfinding algorithm, amen to that.

2)Both him and my workers usually die when I gave them an order and then soon thereafter an 1-square-a-turn-enemy move nearby. Sometimes they stop working and give me the control back, sometimes they continue as nothing happened - and die horribly. Never understood why this happens only sometimes.

3) It is estremelly powerful and well thought, it is probably the only scout that I never built out of the starting one.

4) For the civpedia it upgrades to explorer or special force, but in the industrial era I can upgrade it to cavalry [800 gold, LoR_Light]. It is normal or something went wrong? [No, I dind't put any marmalade in the xml files :)]

---

In the end I think the Mohawk Sentry is quite good as it is now. My problems with it were from a willing design that you explained, and once one start to be used to it and look at it as a precise choice from the developers it works fine.

I have some other feedbacks that gave me some thought.

First: the rev sistem make oversea cities a pain unless you give them heavy garrisoning. This is usually not a true problem, but on some maps [arcipelago, terra-like or islands] it make almost impossible to keep them. Do mind, I'm not speaking of oceanic colonies [which I feel is normal] but extremelly nearby ones, like Crete or Sicily or Ireland. I feel the problem lies in the standard-bts colony system, which react in the same way. Of course I don't think it is a needed change, but if you have some info on "how" it works overall the sistem it might be usefull. Simply building stuff to keep them quiet sometimes works and sometimes increase the "colony" penality. Sometimes I have a colony penality to a 2-coast distance from my capital, sometimes none on a fartest continent. And nor Versailles or forbidden Palace help with that. It is possible to make those wonders to work as "capitals"? Thus making such tactical decisions... undestandable? :D

Second: I really like the new steamships and use them often. But I also feel that there are a bit too much of them, it feels... crowded. Usually one end building a lot of stuff that need istant upgrade to the next model. True, it is historically accurate, but gamewise it annoying. Maibe it could be viable to remove a couple of them? The problem begun with Ships of the Line [which one almost never use, along with the ironclad gunboat] and end right before the modern ships [destroyer, battleship]. In-between of them there are a lot of "patchwork fleets"...

Third: submarines. I don't know in multiplayer, but I almost never find them useful in single. Am I wrong or it is a common problem? Also, It's really nice to have scout planes on sea, or some kind of air superiority, but in the end modern fleets are built around battleships... instead of carriers. Most fleets are built only of battleships and destroyers. True, only a few years ago the americans whould have killed for a nice battleship in the arabian gulf for inland bombardment, but for more than 50 years the war at sea was fought... in the air. In civ this never happens. Carriers are a waste of time for the most part - just build destroyers and you're safe from those weak and pesky planes that pose no real treath to your ships. Of course the "very modern" sea wars are accurate once again. Miss'le the enemy to his doom and you're sound and safe.

Fourth and not an actual gameplay thought but a request: in some mods [TAM, for example] there is a desert-promotion that work like wood and hill ones. Usually there are not a lot of deserts in a random game, but in the world replicas there is a LOT of desert. It will be nice to have special troop promotions that works on it. This might be extended to the ice - there is not a lot of tundra and ice usually, but a ice-tundra promotion might be useful on Arboria games or cold settings, let alone man-made scenarios. It will be hard to implement such promotions? [I'm not actually able to do that alone. I can tamper with actual promotions but when it comes to new ones all crash in multiples "somewhere" and no matter how hard I try to fix it it only worsen.]

bigfatjonny

Aug 11, 2009, 03:39 AM

Second: I really like the new steamships and use them often. But I also feel that there are a bit too much of them, it feels... crowded. Usually one end building a lot of stuff that need istant upgrade to the next model. True, it is historically accurate, but gamewise it annoying. Maibe it could be viable to remove a couple of them? The problem begun with Ships of the Line [which one almost never use, along with the ironclad gunboat] and end right before the modern ships [destroyer, battleship]. In-between of them there are a lot of "patchwork fleets"...

Yes, I agree with this too. I liked having a couple of extra ships, but there does seem to be too many. At pre-industrailism (I think) there are up to 6 different ships that you can build. This feels a little cluttered.

phungus420

Aug 11, 2009, 03:49 AM

OK, I hear your concerns, and sort of agree. Keep in mind though I already dropped one steamship, and got quite a bit of resistance and and complaints from upset users. So I'm not sure I really want to drop another steamship, that said, for balance and gameplay I can easily see cutting out the Protected Cruiser. I'll start a thread for voting on it.

bigfatjonny

Aug 11, 2009, 08:26 AM

I cant recall if coporations have been changed, but I do know that corporations have always scaled with map size in BtS. You'll get a lower bonus per resource on larger map sizes. Could this be what your seeing?

And by minus gold per corporation, do you mean the initial gold it costs when you found a corporation in a new city? Thats always been there too (subtracted from treasury).

Nope not the initail cost of setting up.
In LoR, once you have set up a corporation and you hover over icon in the city screen (under the religions icons), it shows +9:food: -7:gold:
I dont remember this happening in unmodded BTS. This -7 :gold: doesn't seem to relate to the amount of corporation maintainence payments either.
Is it a new 'tax' to stop corporations being so useful? Or what does it mean?

phungus420

Aug 11, 2009, 02:49 PM

That's standard BtS behavior. The only thing that has changed with corps in LoR, is that some corporations, like Cereal Mills have been buffed to make them competitive, but these tweaks are slight.

