[Modmod]Dawn of Knoedel - Comprehensive Rebalance Project

[calad]

Actually Guilds only doubles production, and even then only the civic, not the tech. Watermills however do get +1 Commerce with Engineering and don't remove foests.

Disregarding civics workshops now only give 1 production until Chemistry, as I intended them to be extremely situational before the Industrial Revolution, as is realistic.

I don't want to give workshops the same production as mines before the Industrial Revolution.

So guild civ still gives +1hammer? If so this is more intresting. However I still see (as you intended) workshops/watermills as useless because for example: you have city of Nanjing in China, you have 8 grasslands and you build in every of them a workshop. You gain only 8 hammers more, while mine alone gives +3hammers. So basically even if you build a huge number of workshops before guilds they are useless because amount of hammers is so minimal. Or can you provide me a better example?

That is what I intended with the removal of health from the Smokehouse, wasn't that enough? Should I completely remove the base health you get from difficulty? How about +2 sickness in all cities from Palace as a kind of anti-Hanging Gardens, or would that be overkill?

Normal buildings should give more unhealtiness. I think it could balance it out better but I need to look out this modmod first. Also there could be more healthy buildings like sewers, and for example walls, barrack and so on could give more unhealthy.

I just got another idea: Reduce the food kept by Granary and Smokehouse to 20% each, but make them add +1 Food per improved wheat/rice/corn and cow/pig/sheep respectively. Also add 5% food kept after growth to Walls, Castle, Bunker and Bomb Shelter, the idea being that defensive buildings provide additional storage space for food to hold out against sieges.

I was thinking something like that with aqueduct. Point is that currently granary is too good building.

Another idea I got while playing Arabia just now and seeing the Moors willing to trade Wine: Islamic buildings should give -1 happiness from Wine and Pig. Of course this should be balanced by giving them some other kind of bonus. Hindu buildings maybe should give extra happiness with Cow.

Any other suggestions Leoreth won't listen to that I could implement?

How about Islamic temple/monastry/grand temple would give that unhappiness? Anyway I dislike idea of giving nerfs for some religions. Moslems do drink alcohol but it is not so dominating as in west.

 

[Leoreth]

I was thinking something like that with aqueduct. Point is that currently granary is too good building.

I like this part of the discussion. I'm half convinced to change Granaries to 25% food kept and replace +2 health with 25% food for Aqueducts now.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

So guild civ still gives +1hammer? If so this is more intresting. However I still see (as you intended) workshops/watermills as useless because for example: you have city of Nanjing in China, you have 8 grasslands and you build in every of them a workshop. You gain only 8 hammers more, while mine alone gives +3hammers. So basically even if you build a huge number of workshops before guilds they are useless because amount of hammers is so minimal. Or can you provide me a better example?

In my current game as Arabia I built some workshops on floodplains that couldn't hold watermills. It's an okay-ish option until I run out of things to do for my workers whereupon they are to settle down in cottages. Also workshops don't take as long to build as watermills.

Normal buildings should give more unhealtiness. I think it could balance it out better but I need to look out this modmod first. Also there could be more healthy buildings like sewers, and for example walls, barrack and so on could give more unhealthy.

Again, I am reluctant to add new things. Adding unhealth to buildings is imo also not the way to go.
I did run into health problems in my Arabia game here and there, even Trabizon, a city without flood plains but also without fresh water would become unhealthy with size 6 without an Aqueduct, Grocer or Lighthouse.

I was thinking something like that with aqueduct. Point is that currently granary is too good building.

Is it still? Even without any health bonus and just 25% food kept? Maybe you shouldn't keep mentioning problems in the mainmod that I explicitly addressed in my mod?

How about Islamic temple/monastry/grand temple would give that unhappiness? Anyway I dislike idea of giving nerfs for some religions. Moslems do drink alcohol but it is not so dominating as in west.

They'll drink and not drink what I tell them to!

 

[Leoreth]

Maybe you shouldn't keep mentioning problems in the mainmod that I explicitly addressed in my mod?

