7.7 general thoughts

[Ahriman]

Spoiler :

Combat
Renamed Cavalry to Dragoons.
Lancers are now Mounted-Melee units again.
Reduced the strength of Scouts, Archers, Swordsmen, Horsemen, and Cities to vanilla.
Chariot Archers can no longer move after attacking.
Reduced the strength of Warriors to 5 (was 6).
Reduced the defense bonus of Spearmen and Pikemen to 25% (was 50%).
Reduced the defense bonus of Survivalism II to 25% (was 50%).
Reduced the strength of Bombers and Stealth Bombers to vanilla.
Reduced the air damage modifier of military bases to 25% (was 50%).
CiVUP
Enabled the new Research Agreement median-tech bonus.
Reduced Declaration of Friendship research bonus to 1% (was 5%).
Reduced Open Borders gold bonus to 1% (was 2%).

Dragoons! Huzzah!
What was the reason for 5 strength warriors? Is it really a good idea for spearmen and archers to totally dominate warriors?
The other changes here are good, though I do worry a bit that the swordsman might be a bit weak.
When you make changes to to chariot archer, horsemen, etc. are you making identical changes to their UUs?

I'm still not sure about the vanilla research agreement mechanism, but it's worth a shot I guess.

Are you really adopting the vanilla nerfs to walls and castles? That seems a bit lame to me, those buildings aren't very good.

 

[Thalassicus]

Pre-patch mod increased the strength of every ancient/classical unit except warriors by 15%. It's similar to decrease only warriors and keep the rest the same. It's not exactly identical but overall it's similar. The differences are it alters balance of medieval vs ancient units, and makes it a bit harder to do fine-tune adjustments since all the values are scaled down 15%. I do want to keep close to vanilla though, which is why I did it. I'll adjust balance between the units further with this as a new baseline.

These changes affect the unit classes, which include the base unit and any current or future UUs. If individual leaders are too powerful or not enough I can adjust them independently of these "global" changes.

With the honor tree defensive buildings each give +1 post-patch, which is more valuable than the strength bonus for me, since my cities rarely come under attack. I also give a 20% production bonus for these structures in TBC. If the lower strength on these buildings makes it too easy to capture AI cities, I'll adjust the base city strength. I still wish we could increase hitpoints of cities with defensive buildings... Firaxis keeps changing all sorts of other things about them, when a simple hitpoint mod is all they really need!


I'm actually using a middle ground of the vanilla and mod research systems. There were two goals of my change to research agreements:

• Replace the free-tech method with one that is less exploitable and overpowered.
• Give a tangible science benefit to good diplomatic relations.

The perfect solution is:

• RAs available only when a Declaration of Friendship is in place.
• RAs provide 5% of combined and cost to sign.
• Each RA signed increases the cost of future RAs.

I think Firaxis's change might accomplish A (not sure yet) but it does not help with B. Since we can't do the ideal solution, I settled on the compromise, with DoFs giving a 1% combined bonus.

 

[Ahriman]

Pre-patch mod increased the strength of every ancient/classical unit except warriors by 15%. It's similar to decrease only warriors and keep the rest the same. It's not exactly identical but overall it's similar. The differences are it alters balance of medieval vs ancient units, and makes it a bit harder to do fine-tune adjustments since all the values are scaled down 15%. I do want to keep close to vanilla though, which is why I did it. I'll adjust balance between the units further with this as a new baseline.

As I understand it, you now have archers with ranged attack 6, chariot archers with ranged attack 7, spearmen with ranged attack 7, and warriors with strength 5. Warriors at strength 5 are pretty useless, and really have no role. The only reason you would ever want them is to be able to instantly promote to swordsmen when you get iron working, and that is a pretty lame reason for a unit. What if you don't get iron?

I also think it is worth experimenting with chariot archers keeping move after attack but being 5 ranged attack. It might be fun to have them as skirmishers. I think it is odd for them to have higher ranged attack than non-mounted archers.

Another thing to note: if you are nerfing all the normal units, make sure you don't forget to nerf the barbarian UUs.

I also give a 20% production bonus for these structures in TBC.

I don't think I understand this. Do you mean just from the Honor policy (ie honor policy gives +20% production while building walls)? Or do Walls give an inherent economy bonus? That would be weird.
I don't think it is good design to make walls worth building only under a particular policy line.
As you say, human cities rarely come under attack, so walls are hardly worth building, so mostly only the AI builds walls, which is why nerfing walls is not a good idea.

I still wish we could increase hitpoints of cities with defensive buildings... Firaxis keeps changing all sorts of other things about them, when a simple hitpoint mod is all they really need!

Yeah, I initially opposed this, but I changed my mind. This would be the best fix (combined with general rebalancing).