JeffSteel

Aug 11, 2009, 02:50 PM

I noticed maintenance oddities with corporations as well. It seems like in LoR all corporate maintenance is concentrated in the HQ city, instead of being spread out to each city containing the corporation as I remember it being done in vanilla BTS. Makes corporations REALLY expensive, and negates any strategy to actually mitigate their costs or profit from them financially. I won the game before I could spread it to my neighbors, and I had vassalized them all and forced them to give me huge amounts of resources (+70 hammers for thirty or so metals resources) so that may have been a factor, but still.

phungus420

Aug 11, 2009, 02:54 PM

There is no change in corporations, just minor tweaks to output. What you two are noticing is normal BtS behavior. Corp maintenance can be extreme if you have a lot of resources and is increased by anything that effects normal city payments, ie distance and civic maintenance costs. But no, LoR is not making corps any more expensive or less viable, the only difference between BtS and LoR corps is that some corps like Creal Mills and Aluminum Co have been slightly buffed.

JeffSteel

Aug 11, 2009, 03:21 PM

Ok your right, the huge numbers which weren't matching just threw me for a loop, but after more in depth investigation it turns out everything is fine. Apparently the maintenance costs displayed in the corporation screen take into account maintenance modifiers like courthouses.

Shadowhal

Aug 11, 2009, 06:06 PM

not sure, if this the right place to post it, since it's not exactly a balance issue, but I'd appreciate some more ex-ante documentation of the revolution effects for various civics. sure, after a while you know what civics affect you how much and you should be able to figure the basic effects out by pure logic, but a little reminder in the effect description tab certainly would not hurt and likely help newcomers.

like, at the most basic, put a note in the slavery civic : slightly decreases empire stability. or for democracy: moderately improves empire stability.

it would be best, if it contained the actual numbers, so you know exactly what you are dealing with, but I'm not sure whether they are constant or dependent on difficulty, map and empire size and other factors. therefore, a simplification as above would also do.

I figure it's probably something for the revolution proper forum, so if you think it's a good idea, I could drop a post there too.

phungus420

Aug 11, 2009, 06:15 PM

Shadowhal

Aug 11, 2009, 06:36 PM

That's all done in 0.9.6 :) I have exposed the civic revolutions values, and they only display if revolutions are active, so the information wol't show up and confuse people that don't play with revolutions on. Currently 0.9.6 is listed as a test build, but it will be the official release sometime tommarow, just making sure no major bugs shake out of it in the test release phase before making it the official version.

Also the next version of RevDCM will expose the stability effects, which will be a major improvement. Currently only city or local rev effects are shown to the player. But that's not in 0.9.6 yet, as I have to wait until RevDCM is updated to merge that in, but jdog has announced that stability (ie empire wide revolution effects) are exposed to the player in the upcoming build.

awesome! so my wishes are already considered. :)

are these versions compatible? ie can I continue my old game (dled just yesterday)?

phungus420

Aug 11, 2009, 08:37 PM

No, unfortunately 0.9.6 is not 0.9.3 (and by extension 0.9.4) save game compatible. Too many changes makes it so the engine cannot load saves from prior versions. Plus there are a couple art issues (missing buttons and what not) in 0.9.6, which is why it's under the test version instead of the main download link. However these are fixed, and 0.9.6 will be most likely updated to the main version tommarow sometime. So if I were you I'd just finish your current game, and update to the next version when you finish.

Shadowhal

Aug 12, 2009, 03:48 AM

it's not such a big deal. as I said, I only found the mod recently and mostly checked on the civiliopedia to understand the new stuff and play around with map scripts to find one I liked. I only sank about an hour or two into my current game, so it's not much of a loss (and I even drew a valuable conclusion from it: slavery is in fact viable here. in earlier versions of revolution it totally messed with rev. stats and was a sure ticket to civil war.)

bigfatjonny

Aug 12, 2009, 04:34 AM

There is no change in corporations, just minor tweaks to output. What you two are noticing is normal BtS behavior.

Thanks for your reply, that makes sense to me. I think it is just a while since I played BTS, and a while since I got to Corporations.

I like the tweaks you made to the corporation resources, it made sushi and cereal mills about equal in my game, therefore both a viable proposition.

Shadowhal

Aug 12, 2009, 09:42 AM

something entirely different: is there any way to counter riflemen other than your own riflemen? in vanilla bts, grenadiers had a bonus, which made them quite viable, but they now have a melee and city attack bonus. and mounted units, let alone artillery is not really an option.

my guess is, you want to sort of simulate than in that era battles were in significant parts large armies of riflmen vs one another, but since I don't think I saw this discussed here, I figured I'd just as well ask. all comes down to numbers, tile defence and promitions then, eh?

bestbrian

Aug 12, 2009, 10:48 AM

Shadowhal

Aug 13, 2009, 10:32 AM

That's all done in 0.9.6 :) I have exposed the civic revolutions values, and they only display if revolutions are active, so the information wol't show up and confuse people that don't play with revolutions on. Currently 0.9.6 is listed as a test build, but it will be the official release sometime tommarow, just making sure no major bugs shake out of it in the test release phase before making it the official version.

