The Celts UA is OP babylon under power

Firts thanks to all the modder is a great game very nice communoty a few stuff need to be balance but overall i enjoy much more my game with communutas mod vs normal
Anyway back to buisness
First im not to fan of giving OP unit instead of warior at the beginins if u get lucky and have a ruin for upgrade that made u completly far Op to anyone ( a part from those crazy axe barbarian lvl20S at turn 15/20)
I does make useless some real early unit civ like maya indonesia polynesia shoshone ect..
( u wont get lot of ruin if your nebor got chariot archer horseman ect..)
Lets go back to the celt with them u are sure to found a religion specially since u start with them UU i dont mind that but double the natural wonder is far to op specialy if you chose the pantheon wich give +2cu+2fa+2fo+2ha+2sc+2g I already found that pantheon to OP because u actually change the yield of them(nicely and more balance) and if you play communitas map they are at good emplacement i think should be +1 of each instead but anyway with the celt is just to much any natural wonder and u already win i was playing on imortal and buy turn 100 i was producing almost 2 time science than the second best
I cant imagine if u get great barier reef with only 2tile you will produce +8cu+8fai+12fo+12ha+12sc+12g come on game over

small complain babylon was describe op with them 50%bonus science but i fell that 25% is not enought because the garden provide 50% for everyone in your mode so that extra 25% does not make much difference before without the garden 50% rate it was basicly 100% boost with garden and national epic agaisnt 50% for other civ now is still 100% boost but against 75% i think you need to put it back at it was or nerf the garden a good balance will be +33% for garden +33% for the UA babylon

Ps: sorry if that post is not at the good place maybe sorry for my english

Greetings oldboy69. (is that a reference to that great Korean film?)

The Barbarian Ax strength is an error, it has been fixed but I am not sure if the download has the change in it yet. Will do shortly I imagine.

I'm not sure which 'Belief' you are referring to. The only one I can think of that is close to what you describe is the God-King, but that only provides +1 to & , not +2 of each.

As for the Celt's NaturalWonderYieldModifier. The Spanish also have this with their Seven Cities of Gold trait. Are we to conclude they too are over-powered?

The Babylonian figures may need to have another look at. Although there is a slight difference. The modifier for Gardens, Candi, Coffee House & Nat'l Epic are for ALL Great People types, not just Great Scientists. I am not 100% sure but I believe the overall rate is therefore smaller for each type than a flat rate for scientists that the Babylonians get. Your observations though are welcome and will be examined closer.

Welcome to the forum oldboy69.

He's probably talking about the One with Nature pantheon that add yields on Natural Wonders. I do agree with him that the improved placement makes this pantheon more powerful and I guess it could be toned down. I don't think it makes the Celts particularly overpowered though.

Not sure about the Babylonians though.

I have been playing Babylon quite a bit, concentrating on building the walls - and staffing them w/scientists - going to Great Library ASAP, and I still find myself falling behind in science on King - sometimes pretty badly. And this is with the bug that gives me 2 GS at once!

It seems that my advantages really only last through the first few eras, then I almost always meet a civ on another continent that is many techs ahead, has been beating me out for most wonders, and is about to go on a rampage DOWing each smaller civ until it eventually gets to me. Creates much excitement, but I do not feel the Babylon UA - or starting bowman - is distinctly OP at this level. I admit I could also be making many non-optimal decisions as I love to build EVERYTHING in all cities if I can, a strategy that really only seems to work well with Rome!

For some reason I struggle with faith, so unless i get an immediate boost from some ruins, I usually see everyone else enhancing and reforming, when I am still trying to found. Getting my pick of the pantheons is not an issue for me!

I play with all latest 3.6.2 (1.3.1 map), infoaddict, really advanced start, colored religions, r.e.d. modpack, and faster aircraft animations on huge/marathon.

mitsho said:

He's probably talking about the One with Nature pantheon that add yields on Natural Wonders. I do agree with him that the improved placement makes this pantheon more powerful and I guess it could be toned down. I don't think it makes the Celts particularly overpowered though.

Not sure about the Babylonians though.

Click to expand...

Ahh, yes. Good point again mitsho. I completely missed that one. Have to agree, perhaps back to just +1 for each. Maybe dropping a yield or two? Any ideas?

