nerfing bronze working

[carl corey]

I don't know, I have phases of chopping and whipping then phases when I tone it down. By the way, the random event linked to Slavery won't happen unless the city is size 4 or above, so you could still whip a bit without problems when you're small, but that requires you to stay small if you want to avoid it.

I took a look in my logs I still have (loading the saves would have been too much) and I came up with this starting techs:
- Bronze Working - 4 times
- Animal Husbandry - 3 times
- Agriculture-Animal Husbandry - 1 time
- Fishing-Animal Husbandry - 2 times
- Masonry - 1 time

As I said I think we can forget Fishing and Agriculture-AH is pretty much equivalent to AH, so that would be BW 4 vs AH 6 vs Masonry 1. All except one game (Genghis Khan, Emperor BtS, Agri - AH) are played on Monarch BtS. I really wonder if on levels above Monarch BW is more prevalent, or if maybe there's a run to Archery or something.

 

[AnaNg]

Funny, my problem is growing enough early on, with all the workers and settlers to build.

I think that's the problem. The city governor switches to high food source tiles (and lately I've always been surrounded by seafood) when building a worker and a settler but then doesn't switch it back or often reswitches without my knowledge so I end up with large and very unhappy (and very unproductive because they're working all food tiles and no hammer tiles) cities early on.

 

[viinno]

"BRONZE" Working, correct me if I'm wrong, (WIKEPEDIA REFERENCE: Bronze is any of a broad range of copper alloys, usually with Tin as the main additive) but the term "BRONZE" describes a composite alloy, However the real meaning of the Tech is "COPPER" Working, BRONZE WORKING would imply that to gain the benefits of "BRONZE" you need the base elements of BRONZE and TIN, so prehaps Firax's need to include the base resource of TIN before "BRONZE WORKING" alows you to make units such as Axe Men and Sword Men. Failing that BRONZE WORKING and COPPER WORKING need to be different Techs.

Besides, any Tech that enables a Civic Change, a Worker Tech and a Mitiltary Tech is overpowered. Period.

I am 100% for pushing "Chopping" further into the Tech Tree, because I think the AI does not chop no where near enough and it holds a huge advantage for the Human player. I beleive the AI will only chop a forest to build an improvement, where as a Human will chop to gain hammers. Feel free to figure in defensive combat bonus's as nesescary.

To sum up: BRONZE Working needs to require TIN for units, push CHOPPING back in the tech tree and as many have suggested move SLAVERY to masonary. This leaves BRONZE Working redundant, prehaps a change to COPPER Working which might allow Axemen but not Swordsmen untill BRONZE Working is reseachered and both Copper and Tin are accesable?? Just my 2 Cents.

 

[ButSam]

Why not create a Melee Weaponry tech that is researched after Masonry and move Axes there (although Axes would still require Bronze)? That could work well. Archery already exists as a separate tech...

Of course, Melee Weaponry would be a prereq for Iron Working. BW would stay where it is.

That would actually also reduce the speed at which Axes appear, which is too early in the game IMHO. Anything with <5 attack is useless for attack against a human player, unless you know they don't have the right resources in their area.

Sam

 

[carl corey]

viino, I think you're needlessly complicating what is a pretty simple and pretty good system.

ButSam, if you'd need still another tech to get Axes and maybe Spears too then people would beeline to Animal Husbandry, Archery or Masonry instead to protect from barbs. You'd limit the early research paths from 4 to 3. Imagine you'd need Mining -> BW for copper -> Melee Weaponry for Axes. Would you still go for BW knowing that you'll need MW and the Wheel to build Axes? Or would you go for Animal Husbandry from the start? Especially since AH is also needed for pasturing cows/sheep/pigs.

 

[ButSam]

How about making Spears & Axemen available with the same tech, but Axemen require Copper?

That would make Axemen show up a bit later in the game, since more than 2 techs have to be researched to get to it (1 tech if you start with Mining).

Recall the point of this thread is the number of techs required to get all that BW has to offer, which is much more than any other 2nd-level tech, gives civs that start with Mining a slight advantage. Move chopping, move Axes, or move Slavery.

50 + 120 = 170 beakers required for civs that don't start with Mining, v. 120 beakers (only 70%) required for civs that do start with Mining, and this is by far the most powerful early tech for general game situations.

That is why I am suggesting something further should be done to the benefits of this tech.

Sam

 

[Percy]

The simplest solution would be to make so that no Civ starts with a prerequisite for BW, then. Not sure that's something we want, though.

 

[weimingshi]

You hear lots of balancing complaints for civs and units. Now techs also?????????

I thought civ is a game that mimics how human civilizations grow. If a tech doesn't do what it was meant to do historically, ya I would agree to change it. If historically a tribe with bronze stuff cannot mass chop trees, well then it makes sense to change it to a tech where humans start to mass chop trees. But if you want to change it because a tech is "overpowered" compare to other techs in that period. hum.... no thanks. Civ is a game that is vaguely historically accurate, which is why so many people love this game. If your proposed change got implemented, well the game is no longer vaguely historically accurate anymore.

