Leaders

[KevinJK]

It seems like America is still too weak, and it's because you improved their unique units rather than actually improving the civilization. Minuteman exists for a very short time before getting replaced, making it not important. The same problem exists for the B17, which can't upgrade (without mods) but still is inferior to the Stealth Bomber that isn't acquired long after. Adding bonuses to their units does nothing to actually improve the lackluster civilization. You need to upgrade the leader bonus.

And you did do that, but what you did wasn't important. You increased the cost reduction for buying tiles, but that always seemed unimportant to me. Buying tiles seems so rarely useful. For me, cities tend to grow in size faster than population anyway, and all those new tiles you can buy are worthless without people to work them.

My take? Leave the unique unit bonuses because they barely matter anyway, but switch the unique bonus to +1 sight and movement for land units and -25% gold cost for buying tiles. Manifest Destiny was all about exploring and spreading as quickly as possible. I was amazed that increased movement wasn't a part of it in the base game. It makes too much sense. Increased movement is also a decently powerful ability, making the civilization actually useful to play. They can explore, defend, or attack more rapidly. It's still not as strong as some other civilizations, but with increased movement America would no longer be the weakest civ in the game like it is now.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I haven't played as America yet with this mod, but in my current game Washington is absolutely dominating. He went on a massive land-grab and his cities expanded rapidly (I'm assuming from buying tiles) which allowed his economy to explode. As soon as he got gunpowder, he build the largest army I've ever seen, entirely of minutemen. He then took strong advantage of this and picked off cities from all his neighbors very quickly and easily.

The only problem is that now in the industrial era, he's the most advanced scientifically but has yet to upgrade or build a single rifleman, even though he's sitting on over $10,000 gold. I'm now in the process of completely destroying him since his minutemen are literally cannon fodder to my cannon/rifles/cavalry army.

The inability to upgrade properly seems to be a universal weakness with the AI's strength calculation. They're clearly at the top numerically, so they see no reason to upgrade, even though their military is hopelessly outdated. This seems to happen especially with UUs, which is a bad thing since a UU with a special trait that carries over is always the absolute first thing I try to upgrade.

That said, if a human was controlling Washington, his ability to churn out so many cheap and relatively powerful units would have won him a domination victory in this game. It's however worth noting that the game is Immortal/Marathon/Spare Resources, all of which worked to his advantage.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm playing on immortal/epic, and the AIs are upgrading regularly... it's odd they're not doing so in your game. I'm facing Japan in my current campaign and he recently upgraded all his muskets/samurai to rifles and trebuchets to cannon, significantly slowing my advance.

@KevinJK
Remember all of Washington's musketmen/riflemen/infantry/mechs ignore terrain, this is powerful when maneuvering forces in the mid to late game. No other combat unit but helicopters can do this. With a rifling beeline you can easily get a dozen level 2 rifles that ignore terrain for half the price, experienced enough to access the +40% vs cities Siege promotion (from Combat). That's good push material.

Even though ignoring terrain might not immediately appear to have benefit for rifles, you get to your destination sooner, which means you can complete a military campaign against a civ significantly earlier. In my current game I had a mountain range to cross with lots of hill tiles. I easily could have shaved off ~20 turns of my conquest time with that promotion. Earlier conquest means you get benefit from puppets sooner, which helps you even more for the next civ, amplifying your gains later on.

I agree the bomber's not very good though. I actually feel it's the weakest link, and might replace it with a unique building of some sort, not sure what though... ideally something in the late renaissance / early industrial. The extra movement speed is an interesting idea, I think I like it and the recent Mongol DLC added the attribute necessary for it (Trait_MovesChangeUnitCombats). I'd rather try and fix the utility of the purchase trait instead of remove it though, city placement flexibility is something no other civ has. I'll think about ways to combine these ideas with the tools we have available (which are rather limited for traits, actually).

The thing about tile purchasing is it's like the old Cultural trait in cIV, more flexibility in early city placement, since it's easier to gain access to resources around the city. I think the problem is actually the land-grab policy in the tradition tree doesn't really fit there. Washington's ability would be more useful if it was easier to combo with the policy for -85% cost, practically free. One idea I've been thinking of is switching the land-grab policy with the culture policy from Liberty. Culture games are typically small empires, which get more benefit from the Tradition tree, and it'd be much more useful for early expansionists to have control over tiles to grab instead of relying on +1 culture to slowly inch towards it.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I'm playing on immortal/epic, and the AIs are upgrading regularly... it's odd they're not doing so in your game. I'm facing Japan in my current campaign and he recently upgraded all his muskets/samurai to rifles and trebuchets to cannon, significantly slowing my advance.

