New Version - Nov. 20th, CBP v. 12.3/ CP v.66.1

[CunningGabe]

Reformation is still around, but not signposted super clearly. If you build the National Wonder associated to your Founder belief, you get the opportunity to pick a Reformation ability.

 

[Gazebo]

OK, just started a new game with this mod. My only real concerns-so far-are when items like production to wealth & building of trading posts occurs. Mostly because you run the risk of making gold too easy to come by IMHO. If you're not keen to move the first one back to currency, then I'd probably suggest moving it to somewhere like Bronze Working or Iron Working. As for Trading Posts, I'd be inclined to move that back to Horseback Riding or perhaps Currency.

Also, I might have asked this before, but are there any plans to make courthouses available to be built by non-conquerors? Perhaps with slightly different abilities if built in your own cities? Not entirely sure what.

Last of all, I noticed this in the previous updates, but I am kind of disappointed that there is no Reformation in the game in this mod. Even if it's not part of the Piety Tree, is there any way to make it a 3rd level Great Prophet Ability? So your first prophet founds the religion, your second prophet enhances the religion, & your 3rd prophet reforms your religion. What effects Reformation might have, though, I'm not too sure, but it would be cool to have it back in the game, if only from an immersion point of view.

Aussie.

Reformations are in the game – you have to expand your faith to 20% of global pop, and then build your religious NW.

Concerning improvements, I moved TPs earlier to help the AI if it is isolated. Smaller adjustments can be made in the future.

Regarding courthouses, I'm not really sure what role it would fill, as there isn't 'corruption' as in previous civ games. We can brainstorm, though.

G

 

[Anastase Alex]

I am playing as Byzantines right now. I can get 2 of the religious NW... I wonder if I will get two reformation beliefs...
Was sad I could not get reformation beliefs as my bonus belief.

 

[Anastase Alex]

Also I find that there are civilizations that have really useless decisions to enact... Byzantines for example are much less strong than Greece or Carthage (that I tested before). Also Greece can be a crazy powerhouse of tourism!

 

[Shalvan]

I just played as Dido with the new release (my first contact with CBP, and since I am a Carthage fanboy, I am mainly concerned about them xD).

I was very surprised when after founding Carthage I didnt see the free harbor. I searched the subforum and only found one guy saying that he liked that he didn't have harbors immediately - well, I don't feel it is a good change. Overall harbors were known in antiquity and it is very unintuitive and unhistorical to have Carthage gain it's UA in medieval era after researching compass. I didn't find any explanation for this change on this forum - why nerf Carthage in this way? To make isolation unhappiness have some impact?

The other thing is the Quinquereme - which is a poor UU, but it is even weaker in CBP I feel. In vanilla trireme has 10 strength, quinquereme 13, a good deal more. In CBP I was astonished when I opened civilopedia and saw the value of 15 strength on trireme page, while quinquereme has 13 listed. In combat it turned out that trireme has 12 strength, so I'd consider buffing quinquereme to 15.

There is a mod out there "Carthage Improved". It isn't perfect, but I think it got quinqueremes right, giving them the possibility to move after attacking. With this they can actually take a city in reasonable time, attacking and moving away to make room for another ship to strike. This mod also gives Carthage a big bonus to naval unit production and playing with it I was able to conquer Russia with a quick rush (two cities).

On the other hand, it was said that Carthage was more focused on trade and economy than on war. Perhaps giving them a UB would be a way to reflect that - but free harbors are sort of an UB (Harbor costing 0, with 0 maintenance, available at agriculture ^^ ). But still it did wage war with north african tribes and it conquered much of Iberia, and Hannibal taught Romans what it means to fear, so the military aspect shouldn't be completely overlooked.

 

[Delekhan]

In CEP and I think BNW Carthage has a unique building, the Cothon (unique Harbor). It provides a unique luxury resource, Tyrian Purple. I always thought that was a good idea for a UB.