Replace the free-tech method with one that is less exploitable and overpowered.
Give a tangible science benefit to good diplomatic relations.
The perfect solution is:
RAs available only when a Declaration of Friendship is in place.
RAs provide 5% of combined research and cost gold to sign.

This seems fine to me.
But, as you say, I worry that you can still get RAs without a DoF.

 

[Seek]

I also think it is worth experimenting with chariot archers keeping move after attack but being 5 ranged attack. It might be fun to have them as skirmishers. I think it is odd for them to have higher ranged attack than non-mounted archers.

Agree wholeheartedly.

I don't think I understand this. Do you mean just from the Honor policy (ie honor policy gives +20% production while building walls)? Or do Walls give an inherent economy bonus? That would be weird.
I don't think it is good design to make walls worth building only under a particular policy line.
As you say, human cities rarely come under attack, so walls are hardly worth building, so mostly only the AI builds walls, which is why nerfing walls is not a good idea.
Yeah, I initially opposed this, but I changed my mind. This would be the best fix (combined with general rebalancing).

1. It's the former (Honor SP helps production for producing defensive structures).
2. I don't think walls, etc are only worth producing under Honor, because their nerf has increased their marginal values especially when the base city defense has been reduced (further increasing relative value). Not sure if it's been adopted here, but vanilla siege was buffed as well. These changes are to assist the AI in city-capture which is/was a pretty serious problem if defense is too high. There have been reports of AI capturing more cities from the human as well, but anecdotal evidence is just that - remains to be seen if the AI will have more general success in this or not.
3. This is true, but again, it's the relative value that is the most important thing to bear in mind here. If the AI builds defense but the human doesn't it's an overall buff to the AI. So it seems there are three goals that need to be balanced here: (1) defensive buildings are not too strong so the AI is able to take cities more frequently (than pre-patch), (2) they are not too weak so that city capture remains a challenge for the human, and (3) they are also not too weak so that the human considers them worth building. I think the patch moved in the right direction in this balance, but tweaking might be necessary down the line if one of these goals isn't met.
4. Agree.

This seems fine to me.
But, as you say, I worry that you can still get RAs without a DoF.

I think two things should be implemented wrt the new RA system:
1. Costs should reflect the exponential number of beakers gained from RAs, either by era (which FRB implemented) dramatically increasing the gold cost in later eras or by number of RAs signed: the first 200, second 300, etc, with the equal cost mechanism obviously removed. I find the latter slightly preferable because I think it would provide more interesting decisionmaking for when to sign the cheap RAs, but I'm not sure if it's possible.
2. Make beakers gained the average between the median of both civs, much like the DoF-based RA.

 

[Zaldron]

I'm actually using a middle ground of the vanilla and mod research systems. There were two goals of my change to research agreements:

• Replace the free-tech method with one that is less exploitable and overpowered.
• Give a tangible science benefit to good diplomatic relations.

The perfect solution is:

• RAs available only when a Declaration of Friendship is in place.
• RAs provide 5% of combined research and cost gold to sign.

I think Firaxis's change might accomplish A (not sure yet) but it does not help with B. Since we can't do the ideal solution, I settled on the compromise, with DoFs giving a 1% combined bonus.

You can get research agreements in any state: I was getting them in guarded last night although I had to throw in an extra lux to make them take the deal. Compared to the amount of tech a regular RA generates on completion (even without rationalism or the tower) 1% doesn't mean much at all, just a bonus for being friends.

I would actually still favor dropping the vanilla mechanic and reverting to the 5% for friends (which also helps act as tech diffusion too).

EDIT: I like both of Seek's ideas for RAs actually.

 

[Ahriman]

because their nerf has increased their marginal values especially when the base city defense has been reduced (further increasing relative value). Not sure if it's been adopted here, but vanilla siege was buffed as well. These changes are to assist the AI in city-capture which is/was a pretty serious problem if defense is too high. There have been reports of AI capturing more cities from the human as well, but anecdotal evidence is just that

I'm not convinced that reducing their defense boost increases their marginal value (though I think I understand what you mean; income effect outweighing substitution effect, for anyone out there with an Economics background).
But I agree that AI difficulty in capturing cities can be a problem, so I'm willing to play this one out and see how it goes, but I think that the fact that TBC removed resource requirements from siege units and boosted their anti-city capacity helps a lot here too, so may mean that the other vanilla changes (weakening walls) are unncessary.

I do think though that walls and honor are a weird synergy. Factions with honor will have large armies, and so much less need for walls. Also they are more likely to be on offense. Whereas factions focusing on culture and specialists (Tradition, Freedom) will have smaller armies and so will need to rely more their cities defensive power to lend a hand.
Honor should be boosting units, not city defense; the more peaceful/development trees should be the ones boosting city defense (oligarchy, universal suffrage, etc).

