Balance and Gameplay discussion.

(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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
How are missiles nerfed in LoR?
 
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.
 
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). 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.

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