Historically, some techs are much much more important than others, Bronze working is one of those techs. Balance it if you think its not historically accurate, but please do not complaint if its not "balanced". sid never started out this game with the idea of make a "balanced" tech tree, he started out the game with the idea of make a balanced game play, totally 2 different things. This is CIV, not a RTS game.


Historically, the civilizations that prospered during ancient age, they pretty much all discovered bronze working long before animal husbandry. Those that did not probably never survived long enough to even be recorded in history books. They are collective recognized as barbarians in game.

 

[Cer]

One possibility would be to reduce the number of beakers required to research mining, and increase the number to research bronze working. Say, make mining require 15% fewer beakers and BW require 15% more beakers, so researching both together would be a bit harder but it would make the biggest difference to civs that start with mining.

 

[Percy]

Historically, the civilizations that prospered during ancient age, they pretty much all discovered bronze working long before animal husbandry. Those that did not probably never survived long enough to even be recorded in history books. They are collective recognized as barbarians in game.

Well, then Bronze Working should not even be researchable, and civilizations should all start with it, right? After all, playable civs are not Barbarians, so they haven't survived.


In a game, when "choices" are forced because something is much more powerful than its alternative, it's usually a bad idea. The whole concept of CIV's tech tree is that you can follow a number of different paths.

 

[weimingshi]

Well, then Bronze Working should not even be researchable, and civilizations should all start with it, right? After all, playable civs are not Barbarians, so they haven't survived.


In a game, when "choices" are forced because something is much more powerful than its alternative, it's usually a bad idea. The whole concept of CIV's tech tree is that you can follow a number of different paths.

Does the current state of bronze working prevent you from following different paths? No it does not. You could go for example horse back riding path and go on a conquest run with mongols for example. You could also opt to get an early religion or 2 first. The benefit of getting an early religion ain't any smaller than bronze working, are you gonna nerf that too to balance it out?

On a side note, I don't mind changing slavery to something else. I'm no historian, but I don't see a direct link exist between bronze working and slavery thats greater than other techs. You can force others into slavery with a wooden club too. maybe we can even make it that slavery can be enabled by multiple techs not just bronze working, like masonry, bronze working, archery can all enable slavery?

 

[Flamer123]

As far as i know, slavery is not connected to copper, and chopping a forest only semi-connected. Our ancestors used fragmented stone axes to chop down forests.
If anything, to make civ more historically accurate, chopping forests should always be availbale and yield the same +30 production, while each invention - copper/iron/mathematics/machinery/etc should reduce the needed time for a worker to complete the chop.

 

[Percy]

@weimingshi
well, you're the one who said that civilizations without bronze working didn't survive. Now you're telling me it's not needed...

 

[slobberinbear]

I have gone from not chopping and whipping, to always chopping and whipping, then back to a middle ground.

As others have said, currently BW is not as critical due to increased Slavery costs, anti-slavery random events, and the relative scarcity of copper.

To me, the scarcity of copper is the biggest change. Now, especially at higher difficulties, you are forced you to go for military techs until you find a resource nearby that you can use to build something other than Warriors, even if all you want to do is defeat barbarians. If you research BW and AH and have neither copper or horses, you are pretty much committed to (a) Construction & Horseback Riding for catapults/elephants (b) Hunting & Archery & Feudalism for Archers & Longbows or (c) Iron Working. You can forget about an AI civ trading you copper in the early game.

So we could say that the scarcity of Copper makes Archery and Iron Working more appealing. Personally, I am a fan of archers but, unlike Axemen, they are not effective all-purpose units.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Talking about starting techs - sometimes I like to go hunting -> AH.

Under these conditions:

- I have a tile that a can throw a pasture on
- I start with fairly few forests
- I have a tech that can keep my worker occupied until AH gets researched

Optional:

- I have better than average archers i.e Protective or Mali

Basically my general opening is to build a worker first, then build something that will let me get to pop 2 then build the settler. Generally it's a warrior, but I've started liking getting a scout up to go pop huts, find good city locations, figure out my general situation concerning neighboring civs, and break FoW.

 

[AnaNg]

To me, the scarcity of copper is the biggest change. Now, especially at higher difficulties, you are forced you to go for military techs until you find a resource nearby that you can use to build something other than Warriors, even if all you want to do is defeat barbarians. If you research BW and AH and have neither copper or horses, you are pretty much committed to (a) Construction & Horseback Riding for catapults/elephants (b) Hunting & Archery & Feudalism for Archers & Longbows or (c) Iron Working. You can forget about an AI civ trading you copper in the early game.

So we could say that the scarcity of Copper makes Archery and Iron Working more appealing. Personally, I am a fan of archers but, unlike Axemen, they are not effective all-purpose units.

No kidding. I only play at Noble level but I'm finding myself beelining archery. Used to be I'd only research that when I could make something useful like xbows but never researched it early. Now, I pretty much figure I'm never going to have copper anywhere near me and if I research BW and don't research archery I ALWAYS get that random, aggro-barb event and get wiped out.

Copper's too much of a gamble if I'm not really set on early war so I find myself researching BW sometime after archery and even some other techs. Slavery's good but it's not worth getting targeted by barbs - they can seriously stifle your expansion, even if they don't enter your cultural borders.