The most useful items that I see coming out of this thread would be getting ideas for modders to help with squashing bugs that are practical to squash or providing game balance suggestions that are somewhat practical to implement.
I'd like to see failgold nerfed too--ideally to the point that players no longer design strategies around it.
That's a wise idea. Changes that would make sense:
1. You only get Failure Gold for a World Wonder in the City with the most Hammers invested in it, while all Hammers invested in the same World Wonder in other Cities would disappear. That way, you still get your booby prize, but not more boobies than you deserve
2. No Failure Gold from National Wonders. It's your own fault for changing your mind on where to build it. You don't gain Gold for any Hammers that were invested in a partially-completed Archer or a partially-completed Market that you choose never to finish, so the same should be true for National Wonders that were partially completed. In fact, if you obsolete a Building (say, a Monument) just as you whipped it, you won't get either the Monument completed or anything from your Hammers--tough luck, but that's the price of getting through the technologies faster. Where it would be different for National Wonders is that Hammers invested in other Cities would simply disappear when the National Wonder gets completed in one City, to avoid the potential abuse of partially-building say, multiple Moai Statues, completing one of them, then losing that City, and then completing the National Wonder quickly elsewhere
3. No Failure Gold from Missionaries or Executives. However, partial Hammers should NOT get lost when you have reached the maximum created. It's an unfortunate design choice that if you have partial Hammers invested in a Missionary and you create a 3rd Missionary, with none of the 3 Missionaries being able to reach another City this turn to try spreading, you lose your partially-invested Hammers, but if you can perform a spreading attempt on this turn, you do get to keep your partially-invested Hammers. Better to just keep the partially-invested Hammers and if you really didn't want to build another Missionary, then those Hammers will just never get used, much like an Archer build item that you abandoned because you decided that you didn't need to whip one in an emergency after all, or you got enough luck with Missionaries spreading successfully that you don't need to complete another one
4. In the BUFFY Mod, remove Gold earned for any Hammers that are in excess of the Hammer overflow maximum. The Hammer overflow maximum is in place for several good reasons and the conversion of excess overflow Hammers into Gold is a poor design choice that takes away from the practical limit of the Hammer overflow maximum. I would suggest changing how the overflow maximum is calculated, though, making the calculations based on base Hammers instead of final Hammers, if base Hammers actually get tracked as a variable in the game (see below for more on the subject of base Hammers versus final Hammers)
One failgold trick I use a lot is almost building a wonder if I have the required Marble or Stone because then it is 50% more gold for your hammers compared to building Wealth. And then there is the IND trait, making it failgold even more OP. Purposefully using failgold instead of building wealth feels very exploit-y and should probably be changed so the failgold is only based on the unmodified hammer input.
Only giving credit for base Hammers invested in a failed World Wonder sounds fair and would probably require another variable for each build item which tracks the base Hammers invested in the build item, in addition to the final Hammers earned in a build item. (Maybe such a variable for base Hammers in a build item already exists--does anyone know?) Having access to such a variable would make for the ability to squash a good number of bugs related to the conversion between final Hammers and base Hammers, such as how you get less whipping overflow Hammers when completing a Forge than the base Hammers which you rightfully earned, due to the calculation of how many base Hammers you get being based on your production bonus at the time of completing the build item instead of the actual production bonus that you received when investing the base Hammers.
Wealth, Research, Culture and Failgold should all be less efficient, only converting 50% of production to make buildings more attractive.
Absolutely. Vanilla Civ 4 had it right. Raw Wealth, Research, or Culture only produced 50% of the base Hammers, but if one invested in the relevant Buildings, then one could increase that percentage, which encouraged the production of Gold-enhancing Buildings, particularly since the alternative of converting Hammers at a 50% rate (or lower, due to flooring the base Hammer value) made those Wealth and Research build items far less attractive, while the increasing percentage made the approach of City-specialization a more rewarding strategy.
Slavery should just be nerfed. Imo if Serfdom or Caste System gave an extra yield for farms that would go a long way of making plains more valuable.