Welcome to modding

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Sooooooo, is anyone actually playing this or am I just wasting my time here? Because if there is demand I would be willing to look into getting Git to run and keep this more or less up to date with the main mod, in addition to making some more changes of my own.

Some things I'm considering:

*Removing Immunity to First Strikes for all units except some unique units, mostly as a nerf to mounted units and because I don't know what it is supposed to represent anyway. Less vulnerability to archery barrages for fast moving cavalry? But light cavalry is even more vulnerable to arrows than heavily armored infantry, so it would really only make sense for Knights and unique units representing heavy cavalry.

*Knights are moved to Feudalism and Machinery instead of Guilds, but require the Vassalage civic to be trained. I might add a more general heavy cavalry unit at Metal Casting with strength 8.

*Give -10% City Attack to all or most mounted units.

*Make Mechanized Infantry require Oil

*Reduce or remove free health from difficulty level across the board.

*Reduce the food kept by Granary and Smokehouse to 20% each, but make them add +1 Food per improved wheat/rice/corn and cow/pig/sheep respectively. Also add 5% food kept after growth to Walls, Castle, Bunker and Bomb Shelter.

*Remove the extra hammers for catholic buildings, that never made any sense anyway.

*Adjust balance between civs, though I would like to hear more from the community about which civs are considered too weak or too strong before doing anything.

*Until Leoreth has gotten his act together on all the conquerers and barbarians popping up out of nowhere (it was gamey enough with just the Americas in basic RFC, but this has gotten ridiculous) I intend to nerf all barbarian unique units (and yes that includes the Seljuks and their Gulam Warriors, I never understood why they were a separate minor civ anyway) into the ground. I'm talking weaker than warriors.

 

[QManNL]

I've tried your mod and I really like some of the changes. The unit overhaul was interesting, and I like how useful some of the civics are now. As for the whole granary/smokehouse situation, once upon a time my strategy was to build a granary in every city that didn't already have one as soon as they're built. Even before your mod I've been reluctant to build granaries anymore unless I've taken care of more important things; and now taking away the health bonuses has removed most of the incentive for me to build them. Especially if you're going to continue taking away health bonuses from buildings, I'd advise against removing natural health bonuses, or at least replace them somewhere else whether it be added or subtracted based on technology or era (like in Realism Invictus).

*yawns and goes back to playing EU4*

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I've tried your mod and I really like some of the changes. The unit overhaul was interesting, and I like how useful some of the civics are now. As for the whole granary/smokehouse situation, once upon a time my strategy was to build a granary in every city that didn't already have one as soon as they're built. Even before your mod I've been reluctant to build granaries anymore unless I've taken care of more important things; and now taking away the health bonuses has removed most of the incentive for me to build them. Especially if you're going to continue taking away health bonuses from buildings, I'd advise against removing natural health bonuses, or at least replace them somewhere else whether it be added or subtracted based on technology or era (like in Realism Invictus).

But food is literally the most important thing there is, you can't possibly tell me that health was the biggest incentive to building Granaries.

I don't plan on taking away any more health bonuses from buildings, the only thing I would be removing are the innate health bonuses from difficulty. I might move the extra health bonus from Genetics to Medicine, or at least split it up between them.

*yawns and goes back to playing EU4*

No, come back, I can change! Just give me a chance!

 

[QManNL]

But food is literally the most important thing there is, you can't possibly tell me that health was the biggest incentive to building Granaries.

Admittedly granaries food storage effects have uses for slavery, and springing back from a plague, but when my production is quite low it makes more sense for me to build up my armies instead of building a granary. I don't see the point in having bonus food if my cities' growths are just going to be hindered by unhealthiness. By the time my cities can make use of the big population though, it only takes a few turns to build the Granary/Smokehouse anyway. I dunno, I'm not trying to be harsh about this. In the long run, they're just not an effective part of my strategy, at least most of the time anyway.