Also the next version of RevDCM will expose the stability effects, which will be a major improvement. Currently only city or local rev effects are shown to the player. But that's not in 0.9.6 yet, as I have to wait until RevDCM is updated to merge that in, but jdog has announced that stability (ie empire wide revolution effects) are exposed to the player in the upcoming build.

does that include technolgy notes? I think it was mentioned somewhere that some techs (astronomy? railroad?) reduce distance stability effects and maybe other effects. that could be included in the tech description.

otherwise, I really like the additions for civics and leader traits. very detailed and informative (almost too much, omg all that information!). good job :)

OnmyojiOmn

Sep 28, 2009, 06:15 PM

Hi,

In LoR battering rams have an iPower rating of 3, which is the same as axemen, swordsmen, and capped rams and higher than archers and spearmen. The AI will build a stupidly large number of rams and park them all over the place. This can make it very hard to keep your power rating up without building your own huge stack of useless rams. I play with custom game speed settings that have most things at marathon or slower but unit costs the same as normal speed, which exacerbates the problem to the point of unplayability.

Was setting iPower so high the only way you could get the AI to build enough siege? In vanilla axemen have a higher iPower than catapults, and that's apparently not a problem.

phungus420

Sep 28, 2009, 06:22 PM

Thanks for pointing that out. I will reduce the iPower rating for rams in the next release :)

OnmyojiOmn

Oct 02, 2009, 01:54 PM

- I tend to play the early game over and over so I can't comment on anything past 1600 AD or so, but barbs seem underpowered. I've never seen anything but warriors and (very rarely) archers spawn before the whole map is fog busted, and I've never seen a single barbarian naval unit. Barb cities are never defended with anything stronger than archers, even if I let the AI squash them. This is with raging barbarians disabled, but I don't think you should have to enable that to get any kind of challenge at all.

Maybe you could pick a date, based on map size and/or number of civs, at which a good player is expected to have revealed most of the map, and boost barbs past that point. Make cities pop up much more frequently and give them better/free units, including naval units. If nothing else, piracy should be as much of a factor as land-based barb activity.

- It seems strange that the work boat is one of the best units in the game for exploration. Depending on the map, intrepid fishermen can circumnavigate and make contact with most civs very early in the game, especially considering there are no barb galleys. I don't see any reason why fishing boats should have two moves. If you went as far as not allowing them to leave your borders, galleys would be much more useful.

- One unit I'd like to see in the game is the pavise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavise) crossbowman, if you can find art for them. They could be crossbows with a bonus against archers and increased cost. Make them a UU for the Byzantines, or HRE if that civ gets put back in.

bestbrian

Oct 02, 2009, 03:35 PM

The Pavise was a common accoutrement of Archer units in the Middle Ages (particularly Italian Mercenary Crossbowmen), and not a unique unit in it's own right. And having the Workboat as an efficient explorer for coastal areas is something I don't have a problem with, as historically it has not been uncommon for fishermen to constantly look far afield for new and fecund fishing grounds.

OnmyojiOmn

Oct 02, 2009, 03:57 PM

The Pavise was a common accoutrement of Archer units in the Middle Ages (particularly Italian Mercenary Crossbowmen), and not a unique unit in it's own right.
I was thinking Sicily, but HRE and the Byzantines seem most associated with that part of Europe. As for it being a UU, you could make the same argument about scythed chariots. Personally, I'd just like to see more units with shields in the game because the emblems look great, which is the same reason I'd like spearmen to be more useful. Maybe this could be done with artstyles for certain civs.

Ambassador

Oct 16, 2009, 01:26 AM

Hi,

I don't know how many others have tried to play LoR on Emperor (sure, I'd want to know about it). I apologize if what I present in the following was already discussed extensivly. Everytime I tried I got beaten by about 500 - 1 BC by a major AI force, my capital was taken, the game was over. Now, the critical thing for me was to survive the dual challenge in the initial time: to build cities/improve tiles/build 1 or 2 crucial wonders AND to have a large enough force to defend myself or scare off bloodthirsty AI civs.
Now what I did was to take advantage of the starting as minor civ component, which saved my recent emperor games. In the beginning I try to research bronze or iron working as soon as possible (or at least have a protective leader). Then, after the second city is built I mainly use the melee units to conquer the rest amount of cities I which to acquire instead of building them. That way, I gain experience points, frighten off some neighbour civs, maybe even gain a warlord to settle him at my major military garrison city.
All the while the other AIs keep battling each other which saves me time. I also noticed that though they may be more powerful now, the tech progression overall is slower than on my monarch games. For example, astronomy was developed but in the late 1600s.