Having a competing Labour Civic to Slavery increase Food output of squares would have the effect of increasing the benefit of Slavery, due to Beyond the Sword's implementation of no Anarchy when Civic-switching during a Golden Age--whip a lot, launch a Golden Age, switch to the Food-producing Civic during the Golden Age, regrow a lot, switch to Slavery just before the Golden Age ends, and Slavery has become even more powerful with the extra Food.
I do like the Slavery Revolt Event, though, as it adds a punishment for overusing Slavery.
if e.g. Serfdom gave +1 Production or Commerce
That idea has a lot of merit, creating a greater opportunity cost of running Slavery instead of the buffed Civic, by providing an immediate bonus (Hammers or Commerce) that could not be used by switching back into Slavery.
Considering that Caste System already buffs a square improvement in BtS (Workshops), it's not unrealistic for Serfdom to be able to buff some squares (as long as we're not increasing the Food received from squares), making for a more interesting choice when it comes to one's Labour Civic.
AIs would have to be changed to favour Serfdom again, though. In Vanilla Civ 4, the AIs loved Serfdom. In BtS (at least with the BUFFY Mod), it seems as though the AIs will avoid Serfdom like the plague.
I think Bronze working should reveal iron, even if you can't work it yet, and mining should reveal copper, and hunting should reveal horses
I like that concept. It's similar to how Scientific Method reveals Oil and Physics reveals Uranium, generally at a time earlier than you'd research techs that allow you use to use said Resources (the Combustion tech being an exception with you taking a circumventing tech path to get to Combustion before revealing those Resources). It's even more similar to how Steam Power reveals Coal, and only after learning Steam Power can you research the techs which use it (Railroad and Assembly Line).
I would also nerf slavery, or put it behind a more expensive tech than BW.
Certainly, delaying when Slavery can come into play would make it a bit harder for the human player to overuse it, much how many of us don't use Serfdom except in Advanced Start games because it comes later in the tech tree, but the tradeoff would be that BtS AIs would be a lot easier to dominate in the early game. Civ 4 Vanilla AIs were better at protecting their Cities with Units, which caused them to delay expansion. BtS AIs tend to favour REXing with less City Defenders while relying on being able to whip defenders when war is declared upon them. Changing when Slavery gets unlocked would require tweaking of early-game BtS AI behaviour.
The minimum would be to make the Civic or religion change MUCH more expensive.
How about taking this idea down a different path? Instead of changing the cost, teach the AIs to trigger this Espionage Mission, particularly if that AI is running their Favourite Civic, you have unlocked that Civic, and you are not running it. Or, allow the AI to switch you into their Religion. Certainly, small little items like these would allow for more variety in the game and more of a challenge, and would also add some value to the Counter-Espionage Mission, plus a greater potential cost for neglecting Espionage.
There's a possibility that the AI could be tricked into switching you into a Civic or a Religion that you'd want to be in, but then setting up such a situation would add another strategic dimention to play, where you work hard just to save on the Anarchy.
Other random items:
1. Whipping a Settler or a Worker with the City Governor turned off will remove citizens from the wrong squares (a 3-Food Farm seems to be preferred to a 1-Food + 3-Hammer GH Mine, while the Farm only gives you 3 Hammers, and the Mine gives you 4 Hammers plus possibly more than 4 Hammers if you have a Forge)
2. The text for Loading Galleys/Galleons/Transports is logically backward--for Galleons it reads:
Cargo Space: 1/3
To me, that means that there is space for one more Unit on the Galleon.
The text should read:
Current Cargo: 1/3
which would correctly reflect the fact that there are two more spaces available on that Galleon
3. AIs shouldn't automatically give up on researching a tech when the Religion or Great Person was grabbed before they finished the tech--maybe the option can be presented to the AI to switch research paths, but in most cases the AI should complete research on said tech. The bonus from being first to those techs isn't the only value that said techs have. While I appreciate the idea that "oh, Buddhism is gone, let me race to Hinduism" is one small possible use-case, for the most part, an AI abandoning research on said tech really hurts that AI, losing it good trade bait, losing it the chance to build Wonders or get other items of value that often come with said techs (unlocking Caste System and Pacifism, unlocking Liberalism, etc), and causing it to delay researching the techs that come after said tech
4. Military Police Units should only be able to allieviate Unhappiness or provide Happiness under Hereditary Rule relative to the Era in which you are in. If you beelined too far ahead in the tech tree such that Warriors no longer provide Military Police Unit Happiness, then that's your own fault for beelining so far, and it's up to you to rectify the situation by building better City Defenders or paying to upgrade your existing Units. The idea requires a bit of thought, but using Eras is a good way to represent overall tech level, and overall tech level seems like it would be a good way to balance out the usefulness of a Unit in terms of its Military Police contribution. Would you feel safe with a guy in a loincloth "defending" your downtown?