Every other AI with a gold surplus upgraded just fine, but I think Washington didn't bother because his army was at least twice as powerful (numerically) as the next strongest.

 

[KevinJK]

@KevinJK
Remember all of Washington's musketmen/riflemen/infantry/mechs ignore terrain, this is powerful when maneuvering forces in the mid to late game. No other combat unit but helicopters can do this. With a rifling beeline you can easily get a dozen level 2 rifles that ignore terrain for half the price, experienced enough to access the +40% vs cities Siege promotion (from Combat). That's good push material.

It still seems like America is way too end-game oriented. They need something for earlier in the game. Unfortunately, since America didn't exist until extremely recently it becomes difficult to give the civilization something historically accurate that still benefits them earlier. The movement bonus would really help bring America up to pace with other civilizations plus it makes absolute sense.

I agree the bomber's not very good though. I actually feel it's the weakest link, and might replace it with a unique building of some sort, not sure what though... ideally something in the late renaissance / early industrial.

Oh, don't do that. Then your mod would conflict with Unique Balance, which already gives America the Radio Drama. I wouldn't want two mods I like to conflict, you know. Besides, your combat balance mod lets bombers upgrade into stealth bombers (why they couldn't in the base game I can't imagine). If they can keep the increased range of the B17 (is it implemented as a promotion?) then you'd end up with insane range stealth bombers, which would be pretty cool actually. Implement it as a promotion that adds +5 range and you get 15 range B17s and 25 range stealth bombers for America. That's certainly something useful for the civ.

I think the problem is actually the land-grab policy in the tradition tree doesn't really fit there. Washington's ability would be more useful if it was easier to combo with the policy for -85% cost, practically free. One idea I've been thinking of is switching the land-grab policy with the culture policy from Liberty. Culture games are typically small empires, which get more benefit from the Tradition tree, and it'd be much more useful for early expansionists to have control over tiles to grab instead of relying on +1 culture to slowly inch towards it.

That does get into discussion for another of your mods rather than this one, but while we're still in this topic, I'll say that I agree completely. Land buy gold cost reduction in Liberty and land buy culture cost reduction in Tradition make much more sense than the other way around.

 

[Thalassicus]

Well, the broadcast tower is even later than the renaissance, and I agree with your first point it should be less end-game oriented.

Exact timing isn't absolutely necessary. The Krepost is available at bronze working, yet the first Slavic states were not established until millenia later. Considering the US's immigrant history and homestead acts passed from the 1860's onwards, one idea I've come up with is:

Pioneer - Unique Settler for America

• 4
• Starts with Survivalism 1 and 2
• Ignores terrain cost

Something like this would tie in well with Manifest Destiny for early land grabs. You could send Pioneers anywhere in the ancient era without the need for a military escort, and target city locations with more flexibility due to the ease of purchasing land.

 

[Perkus]

That pioneer unit would be very strong... Early land grabbing is extremely important. Overpowered? Maybe not. Anyway, I like the general direction of that.

 

[KevinJK]

How likely would that be to conflict with other mods that add unique units? I haven't looked into modifying this game yet myself so I'm not familiar with its system.

The Pioneer makes sense, but it seems out of place to give any civilization a third unique unit, if only because "that's not how it's done" with any other civilization in the game so it would just seem odd. I also still think making the actual trait better makes more sense. America is pretty much the weakest civilization in the base game. I seriously don't see how just giving all their ground units one extra movement point would be overpowering. Their ground troops from Minuteman on up ignoring terrain cost helps, but again, just not soon enough. Increased movement would help the settler as you had wanted, but would also help move workers or troops around.

Also, do their late game ground troops that are produced later on get the ignore terrain bonus added when they're built, or must they actually be upgraded from older minutemen that just get to keep their bonus? Obviously the former is much more useful.

 

[Thalassicus]

The Pioneer would replace the B17, which I'm sure we can agree is rather useless.

I don't believe a movement bonus would be overpowered, or I would have discussed that topic specifically. I think it's a good idea.

My reasoning is an extension of a discussion on the main thread last week about the Japanese and English. No civ's attributes interact with the annex/puppet/raze mechanic, so I'd like to try and fit a unique courthouse in somewhere, for some leader, not sure who yet (originally was going to for the Japanese but people changed my mind). What I've been thinking about for the English is moving their factory to Economics (earlier industrialization) and giving it some other buff. No one has a unique unit/building available sooner on the tech tree.

