Let's make iron relevant again

[kaspergm]

i can do lua and all the xmls

Let's discuss the effects we want to add before we decide whether XML or LUA is necessary. I would suggest a +15 % production bonus to (melee?) units, as we don't have any wonders that give that, and will provide a nice synergy with Honor policy tree and Forge building.

 

[killmeplease]

Let's discuss the effects we want to add before we decide whether XML or LUA is necessary. I would suggest a +15 % production bonus to (melee?) units, as we don't have any wonders that give that, and will provide a nice synergy with Honor policy tree and Forge building.

bonus to melee production would be too short lived.
it could increase military support, or number of maintenanse-free units (though i'm not sure its possible).

 

[kaspergm]

Too shortlived, because melee units only cover up to and including Longswordmen? Or for another reason? I would extend it with gun units also, but one could make it apply wider also, to Siege units, or even Ranged or Cavalry units, although the latter too categories wouldn't make much sense to me.

 

[blazingsprocket]

The whole idea of not emphasizing iron so heavily is to allow Civilizations without iron to actually stand a change, e.g. game balance. Not all players start with iron. Not all continents have accessible iron. If you make iron too powerful, it becomes a "must-have" resource that benefits the player the has it to the extreme detriment of those who don't. If you have iron and all these valuable bonuses, how is someone supposed to take your iron away from you?

 

[steveg700]

The whole idea of not emphasizing iron so heavily is to allow Civilizations without iron to actually stand a change, e.g. game balance. Not all players start with iron. Not all continents have accessible iron. If you make iron too powerful, it becomes a "must-have" resource that benefits the player the has it to the extreme detriment of those who don't. If you have iron and all these valuable bonuses, how is someone supposed to take your iron away from you?

The logical outcome of the above is that there simply shouldn't be strategic resources. Everyone should just be equal always.

Iron was never so good that a civ couldn't survive without it. The guy who had it simply had an advantage. Some people resent it when someone has something they don't, so they deem it a broken "must-have".

If a resource is important, try to reveal it and get some. In the days of fanatical devotion to four-city Tradition formula, people have forgotten that they're supposed to explore and exploit advantageous territory outside of their backyard. But if players pen themselves in these tall boxes, then maybe they should miss out on something.

 

[Loucypher]

The thing with Iron though is that if you don't have it on your continent - good luck ever obtaining it while it's still relevant. This is not so much the case with the resources from Coal and on - at this point you can explore oceans and thus find other continents which might hold it, making colonalisation an interesting prospect.
Hence why Iron shouldn't be as important as those later resources.

 

[qwerty25]

The logical outcome of the above is that there simply shouldn't be strategic resources. Everyone should just be equal always.

Iron was never so good that a civ couldn't survive without it. The guy who had it simply had an advantage. Some people resent it when someone has something they don't, so they deem it a broken "must-have".

If a resource is important, try to reveal it and get some. In the days of fanatical devotion to four-city Tradition formula, people have forgotten that they're supposed to explore and exploit advantageous territory outside of their backyard. But if players pen themselves in these tall boxes, then maybe they should miss out on something.

A bit off topic, but it would be pretty interesting to play a game of Civ that was created with the notion of not having equal resources(and fairness) in it and have a lot more variability in it throughout the ages. Like instead of us the players having empires just growing larger and larger on some maps we'd be forced to be contended with a small nation and just have to make the most out of what we have. Actually you know it'd be really interesting if somehow we could implement nations rising and falling with power(yes I know about the mod, but its scripted) , not this mostly continuous rise of power we have in civilization. Anyways I prefer to have iron just give an attack bonus.

 

[dashwinner]

A bit off topic, but it would be pretty interesting to play a game of Civ that was created with the notion of not having equal resources(and fairness) in it and have a lot more variability in it throughout the ages. Like instead of us the players having empires just growing larger and larger on some maps we'd be forced to be contended with a small nation and just have to make the most out of what we have. Actually you know it'd be really interesting if somehow we could implement nations rising and falling with power(yes I know about the mod, but its scripted) , not this mostly continuous rise of power we have in civilization. Anyways I prefer to have iron just give an attack bonus.

OCC, Cultural victory, Culture-oriented civ, etc?

