1.9 faction balance

Maybe this suggestion is too flat, but how about giving ordoss a mid-game unit that steals promotions from other units defeated in battle. (like the balseraph mimics in FFH) Or maybe just have all of their units have a [steal tech] promotion that would be replaced by a random promotion from the defeated unit. I think that this would be much more fun than simply getting beakers from victories.

I've only recently started playing this mod and i have to say i had a lot of fun! Great job! :goodjob: I've played through the game twice as the Tleilax (first time the fremen won a terraforming victory while i wasn't paying attention to them :p) and i'm very eager to try the other factions.

P.S.: I think that the Tleilaxu cloning mechanic is very very very fun!

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I've done some more reading in the forum and i saw that you considered the mimic mechanic for the tleilax. Considering that the Ordos are a non-canon house and that basically they have nothing interesting of their own or nothing that defines them as a power in the Dune world anyway, it would be interesting to let them 'borrow' things from other houses, thus making the 'mimic' mechanic make more sense for them. (than the tleilax for example, as i have discovered that you considered to use this mechanic for them) The deviators also come to mind. Also it might be interesting for them to have a 'bogus' resourse that could be traded to the AI for something useful, as in the Dune RTSs, where they rely heavily on ixian and tleilax technology with which they use to persuade the sardaukar to join their cause.

Anyway, good luck with further development, i'm looking forward to the next patches!
 
Balancing / New Feature Suggestions:

House Ordos:
Tech steal: A previous suggestion from this thread was to allow House Ordos to gain research points through military victory, either for defeating units or capturing cities. Ahriman stated that this may become unbalanced as it could be useless by end game if providing a balanced upfront but could become overpowering early on if it was useful the mid to late game. One way to balance this out would be to weigh the beakers gained based on the era of the Ordos player. This would allow balancing throughout the game and would make it a little interesting by encouraging Ordos players to tech up eras quickly, while possibly avoiding some techs that do not advance the era counter as fast to backfill later.

Another option might be to tie tech theft rates to specific technologies. Knowing tech one gives you a tech steal of X, tech two gives another bonus of Y so you now have X+Y beakers earned from tech steal.

Mercenaries: House Ordos is described as a disparate collection of minor houses so it might make sense for the faction to have access to a wide variety of hired guns. It might be possible to simulate this by allowing Ordos to hire home world units that are normally restricted by faction or off world resource.

Bene Gesserit:
Settled Reverend Mothers: Bene Gesserits start as Sisters (who do the grunt work for the order) and mature into Reverend Mothers (leaders). One way to simulate this would be to allow Bene Gesserit spies of a certain level to settle as great persons a la the Sidar in FFH2.

The Weirding Way: The BGs have relatively few military advantages, so it would be cool if their melee units could receive the Weirding Way promotions earlier or for free on created units. This could be done globally on every BG melee unit. Alternatively, a faction specific facility could be created that grants to first WW promotion on the creation of melee units. If necessary, this could be balanced out by imposing a military product penalty with this facility to represent the additional time necessary to train warriors in this skill.

Freman:
Worm drivers: It was mentioned previously that having the Freman rely on suspensors for transport of guardsmen units was non-thematic. One way to work around that would be create a “Worm Driver” unit for the Freman that grants all guardsmen and melee units in a stack the Wormrider promotion. This would largely eliminate the need for Freman to have suspensors. This could be an unbalancing modification as it would allow rocket troops and the like to strongly defend against air units in the desert, thereby turning a Freman weakness into a strength. It does nothing to address how Freman could move their siege and collateral damage units around either.

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As an aside, I think great people should start out w/ suspensors they way spies do. Moving them around can be a pain if they spawn, or need to go to, a remote location. This is particularly true of Great Spies and Great Merchants who need to be moved into other civs to unlock some of their functions.
 
The Weirding Way: The BGs have relatively few military advantages...

The BG have the Kwisatz Haderach as a military advantage and it's a pretty big one.
 
I think the Harkonnen slaves need a boost of some sort. I found myself deleting quite a few slaves in the mid-late game. Maybe it would be a good idea to let guardsmen and vehicle units use them as 'target practice' and receive 1xp for each sacrificed slave. I don't think it would be such a huge bonus overall, it would be fitting to their style and it would be a fun way to dispose of the extra slaves.

