I'm still alive and so is HR. I've just had to put Civ aside for awhile.

[KeeperOT7Keys]

I play the mod with raging barbarians anyway so I am not sure about the spawn difference, but I don't think there is a huge difference in vanilla versions. The difference is barbarians are a lot smarter in this mod, they to group with nearby barbs, if they can't group they pillage all of your improvements rather than mindlessly attacking your cities and cripple your empire. This makes them a lot harder to deal with, you either need to find a choke point with hills/forests and put some archers/warriors there; or you need to out-tech barbs (like discovering spearman when they still have archers, discovering archers when they still have warriors etc.) and kill them 1 by 1 when they approach your territories without having many losses.

you say agrarianism is useful, and I agree. what I usually experience in this mod is it is easy to have high production so pumping up units is not a problem (with agrarianism or substinence), but rather their upkeep becomes a problem in the early-mid game. but progressing in science is hard on its own.

EDIT: The leader traits to me are kinda hard to interpret it's true value. Humane, Charismatic, Organized and Traditional seem to be very helpful early game. Though i haven't warred yet, mostly just peacefully building and expanding.

I think traditional and charismatic traits are powerful in the early game humane is a bit mid/late gamish for me. you should also try an industrious leader, they are also very powerful imho.

 

[migalhone]

I play the mod with raging barbarians anyway so I am not sure about the spawn difference, but I don't think there is a huge difference in vanilla versions. The difference is barbarians are a lot smarter in this mod, they to group with nearby barbs, if they can't group they pillage all of your improvements rather than mindlessly attacking your cities and cripple your empire. This makes them a lot harder to deal with, you either need to find a choke point with hills/forests and put some archers/warriors there; or you need to out-tech barbs (like discovering spearman when they still have archers, discovering archers when they still have warriors etc.) and kill them 1 by 1 when they approach your territories without having many losses.

you say agrarianism is useful, and I agree. what I usually experience in this mod is it is easy to have high production so pumping up units is not a problem (with agrarianism or substinence), but rather their upkeep becomes a problem in the early-mid game. but progressing in science is hard on its own.


I think traditional and charismatic traits are powerful in the early game humane is a bit mid/late gamish for me. you should also try an industrious leader, they are also very powerful imho.

On the few games i've played so far to get a feel of the mod, often had to deal with barbarian chariots and spearmen before i had copper iron or horses. Thankfully the tech for archers and skirmishers is early enough. I have been trying to pump out archers almost non stop, so i have enough to fogbust. Even with subsistence/agrarianism it seems i barely produce enough archers/skirmishers to deal with the barbs, while slowly settling the empty land.

On a related note, by doing the above, maintenance costs of units and cities begin to skyrocket and it's not easy to keep up. I suspect we're supposed to build wealth? Work merchant specialists to counter those costs, no? Building extra orchards/plantations?

Are Diplomatic/Enterprising/Financial/Creative leaders better suited to deal with these costs? They do seem to have good economic bonuses, even if the extra trade route from Diplomatic doesn't sound as good as say Financial and Creative.
Now that i say that, Diplomatic and Enterprising sound like a good combo!

I've only played Standard size/speed Pangaea maps but i agree with the feeling research comes way too slow. Do you feel working several specialists as a Progressive leader would improve the research rate?

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

On a related note, by doing the above, maintenance costs of units and cities begin to skyrocket and it's not easy to keep up. I suspect we're supposed to build wealth? Work merchant specialists to counter those costs, no? Building extra orchards/plantations?

It depends a lot, first thing I want to mention is that if you are running monarchy after your civ becomes large it might be a bad choice. Capital production boost with monarchy is very tempting at the beginning but chiefdom has a very good unit upkeep bonus if you are going for a wide empire. Switch to monarchy if you have a good capital but switch back to theocracy or chiefdom until you have currency or aristocracy.

Otherwise I usually build wealth and run specialists to cope with my economy until I get the currency tech for markets. But if you also need to keep producing units at the same time, build them at your commerce-poor cities. e.g. if you have 4 coastal cities and 2 landlocked cities, use the landlocked ones to build units, and let the coastal cities run the sea tiles+specialists+build wealth (if you have harbors).

Are Diplomatic/Enterprising/Financial/Creative leaders better suited to deal with these costs? They do seem to have good economic bonuses, even if the extra trade route from Diplomatic doesn't sound as good as say Financial and Creative.
Now that i say that, Diplomatic and Enterprising sound like a good combo!

I think financial and creative traits are good for dealing with the costs in the early game, but diplomatic and enterprise are pretty weak. Because all the AI civs will run redistribution for the early half of the game, which prevents foreign trade routes with you, which makes the trade route bonuses useless since each trade route is only worth 1 and they are all domestic routes. They are super powerful traits in the mid-late game though once everyone adopts merchant trade or free markets, but it's already pretty late imo. Only way these two traits are useful is if you manage to settle on a separate continent/island in the early game so you get some bonus commerce from domestic trade.
By the way the politic leaders aren't a bad choice either because you can adopt aristocracy/republic early on which immensely boosts your specialist economy. aristocracy+financial leader can give +6 for running merchants at the beginning of the game after you build some kilns. it is almost as good as a gold mine!

 

[migalhone]

It depends a lot, first thing I want to mention is that if you are running monarchy after your civ becomes large it might be a bad choice. Capital production boost with monarchy is very tempting at the beginning but chiefdom has a very good unit upkeep bonus if you are going for a wide empire. Switch to monarchy if you have a good capital but switch back to theocracy or chiefdom until you have currency or aristocracy.