 

[Shalvan]

Yeah, I know, but it was stated a couple times in this subforum that it is problematic. In CEP Cothon is a unique Lighthouse, not Harbor, and it has huge maintenance cost - because it creates a luxury out of thin air So the first one gives +4 happiness - awesome. The second one lets you trade it for gold or other luxuries, still great. But depending on the map size and the number of players you will get to the point where consecutive cothons with be detriments rather than boons.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Tradition:
Aristocracy grants +1 Gold per 5 citizens in Capital (removed culture from world wonders)
Oligarchy grants +1 Culture per 5 citizens in Capital (removed production from pop and free food)
Landed Elite also grants +1 food in all cities
Legalism unlinked from Oligarchy (like old tree)

Tradition seems to me still way more powerful than the other three early policy trees. Perhaps not gamebreaking OP, but at least for me too strong to be balanced. Why?


Problem 1 - the Tradition opener

Every opener (early policies) gives one way to acquire culture and one "discount" that gets stronger the more policies you have (+x% building prod, +x% unit prod, -x% faith point costs), except the traditon opener which adds a flat amount of food (+x food in capital).

While the "discounts" are definitly nice to have over the course of the game, the flat food bonus gives an instant rocket start for the tradition players. And this has an ugly snowballing effect. Rapid population growth generates a lot of science, allows fast settlers or a wonder/unit spamming super-capital. And so on.

So I would suggest to remove the flat food yields and add a growth modifier, allowing bigger cities over the course of the game, but not an instant super capital. So the openers would be more balanced against each other.


Problem 2 - super early engineer slot on palace

Early (classic) manufactories (0-2 food and 8-10 prod) are extremly powerful, but easy to get with an engineer slot on palace. Same problem as above, it's just too early and leads to immense snowballing effects.


Keep on your great work!

 

[Funak]

Bla bla bla Quinquereme, harbors and so on

I totally agree with you, I was extremely confused when I saw how late you got the harbor normally and figured it was meant as a buff to Carthage but after reading this I just lost it. I can see the point of having harbors 3 eras before everyone else being way too strong but atm all the UA does is save you some hammers and some maintenance, which is complete garbage.

I have two possible ideas for fixing this, and I'm mentioning them here instead of the leader balance thread because I'm an idiot.

1. Make Carhages UA unlock at optics or sailing instead. It will force you to invest some science into going the right direction while still having a UA that is actually useful.

2. Completely remake the UA into something else and switch the elephant UU for a UB harbor that is available at optics or a UB lighthouse that links cities. Best part is that either of those UBs could be called a Cothon


And about the quinquereme, I completely agree about it needing a buff, no idea why it would have lower combatstrength than the ship it replaces, just makes no sense (I'm looking at you, Slinger!). I however don't agree on your solutions for it, mostly because the AI is terrible att handling move after attacking which would make this UU way better for players (and we should probably avoid that).
My suggestion instead would be to give it some kind of powerful unique promotion that sticks on upgrading.
Some ideas would be:
Extra sight and movement
Being able to cross oceantiles(no idea why that would make sense historyvise however )
Prizeships(Also not sure why that would make sense)
A huge cs bonus when attacking(specific target? cities? other boats?)
Selfrepair/Faster repair
That Impi unique where you do a ranged attack before attacking
Earning promotions faster
Earning admirals faster (no idea why but whatever)
Probably something else that I failed to think about.

Comes down to what you want to Quinquereme to be able to do really I think early rushing cripples you for the rest of the game so I'm probably biased towards exploring.


About a UB, as I've mentioned before I'd have no problems replacing the elephant, I really dislike that unit to be honest, we already have tons of mounted UUs and tons of elephant UUs. If we don't go with the remade UA verson I suggested over I would suggest replacing the elephant with a UB anyways, still a Cothon, but giving it some other effect (obviously).
I don't like the CEP Cothon for the same reasons you mentioned earlier, it is either way too strong or worse than a normal lighhouse depending on your situation.
But coming up with buildings I'm really drawing a blank, something based around trade would be nice since that really was Carthages main thing.