Now, what are your experiences in emperor or with minor civ component?

phungus420

Oct 16, 2009, 01:41 AM

I have beaten LoR on Emperor a couple of times without reloading. It's hard, and I don't think I'll be able to do it with the next release (the BetterAI update coming up is pretty big, and noticeable). Both times I won the game without reloading, or lucking out with an isolated start; the way I did it was going imediatly for bronze working, then getting archery for imediate protection (the Barbarian Civs will come gunning for you fast, you need archery, plus the AI with start as minors will throw a couple archer + ram stacks at you quickly as well) and then polytheism, lucking out and having Bronze close enough where I could settle my next city easily and get it, and then investing all I had into 300 Spartans. The 300 Spartans unit is incredibly useful in the early game where you are fighting off early invasion stacks of the Emperor AI, and Barbarian Civs (as well as barbs). After doing that I went into wonder whore mode with a focus on settling the Super Specialists and running Representation as quick as I can. You are seriously behind in this strategy for quite a while, and your empire will be small, but if you play diplo correctly you can manage and by the Industrial Era your massive Super Specialist + Beuracracy + Representation capital is churning out massive science at which point you usually shoot ahead of the AI. The first time I pulled this off it surprised me as I didn't think wonderwhoring would work at high levels, but I saw this strategy in the forums here for a diety level game and it worked, so I had to try it with Revolutions, Barbarian Civs, and Start as Minors. Also I think this strategy requires you to be industrius.

I haven't had the chance to play much to try other strats. Currently I'm in a Monarch game using the latest LoRtest build where I have just entered the Middle ages and I'm still behind; only wonder I have is the mids and didn't get 300 spartans; and also I'm one of the bigger empires, but my economy is in shambles and I'm worried about a major revolt in the southern part of my empire. Anyway I think I can start pulling away with this one in the Rennaisaince provided I don't have a major revolution on my hands that balkanizes my empire, but this is at Monarch difficulty, I haven't won on Emperor without reloading using a non wonder whore strategy.

Ambassador

Oct 16, 2009, 02:10 AM

Hi phungus,

thanks for your impressions. So you were actually on a deity diet:

a diety level game

:P

So I also have to try the wonderwhoring strategy some time. Up till now I didnt pay too much attention on getting those early legends, too much investment for too small a chance of getting them. The later ones, such as the 54th was always mine, with a decent Heroic Epic housing production city.
Interestingly, I never have any difficulties with revolutions. Mainly by going to war every time some unrest is building up. Military victories ('luck') without expanding too much or with gifting these cities to minor civs always keeps my citizens diverged enough from thinking about revolt or independence.
The major issue, which Im still working on is, how to you counter this one major tech AND military AI civ which emerges in the middle to later game? There's always one way ahead of everybody else, not warmongering too much but also too big and influential that other civs would want to fight against it. The critical thing is, it always takes away every goody given for researching a tech as the first one (free tech, etc.). In the end its ahead of you by 2 -3 techs always with no chance of catching up.

bestbrian

Oct 16, 2009, 03:24 PM

I've been kicking the you-know-what out of Emperor in my last few LoR games, but the starts have been well-suited to my play. Most recent is an Arboria map with Sitting Bull, where I seem to be planted in the middle of the continent and surrounded by warmongers. If this one goes down as well as the others, it'll be time to try Immortal; I just need to find time to actually play it.

phungus420

Oct 16, 2009, 07:14 PM

bestbrian

Oct 16, 2009, 08:07 PM

bestbrian what options are you playing on? I find Emperor extrememely difficult with Barbarian Civ + Barbarian World, and Start as Minors on. It's so hard to survive the early rushes. What do you do when you don't start near copper for example?

I've been very lucky my last two LoR Emperor games, in that the starts suited my preferred style of play, and were highly advantageous. These were on PerfectWorld maps, Marathon/Large, Raging Barbs, Start as Minors, btw. Both games I began with peninsular coastal starts (the first as Hannibal, the second as Pericles). Both had nearby sites with high immediate commerce potential (gems and gold). Neither had Copper within the first 6 city sites in the Pericles game (I don't recall the Hannibal game), but Iron was handy, and Stone was to be had in both (the first immediately as I moved to settle on a Stone Hill, the second was in the cross of my second or third city).

The Peninsular starts led to a smaller front to defend from Barbs, while the bonus commerce led to faster teching (faster with lots of seafood resources and Hannibal's FIN and Mining as a starting tech). In each case I eventually got the Great Wall up, which put an end to the Barb problem. Minor Civs, OTH, still proved to be a pain. The problem comes in balancing expansion / teching / military. LoR requires more emphasis on early game military than I'm used to, which slows city improvements. It also alters the tech progression a bit, as in both games I Oracle'd Machinery in the BCs, just to have a major military advantage to maintain expansion. Btw, Legio X is the most awesome of the Legends units for this. In a small empire, that 3 moves plus Moblity and Blitz, lets it cover alot of ground, and counter just about anything that strays over the borders. Aside from that, I played a pretty standard Emperor game (maximize commerce bonuses, get Libraries up ASAP, use Science Specialists / Research to maintain positive tech advancement, try to have about 6 to 9 cities by 0 AD, etc).

The AI seems to be hampered by these settings more than the human; they spend alot of time flailing at each other. I've had it happen a few times that I found myself blocked off by the AI, spent some time rebuilding my economy, and then just expanded again when the AI's blocking city got razed by someone or other. It often seems like good policy to keep a Settler just sitting around to take advantage of such things.