Also I imagine it would be cool to have the Harkonnen receive a great slave unit instead of great specialists, which could build holy shrines, a building where you could 'deposit' slaves and gain bonuses (ex: lab rat slaves would give beakers, pleasure slaves would give money, etc) or build any improvement (even those you don't have the tech for) on a land tile. But this is just a wild idea... :scan:
 
I have a suggestion for Ordos that I feel would be good balancing for them and would add a bit of flavor as well. I'm not to sure how hard they will be to implement or what you would guys would feel about them, but here is my 2 cents anyway.

1) Give the Ordos two extra spots for units in the guild transport and increase the refresh rate by which new units show up by 20%.

2) Give the Ordos a unique unit that replaces the Dragon fly Bomber. The new bomber would drop hallucinogenic gas that would have a 10% chance to convert units in stack to their side for a turn.

Edit: 3) Also another thought, The promotion system in CCV mod I think would be an awesome addition specifically once a unit gains Combat IV or Drill IV the next promotion available would be Lead by Warlord and the tree that follows it. That along with the the mechanic that of leader exp for the Motivation, Initiative, and Organization promotions. Each house can could have an additional House specific promotion on the leaders, a couple of examples:

Fremen
Desert Adaptability I: + 5% version of Desert Warfare and +1 Desert visibility
Desert Adaptability II: + 5% version of Desert Warfare
Desert Adaptability III: + 1 Desert movement

Harkonnen
Reckless Aggression I: -10% Defense +5% Strength
Reckless Aggression II: +10% Collateral Damage +5% Strength
Reckless Aggression III: +10% Collateral Damage +5% Strength
 
It would be nice to have a thread where you would post the changes that are about to come in the next patch. It would give something interesting to read and chat about. :D
 
This is the thread for discussion about that, but there has not been any recent development. I think deliverator has gone quiet, and ahriman is mostly only active on the civ5 forums.
 
I like the idea of making the Fremen more about vast numbers of expendable troops.
As i do recall from books, Fremen were superior to Sardaukars. And numerous, yes. And had portable missile launchers for AA. "Expendable" is a Harkonnen philosophy, not Fremen. So, essentially you happen to like an idea of perverting the origin.
 
Tech steal: A previous suggestion from this thread was to allow House Ordos to gain research points through military victory, either for defeating units or capturing cities. Ahriman stated that this may become unbalanced as it could be useless by end game if providing a balanced upfront but could become overpowering early on if it was useful the mid to late game. One way to balance this out would be to weigh the beakers gained based on the era of the Ordos player. This would allow balancing throughout the game and would make it a little interesting by encouraging Ordos players to tech up eras quickly, while possibly avoiding some techs that do not advance the era counter as fast to backfill later.
Era could work, but I think I would lean towards making it scale by the hammer cost of the defeated unit. Since hammer costs also vary by game speed, this would be a good way to keep the effect roughly balanced. Maybe beaker per 100 hammers, rounded up?

Settled Reverend Mothers: Bene Gesserits start as Sisters (who do the grunt work for the order) and mature into Reverend Mothers (leaders). One way to simulate this would be to allow Bene Gesserit spies of a certain level to settle as great persons a la the Sidar in FFH2
Would be easier to just allow the Sister espionage unit to upgrade into the Reverend Mother espionage unit.

One way to work around that would be create a “Worm Driver” unit for the Freman that grants all guardsmen and melee units in a stack the Wormrider promotion.
I can't see the AI managing to use this.

1) Give the Ordos two extra spots for units in the guild transport and increase the refresh rate by which new units show up by 20%.
Seems sensible to me.

The new bomber would drop hallucinogenic gas that would have a 10% chance to convert units in stack to their side for a turn.
Sounds very not fun when used against the human player; you don't want your heavily promoted random unit getting captured and then suicided against your stack just because it happened to get bombed.

3) Also another thought, The promotion system in CCV mod I think would be an awesome addition specifically once a unit gains Combat IV or Drill IV the next promotion available would be Lead by Warlord and the tree that follows it. That along with the the mechanic that of leader exp for the Motivation, Initiative, and Organization promotions. Each house can could have an additional House specific promotion on the leaders, a couple of examples:
This has some interesting potential.

"Expendable" is a Harkonnen philosophy, not Fremen.
Right. Fremen should only play as swarmers if they go for a Jihad religion strategy. Thats what zealots are for.
 