Otherwise I usually build wealth and run specialists to cope with my economy until I get the currency tech for markets. But if you also need to keep producing units at the same time, build them at your commerce-poor cities. e.g. if you have 4 coastal cities and 2 landlocked cities, use the landlocked ones to build units, and let the coastal cities run the sea tiles+specialists+build wealth (if you have harbors).




I think financial and creative traits are good for dealing with the costs in the early game, but diplomatic and enterprise are pretty weak. Because all the AI civs will run redistribution for the early half of the game, which prevents foreign trade routes with you, which makes the trade route bonuses useless since each trade route is only worth 1 and they are all domestic routes. They are super powerful traits in the mid-late game though once everyone adopts merchant trade or free markets, but it's already pretty late imo. Only way these two traits are useful is if you manage to settle on a separate continent/island in the early game so you get some bonus commerce from domestic trade.
By the way the politic leaders aren't a bad choice either because you can adopt aristocracy/republic early on which immensely boosts your specialist economy. aristocracy+financial leader can give +6 for running merchants at the beginning of the game after you build some kilns. it is almost as good as a gold mine!

I actually have used monarchy as soon as it becomes available. Should pay more attention to the civics and take more conscious decisions.

Yeah i thought so, building wealth and running merchant specialists are the only early games options available.

So the AIs enjoy Redistribution? I've never used it, the food bonus seems marginal at best.

Ohhhhhh Political gives you the Pyramids BTS 3.19 bonus of unlocking all the Government Civics, nice!

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

So the AIs enjoy Redistribution? I've never used it, the food bonus seems marginal at best.

yeah this is weird, it doesn't give any food bonus since 0.5 you get from a 1 trade route is useless and game just discards them, even if you have multiple trade routes. Effectively it's completely useless and cripples your trade but AI loves to adopt it when it becomes available. usually only 1-2 leaders with reciprocity as favorite civic will use reciprocity, which you should have open borders. I think the redistribution needs a balance but I am not exactly sure how am I going to do in my modmod.

 

[migalhone]

yeah this is weird, it doesn't give any food bonus since 0.5 you get from a 1 trade route is useless and game just discards them, even if you have multiple trade routes. Effectively it's completely useless and cripples your trade but AI loves to adopt it when it becomes available. usually only 1-2 leaders with reciprocity as favorite civic will use reciprocity, which you should have open borders. I think the redistribution needs a balance but I am not exactly sure how am I going to do in my modmod.

On BTS 3.19 Mercantilism closes foreign trade routes but gives you a free specialist per city.

For Redistribution to be better, perhaps the food bonus couls be changed from 50% to 100%? I still think it would be a mediocre civic but at least the increased growth would eventually lead to increased commerce output from those trade routes.

Is it size 10 that boosts trade routes commerce output?

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

I thought about 100% bonus but then it seems too much, in the late game it would mean a lot of free food. maybe it can have a flat food bonus like +4 but I am not sure what is the best solution. The problem is it tries to represent both the ancient egypt-rome where state would distribute wheat/bread to people, and also the socialist leaders like Mao. Idk what is best way to represent both of them thematically. It is kinda hard to balance too because it directly relates with the slavery civic and whipping.

iirc after 10pop you start to get the base commerce bonus so you are right.

 

[migalhone]

I thought about 100% bonus but then it seems too much, in the late game it would mean a lot of free food. maybe it can have a flat food bonus like +4 but I am not sure what is the best solution. The problem is it tries to represent both the ancient egypt-rome where state would distribute wheat/bread to people, and also the socialist leaders like Mao. Idk what is best way to represent both of them thematically. It is kinda hard to balance too because it directly relates with the slavery civic and whipping.

iirc after 10pop you start to get the base commerce bonus so you are right.

Oh redistribution and slavery... hum yeah that sounds a PITA to balance. Perhaps change redistribution to provide +1 food per trade route and increase it's civic upkeep from Low to Medium?

BTW does the AI changes civics once it gets access to better ones, like say Merchant Trade?

EDIT: I'm looking at the Society civic Estates Systems, and it seems to be more representative of the state distributing bread to the people. Maybe i'm way too off here but the bread distribution made by the state being represented by a trade routes focused civic sounds weird to me

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

I think of estate systems as just feudalism which increases the yields on forts and farms. but I agree it feels weird redistribution is related to foreign trade routes, maybe it should allow foreign routes only in the capital city? but I am kinda sure redistribution represents bread distribution by looking at the leaders with favorite civic as redistribution.

I don't really know about how ai decides its civics, maybe it considers the %50 as a good bonus but since it's not applied it can't get the benefit. but most ais convert to merchant trade once it's available immediately.

 

[migalhone]

I think of estate systems as just feudalism which increases the yields on forts and farms. but I agree it feels weird redistribution is related to foreign trade routes, maybe it should allow foreign routes only in the capital city? but I am kinda sure redistribution represents bread distribution by looking at the leaders with favorite civic as redistribution.

I don't really know about how ai decides its civics, maybe it considers the %50 as a good bonus but since it's not applied it can't get the benefit. but most ais convert to merchant trade once it's available immediately.

What if redistribution raised the amount of food stored by granaries, say from 25% to 50%? Instead of having that food bonus related to trade route yield? Several civics give bonuses based on buildings so i feel this would not be too out of line.

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

at first I thought this would break the slavery again, but actually it seems reasonable. but I am not sure if it can be done using xml, if it can be done I will add this change in a few days in my modmod