The game I'm planning on playing next will be very different as it involves an Arboria map, where I'm pretty much dead center of the continent and surrounded by pinhead warmongers. I don't recall there being any commerce bonuses, and I don't know about Metal/Horses. The start doesn't seem to be very advantageous, will probably require an early rush, will have slow teching, and will be diplomatically trying; I think this game will provide a more accurate gauge of Emperor level LoR.

achilleszero

Oct 16, 2009, 09:46 PM

bestbrian

Oct 17, 2009, 05:58 AM

Bestbrian, so with this game that you played as Pericles, was this while he was still Ind/Philo? If so how did that combo seem to work out?

So far no one has given any good feed back on if Ind/Philo is overpowered or not. If all combos are filled back up again he will most likely get the traits back (currently in 0.97test he is his old Enl/Philo). Unless Solomon gets added, then maybe he will get it. But ohter than that, I dont know who else to give that to.

It didn't seem to be all that overpowered. The situation was optimized for it's exploitation, as once my core 6 cities were up, I had Stone/Marble, and no close neighbors to where I could spam out wonders, which led to more GPs, but it didn't seem unbalanced. Surrounded by enemies, on more marginal land, and having to fight my way out of a bag, IND/PHI wouldn't have been exploitable at all. As it was, the start was so solid, and I was so far ahead, I could've been Toku and it wouldn't have mattered.

Btw, the two strongest AIs in that game were Ataturk (the only neighbor on my continent and the first to die once I got Sushi and Mining Inc to allow me to utilize all the crap land on our continent), and Abu Bakr on the other continent. Guess Enlightened is a good passive trait for the AI.

bestbrian

Oct 17, 2009, 03:43 PM

achilleszero

Oct 19, 2009, 09:54 PM

Oh, and let me emphasize, since I didn't in my previous post as I was running out the door to work, I LIKE PHI/IND. It should be in the mix, and Pericles seems like a nice match for it. Like any trait, UU, or UB it's all going to come down to the individual game circumstances, and the ability of the player; no trait combinations should be discarded because of some false notion of being "overpowered". Yes, the AI can't make proper use of it, but the AI sucks with all PHI leaders, and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

It still remains to be seen whether or not it is a false notion of being "overpowered". Im sure Firaxis tested it at some point or another after which they made thier desicion not to include it.

What concerns me is not that the AI sucks at using PHI leaders, but whether or not it is too powerful in the hands of the human. Yes there are times when you will not grab any wonders. But just because there are times that something will not benefit you does not mean it isnot overpowered. If there is any point at which it can be exploited and/or give you too much of an advantage, then it can be considered overpowered.

My apparent false notion of it being too strong stems from back when I stuck it in my game way back when I 1st got BtS. It didnt even seem to be fair. I had rediculous leads, and this was when I had just moved up to monarch so should have been struggling. But that was only 2 games. Now I have your take onl it, and you seem to be a high level player. So a few more opinions on it would be nice.

OnmyojiOmn

Oct 20, 2009, 12:58 AM

Maybe you could compare Phi/Ind to something like vanilla Praets. You may not always have iron right away, but I think a human player is going to get ahold of iron about as reliably as they'll get the Pyramids. A human can use/exploit Praets better than the AI can, and doing so will often decide the game. The same goes for GLH on ocean maps, vanilla Immortals, etc.

If Phi/Ind is as powerful as those, and those aspects of the game are nerfed, then shouldn't Phi/Ind be too? Just thinking out loud. Personally, I find something like a wonder economy with Ramesses more interesting. Maybe you could add more opportunities like that, maybe a Phi leader for Iroquois or a lighthouse UB with two merchants.

bestbrian

Oct 20, 2009, 11:19 AM

achilleszero

Oct 20, 2009, 11:38 AM

IMHO, it just seems very arbitrary to say that it's overpowered and shouldn't be allowed in the game (and my criticism on this point is directed at Firaxis, not AZ). Is it a potent combination? Oh yeah. Is it so potent that an end user in a single player game shouldn't have the option available to utilize it for their enjoyment? That's where I would beg to differ with Firaxis' ommission.

Btw, just started playing my Sitting Bull game; nice art. I really love the Brave - nice unit, looks great, and it's saving my can right now. Probably the only time I've ever done a Horseback Riding beeline. :lol:

If one or two more players chime in with thier experience on Ind/Phi and give same opinion as you, then its most likely going in. Probably for either Pericles, or Solomon (if Israel gets added). If I find 3 more Firaxis level LHs to fill out all the slots, then its getting added regardless. At this point I would rather add it to Solomon since I just cant see Israel having a super powerful UU or UB. Pericles seems to fit Ind/Phi better tahn anyone, but Greece already has Alexander and the Hoplite.

usmle

Oct 24, 2009, 08:13 PM

I find that the Start as minors, BarbarianCiv, Revolution, & Barbarian World options, while a lot of fun to play, have the effect of making the game most difficult in the beginning, with the difficulty decreasing throughout the game. Basically if you make it through the beginning you'll probably win (at least so far in my experience). I've been playing Small or Normal sized PerfectWorld2 maps on Epic speed, usually Allow Pangeas.

I tried going up a difficulty level to Emp, and it made the beginning tougher, but once I got past the early chaos it was surprisingly smooth sailing. I suspect that putting the AI into war mode at the very beginning of the game in the long run slows it down, and maybe gunshy about declaring war later??