In other words, rather than mimicking an existing mechanic (Persians already have a situational movespeed trait), I'm trying to think outside of the box for enhancing America, England, and Japan. No one has a unique attribute affecting settlers or workers, so this seems like a possible way to buff America. Swapping the policies mentioned previously would be another way to buff America, allowing easy access to 85% cost reduction.

 

[KevinJK]

The Pioneer would replace the B17, which I'm sure we can agree is rather useless.

Oh no, don't do that. The B17 is far from useless and it already has all the unique art in the game. There's no reason to remove a unique unit like that. I suggested before that you just make its bonuses into promotions that stealth bomber keeps. Bombers in general are quite powerful and useful. The B17's only problem is just that stealth bomber is so much better and replaces it rather quickly. Fix that issue by making America's stealth bombers keep the B17's bonuses and you'll have a very useful unique unit ability. A 25 range stealth bomber would be quite powerful.

No civ's attributes interact with the annex/puppet/raze mechanic, so I'd like to try and fit a unique courthouse in somewhere, for some leader, not sure who yet (originally was going to for the Japanese but people changed my mind).

Unique Balance gives France and Greece both unique courthouses. Just now playing as the Greeks I've enjoyed their unique courthouse on a domination game. Their Bouleuterion costs 1/4 less production to build and costs 1 less gold to maintain than a normal courthouse, letting you take over large areas and get their populations to calm down and accept you more rapidly (this works great with their quick growth because I'm allied with all maritime city-states). I haven't tried France yet to see what their Chateau is like.

What I've been thinking about for the English is moving their factory to Economics (earlier industrialization) and giving it some other buff. No one has a unique unit/building available sooner on the tech tree.

You're trying to make the English useful on something other than high-water maps? On water they're already very strong and don't need more bonuses. On a basic terra or continents world they're still not bad because they can more easily explore the map and control the oceans. I don't know that they need any help because what they do they already do well.

I'm trying to think outside of the box for enhancing America, England, and Japan.

Japan certainly does not need enhancements. The Zero is useless, but only because enemy AI so rarely builds aircraft, otherwise it would be good. Their Samurai are very strong and Bushido is extremely useful for domination victories. Unique Balance also gives them a replaced Monument called the Shrine, which on top of the normal culture adds production to the city once Archaeology is discovered. Puppetted cities almost always build monuments first, so their conquered lands end up building a little faster.

No one has a unique attribute affecting settlers or workers, so this seems like a possible way to buff America. Swapping the policies mentioned previously would be another way to buff America, allowing easy access to 85% cost reduction.

Again, I totally agree with the swap of Tradition and Liberty's city growth bonuses. That totally makes sense given the idea of both policies and given game mechanics. However, I think Liberty already affects settlers and workers enough that giving any civilization a bonus to them could make their potential growth rate too high if they chose Liberty as well. America gets great use out of Liberty and thus nearly always chooses it. Giving them another settler/worker bonus could make them expand too rapidly for other players to be able to catch up. You'd get a runaway America if they were ever played as AI, and ICS would be too easy as the player. America could very quickly jump from useless and weak to potentially overpowered.



And finally, you're probably wondering why I care so much about improving America. Quite simply, it's because when I finish with my current Greek game, I had really wanted to try a TSL map using America. Mods don't tend to load too well with previous saved games, unfortunately. I play with your slowed research mod on Marathon speed, so it takes a few days to reach any victory each time. I had wanted to be able to play a strong America, but I like your changes to other civilizations, so maybe I'll play Arabia, Iroquois, or Ottoman first. I haven't tried those civs out yet at all.

 

[Thalassicus]

In retrospect I realize the discussion about the leaders should have been in this thread instead of the combined one... but a summary of the topic:

• The ship of the line, B17 and zero are late game, non-land units, severe disadvantages.
• Replacing them with a better factory, settler, and castle (respectively) gives these leaders more flexibility.
• It also represents unique characteristics of the societies: early industrialization, settling, and protectionism. These are defining aspects of these nations that are not well-portrayed in CiV (not at all in the case of the English and Japanese).
• Overall when looking at leader balance, leaders need a few more traits and/or unique buildings augmenting the explore, expand and exploit aspects of 4x in some way. The current 3 units are useful only for extermination (or preventing it).
• The leaders are also underpowered in general and not very well liked (seen in polls like here), so could use some buffs.

In the case of England a unique factory additionally reduces the situational nature of the civ. A leader who is only useful on water-heavy maps, and is more useful than any other leader on those maps, creates a choice that is really no choice at all. Double embarkation speed already gives England a heavy water advantage (the primary benefit of her ability) since it makes water travel faster than land for quite some time.