@Erikose
So I take it you too feel the Babylonians are still lacking in 'oomph'? I wonder what are the other reasons for the lack of science output for the Babylonians? Surely it couldn't be the case that ALL the other civs are better at it than they are?
It is so hard to make balancing decisions with so little empirical evidence.
I wonder, would you mind doing some note taking about your games, since you have been working with the Babylonians for a while?
If you could take note of your opponents, terrain (yours & theirs), wonder builds, etc.
Anything that you think may make impact on the speed, or lack of, science progress.

oldboy69, I assume you want to raise the science bonus back up to 50% from CEP's 25%?

I can't remember why that rate was changed in the first place.
As far as I can see, I'm the only one that has made changes to that value. That was back in August when the Leader's abilities were first made.
It must have been a decision made by Thal, and I just made the edits. Sorry I'm not more precise.

Unless anyone can say definitively why it was made, perhaps we should revert the change?

I just went back through the spreadsheet to check what/why the changes were made.

The GS modifier rate was reduced but offset by an extra GS. So the bonus to science with the Babylonians is still there just in a different format.

The free GS half of the Babylon UA is much more important than the 25% improved GS rate. It gives a huge early boost to research that persists throughout the entire game (assuming you use it to create an academy, as you should). Throw in that it can be used to connect a luxury resource well before you even have a worker and I wouldn't consider Babylon underpowered even if the great scientist rate bonus was removed completely (Babylon would still generate GS faster than other civs thanks to the specialist slot from walls).

@ ExpiredReign: May just do that. Now that there is a solution to turn immigration off, I am interested in trying out his new map. Perhaps terrain might wind up being an important variable.

Re-downloading from Steam, and temporarily suspending my new-found BL2 binge!

-Erikose

I would agree with hreat above, the free GS part is way bigger than the extra rate because it comes early and is persistent across techs. An early academy plus national college city can produce thousands of science in a game. That's pretty important. The increase from the extra slot and extra rate can also produce more academies or instant research later on, but this isn't going to be significantly altered in quantity by bumping the rate up if the trade off is removing the free GS.

Ok, so what do we have then?

1) Leave it as is and move on. This doesn't seem likely though, as it appears to be weak.
2) Revert it to vanilla. Maybe. Was it really in need of adjusting?
3) Make some, yet to be decided, changes to rectify the weakness and still make it different to vanilla.

You guys with more balancing issue skills can go for it. Just remember, it doesn't have to have a change from the vanilla. There are a lot of civs in the mod that are still untouched and they haven't been flagged as being weak, yet.

Could maybe get rid of the extra GS, which seems to have confused people, and bump the rate in the meantime to something a little higher than vanilla if it "seems weak".

I don't know if it is actually weak in a vanilla sense. It might be more that the hermit kingdom for Korea's unique effects are just broader and feel stronger, and/or work better in the AI's hands whereas Babylon is basically a one shot singleshot that requires a bit of proper management. I probably haven't played as them since GEM (I usually go random rather than pick and choose) so, not sure if there's an actual balance issue or not. If there is such an issue, it's essentially just a question of how many research points their UA should be worth and how to set that out via the UA/UB effects with great scientist production over a full game or freebies.

I like Mystikx21's idea of removing one GS and bumping the science rate to a bit above vanilla for the GS rate.

I agree that the UA as it is right now is a bit of a one shot, and it is necessary to develop your capital as a specialist science city in order to take advantage. His way, you have a benefit the whole game, and if you actually want to build other things in the capital besides science buildings, you still get the benefit of more regular GS drops. I enjoy having the choice to build up other infrastructure and wonders.

In my current game, by turn 179, even spending the time to build a GL, I am right in the middle of the pack when it comes to technology discovered - and all my academies were just laid waste by a hand-axe! Even without that, on King I find myself falling behind on pop and hammers by the end of the classical period unless I diversify my city builds, even if I do get ahead on tech for a while. Perhaps bee-lining to the National College is the way to go, while building infrastructure along the way. Will try this next, but I like UA's that open up new game playing choices, not send me down a specific path.

Currently playing all 3.6.2 w/1.4.1 map, infoaddict, r.e.d. unit mod, colored religions, and faster aircraft animations on king/huge setting.