No, come back, I can change! Just give me a chance!

lol
Don't worry, I support you. I gotchu.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

And what about my suggestion that Granaries and Smokehouses add +1 Food to improved Grain/Rice/Wheat and Cow/Pig/Sheep resources respectively?

 

[QManNL]

And what about my suggestion that Granaries and Smokehouses add +1 Food to improved Grain/Rice/Wheat and Cow/Pig/Sheep resources respectively?

Sounds perfect. Actually, isn't that the way they were in base DoC already? Well, except, you're giving 20% food after growth to granary and smokehouse each, which is similar to RFCEurope if I'm not mistaken. I feel like no one has touched that mod in a while...

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Sounds perfect. Actually, isn't that the way they were in base DoC already? Well, except, you're giving 20% food after growth to granary and smokehouse each, which is similar to RFCEurope if I'm not mistaken. I feel like no one has touched that mod in a while...

No? In base DoC Granary gives the 50% food kept bonus and Smokehouse gives health from the animal resources.

I wanted to try out RFCEurope, but I can't be bothered to get SVN to run, so I'm waiting for an official release of 1.3.

 

[Soviet elf]

(Actually I don't play RFC DoC now. I play different mods from time to time, and played RFC DoC sometimes. But I decided to post because I agree with many your ideas.)
(I can't use more than 30 food/hammer/health icons in a post? Inconvenient.)

1. Watermills & workshops. I totally agree with your intent on watermills and workshops. But +1h for watermill and +1c with engineering is still too little.
Real world (correct me if I'm wrong): watermills were very important, they were used for grain grinding, paper production, mining, metal working, in Roman Empire there were factory-like watermill complexes. Workshops existed, but manual labor was very unproductive for a long time - also before factories "cottage system" was used frequently (working from home, not in workshop). During early industrial revolution there were boom of watermills in Britain, while early steam engines were too expensive and inefficient for workshops. Only with appearance of efficient centralized electricity generation + electric motors real mass industrialization started and watermills became non-important.
Also watermills have special requirements, they can't be built in every tile anyway, so they deserve strong bonuses.
If I make a mod (for BtS), watermills will be +1 +1, buildable in forests and also on hills, +1 from RP, but no other tech bonuses. And workshops will be probably replaced by "factory town" improvement (something like -1f+2h, req steam power, +1h with RR, +1h with AL).

2. Units.
2.1. I never liked that axeman is a main ancient unit in Civ4, while in reality main units were spears and archers. I agree, bonus vs melee should be removed. Even nerfing them too much is better (for realism) than default situation.
2.2. Bonus vs mounted. I think, spearmen and pikemen should have bonus vs chariots, war elephants and knights, but not against horse archers and cuirassiers. Archers and crossbows should have bonus against horse archers, but not vs other cavalry. And I totally agree with bonus vs mounted for machine guns - it should be even bigger, +50%. Weren't machine guns the end of cavalry?
2.3. Amphibious catapults and cannons - I agree, they shouldn't have penalties attacking across river, but giving them "Amphibious" promo also means that you they can attack cities or stacks from ships without penalties, doesn't it?

3. Units and metals.

I considered maybe removing hard resource requirements for melee units while increasing their cost and adding a modifier so they get built faster with Copper/Iron.

If I make a mod, I will remove iron resource completely (may be, copper too). Units like spears, knights, cannons will not require any metals anymore, mines will be +1, +1 with IW instead of +2.
Realism: iron is very common and has too many different economic and military applications. And if iron is a special resource, what's even mined in "regular" mines?
Gameplay: currently metals are too important, civs are too weak without metals, conquering metals without metals is very hard. And giving metals to everybody defeats purpose of having them as a resource, doesn't it? Iron to all!

4. +food. Personally I strongly dislike idea of flat +food for granaries and smokehouses. Why? 0) it's like in Civ5; 1) 1 food is better than 1 health (and even better with +% food), you may just keep bonus. 2) it's a road to ICS - the more flat per city bonuses there are, the more attractive ICS is; if city tile is the most productive tile, you should have more city tiles. 3) it's unrealistic, it's magic. Realistic buildings are multipliers, increasing labor productivity. But buildings with flat per city bonus provide magical food from nowhere, which can't be replicated again in same city, only in another one.
If I make a mod I will avoid flat +//// bonuses for regular buildings culture: is OK, wonders are OK). And will make city tile 1/1/0.