 

[steveg700]

The thing with Iron though is that if you don't have it on your continent - good luck ever obtaining it while it's still relevant. This is not so much the case with the resources from Coal and on - at this point you can explore oceans and thus find other continents which might hold it, making colonalisation an interesting prospect.
Hence why Iron shouldn't be as important as those later resources.

The opposite is the case.

If you don't have iron on your continent, you'll be fine because none of your neighbors have it. That's about as egalitarian as it gets.

Now, if you find out that you have no oil or uranium, you're in bigger trouble, because all that land may be already claimed.

 

[steveg700]

I don't think we should have engineer slots before the Workshop, I tried that once in a mod, and I really felt it threw off balance. Ok admittedly that mod added an engineer slot to the Waterwheel which comes already at The Wheel, so maybe it could work with Iron Working which is after all somewhat deeper into the tree - but none-the-less, one should be aware that an early engineer slot makes it really easy to pump out a couple of Great Engineers and rush some wonders.

I agree. We don't need engineer (or science) slots earlier than we're getting them. We just need an ealier building.

The iron tree was supposed to be oriented towards productivity, but there aer no productivity bumps until metal casting. You get the barracks, which you don't really want or need at this point. Let's look at early buildings other early techs grant:

Potter: Granary, Shrine
Calendar: Stone Works
Writing: Library
Trapping: Circus
The Wheel: Water Wheel
Masonry: Walls

Barracks just lose to pretty much everything. Like I said, forges should come down to iron working. Or we can have another weaker building earlier (e.g. a bloomery).

 

[turingmachine]

The problem with iron is all a result of them taking out bronze. Currently, you can't make iron too powerful in fear of skewing the game to those luckily enough to find it. Bronze served as a buffer which was revealed earlier, much more common (plus the combined odds of finding either iron or bronze), and allowed you to build some of the advanced units.

 

[dowd001]

The problem with iron is all a result of them taking out bronze. Currently, you can't make iron too powerful in fear of skewing the game to those luckily enough to find it. Bronze served as a buffer which was revealed earlier, much more common (plus the combined odds of finding either iron or bronze), and allowed you to build some of the advanced units.

100% agree. The solution is not to change iron units or make iron more plentiful, the solution is to create counterbalancing units based on other resources that may be available.

Also, no point in adding buildings unless the production yields are sped up considerably. Why add a building that we won't build anyway? It would need to be a stellar building to bump up to first in priority. Even if you move the forge forward, it would just expedite the creation of new buildings and increase your science rate, making iron based units obsolete too early.

The issue everyone is struggling with seems so clear to me...production is nerfed and science is accelerated to limit unit production. That makes iron irrelevant since its a transitory resource that expires too quickly.

So the solution is to (i) expand the period that iron is relevant by slowing down science through that part of the tree, (ii) create a counterbalancing resource (e.g. bronze units, and later saltpeter units) to remove the lottery feel of having an iron resource, and (iii) increasing production (but less than the decrease in science rate) to permit units to be produced fast enough to be usable during that period. In order to do that, you need a new limiting factor on unit production so the map does not explode with units. Which is why I think every non-first tier unit should require some limited resource.

 

[Bechhold]

Or create an entirely separate tier regarding resources and trade which can be branched out per era. Such as manufacturing Iron + Coal = Steel, Cooper = Electronics, heck give us an entire branch of pure manufacturing, which could be say offset with gold, hammer costs on the overall economy, for weapons etc. Which would all give say +1 attack or such.

 

[MrL567]

For Iron and a few things in general, lets expand units and buff a few old ones to be stronger and make iron more useful.

Swordsmen:Buff to 15, make legions 18 strength. Normal swordsmen should get the charge 1 promotion, and legions should get cover 1 along with this.

Pike-men: Keep at same strength, increase there damage to horse based units, but make them weaker to melee units. Maybe a 20% decrease in strength if being attacked by a melee unit?

Halberders: A Iron based upgrade to Spear-men. Stronger then Pike-men(STR 17). Reduce debuff to 10%, and increase strength towards calavery.

"Heavy" Knights: A stronger, but requires horses and iron of the normal knight (STR 18). Gains a 20% boost towards infantry that are not pike based. However, they move slower and can only move 1 hex in non-clear areas.

Longswords: Will be buffed to 20 STR due to Sword upgrades. Retains same upgrades but gains the armored buff, which means they get a 10% defense boost towards any other infantry.