Ordos

Definitely think they need something like many others who have posted here. The trike and chemical trooper are both pretty early game units that by the time most of the action takes place are just cannon fodder or already upgraded.

A good deal of discussion has centered on the idea of stealing 'stuff' in combat, wether it be research as most recently suggested, or something else. This is a pretty weak mechanic. No, no, don't start throwing rotten fruit at me just yet, let me explain dammit...

Psychologically speaking, this as a gameplay mechanic would be fun for, oh, the first five minutes you play with it in a war. It's a slow, predictable trickle every time you win a battle. Oh, we got another 3 beakers. It offers no opportunity for interesting outcomes, it has to be kept weak to prevent it from being unbalancing or overly exploitable. As soon as they get past the "oh, that's something different" phase, most players will ignore it the rest of the game. I can always be wrong, but I'm not feeling it.

That doesn't mean tech stealing is off the table though... Someone mentioned CCV, while I'm not a big fan of the 'leader' promotion mechanism they mentioned, it had a python module where upon capturing a city from a civ with technologies you don't have could give partial research into those technologies based on the size of the city and that kind of thing. It was very well balanced (unlike the old Civ2* mechanic it obviously descended from), and definitely gave you some excitement and anticipation when taking cities. I'd love to bring in that mechanic for the Ordos.

I'd also like a later game UU in the same vein as the trike, but it begs the question, which unit does it go to, and where the hell will the art come from? Instead, we can create an Ordos only promotion that decreases the strength(just by 1) and increases the withdrawal(maybe say 40%, has to be enough to be useful) and apply it by python (just like the sandrider promo for fremen) to all Vehicle units after the Trike. Carries through the same idea to the whole unit line without needing 4 or 5 UUs to do it.

Another idea is maybe a bio-weapon short range missile available in the mid game that acts like a weak nuke of sorts? Not sure about this one, but it popped into my head.

Bene Gesserit

Mostly they are fine, but two big things here. Firstly, the KH units are grossly overpowered, though I'm afraid people will lynch me if I weakened them :lol: The Aspirant(Breeding Project 3 out of 5) gives all units in it's stack a 25% combat bonus + 1 free strike. That's fine if you're army is all green units with just 3xp and their combat1 promos or what have you. If you have a decently promoted stack as you normally would by that point in the game, pilling that kind of free bonus on top of it makes for an unstoppable attack force. Seriously. And that's not even the KH. I haven't yet worked out what numbers might work well, but I suspect that halving them for each would still make it more than attractive to players.

The second is not just a Bene Gesserit thing, but it should have a connection to them that it currently doesn't. The way Prana Bindu promotions are in the game right now is completely useless. By the time you can research it, the game is almost over, all of your units worth leveling with it are already close to as leveled as they'll get, and you're biggest worries aren't really the enemy melee units, so it turns into a slightly more powerful version of... combat1.

I'm thinking on a mechanic a little different from how other promos are handled. I'd like to take it out from the normal promotion pool, break it up into four promotions that build on each other, and make it learned passively. The first two promos in the line become available with a dead end tech after either 'human potential' or 'mental discipline'. Any civ can research it, and afterwards guardsmen and melee units will slowly be able to learn them, though the rate would depend on the unit's experience, and there would probably need to be minimum levels (though It might have 'soft' minimum levels based on probability).

Then the current tech for it would enable the latter two tiers of the promo, which would only ever be learned by units with a significant level of experience.

From there, the bene gesserit should have a small edge in the probability of learning them, and we could bring back the instructress that increases the odds for units in it's stack. As a trade good, it would allow others to build instructresses as well. Most other civs would gain very little from the initial tech for it (very low rate of receiving the promotions) without instructresses, although any civ researching the final tech could be put on a level playing field in their base odds with the BG (though could still benefit from instructresses).

An important thing is that as a 'free' passively learned promo, it should give small bonuses compared to traditional 'leveled' promos to keep things in balance since we are expecting it to be stacked with the normal promotions that can already make a unit pretty powerful. It would also need to be setup carefully so that there's an interesting distribution. Most units with little training might get none or maybe the first, while only your best units will ever get to the fourth.