5. +% food. They are OK, but don't forget that food bonuses are strong and 1 food > 1 health. +5% food sounds weak, but it means +1 food in size 10 city and +2 food in size 20 city (and that's better than aqueduct or PT for size 20 city). +20% food from supermarkets is +8 food at size 20. Best health building ever. That's like national park in RoF DoC. Be careful with food bonuses. I would give supermarket only +10% food with power.

6. Food and health.
If you want realism, most food resources shouldn't give any at all, while health buildings/techs (aqueducts, hospitals, PT) should give more instead. Default BtS health system is completely unrealistic.
Adding corn, rice, sugar or pork to your diet, eating many types of grain and meat doesn't make you healthier. Fish is healthy, true, but people ate fish from local seas and rivers in areas which don't have fish resource. Europeans imported silks and spices from the East, not rice and crabs. And what was really important for human health historically were sanitation, sewers, vaccination, medicine, antibiotics etc.
If I make a mod, I will remove from most food resources completely. Only very few like tea and bananas will provide . Sugar will reduce health (2 1). And I will make health buildings better. Aqueduct: +4. Sewer system (req engineering?): +4. Hospital: +4, +2 with welfare state. PT/metro: +4, +2 with SP/planned. Etc. May be, also will make manufactured health resources like medical drugs, which you can sell or gift to backward nations. It will work fine for gameplay, I think, food tiles are already strong even without , and also it would help smaller nations, which don't have many resources. That's how I would make it.

7. "Capitalism" & trade - I think, bonus from trade is more fitting for free market economic system (free trade in food, no tariffs on food imports), rather then for "capitalism" labor system (which, I assume, represents wage labor without welfare state, though "industrialism" represents same thing).

 

[QManNL]

No? In base DoC Granary gives the 50% food kept bonus and Smokehouse gives health from the animal resources.

I wanted to try out RFCEurope, but I can't be bothered to get SVN to run, so I'm waiting for an official release of 1.3.

Oh, sorry, mental lapse. I thought you said "Health" not "Food". That would be interesting.

All I did for the SVN was make a folder named RFCEurope in my mods folder, right clicked it, and checked out from the url. Wait 10 minutes. Bam you have RFCE. Three simple steps lol

There hasn't been any activity in the RFCE forum since the end of October. It's pretty disconcerting. I hope they wrap up 1.3 and release it after the holidays at least. It was my favorite mod until the updates suddenly stopped and then DoC started picking up.

Anyway, yeah, sorry, I need to stop checking the forums at quarter to midnight.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I agree, they shouldn't have penalties attacking across river, but giving them "Amphibious" promo also means that you they can attack cities or stacks from ships without penalties, doesn't it?

Siege units can't attack from ships, period. That's why my solution is so elegant.

Granaries and Smokehouses wouldn't give any flat bonuses by themselves, they give food bonuses to certain tiles within a city's BFC, hence they do act as multipliers of something that already exists.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

7. "Capitalism" & trade - I think, bonus from trade is more fitting for free market economic system (free trade in food, no tariffs on food imports), rather then for "capitalism" labor system (which, I assume, represents wage labor without welfare state, though "industrialism" represents same thing).

The whole concept is pretty messed up in DoC anyway. The essence of modern Capitalism is Industrialism, and yet Industrialism here is supposed to represent an alternative to it. All the modern welfare states are capitalist. Even the self proclaimed socialist states of the 20th century based their economies on some capitalist premises, such as the concept of wages. Capitalism as a civic just makes no sense as it is used now. To represent the reality of the past two centuries Public Welfare should be moved to the economy column and replace Environmentalism (which shouldn't exist as a civic anyway) while Industrialism should be renamed to something that more properly represents the spirit of planned economies. Of course we could just move Central Planning into the labor category, but what should replace it in the economy category?