"Heavy"Crossbow(Needs more historical name): Stronger Crossbowman that requires Iron. Will have a normal STR of 13, and a ranged STR of 18.


Forge: Keeps the "normal" stats for infantry production. However Iron production is raised by 2 hammer instead of 1, along with copper which gets 1 production boost. To a total of two extra production on mines which are worked by a city with this.

I have no idea what to do about unique units, but this is my idea on the matter of this thread.

 

[PreLynMax]

For Iron and a few things in general, lets expand units and buff a few old ones to be stronger and make iron more useful.

Swordsmen:Buff to 15, make legions 18 strength. Normal swordsmen should get the charge 1 promotion, and legions should get cover 1 along with this.

Pike-men: Keep at same strength, increase there damage to horse based units, but make them weaker to melee units. Maybe a 20% decrease in strength if being attacked by a melee unit?

Halberders: A Iron based upgrade to Spear-men. Stronger then Pike-men(STR 17). Reduce debuff to 10%, and increase strength towards calavery.

"Heavy" Knights: A stronger, but requires horses and iron of the normal knight (STR 18). Gains a 20% boost towards infantry that are not pike based. However, they move slower and can only move 1 hex in non-clear areas.

Longswords: Will be buffed to 20 STR due to Sword upgrades. Retains same upgrades but gains the armored buff, which means they get a 10% defense boost towards any other infantry.

"Heavy"Crossbow(Needs more historical name): Stronger Crossbowman that requires Iron. Will have a normal STR of 13, and a ranged STR of 18.


Forge: Keeps the "normal" stats for infantry production. However Iron production is raised by 2 hammer instead of 1, along with copper which gets 1 production boost. To a total of two extra production on mines which are worked by a city with this.

I have no idea what to do about unique units, but this is my idea on the matter of this thread.

Meh... that would make the game too complex. The current units is suffciant for this game.

1) Longbows already have a Str of 21... making them 20 would be a nerf, not a buff.
2) Heavy Knights, "Heavy Crossbomen" and Halberders would be an extra upgrade that can be used for rush buying units.
3) Instead of Pikemen getting a weakness to melee units, wouldn't the higher strength from melee units be enough?

 

[MrL567]

Meh... that would make the game too complex. The current units is suffciant for this game.

1) Longbows already have a Str of 21... making them 20 would be a nerf, not a buff.
2) Heavy Knights, "Heavy Crossbomen" and Halberders would be an extra upgrade that can be used for rush buying units.
3) Instead of Pikemen getting a weakness to melee units, wouldn't the higher strength from melee units be enough?

Eh. Was mere throwing upgrades out there. Long bows would likely stay same str in the end. I was just throwing ideas out.

 

[steveg700]

The problem with iron is all a result of them taking out bronze. Currently, you can't make iron too powerful in fear of skewing the game to those luckily enough to find it. Bronze served as a buffer which was revealed earlier, much more common (plus the combined odds of finding either iron or bronze), and allowed you to build some of the advanced units.

100% agree. The solution is not to change iron units or make iron more plentiful, the solution is to create counterbalancing units based on other resources that may be available.

The issue everyone is struggling with seems so clear to me...production is nerfed and science is accelerated to limit unit production. That makes iron irrelevant since its a transitory resource that expires too quickly.

So the solution is to (i) expand the period that iron is relevant by slowing down science through that part of the tree, (ii) create a counterbalancing resource (e.g. bronze units, and later saltpeter units) to remove the lottery feel of having an iron resource, and (iii) increasing production (but less than the decrease in science rate) to permit units to be produced fast enough to be usable during that period. In order to do that, you need a new limiting factor on unit production so the map does not explode with units. Which is why I think every non-first tier unit should require some limited resource.

I don't see the argument here for adding bronze, at least as far as using it to create units goes. The only viable unit for it is the spearman. You can make it common enought to be ubiquitous, but in that case it might as well be infinite, which is essentially what we have right now with spearmen not requiring a resource. It might be nice for mining purposes, but not for a unit.

Also, no point in adding buildings unless the production yields are sped up considerably. Why add a building that we won't build anyway? It would need to be a stellar building to bump up to first in priority. Even if you move the forge forward, it would just expedite the creation of new buildings and increase your science rate, making iron based units obsolete too early.

Well, the above statement presumes all cities having the same priorities for buildings. A bloomery might be a better choice production in a city that can't have a water wheel or stone works. But I'd prefer just moving the forge down so I can make units faster, since as you point out they have a shelf life.