* I don't know if capturing techs was in Civ1 and don't recall if it was in Civ3 (it's been awhile) but I know it was in Civ2, don't anybody get riled up if my details aren't quite right on where it started/what games it was in. ;)
 
it had a python module where upon capturing a city from a civ with technologies you don't have could give partial research into those technologies based on the size of the city and that kind of thing.
This sounds like a better idea for tech salvaging; as you say, its a more interesting design because it depends more on your actions, and has a larger, more noticeable impact than a tiny trickle of research income through salvaging.
It also gives incentive to go to war with those technologically advanced, rather than picking on the little guys.

I like it.

Instead, we can create an Ordos only promotion that decreases the strength(just by 1) and increases the withdrawal(maybe say 40%, has to be enough to be useful) and apply it by python (just like the sandrider promo for fremen) to all Vehicle units after the Trike. Carries through the same idea to the whole unit line without needing 4 or 5 UUs to do it.
This might be pretty powerful at the high end; I would say that a % strength reduction might be more appropriate, because -1 strength from a strength 20+ unit is not much of a penalty, but 40% withdraw chance is hugely useful. Remember that this mod has defensive withdrawal, so even small withdraw chances are valuable in terms of
So, maybe a vehicle-only promotion: "Ordos Raider", which gives -25% strength and +40% withdraw chance, and takes a regular level-up promotion slot. I worry though that this makes it too easy to combine with the flanking bonuses for really high withdraw chances, and a very hard to kill vehicle army?

The other "semi-canon" Ordos unit is the Deviator, but mind influencing effects are really not that fun.

Another idea is maybe a bio-weapon short range missile available in the mid game that acts like a weak nuke of sorts?
Hmm.... maybe it could be low strength with a bonus vs guardsmen and infantry? I think a bio-weapon should be an anti-infantry weapon.
This could be a nice anti-Fremen weapon.

Firstly, the KH units are grossly overpowered
Possibly, but every faction should have something really powerful.
I'm certainly open to weakening them though.

The way Prana Bindu promotions are in the game right now is completely useless.
I'm open to a buff, but I think the high-end "superior promotions" are a basically effective design. The idea is that at the top of the tech tree you get access to a range of superior promotions.
I disagree that "all your units are as promoted as they're going to get". In the late game, you'll still be pumping out new units, you will have massive productive capacity.

The core design goal was to have a way to have high-end techs increased military capabilities, but without needing to create yet another tier of units. We still want to be playing with the iconic unit types - Fedaykin, Sardaular, etc - but just make them a bit tougher. I also think its ok that at the end of the game tree melee units become a bit out-classed except for city assault.
So I think I'd rather tweak the values on these promotions than seriously change the mechanic.

I don't see a need to make the late-game melee promotion work differently from the late-game promotions for other classes.

and we could bring back the instructress that increases the odds for units in it's stack
I think the KH units are sufficient as stack boosters already.
 
>>So, maybe a vehicle-only promotion: "Ordos Raider", which gives -25% strength and +40% withdraw chance, and takes a regular level-up promotion slot. I worry though that this makes it too easy to combine with the flanking bonuses for really high withdraw chances, and a very hard to kill vehicle army?<<

Frankly, I would'nt waste a slot with such a promotion. Maximum I'd think about (!) would be -20% strength and +40 % withdrawal. But I'd suppose reduce numbers anyway, say -10% strength and +20-25 % withdrawal. It'd be far worse than flank II and more or less equal to flank I, but since the withdrawal bonuses stack it would still be worth considering.

About the "hard to kill"-issue: AFAIK withdrawn units gain a one-turn-promo reducing withdrawal chance by 100 %. Thus attacking would quite safe, but not defending againt a larger stack. Keep in mind that units retreat into a somehow random direction and therefore usually leave their protecting stack, so defensive withdrawal sometimes happen to turn against you (nothing I would change though).
 
Maximum I'd think about (!) would be -20% strength and +40 % withdrawal.
That would be doable.

But I'd suppose reduce numbers anyway, say -10% strength and +20-25 % withdrawal.
Maybe, but that starts getting into the range where the promotion has very little impact, we don't want the effects to be easily reproduce with general promotions.

The other possibility, which might be more flavorful, is to force the promotion on every vehicle Ordos build (through a trait?), and balance accordingly. So *every* Ordos vehicle is a raider. Maybe -10% strength +15% withdraw. And then tweak the trike.