5. Maybe National Wonders should not be rebuildable--once you have lost yours, it will be gone for good. That's how I thought that it originally worked, and it's how World Wonders work--if the City in which a World Wonder was built gets razed, the World Wonder cannot be built again. Removing the ability to get a National Wonder again doesn't add a lot to gameplay and instead reduces the cost of the decision to invest in a National Wonder earlier in a location that is "good for right now, but not as good in the long run," when you can find ways to lose that National Wonder and later rebuild it elsewhere. To make this approach work, though, National Wonders would be permanent fixtures for a City for a given Civ--another Civ could not receive that National Wonder when gifted such a City and could not receive that National Wonder when Culture-flipping a City, nor could such a National Wonder be obtained upon conquest of the City, but if the original owner regained possession of that City, the original owner would get their National Wonder back, similar to how World Wonders stick around except when a City gets razed. Think of it like Unique Buildings--if such a Building survives City capture, its surviving form is the Unique or Non-unique version that corresponds to the new owner of that Building. National Wonders are national, after all, belonging to the nation that built them, and being able to regain your National Wonder by recapturing the City in which you had built it would provide game balance against the idea of not being able to rebuild another "copy" elsewhere when losing ownership of said City. AIs won't raze Cities with World Wonders in them, so AIs could also be optionally instructed not to raze Cities with National Wonders in them (or optionally be instructed to burn those Cities to the ground if they didn't contain World Wonders, but you generally build National Wonders in Cities that have World Wonders, so this point may not matter much either way).
6. AIs should have a choice to intentionally guard their Workers, instead of it being a case of one of their roaming Units accidentally ending up on the same square as a Worker and only then deciding to stick around and keep an eye on their Worker buddy.
7. City Liberation should not give a Diplomatic bonus. Some other bonus could be given, such as a gift of Gold or some other bonus for your altruism, but BtS Diplomacy became very unbalanced compared to how hard you often have to work hard to please the AIs and in particular not anger the AIs in Civ 4 Vanilla or Warlords thanks to the free Diplo-repairing that comes along with a Diplo bonus for City Liberation. With so many AI decisions being based on their opinion of you, such as how frequently to decide whether or not to cancel a successful dice roll of choosing to go to war with you, deciding which types of Resources to trade with you, being willing to Open Borders or trade techs with you, and being willing to trade techs with you beyond their normal limits when they are Friendly toward you, it should not be so trivially easy to curry favour with an AI
8. AIs should not forego their normal decision-making algorithm when receiving a City if that AI has 3 or less Cities
9. AIs should not count any Gold per Turn that the player is gifting/selling to them as part of their economy. Several AI decisions, such as whether they are in Financial Trouble or not, can be influenced by the player unfairly, when the player has multiple ways of yanking the Gold per Turn deals out from under an AI. Certainly, the AIs don't trade Gold per Turn to each other, so it's purely an area of abuse for the human player to take advantage of, with multiple abuses being closeable by having an AI not count incoming Gold per Turn when evaluating their income for decision-making purposes.
Overall, we like the game because it does do a good job of balancing many different aspects, but there are certainly areas for improvement, and a lot of great ideas have already been presented in this thread.
Has to be done before 2000 BC more than 50% of games. Might be able to finish up to 1900 BC, after that - your bad if lose it. But even with all early game around it have lost it by 2430 BC with very strong my own start (~2250 BC target date with 2nd city founded).
. Of course, someone more skilled than me had to design it.