The thing about Bushido is it has no effect if you fight with your units at or near full health, which I do most of the time. The Samurai shock promotion is also of limited usefulness, since it has no effect if you want to give shock to warriors or swords. Shock increases defensive strength 30%, while drill is only 15%, so it's very useful to get early shock promotions on warriors/swords. In addition, unique air units like the Zero have been shown to be very subpar in past game of Civ, primarily since aircraft are so very late in the game. At that point you've either won or lost already and just playing it out.

 

[KevinJK]

In the case of England a unique factory additionally reduces the situational nature of the civ. A leader who is only useful on water-heavy maps, and is more useful than any other leader on those maps, creates a choice that is actually no choice at all.

If you are playing as England, then you already made your choice. Choosing England is choosing naval power. In most map types, there is enough water to make use of this without it being overpowered. Of course, extremes like Pangaea or Archipelago make it too weak or too powerful, but that's only for a few map types. On most maps, England is not too powerful or too weak. Most civilizations have certain map types that help them out more, and Germany or vanilla Ottomans lose their entire bonus without barbarians and become overpowered with raging barbarians. Map choice will affect things, but it doesn't mean there isn't a choice.

The thing about Bushido is it has no effect if you fight with your units at or near full health, which I do most of the time.

I've used Bushido to great effect in a past game as the Japanese. It lets your armies march in and take city after city with much fewer loses and much less trouble, all without stopping either. To realize that Bushido is powerful, just consider that Japan effectively does not need to rest. They can just keep attacking at all times. Units will still fall, but as long as you can replace them, Japanese armies can simply keep marching without stopping. This makes conquest potentially very fast. You can also choose to heal units only when they are near death. Japanese armies can keep themselves at mid-range health at all times with no trouble, which saves a lot of time on healing. With Autocracy, they even get a combat bonus for doing this.

aircraft are so very late in the game. At that point you've either won or lost already and just playing it out.

Not necessarily. Bombers can really help turn around an otherwise failed conquest, and their great range can help a ton when defending yourself from conquest. Again, because of AI not building air units often, fighters are not very useful so the Zero is junk.


I'd still leave the Zero in though. I feel like removing any unique unit is a waste of the unique art files they already are using. That's why I appreciate that the Unique Balance mod simply adds in buildings or units so that all civs have two unique units and one unique building. Perhaps you should also add in unique stuff, but just don't remove what's already there.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I'm also wary of changing too much in a balance mod, like significantly changing unique units or abilities beyond numerical tweaks. Bushido isn't bad, and it's especially nice for giving the AI a boost to work with. Washington is definitely a weak choice, but I'm not sure a unique settler unit really solves that. I rarely send out settlers escorted anyways, and the AI is probably hard-coded to do so regardless of the sttler's unit strength (which would also negate the benefit of increased movement).

edit: As for the uselessness of late-game units, I agree that's unfortunate. A better solution though, would be to try to make the late game more viable otherwise, so those units will have their place. I haven't made it past the industrial with this mod yet, but it seems like you're making a lot of steps in the right direction with that already.

 

[KevinJK]

I'm also wary of changing too much in a balance mod, like significantly changing unique units or abilities beyond numerical tweaks.

I hadn't thought about that, but I do agree with it. A balance mod should change as little as possible to achieve balance without dramatically changing the game. I don't know if Thalassicus's suggested changes for the next update go beyond that, but from making mods on other games I know it tends to be a fine line.

 

[Thalassicus]

The thing is, it's a fundamental design decision for each civ to have 1 ability and 2 unique UA/UB... adding new ones without removing old ones is a more dramatic change than replacement.

Anyway, I'll think it over a while.

I do feel the lack of representation of those 3 characteristics (industrialization, settling, protectionism) makes these leaders feel like they're missing historic character, and are the weakest link in their underpowered nature compared to other leaders. I try and balance things within the existing structure when possible, but sometimes there's no alternatives, such as the addition of the Aqueduct.

It's not unprecedented to add or remove things during balancing. Take the Starcraft II's beta for example. Quite a few things got added or chopped, such as the high templar's phase shift ability replaced with feedback.

I suppose I could offer it as a small stand-alone balance mod.

 

[KevinJK]

I suppose I could offer it as a small stand-alone balance mod.

That's probably best. I actually use every mod you've made for this game, but I still appreciate that you separated them into a more modular system rather than making one big mod.