Another possibility; create a new "Raider" trait for the Ordos, which gives the tech salvaging ability, this ability, and some economic abilities, and replace the current economic trait the Ordos leaders have (I forget exactly what they have).

About the "hard to kill"-issue: AFAIK withdrawn units gain a one-turn-promo reducing withdrawal chance by 100 %.
There is, but all it does is mean you can only withdraw once per round per unit. The unit will probably withdraw away from the enemy, and so you have to go through the rest of my stack before you can get to the withdrawn unit (or use airstrike).

so defensive withdrawal sometimes happen to turn against you
Defensive withdraw never works against you. The effect only triggers when the unit would otherwise be destroyed. So its always beneficial (if nothing else the enemy has to spend an extra attack - and maybe pull a unit out of position - to finish off the withdrawn unit).
 
Defensive withdraw never works against you. The effect only triggers when the unit would otherwise be destroyed. So its always beneficial (if nothing else the enemy has to spend an extra attack - and maybe pull a unit out of position - to finish off the withdrawn unit).

Good point. If you get destroyed, no stack protects you any longer :lol: :lol: :lol:
One could still argue that you *could* have taken a combat promo instead of the flank promo. Thus your unit would have been stronger and therefore maybe would have a) won the fight (which is good anyway :) ) and b) wouldn't have withdrawn to the loneliest place on arrakis. This is what had in mind with "turning against you" but I wrote unclear.

Btw, I had it several times that when I got attacked from let's say southeast, my unit withdrew to south or southwest. Nothing I'd complain about.


I *LIKE* the idea of the Ordos special promo as part of an "Ordos" trait. It's like "mechanized" with House IX. :goodjob:
 
The other possibility, which might be more flavorful, is to force the promotion on every vehicle Ordos build (through a trait?), and balance accordingly. So *every* Ordos vehicle is a raider. Maybe -10% strength +15% withdraw. And then tweak the trike.

This is what I have in mind, assign it through python in the same manner as fremen sandrider promos. Making a trait is overly complicated since it will never apply to any non-Ordos leader, and every Ordos leader would have it, e.i. we can just base it on being the ordos civ in python and be done with it. That's about 1/4 the work of creating new trait tags.

+15% withdrawal is too insignificant, I'd say around -10% strength +35% withdrawal at least as an initial point to test it from. That is significant enough to feel the difference while still leaving room to continue specializing with flank promotions if you want.

And You don't have to worry about balancing it with the trike because we wouldn't apply it to the trike. In python I'd have a list or dictionary of valid units to apply it to on being built or upgraded.

Hmm.... maybe it could be low strength with a bonus vs guardsmen and infantry? I think a bio-weapon should be an anti-infantry weapon.
This could be a nice anti-Fremen weapon.
:goodjob: I'm liking this idea, and I'm thinking of one of the spell effects from FfH that would be perfect for it. The weapon itself can re-use one of the other missile models with a little re-skinning.

This sounds like a better idea for tech salvaging; as you say, its a more interesting design because it depends more on your actions, and has a larger, more noticeable impact than a tiny trickle of research income through salvaging.
It also gives incentive to go to war with those technologically advanced, rather than picking on the little guys.

I like it.

Me too, I'll try to get it merged in and modified for 1.9.5.

I'll come back to the bene gesserit ideas later when I've got some time, but I'll point this out. For one thing, I want there to be a reason for civs to buddy up to (or vassalize!) them in the form of a trade good like several other civs have. This feels flavorful to me.

I also very carefully proposed a weakening of one mechanic along with the strengthening of another to balance them. It'd be ridiculous to give the bene gesserit additional power through prana bindu promotions like I proposed on top of the current KH mechanic. To me, the KH is an un-nuanced and brute force approach that feels, just, wrong for the bene gesserit. And once you've conquered a continent with a KH led super stack once, it feels played out to me. At the same time, I feel that prana bindu training is too important in the books to relegate to the very end of the game. That's why I want to introduce it as an element, even if weaker, earlier in the game, then allow it's perfection later on.

Taking it out of the normal 'flow' of promotions makes it feel more special, a little less attainable, but well worth it when it is. And, again, going with my feeling on this one, it's one of those things that doesn't feel like it should be passed out like candy to newly recruited units just cause you have a few stacked great bursegs. And (I know, lots of those going around), on top of that, I don't ever have the real goal or urge to even research it, because by that point, I'm not ever worried about enemy melee units it seems. Some re-balancing of it's effects at the very least is needed, maybe also bonus against guardsmen.