For my next game, I'm going to play at gimped Immortal by giving myself archery and two archers to start. This way, the early game should be survivable and hopefully will remain challenging all the way through. I'm also thinking about reving up the tech diffusion settings.

bestbrian

Oct 24, 2009, 11:49 PM

I don't consider that much of a cheat. If I play Start As Minors I give myself whatever advantage the AI has been given at the beginning; I consider the extra units and techs at the beginning to be an unfair advantage given such an environment.

phungus420

Oct 25, 2009, 09:30 PM

Thanks for the feedback, agree entirely. While waiting for achilleszero to upload a fixed royal galleon (need it as the current one causes a crash) I decided to tackle this issue. From now oon if Start as Minors is selected the AI will not recieve the free techs it normally gets at gamestart. This should solve this issue. My one concern is that the AI needs a defensive archer to stop a human cheese rush, but I'm not sure how to implement this.

bestbrian

Oct 26, 2009, 04:19 PM

phungus420

Oct 26, 2009, 04:31 PM

Just start the Human on the same playing field as the AI. If the AI gets 2 Scouts, 2 Archers, and a Settler (plus Archery), so does the Human.
No, the AI needs help against cheese rush tactics. Anyway the code is set now, and will be in 0.9.7b (will be releasing shortly, compiling install scripts now, then have to upload them, and all that jazz). Basically the way it works is that when Start is minors is on the AI gets no free techs, regardless of difficulty level (otherwise it functions normally, also the Handicaps have been set to their standard BtS settings now), If the difficulty level of the game is monarch+ the AI gets a free archer, all other players (humans and AI players if the game is Prince and below) get a free warrior.

phungus420

Oct 28, 2009, 06:36 AM

From bug reporting:
Phungus, has anyone in the RevDCM forums ever exspressed any interest in making the Rev effects scale with game difficulty?
I asked for this functionality, but it kind of got lost in the 2.6 development cycle and isn't on the RevDCM todo list. Probably be best if someone else asked jdog and glider for this functionality; I've asked for quite a few things lately, and have been getting them implemented; I feel like I may be being too demanding. They do have other aspects of the mod they may want to focus on outside of what I think is important (though if other users express interest to them for this, that could bring attention to it again, which might get it on the todo list).

V3N0M

Jan 06, 2010, 03:26 PM

I suggested earlier in the wrong thread that strategic bombers could be separate from regular jet bombers. The bomber would upgrade like so:

Bomber----> Jet Bomber ----> Stealth Bomber
|
|
\-------> Strategic bomber

Strategic bombers would be more expensive but stronger than the jet and stealth bombers. Maybe they could have the ability to extend the range of cruise missiles and tactical nukes as well. You guys know the balance of the mod better than i do.

Edit: The Flying Tigers would make a good legendary air unit

OnmyojiOmn

Jan 12, 2010, 05:26 PM

What determines how far into the game a barbarian city will turn into a minor civ when the BarbarianCiv option is enabled? Does it take game speed into account? Is it configurable?

OnmyojiOmn

Jan 13, 2010, 03:32 PM

What determines how far into the game a barbarian city will turn into a minor civ when the BarbarianCiv option is enabled? Does it take game speed into account? Is it configurable?

Apparently there are options in Revolutions.ini and/or Revolutions.xml. The options are explained in the INI file, but only the XML file is included in LoR. Is there somewhere I can get the other file? I'd like to be able to play with this option, but right now it's infuriating.

phungus420

Jan 13, 2010, 03:39 PM

jdog just reported the revolution.ini file isn't loading right, which is odd, don't know why that would be. Anyway, just change the value in the Revolution.xml file in the config folder. Also the Revolution.ini file should be in the UserSettings folder. Changing the values in it should work, but like I said jdog just reported he could only get his changes to work by tweaking the values in Assets/Config/Revolution.xml

caliban02

Jan 14, 2010, 10:48 AM

Just wanted to note that the SAS legend unit (with starts with tactics, 30% withdraw, and 40% innate withdraw) goes up to 100% withdraw chance with 2 ranks of flanking. This leads to a "Survival Guaranteed" message in the combat odds calculator, which I find to be amusing. :)

esemjay

Jan 14, 2010, 09:26 PM

The SAS is an excellent unit to have for just that reason- but the AI doesn't know how to counter SOF units. I'm waiting for the multiplayer compatible version so that I can wage war against people who can properly use the units in the game- because UAV's would be the bane of the SAS existence. Reason being is that you can post the SAS somewhere, and harvest experience- even if the SAS only have 1hp left.

Roland Johansen

Jan 15, 2010, 02:56 PM

I thought civ 4 had maximum retreat odds of 90% even if the game would show more than 90% survival odds.

Afforess

Jan 15, 2010, 06:00 PM

I thought civ 4 had maximum retreat odds of 90% even if the game would show more than 90% survival odds.

It does, with promotions anyway. If you earn a promotion that throws you above the global define value (of 90% unless Phungus changed it), it disables the entire promotion. Could lead to one surprised player. :eek:

phungus420

Jan 15, 2010, 06:12 PM

Actually the game just wol't let you get any promotions if the unit would otherwise have access to a promotion that caused the unit to go over a set GlobalDefines value for withdrawl, intercept, evade, etc. Kind of a major bug that; you'd think the devs would have just killed the button for that specific problem promotion, rather then stopping the unit from getting any more promotions. Actually they might have with 3.19, that was definatly the behavior of 3.17 though. Anyway I've obviously adjusted the global defines values a long time ago, was one of the firs things I did.