1. Costs should reflect the exponential number of beakers gained from RAs, either by era (which FRB implemented) dramatically increasing the gold cost in later eras or by number of RAs signed: the first 200, second 300, etc, with the equal cost mechanism obviously removed. I find the latter slightly preferable because I think it would provide more interesting decisionmaking for when to sign the cheap RAs, but I'm not sure if it's possible.
2. Make beakers gained the average between the median of both civs, much like the DoF-based RA.

Agreed; the beakers: gold ratio should remain roughly constant, and the mechanism should favor civs that are behind in tech.

 

[Thalassicus]

I agree about defensive buildings and honor. I do get what they're doing... they moved the happiness bonus from Piety to three separate policies in Tradition, Liberty and Honor. I'm just not sure it's the best way to give Honor a happiness bonus.

It's not possible to change the vanilla research agreement science allocation, it's entirely coded in the c++ we don't have access to. The only things we can do are disable it completely (replacing with the DoF method) or alter the monetary cost. The problem with cost is we can't change it to a per-agreement-signed cost (which I would prefer), it has to be per era.

 

[Ahriman]

I agree about defensive buildings and honor. I do get what they're doing... they moved the happiness bonus from Piety to three separate policies in Tradition, Liberty and Honor. I'm just not sure it's the best way to give Honor a happiness bonus.

I think a happiness bonus in Honor should come from garrisoned units, not walls.

But I will have to evaluate policies once I see all of them in front of me, I don't have a good grasp of all the changes as yet. But I worry a bit that they are moving away from each policy tree supporting a particular playstyle; eg +X food in every city from the Tradition tree supports a lots-of-cities strategy.

I'll take a look tonight and post some thoughts.

The problem with cost is we can't change it to a per-agreement-signed cost (which I would prefer), it has to be per era.

Per era is still workable; you can basically set it so the cost per era is roughly proportional to the median beaker cost of techs in that era.
Does this allow for different costs for different players though? So if I am medieval era and you are renaissance, I pay less?

 

[Thalassicus]

I think it uses the higher of the two costs for people of different eras.

 

[Ahriman]

I think it uses the higher of the two costs for people of different eras.

Ah. That stinks. If that it hardcoded, then that is a big strike against using research agreements at all. I feel strongly that RAs should advantage catchup over new research; it should help players who are behind in tech.

If the gold cost is the same for both players then that does the opposite, because the player who is an era behind will get fewer beakers from the same RA (the median cost of their available techs will be lower).

 

[Thalassicus]

Yep, that's why I went with the combined-research approach. I could just keep the vanilla system disabled and keep using the combined one.

 

[Txurce]

1. Warriors at strength 5 are pretty useless, and really have no role. The only reason you would ever want them is to be able to instantly promote to swordsmen when you get iron working, and that is a pretty lame reason for a unit.

2. I also think it is worth experimenting with chariot archers keeping move after attack but being 5 ranged attack. It might be fun to have them as skirmishers. I think it is odd for them to have higher ranged attack than non-mounted archers.

3. I will have to evaluate policies once I see all of them in front of me, I don't have a good grasp of all the changes as yet. But I worry a bit that they are moving away from each policy tree supporting a particular playstyle; eg +X food in every city from the Tradition tree supports a lots-of-cities strategy.

1. They're useful if you're doing an NC start and choose to bypass Archery, in terms of defending yourself in the Ancient Era. They are also useful against archers, the other first-tier unit. They fall behind in the second tier, and then can upgrade to swords in the third tier (especially with the TBC resource distribution). I think it's not a big issue, but there ought to be era and tier separation in terms of kick. Then there's the upgrade factor you mentioned: warriors/swords/longswords usually more valuable than spears/pikes.

2. The reason chariots presently have more firepower than archers is to balance their cost, considering they don't have move-after. I probably use chariots more than anyone here, but like the idea of playing with them experimentally in their proposed reduced state (like vanilla). I have always felt moving after firing is borderline OP, although a lot of fun.

3. I agree it's too early to tell, but the consensus on the threads among the better players is that the new trees and exclusions) steer you to toward a particular playstyle much more than the prior vanilla iteration.

 

[Txurce]

These may be bugs, but I've noticed that Scouts lose their ignore-terrain promotions when upgraded to Archers in Ruins; and Chariots still move after firing!

I'm approaching 100 turns and still no crashes.

 

[Ahriman]

They're useful if you're doing an NC start and choose to bypass Archery, in terms of defending yourself in the Ancient Era. They are also useful against archers, the other first-tier unit. They fall behind in the second tier, and then can upgrade to swords in the third tier (especially with the TBC resource distribution). I think it's not a big issue, but there ought to be era and tier separation in terms of kick. Then there's the upgrade factor you mentioned: warriors/swords/longswords usually more valuable than spears/pikes.