By contrast, some of the other late game promos like 'super light' for wasps, or some of the suspensor ones, etc. , do have a good feel to them. They are technological breakthroughs that feel right applying to new units, but prana bindu doesn't.
 
Making a trait is overly complicated since it will never apply to any non-Ordos leader
I'm flexible on this. The advantage of doing it as a trait is that it is much more apparent to the human player, and it can be tied together thematically with other effects - like a bonus from pillaging. This is the idea behind the Mechanized trait.
But we could do it through python too.

+15% withdrawal is too insignificant, I'd say around -10% strength +35% withdrawal at least as an initial point to test it from. That is significant enough to feel the difference while still leaving room to continue specializing with flank promotions if you want.
This feels too strong to me. -10% is 1 promotion. +35% withdraw is better than 2 promotions - and in an effect that has very strong synergy from being very high (an 80% withdraw chance unit is probably more than twice as good as a 40% withdraw chance, because it means its fairly reliable).

Basically, you're giving at least a free promotion to an entire unit class. Compare this to the aggressive or protective traits, or to Mechanized.

I think this particular Ixian advantage should be significantly less powerful than an entire new trait. Maybe -10% strength +20% withdraw as a start point, and then test from there.

And You don't have to worry about balancing it with the trike because we wouldn't apply it to the trike. In python I'd have a list or dictionary of valid units to apply it to on being built or upgraded.
That works.
 
I actually hadn't factored in the unit's natural withdrawal in proposing that number, but was thinking along the lines we were adding from zero. Not the case for most vehicles. The trike has +20% compared to the quad, so that's probably a good starting point.
 
For one thing, I want there to be a reason for civs to buddy up to (or vassalize!) them in the form of a trade good like several other civs have. This feels flavorful to me.
Yes, we had this a while ago, trying to represent the way various factions voluntarily had a Bene Gesserit advisor. This is why we had the Sisterhood Covenant trade good. But it didn't really work out, and I don't think the Instructress is a good way to go.
And we kinda subsumed the core of what we were trying to mimic with the Royal Marriage spy mission that increases diplomacy modifier.

Some other ideas; the Convenant resource could be required for construction of some kind of culture producing building that also gave +EPs to the Bene Gesserit player.
But then you have a problem where you can trade for the good, build the stuff, and then cancel the deal.

Or it could boost the effects of some religious buildings (the various temples).

Or combine these: create a "Sisterhood advisor" building which requires the Palace, gives +X culture WITH Sisterhood Covenant resource, and +Y EPs to the BG player WITH Sisterhood Covenant resource.

Or adapt the Missionaria Protectiva somehow.

At the same time, I feel that prana bindu training is too important in the books to relegate to the very end of the game.
In the books, it is a technique only really practiced by a handful of people. It isn't really a massive military training program. Yeah, they teach the Fremen some stuff, but the Fremen are already military experts.

some of the other late game promos like 'super light' for wasps, or some of the suspensor ones, etc. , do have a good feel to them. They are technological breakthroughs that feel right applying to new units, but prana bindu doesn't.
Something to keep in mind: the promotion (a superior melee-only promotion) existed under a different name before we renamed it prana-bindu.

I think its appropriate to have a late-game superior promotion along the same lines as super-light. What we call it, I don't really mind.

Some re-balancing of it's effects at the very least is needed, maybe also bonus against guardsmen.
Add 5% city attack?
 
Another thought: maybe the Ordos tech scavenging ability should depend on the population of the city? So you get very little for capturing a tiny outpost, but more from capturing a metropolis?

Perhaps: 25% of the cost of the tech, + 2.5% per population size? Or 10% + 4% per population size?
 
Another thought: maybe the Ordos tech scavenging ability should depend on the population of the city? So you get very little for capturing a tiny outpost, but more from capturing a metropolis?

Perhaps: 25% of the cost of the tech, + 2.5% per population size? Or 10% + 4% per population size?

The module I refered to actual did scale it to the size of the city, and maybe a few other things. It was pretty well balanced, so I'm really hoping I can incorporate it without too much trouble and tune it for what we need.
 
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