 

[Funak]

While the "discounts" are definitly nice to have over the course of the game, the flat food bonus gives an instant rocket start for the tradition players. And this has an ugly snowballing effect. Rapid population growth generates a lot of science, allows fast settlers or a wonder/unit spamming super-capital. And so on.

So I would suggest to remove the flat food yields and add a growth modifier, allowing bigger cities over the course of the game, but not an instant super capital. So the openers would be more balanced against each other.

I suggested a %food bonus in the first place but it was voted down.

Problem 2 - super early engineer slot on palace

Early (classic) manufactories (0-2 food and 8-10 prod) are extremly powerful, but easy to get with an engineer slot on palace. Same problem as above, it's just too early and leads to immense snowballing effects.

Agreed, the manufactory is way too powerful now to motivate giving that early engineerlead. I'm honestly happy about the upgraded manufactory, because I dislike rushing wonders with them and wanted an alternative.
What to replace it with however I don't know. Might be better to reconstruct tradition from the start again and remove the capitalfocus since some people seem to have a problem with it.

 

[jma22tb]

I think the first four policies are very well balanced. I do a Nationalist approach, focusing on military, culture, and science at the expense of diplomacy, and I find it a difficult decision between Liberty and Tradition after taking Might right away. I really like focusing on Great People, Growth, but I also have come to realize that the Liberty tree makes the inevitable military campaigns and bringing in new cities a lot more affordable.

I think if I wanted to do a diplomacy, military, and science Imperialist game that it would also be hard to choose between Piety and Liberty for either a religion I can force down everyone's throat and dominate the WC with, or to save a lot of money and time as I expand with my military.

Keep in mind that Tradition will certainly make your capital great, but what does it do for your other cities for production? Liberty has your entire empire building infrastructure faster and it gets better over time as tech improves.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

I think the first four policies are very well balanced. I do a Nationalist approach, focusing on military, culture, and science at the expense of diplomacy, and I find it a difficult decision between Liberty and Tradition after taking Might right away. I really like focusing on Great People, Growth, but I also have come to realize that the Liberty tree makes the inevitable military campaigns and bringing in new cities a lot more affordable.

I think if I wanted to do a diplomacy, military, and science Imperialist game that it would also be hard to choose between Piety and Liberty for either a religion I can force down everyone's throat and dominate the WC with, or to save a lot of money and time as I expand with my military.

Keep in mind that Tradition will certainly make your capital great, but what does it do for your other cities for production? Liberty has your entire empire building infrastructure faster and it gets better over time as tech improves.

Liberty may give a nice prod bonus to buildings, but with Tradition I get a general boost (extra food leads to more pop which leads to more science and more prod), allowing me to build whatever I want earlier than the guy who takes e.g. liberty. And spamming settlers with my super capital allows a faster "wide" empire than liberty does. ("snowballing-effect")

For me tradition (opener and engineer slot) look more like a very powerful general early game boost and not like the balanced specialised boni which the other openers grant.

 

[Shalvan]

Being able to cross oceantiles(no idea why that would make sense historyvise however )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Phoenician_discovery_of_the_Americas


I like the idea of unique harbors unlocked at optics. JFD in his Hannibal mod has given Carthage a Cothon which adds gold yield to sea resources and makes ships stationing inside the city increase the city's combat strength just like a land unit does. Other mod adds Breakwaters as harbor replacement which adds +1 production to all sea tiles (kinda like Dutch dike in Civ 4). Cothon was both a trade and a military port, so both naval unit production and naval unit XP are worth considering.

What about UA though? In JFD's mod Dido claims all water tiles in 3 tiles radius from the city and creates a sea luxury resource (in every city). It's interesting, but I am not the greatest fan of this solution.