They would still be useful against archers at strength 6. At strength 5, they are not very useful against strength 4 archers that are ranged attack 6. At these strength ratios, even 1 vs 1 a warrior won't beat an archer; warrior attacks archer, both get damaged, archer shoots warrior and kills it. I think this is wrong; a lone warrior should kill a lone archer.
There is still a huge difference between full tiers; strength 12 swordsmen vs strength 6 warriors.
I don't think there should be a huge difference when there are only slight tier differences, but strength 6 warriors would still be clearly inferior (except for upgrade potential) to strength 7 +25% defense spearmen.
I don't think strength 6 warriors would be too strong. You could increase their hammer cost very slightly if needed.

Compare to vanilla. Are warriors really too strong in vanilla?
My understanding is that we now have vanilla stats for all the early units, except that warriors are weaker and spears have a defensive bonus (and lower mounted bonus?).

The reason chariots presently have more firepower than archers is to balance their cost, considering they don't have move-after. I probably use chariots more than anyone here, but like the idea of playing with them experimentally in their proposed reduced state (like vanilla). I have always felt moving after firing is borderline OP, although a lot of fun.

I agree that chariot archers were too strong, which is why I would only leave move-after-attack if their strength was reduced.
But low-ranged-strength move-after-attack chariots are fun and will behave differently from archers, as skirmish units. Whereas high ranged strength no move-after attack chariots will end up being used the same as archers, except that with a single open terrain bonus they will start to 1-shot warriors in the open (8.4 vs 4.5).
5 ranged attack chariot archers would only deal moderate damage to anything, rather than the very nasty damage they do now, and they would leave war chariots as a powerful UU. High movement isn't very useful unless you can move after attacking.
Its not terrible leaving them at range 7 without the move after attack, I just think it is worth experimenting with the range 5 and m-a-a, which might be more fun.

 

[Txurce]

I agree that chariot archers were too strong, which is why I would only leave move-after-attack if their strength was reduced.
But low-ranged-strength move-after-attack chariots are fun and will behave differently from archers, as skirmish units. Whereas high ranged strength no move-after attack chariots will end up being used the same as archers, except that with a single open terrain bonus they will start to 1-shot warriors in the open (8.4 vs 4.5).
5 ranged attack chariot archers would only deal moderate damage to anything, rather than the very nasty damage they do now, and they would leave war chariots as a powerful UU. High movement isn't very useful unless you can move after attacking.
Its not terrible leaving them at range 7 without the move after attack, I just think it is worth experimenting with the range 5 and m-a-a, which might be more fun.

I agree that any version of move-after-attack is more fun. I just feel there's something wrong when I favor the move-after-shoot version as much as I do (a no brainer build for me if not stuck in hills).

 

[Ahriman]

I agree that any version of move-after-attack is more fun. I just feel there's something wrong when I favor the move-after-shoot version as much as I do (a no brainer build for me if not stuck in hills).

I think it's fine for a strategic resource unit to be almost a no-brainer as compared to a resourceless unit. But I would hope that at ranged attack 5, it would be significantly weaker than archers in terms of damage-dealing, and would barely dent spearmen or swordsmen. You might really prefer archers dealing 3-4 damage per turn than chariot archers doing 1-2 damage.

I'm not convinced this is the best design, it was just a suggestion for an experiment.

 

[Txurce]

I think it's fine for a strategic resource unit to be almost a no-brainer as compared to a resourceless unit. But I would hope that at ranged attack 5, it would be significantly weaker than archers in terms of damage-dealing, and would barely dent spearmen or swordsmen. You might really prefer archers dealing 3-4 damage per turn than chariot archers doing 1-2 damage.

I'm not convinced this is the best design, it was just a suggestion for an experiment.

If it only dents units, then I would never build it!

I can see experimenting with it... but I was happy to first experiment with the present change. As I noted elsewhere, though, chariots still move after shooting in 7.y.

 

[Ahriman]

If it only dents units, then I would never build it!

Why not, if you can still use it as a skirmisher? 2 damage per turn for a unit that the enemy can never catch? And of course that is vs a swordsman, which out-techs them.

You send it out in front of your main force, to pepper an invading army with shots and then run away, to weaken it. I'd still build that. As you say, move after shoot is very powerful.

 

[Txurce]

Why not, if you can still use it as a skirmisher? 2 damage per turn for a unit that the enemy can never catch? And of course that is vs a swordsman, which out-techs them.

You send it out in front of your main force, to pepper an invading army with shots and then run away, to weaken it. I'd still build that. As you say, move after shoot is very powerful.

I wouldn't build a sufficient weak version because in the Ancient/Classical era I don't have units to spare, and am always outnumbered. I need to kill invaders. That's why I heavily favor arrow units early.

If it were later in the game, having special-purpose units becomes more feasible for me.

 

[Gamewizard]

The move after attack chariots would be OP if there were lots of horse resources, such as is in vanilla. But with the mod, when you usually only have 2-4 horse in your area, its not game breaking, just fun.