Roland Johansen

Jan 16, 2010, 09:10 AM

Hmm, I found a maximum to the retreat odds to be a good idea of the original game. Of course, the bugs related to it aren't such a great idea.:sad:

It can of course also be fixed by picking the values of promotions in such a way that you can't go over say 90%.

Does the bug still occur if you go over 100%? It would be meaningless but maybe some part of the code doesn't realise that it's meaningless.

phungus420

Jan 16, 2010, 10:27 AM

It is intentional the Corsairs and SAS can achieve 100% retreat odds.

Roland Johansen

Jan 17, 2010, 10:35 AM

It is intentional the Corsairs and SAS can achieve 100% retreat odds.

For unique units, 100% retreat odds aren't really an issue. However, I don't really like that kind of special ability for units. Just like the 3 moves for an ancient age unique unit, it just doesn't feel right. Powerful is ok, but there must be some relation to normal units. So I would have preferred more mundane special abilities for the unique units for a realism based game like civ4. I don't like cool and flashy abilities in this game.

But that's just my opinion.

esemjay

Jan 20, 2010, 06:37 AM

I just played a game where I had my SAS parachute in right after I built them (I settle a LOT of generals in my military city) and they had 100% retreat odds, along with several other buffs- the next turn, they died, because there was a spy in the city I was attacking. They really aren't overpowered; they're a powerful unit that can be rendered useless if the enemy has a spy or a UAV.

Roland Johansen

Jan 20, 2010, 11:34 AM

I don't think they're overpowered. I just don't like the fact that their bonuses place them in some area far beyond what should be capable by a unit of their type. This includes the unique roman unit which can move faster than any land unit in the game while they're an ancient era unit or a unique unit that has no chance to die when it attacks because of 100% retreat odds. It's just a little to weird.

But as said, that's just my opinion and the units are surely not game breaking or something like that. It's an opinion, not a balance issue.

esemjay

Jan 20, 2010, 04:48 PM

Well it is a unique modern era unit-- and the 100% retreat odds put it on-par with modern units. It can have a guarantee to survive attacking, but has ~0% chance of surviving once it's discovered. If it couldn't have 100% retreat, I don't think I'd build it just because it doesn't really have anything else to make it special against anything but OTHER SOF units.

Roland Johansen

Jan 20, 2010, 05:23 PM

You're again talking about game balance while that has nothing to do with the argument I gave. My argument has to do with how realistically they compare to other military units, how realistically they fit within the combat representation of the game. Of course, civ4 doesn't try to be 100% realistic in every aspect, still I like the more immersive elements of the game more than the less immersive.

I'll give an exaggerated example: It wouldn't be imbalanced when the game would allow you to build a single tank in the ancient age for 5000 hammers. Still I wouldn't like it as it wouldn't fit within the rest of the game and would make the game more gamey and less about simulating the rise of empires roughly following the history of the real world.

JaredPWagner

Jul 27, 2011, 08:48 PM

I wanted to start by saying thanks for this great mod. I have gotten countless hours of enjoyment out of it. You have really created something special here.

I read the entire thread. Having played two games to a win on deity I wanted to comment on various balance issues I have noticed.
Overall balance is excellent; however there are a few areas where I believe small changes would make for a better game experience.

Ancient Era:
Things near perfect here. The axemen changes work well. I have two suggestion for you to consider in this era.
1) Barbarian Nomads - This guys need a boost as they are really weak. I would bump them up to strength 6 or at least 5. When an barbarian axeman invades my own axemen and swordmen are only an equal match. I have to bring in a chariot to deal with them making them a major problem if you don't have horses. Nomads should be equally difficult to deal with if you don't have spearmen.
2) Battering Rams (See city raider problem below)

The City Rader Problem - The city raider promotion is very powerful. In truth it with the addition of early siege it is probably unbalanced.
Currently there are two windows in the game where offense is so grossly superior to defense that it is possible to wipe out multiple AI civilizations with minimal to no losses even on deity.
These windows occur at the following points in the game
1) When Swordsmen are first built but before long bowmen and crossbowmen
2) When Grenadiers first become available

With a stack of swordsmen and battering rams you can use the rams to damage initial city defenders and mop up with the green swordsmen. Once the swordsmen get to city raider II you don't even need to lead with the rams anymore. This was less of a problem in vanilla as you could not take down cultural protections or walls.
Grenadiers are even more of a problem because you typically have several great generals at this point and so they can be built with city raider II or III from the start. A strength 12 grenadier with +85% from city raider III totally destroys the best defender of the time a strength 9 musketmen.
I won my last deity game by being first to grenadiers then going on a rampage destroying and raising all the cities of my competitors. I lost less than one unit for every city I raised. I did not even use siege except to bombard down cultural defenses.