- Erikose

The OP also mentioned the BELIEF_ONE_WITH_NATURE as being too powerful as it provides +2 to just about everything with the Natural Wonder tiles.

Correct me if I'm wrong, (mitsho ) but since it is a Pantheon belief doesn't that mean the effect lasts only until such time as a religion is dominant in your cities? After that time the effects from your religion takeover. I guess the design here was to boost the early power of those that take it. Seems like a good idea to me.

What are the chances of having a few Natural Wonders inside your territory for an extended length of time AND still only having a Pantheon?

Having said that, I wouldn't care too much if the yield was dropped to +1 or maybe 1 or 2 yield types dropped.
There is also an unused Belief_YieldModifierNaturalWonder table that might be used instead. That way instead of a flat yield increase we could just adjust yields by a %.

You get the benefits of your pantheon in your religion.

I thought I would try the Celts, just out of curiosity, and see if they are over-powered.

Well I have to say, even without taking the pantheon belief, One with Nature, I am miles in front of all the other civs in terms of science, culture, gold and production.
I think there definitely is something happening with them.
I have never been able to pump out wonders at the rate at which I can now and my culture seems to be moving along really fast, although that might just be a by-product of the number of wonders and buildings I can have produced.

There were times when it only took 1 or 2, maybe 3 turns to build a unit or building.
I produce a wonder and then in the production queue just about all the buildings can be made very quickly.
I will keep playing this and see what else happens. Its still early in the game, about turn 120.

EDIT:
It would appear the actual yields are not as large as the experience makes you feel.
I'll provide some data from the log to illustrate.

Player Yield Rates
City Yield Rates

One thing I can say is, Ashurbanipal is well on his way to blitz us all. His capital city is a powerhouse in every aspect.

I was talking about the pantheon yes i think +2 of everything is slythly OP but not to bad but when you play with the celt is just far too good and i only play immortal/deity but i know if i manage to settle near 1 natural wonder with the celt in the first 100 turn is become easy win
For babylon i didint actualy play with them much but if you compare with korea them UA is now
Korea is too strong every time they are in my game they always first on the leaderboard the only good thing is they almost never go to war (at least on my game)

The problem with Babylon has been that Academies give too many beakers in the early eras. They need to have a gradual ramp up, so that you can't get multiple +8 science academies in the early game and get a huge tech advantage. The science bonuses need to be spread out over more techs, so they're still only giving ~+4 in classical era and +6 in medieval era.

The intention is to turn a passive bonus (better scientists) into an active one (new specialist slot). It's more fun to do something new than just be a little better at something we'd normally do anyway. It also increases Babylon's maximum science rate. I'm okay with buffing them if we feel it's necessary. I'm also fine with reducing the effect of the natural-wonder pantheon.

BNW
1 great scientist with Writing
4.5 GP points from scientists in 1 slot (1 * 3 * 150%)

CEP
1 great scientist with Writing
7.5 GP points from scientists in 2 slots (2 * 3 * 125%)

The over-time effect of great people is better in the early game (like an Academy), when we have more turns to benefit from it. The instant-use option is better in late game (like an instant tech). The challenge is figuring out when to shift from one strategy to the other.


Edit: Babylon should get 1 great scientist at writing. I don't know why they have two. I think it might have been a mistake when I was attempting to shift the "free unit" behavior over to a new better table format.

I'm thinking...

• drop Celtic bonus to 150% (was 200%)
• drop Pantheon bonus to +1 all yields (was 2)
• return Babylon to intended 1 great scientist
• raise Babylon scientist rate to 150% (was 125%).

Celts: I don't see a problem with the Celts current UA. Its very rare to start next to a natural wonder. I get wonders in most games but I have to put great effort into setting a city up next to them. The real problem is that the Celts ability multiples the wonder enhancing pantheon belief so they get +4 of every yield in the game instead of the +2 everyone else gets.

Maybe just remove the pantheon belief or reduce it to +1 instead of changing the Celts UA. Spain had the exact same ability for years and it never drew complaints even though spain also achieved an amazing early game gold bonus for discovering them as well..

Babylon: They could definitely use the 150% GS rate and it would be far from imbalanced. Korea is simply better than them at this time.