Honestly I'm unsure about what to do myself, so I'll just go whine in the Suggestions and Requests thread until Leoreth fixes everything.

 

[Soviet elf]

I misunderstood you about granary effects. If it's bonus to tile with resource, it's Ok. But does RFC DoC have such XML tag?

Yea, capitalism is an economic system, actually systems: mercantilism and free market are forms of capitalism, so "capitalism" as a labor civic is an incorrect use of term.
Environmentalism isn't an economic system at all, it always annoyed me, "every effort to be environmentally friendly" (or something like that from the description) is compatible with many economic systems and represented by buildings and in-game behavior: recycling and public transport everywhere, hydro and nuclear power instead of coal (power plants are another thing that I want to remake), forest preserves, going vegan and pillaging your pigs, furs and cows (OK, actually that gives no in-game benefit). I agree, this civic should be removed. Health benefits should be given to "public welfare" health: per city and per hospital), and per public transport should be given to SP/planned (IRL USSR had very few cars, many people used electric PT like metro, trams and trolleybuses).
I disagree with public welfare in economy category and planned in labor category. Planned/SP is an economic system definitely. It's compatible with different labor civics, it contradicts FM and mercantilist capitalism. Public welfare fits very well in labor civics, I always wanted to add it as a labor civic in BtS. Also public welfare should require "communism" tech. It was a goal for communists and socialists (OK, final goal was communism, but until communism) and in capitalist countries public welfare partly was a reaction to communists, wasn't it?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I misunderstood you about granary effects. If it's bonus to tile with resource, it's Ok. But does RFC DoC have such XML tag?

Yes, that XML tag was added this version and is in use for some Unique buildings. The Apothecary for example provides +1 Food for improved Incense resources.

I disagree with public welfare in economy category and planned in labor category. Planned/SP is an economic system definitely. It's compatible with different labor civics, it contradicts FM and mercantilist capitalism. Public welfare fits very well in labor civics, I always wanted to add it as a labor civic in BtS. Also public welfare should require "communism" tech. It was a goal for communists and socialists (OK, final goal was communism, but until communism) and in capitalist countries public welfare partly was a reaction to communists, wasn't it?

But aren't all currently existing welfare states capitalist?

 

[Soviet elf]

But aren't all currently existing welfare states capitalist?

Planned economies almost don't exist now too, almost every modern country is capitalist. "Planned" should be removed too? Post-Stalin USSR had free healthcare, free higher education, free childcare, relative equality in wages, no super-rich oligarchs etc. It had "public welfare" labor civic and "planned"/SP economy civic. Also Cuba exists and it has public healthcare (and high life expectancy for developing country) and free higher education too.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Planned economies almost don't exist now too, almost every modern country is capitalist. "Planned" should be removed too? Post-Stalin USSR had free healthcare, free higher education, free childcare, relative equality in wages, no super-rich oligarchs etc. It had "public welfare" labor civic and "planned"/SP economy civic. Also Cuba exists and it has public healthcare (and high life expectancy for developing country) and free higher education too.

Planned economies did exist for almost a century in large parts of the world, with two of three superpowers running it, so it definitely should be included.

What about China today though? And what about capitalistic nations with public welfare, like many parts of Europe?

 

[Soviet elf]

As I already wrote, "capitalism" is an incorrect name for labor civic, FM and merc-sm are capitalist systems, and I view "capitalism" in labor category as "wage labor without welfare state" (and "industrialism" is the same thing). So Western welfare states like Scandinavian countries use "public welfare" and "free market". Modern China - "capitalism/industrialism" labor civic (they don't have generous welfare, have sweatshops) and... if you want me to choose from existing economic civics, it's a "free market" (definitely not planned anymore and not mercantilism, because foreign trade is important, and obviously not guilds or env-sm). In Victoria 2 system, modern China probably has state capitalism economy (or interventionism) and few social reforms. Western welfare states are mostly LF/interventionism + free trade (except agriculture) + a lot of social reforms.