It's true that on a game at normal speed, longswordsmen are on the way out not much sooner than you can crank a few out, because gunpowder is the only path from steel. But changing the overall pace of the game is probably beyond the scope of this thread (though it's a discussion worth having).

 

[fufie]

For Iron and a few things in general, lets expand units and buff a few old ones to be stronger and make iron more useful.

Swordsmen:Buff to 15, make legions 18 strength. Normal swordsmen should get the charge 1 promotion, and legions should get cover 1 along with this.

Pike-men: Keep at same strength, increase there damage to horse based units, but make them weaker to melee units. Maybe a 20% decrease in strength if being attacked by a melee unit?

Halberders: A Iron based upgrade to Spear-men. Stronger then Pike-men(STR 17). Reduce debuff to 10%, and increase strength towards calavery.

"Heavy" Knights: A stronger, but requires horses and iron of the normal knight (STR 18). Gains a 20% boost towards infantry that are not pike based. However, they move slower and can only move 1 hex in non-clear areas.

Longswords: Will be buffed to 20 STR due to Sword upgrades. Retains same upgrades but gains the armored buff, which means they get a 10% defense boost towards any other infantry.

"Heavy"Crossbow(Needs more historical name): Stronger Crossbowman that requires Iron. Will have a normal STR of 13, and a ranged STR of 18.

inca heavy knights will be massively OP and not have any historical precedent.

heavy knight should probably have extra bonus against light infantry, archers and siege weapons + wounded versions of them. light infantry could be defined as infantry wo ironbased armor.

heavy xbow is in some ways the xbow now where the ckn is a form of light xbow. but if you plan on a massive xbow: carrylng a massive iron xbow should cut movement and possibly be closer in application to a heavy machinegun with slower rof. maybe even set it up and have bonus against mounted units

 

[kaspergm]

I don't see the argument here for adding bronze, at least as far as using it to create units goes. The only viable unit for it is the spearman. You can make it common enought to be ubiquitous, but in that case it might as well be infinite, which is essentially what we have right now with spearmen not requiring a resource. It might be nice for mining purposes, but not for a unit.

Agreed. We don't need Bronze to return imo., Spearkman / Pikeman is supposed to be the alternative you go for if you don't have Iron to build Swordsmen. Spearmen/Pikemen should be units you go for if you want to stay defensive (because you generally get bonuses when being on defence) whereas the Iron units should be stronger and allow for an offence.

The problems arise from the facts that:
a) If you skip Swordsmen, you can get Pikemen not very much later than you would have gotten Swordsmen. Apart from their upgrade path, Pikemen are better than Swordsmen.
b) Longswordsmen come too late to really have a significance.
c) You don't really need Swordsmen to take cities, because your melee units will just be meatshields while Crosbows/Trebuckets take down the city.

I would suggest the following changes:

a) Lower combat strength of Pikeman from 16 to 15 or even 14. Pikemen are supposed to be anti-mounted units, and with their 100 % bonus against Knights (20), they will still be strong at 14. Lowering their strength will make the jump from Spearman to Pikeman less in strength, but given that they go from +50 % to +100 % mounted bonus, the difference will still be noticable (Spearman has a an effective 16 against mounted, Pikemen would be 28).

b) Reveal Iron at Mining and give Swordsmen a +25 % or even +50 % against melee units. This will give them a more defined role in combat.

c) One could consider moving down Longswordsmen to Metal Casting (or same level as Metal Casting)? If that was done, one would probably have to shift some techs around to secure a gap between Swordsmen and Longswordsmen, but the advantage would be that Longswordsmen come at the same level as Pikemen, and that the gap between Longswordsmen and Musketmen becomes bigger. One might lower the strength of Longswords by 2-3 (perhaps 19?) but if one retains the +25 % against melee, they would probably still be more useful than currently.

d) Give Archery units -25 % strength against Cities and let Siege Weapons start with Cover I promotion. I mentioned this before, but CB should not be your default unit to take down cities, and Catapults generally suck in their current form.

 

[BrotherInJah]

Actually the discussion turned into unit balancing and iron don't count here. Adding iron bonuses and/or another buildings depending on iron will overpower that resource. IMO forge is big diff in warfare and thats should be it. Also sword/longsword > spear/pike already, why make it bigger gap?