(6-22a) Move Forges Earlier and Nerf Them

[pineappledan]

Proposal:
Forge/Siege Foundry (building)
Move from Iron Working to Bronze Working
Reduce Cost from 150 to 110
Reduce bonus to mines to +1
Remove +2 to Engineer specialists

Colossus (wonder)
Move from Metal Casting to Iron Working
Reduce production and policy requirements to match

Earth Mother (pantheon)
Rename to God of Fire
Increase bonus to Mines on Resources from +1 to +1
Remove +1 to Monuments
Add +2 to Forges

Tech changes:
Increase base Engineer to 4
Reduce from chopping forest/jungle from 40 to 25 on Bronze Working
Add 25 from chopping forest/jungle to Iron working (total of 50 with bronze working)
Add +1 to Engineers at Metal Casting (back up to total of 5, same as now)

Rationale:
This fixes a few deficiencies I see in the ancient era bottom techs, mines, and pantheons.

• 1 more ancient building so we don't need so many pantheons doubled up on monuments
• resuscitates Bronze Working, which doesn't quite have enough neat stuff on it to feel like a priority right now. Spears, SoZeus, iron resource, and chop yields doesn't feel like a priority when I could go top tree and get by on archers alone.
• The big chop bonus is nice, but it feels kind of like a gimmick to me. I couldn't make it work for me as an actual strat to rush wonders etc. I think reverting it back to the split with bronze/iron makes it less wacky
• There was a sentiment that +2 to all mines was too good, and a nerf to Forges passed in a previous congress, but was never implemented.
• While mines are generally considered too good, the Mine pantheon is generally considered weak. So, weaken mines, and move that strength over to the pantheon.
• Moves engineer specialist into ancient. merchants are no longer the only ancient specialist. Goddess of Wisdom now has another option for specialist to take on the opposite side of the tech tree instead of being locked to Trade. This makes that pantheon much more flexible. This addresses @Stalker0 's complaint in this other proposal
• Tutelary god's bonus to engineers no longer unlocks way back in classical. This makes it more viable and more consistent with other pantheons, which all unlock their abilities in ancient.
• Earth mother/God of Fire can augment Forge now and give higher faith on Forges, so it has more power after unlock. Also the double-incentive to unlock forges cushions the gamble on revealing iron for the pantheon. Right now it feels too risky to pick Earth Mother and then hope you have some iron hidden, but if the augmented building is also on that tech then the iron reveal is buffered with a guaranteed bonus.
• Adding an extra +1 to GoFire effectively reverses the mine nerf to Forges. This partially replicates the passed (but unimplemented) proposal to make Forge give +2 to resources and +1 to naked mines, which would have required some complex new code.
• Moving Colossus earlier fills a small hole left in the Iron Working tech. The Colossus has a stronger thematic link to being with Swords (It was legendarily built out of the melted down blades of an army that failed to lay siege to Rhodes). Colossus also feels relatively weak for a late Classical wonder, considering Petra does more and comes 1 full era earlier. Metal Casting is not hurting for unlocks now that both Forest and jungle lumber mills unlock there.
• Remove the +2 to Engineer specialists on Forge because it makes no sense. The Forge is the first building with an engineer specialist, so there is no good reason for it to also add yields to that specialist. You could just add the yields directly onto the base engineer and remove the text, then add a tech boost at metal casting to bring it up to the same power. The only way you could have a specialist slot without Forge is if you get the Royal Guardhouse from Tradition, so this might constitute a tiny buff to that policy, which seems both fair and good.

Database Changes

 

[Tekamthi]

why? just cuz?

Trying to mentally translate text and numbers into gameplay effects for ~100 proposals hurts my brain after a while, I need things spelled out for me

 

[pineappledan]

added rationale for change to OP

It took me a long time to write up. There's just so many ways that these changes would impact various pantheons and early build/tech priorities. So many things that it would (imo) improve.

 

[dostillevi]

Rare to see such a sweeping proposal also address so many issues, and I think it works.

A few thoughts though, because it's me:

1. Moving colossus to Iron means that the early trade route wonders will be 1 column apart on the tech tree. This reinforces that in the current meta, trade focused civs aren't meant to be able to grab both this and Petra. I feel like there might be more work to be done here, such as possibly moving the extra trade route somewhere else that's closer to the middle or the top of the tree and changing the colossus bonus, but that can be done later.
2. I like God of Fire, but I wonder if it doesn't push forges hard enough, especially in their weakened state. What about:

Earth Mother (pantheon)
Rename to God of Fire
No change to existing bonus to mines +1
Remove +1 to Monuments
Add +2 to Forges
Forges add +1 to mines

This is a slight buff that hits all mines, but requires a forge to get the benefit.

3. Might be room for a remake of earth mother along slightly different lines. For another proposal.

 

[azum4roll]

Reduce from chopping forest/jungle from 50 to 25 on Bronze Working

It's currently 40.

Forges add +1

[/URL] to mines

I don't think you can make a belief give a building the ability to buff a certain improvement. That's one layer too deep.

 

[rkkn]

• Bronze Working, which doesn't quite have enough neat stuff on it to feel like a priority right now. Spears, SoZeus, iron resource, and chop yields doesn't feel like a priority when I could go top tree and get by on archers alone.
• The big chop bonus is nice, but it feels kind of like a gimmick to me. I couldn't make it work for me as an actual strat to rush wonders etc.

I disagree on this part. Chop bonus is big enough that I get bronze working before calendar if all my plantations have trees on them.
it also makes low production jungle a lot less terrible since you can get production out of it early enough to help your early game

 

[Diomedes_]

This all looks great to me. Great job taking one idea for a change and turning it into a bunch of small changes that synergize really well together to enhance balance, QoL, and uniqueness. I think is inadvertently (or intentionally) also solves a number of other problems, namely Tutelary Gods being super weak/situational, the Engineer trad policy being markedly weaker than the Artist trad policy, and Colossus being in a very awkward spot for the civs who actually want to be taking it.

 

[azum4roll]

Funny how this proposal was supposed to be almost a year ago, but was blocked by buffing Engineers on Forge, of all things.

 

[stii]

These all seem like good reasonable changes.

 

[pineappledan]

Should it be God of Fire or Goddess?
Pele or Agni?

 

[ma_kuh]

Deity of Fire
It's replacing Earth Mother, so Goddess?

 

[azum4roll]

Should it be God of Fire or Goddess?
Pele or Agni?

Zhurong

 

[adan_eslavo]

Magis: this proposal conflicts with 6-31a as it touches Earth Mother pantheon. I leave it only as a note.

 

[Achico]

It might be worth returning a two-adjacent bonus to mines instead of adding +1 prod to them from pantheon.

It seems to me that it was disabled because of this powerful forge bonus (I hope its absence in the game is not a bug of smth)

 

[Rekk]

Mines have never had adjacency bonuses.

 

[Achico]

Mines have never had adjacency bonuses.

Oh, then I'm sorry. Apparently I just automatically tried to build them in a triangular format and only recently noticed that there is no bonus

but maybe it's worth implementation?

 

[Rekk]

Oh, then I'm sorry. Apparently I just automatically tried to build them in a triangular format and only recently noticed that there is no bonus

but maybe it's worth implementation?

No, we don't need every improvement to be balanced around having adjacency bonuses.

 

[pineappledan]

sponsor this

 

[Zuizgond]

There was a sentiment that +2 to all mines was too good, and a nerf to Forges passed in a previous congress, but was never implemented.

Why don't we start by implementing this and then we see if forge needs more adjustments

 

[Stalker0]

MAGI: Removed "a" from title, updated proposal lettering to match the reduced list of proposal options.