I ended up deciding to play as England in that TSL game I had been planning. They get a horrible start on the tiny island, but now that I'm sailing I don't feel that England is underpowered at all. I now have the ability to rapidly send settlers all over the world because although my Naval Tradition and Great Lighthouse only affect naval forces, England's bonus increases embarkation speed. That's pretty significant, actually. Most map types will have enough water to make England's bonus quite substantial.

 

[DeepQantas]

Make the American Pioneer a worker.

Terrain movement. Upgrades to Minuteman! (Just make sure it's an emergency measure, not a production cheese)

 

[Sneaks]

I have been playing on and off with these mods for over a month now, and I have to say, some of these changes are wildly imbalanced/overpowered.

The change to India's UA (which was easily one of the best 3 in the game already) has turned it into a runaway monster. The 100% city spam unhappiness was absolutely necessary to balance out its amazing population fix. If you have 25 size 4+ cities, you are still coming up happiness positive. The civ in vanilla in actuality supports horizontal and vertical growth better than anyone.

Arabia was another civ that was at worst, middle of the pack, and at best near the top. The bazaar already had a huge cash flow ability in guaranteeing hundreds of gold a trade with its luxury resource doubling. Given the fact that this civ already is one of the best gold producers, why "balance" it by giving it even more gold?

I also understand the initial thoughts behind adding to the longhouse, but you simply cannot give the building a smaller cost, a massive production bonus (that also works on wonders/units/projects), and then also give it the 20% bonus. In playtesting, it feels gamebreaking.

Finally, in personal opinion, I feel like if you want to keep the Lawmaker UA for the Ottomans, it really needs to be nerfed down to 25%. 34% is a lot considering you are increasing great general spawns (a la Wu/Alex/Oda) and scientists (Neb). Playing with it made me feel like I was playing Neb, except with better UUs and more GGs.

The one civ I was surprised to not see touched was Bismarck. His biggest issue is the extreme lack of decent synergy of a hit or miss UA with two mediocre UUs. I think an easy, yet not too powerful solution would to give his forces a 5% combat boost in foreign lands (i.e. a weaker replication of the Foreign Legion's ability) in addition to the barbarian deal. His cheap landsnecht plus barb pickups seem to indicate a rolling horde playstyle (which is basically what Furor Teutonicus means), and 5% to a lot of units would perfectly synergize this.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I think of all aspects in a game, leader abilities are the least important for balance. You can pick them when you start the game, so you could easily stack the deck for or against yourself, just like picking a difficulty level. Once in the game, they give it some personality.

 

[Thalassicus]

The thing with India's per-city unhappiness is the +50% unhappiness civs got for this across the board (3 per city, up from 2). When doubled, that means you're getting 18 unhappiness from your first three cities, up from 12... and a difference of +6 extra is rather significant this early in the game. Basically, the problem is it makes it almost impossible to expand early. I could reduce the benefit from population, however, from 50% to possibly 67% or 75%.

I haven't ever seen Arabia listed as one of the most powerful or favorite civs. It usually appears at the bottom of such polls. The thing about having extra resources is there's a finite number of civs to trade with, and once you have trading partners for all your resources any more are worthless. Arabia's usefulness thus depends on how many civs you play with in an average game... in standard or large sized pangea maps on immortal difficulty I usually only have ~4 civs that will accept my resources, and typically have three or four of those resources. You can see that in this situation the bazaar would do nothing.

In addition, Arabia's UA benefits ICS. These balance mods do a lot to reduce the effectiveness of ICS, in essence a nerf to Arabia's best playstyle. I also reduced the gold income from resource trades in the diplomacy mod by 20%, an indirect nerf to Bazaars.

Similarly, the Iroquois are rarely considered among the top-tier civs, usually near the bottom. Their UA and UU are both of marginal usefulness at best, and some of the worst abilities at worst. I can't modify the UA though, and don't want to buff the UU much because swordsmen are already quite good (with the changes from the Combat mod). Therefore, the logical place to buff the Iroquois was the Longhouse. In the next version the cost of the Longhouse is increased to be equal to Workshops.

The Ottomans are best played with a specific strategy that primarily has its benefits in the mid to late game, therefore the UA isn't quite as useful as it might seem at first glance. A specialist economy doesn't really become viable until you unlock the Freedom and Rationalism policies, and have Fertilizer. Scientists were also nerfed (less , GSs can't be exploited as easily).

Bismark actually had both his UUs somewhat buffed in the Combat mod. Panzers went from 60 → 65, and can upgrade from Cavalry. Pikemen can likewise upgrade to other anti-unit types, continuing their role as a unit counter.