Suggested solutions to consider
1) Increase max damage of battering rams -> reduced survivability. With a max damage of only 30% they almost always survive combat. This lets them remove 30% of the defenders strength at no cost. This allows you to mop up with green swordsmen without losing them. For balance rams should usually die in a direct city attack.
2) Increase archer strength to 4. In a prior post in this thread it was requested that an new unit Composite Bowmen with strength 4 be added at mathematics. This would probably be ideal but would require tons of work. An easier solution is to just increase archer strength across the board to 4.
3) Change grenadiers back to a gunpowder unit. They are simply too powerful and should not have access to the city raider promotion.
4) Consider having melee units not upgrade to other unit types. This would make Pikemen and Heavy Footmen dead ends in terms of unit progression which makes sense historically and also has the advantage of preventing city raider promotions from spreading to more advanced units through upgrades.

Classical Era. I really like the new seafaring tech. Not too many suggestions for this era
1) The hammer cost of the great lighthouse could potentially be increased. It is one of the best wonder in the game as long as you are on the coast but is cheap to build compared to the other wonders.
2) Consider having a linear progression for city bombard rate. Right now the battering ram is better for taking down cultural defense then the catapult, and the trebuchet better then the bombard. While this does not have a huge effect on gameplay it is odd.

Medieval Era.
1) Pikemen don't really need a -10% city attack penalty. It does not change much. That said it does not matter much if it is kept in.
2) Knights could use some sort of boost. They are completely trumped by both elephants and pikemen both of which come much earlier and cost less. They make poor city attackers compared to heavy footmen and are not even that good at taking out siege. Currently they have no real role in the game. Consider giving them a +25 or +50% bonus verses melee in combat outside cities. This would make them dominate for a brief time in combat outside cities while still leaving them trumped by elephants.
3) Consider moving the Curiassiar back to Military Tradition. That line is really weak now that it has no military units. Military Science is already very good as it unlocks trafalgar square and grenaders.
4) Musketmen are a bit weak. They come later in the game now with the addition of the musket tech but their strength is still only 9. A strength of 10 or a small city defense boost would make them better.

New Wonder Costs:
1) Leonardos Workshop is pretty expensive for what it does hammer cost could possibly be lower.
2) Trafalgar square is amazing. Probably too good to be buildable for half price. Consider removing the bonus with whales.

City Razing:
1) With the addition of revolutions it is almost always better to raize enemy cities rather then to try and hold them. Currently the consequences for capturing an trying to hold an enemy city are severe. The city will require
a massive military garison and will still need to be bribed ever few turns. Thats in addition to the normal cost that comes just from having another city which can be up to 16 gold per turn depending on the number of cities.
In contrast destroying the city is pretty much consequence free. All you get is a diplomatic penality against a civ that you are probably trying to destroy anyways. Consider having city razing generated free enemy troups equal in quantity to the number they would get if you captured the city and it had a revolution. This would make the decision to raze a city a little harder.

AbsintheRed

Aug 17, 2011, 01:08 PM

pigg

Dec 08, 2011, 02:32 PM

bestbrian

Dec 08, 2011, 08:31 PM

I really like this mod, but there are some things that should be fixed.

The biggest and most important one is that if you start game from a later era the early religions are missing and that's just not cool. I don't like much to play the first eras... When playing epic speed i put 2-20k advanced start points to get boring start off (still i wanna have early wonders and religions..).
Actually there is also another problem with gameplay. I like that epic speed, but now it's not that fun to play because there is no multiple production (used to play PIG mod). And grinding early techs with marathon is sooo slow... :/ My first game with monarch went pretty easy and i started to build my best cities better. 1800 ad i had cities with 1.1k money 1.1k research and 700 production when building military units (those were different cities). And they were still growing well. Because of that more than half of my capital's production was wasted when building military.

Then there are the graphics. In my opinion part of them look dirty and unfinished, especially the grassland is ugly. And the starting screen! In original BTS it looked classy and clean. Now it has sharp edges and pixels with bright unmatching colours. <--no homo

Then just out of curiosity. The Barbary Corsair is pretty overpowered I think. It's quite easy to get even on immortal and then kill some triremes, put great general to command it and dominate the seas the rest of the game. I even ran out of promotions :D Its pretty fun still and luckily computer can't use it properly. It need some privateers as emergency backup when raiding capitals. So it's not an issue.

There is now so much good new stuff that its easier to point out the things i don't like. I'm going to play this mod more but if you could fix the religions (and multiple production) it'd be more pleasing =) Starting screen doesn't effect on gameplay at all so i'd not focus on that :P And maybe i get used to new terrains.. Still I don't see why they had to be fixed because they were clear and good looking. I don't think civ should be that much about realism, its mainly math and strategy to me.

The whole point of much of the mod, and much of the work done by AchillesZero, was in reducing the graphics (specifically, the moded components), so that they would be effective without overwhelming computers, and causing crashes (something most mods don't bother to consider). I still think it looks pretty clean, and if your 'puter can handle the enhanced graphics option, better yet.

The Barbary Corsair is a lot of fun, but it does have its limitations: you can promote the heck out of it, but it's still only ever going to upgrade to a destroyer. Also, the AI can't make proper use of it, because it doesn't work well on its own; it needs to be part of a pack of privateers to protect it (preferably one or two with Medic). I think many human players fail at this, as well.

Multiple Production was never part of this mod, and unless you decide to mod it in yourself, more than likely won't ever be, so you can't fault Phungus on that one. As far as Advanced Starts go, I haven't got a clue, as I've never played them.