 

[jma22tb]

Liberty may give a nice prod bonus to buildings, but with Tradition I get a general boost (extra food leads to more pop which leads to more science and more prod), allowing me to build whatever I want earlier than the guy who takes e.g. liberty. And spamming settlers with my super capital allows a faster "wide" empire than liberty does. ("snowballing-effect")

For me tradition (opener and engineer slot) look more like a very powerful general early game boost and not like the balanced specialised boni which the other openers grant.

It's more subtle than that though. In a vacuum, a strictly Tradition civ would start off fast but slow down overall, while a Liberty civ would start off slower and pick up steam. I say slow down overall because while the capital becomes a monster city, you only have one production queue which gets the job done quickly, while a Liberty civ can build a single Forge or Stable in each city and get the Granaries, Libraries, etc. up to have higher quality cities faster than Tradition will.

From Classical on, a Liberty start ends up being stronger for overall production, but then again Tradition has 25% GPP so that Palace Engineer becomes even more effective if used for Manufactories.

I'd say it's a draw overall on production and Liberty favors patience and planning, while Tradition favors an Engineering Capital and higher dependence on it.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Reformations are in the game – you have to expand your faith to 20% of global pop, and then build your religious NW.

Concerning improvements, I moved TPs earlier to help the AI if it is isolated. Smaller adjustments can be made in the future.

Regarding courthouses, I'm not really sure what role it would fill, as there isn't 'corruption' as in previous civ games. We can brainstorm, though.

G

True, there is no Corruption in the game, but I still was thinking something along the lines of reducing the maintenance cost of the city it is built in, or perhaps reducing one of the unhappiness thresholds in the city. Perhaps a role that can also beef up later construction of constabularies & the like? Just a thought!

Aussie.

 

[Funak]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Phoenician_discovery_of_the_Americas


I like the idea of unique harbors unlocked at optics. JFD in his Hannibal mod has given Carthage a Cothon which adds gold yield to sea resources and makes ships stationing inside the city increase the city's combat strength just like a land unit does. Other mod adds Breakwaters as harbor replacement which adds +1 production to all sea tiles (kinda like Dutch dike in Civ 4). Cothon was both a trade and a military port, so both naval unit production and naval unit XP are worth considering.

What about UA though? In JFD's mod Dido claims all water tiles in 3 tiles radius from the city and creates a sea luxury resource (in every city). It's interesting, but I am not the greatest fan of this solution.

Could also add gold to watertiles, like the cothon in civ4. The UA issue remains however, unless you make the Cothon a lighthouse(which makes somewhat less sense imho) and keep the old UA(but makes it give you free harbors at a more reasonable tech)

Also, we should probably go back to the Leaders discussion forum instead We are taking up space with something that isn't directly patchrelated.

 

[nimling]

Not a big fan of the shrine buildings - it's very hard not to have that dominant a presence and not have the game locked up already against the AI.
Also St. Basil's is way too good, Oracle on Steroids due to the free SP - although I imagine the AI has a strong tendency to build it, it's basically a must-have.

Also, is it me or does National College not work? All it shows is +3 science. I haven't built it yet but that looks really weak.

Due to the lack of happy-producing buildings and the relative lack of unhappiness, Stupas are way too strong - basically one-shots happiness issues for all but the most overextended empires. Suggest changing the effect to GA points, or nerfing Stupas to +1 happyface. (Or +3/4 faith - a "superfaith" religious building seems good.)

City defense is still way too low. Either raise city defense or nerf ranged units attacking cities. The former is easier for the AI to handle.
The later availability of Walls just makes it easier to steamroll an AI and take their empire, with or without archers to do the heavy lifting.
Siege is also a bit too strong against cities (beyond the issues with city defense being too weak).
I do notice the AI is a lot smarter about fielding useful armies if they're warmongering, but peaceniks just die like wet toilet paper.

The +x resources per new citizen is highly abusable, due to how smaller cities grow much faster than larger ones. Those bonuses should scale to city size.

One With Nature + Spain is ridic. I know it's already OP in the base game, but given OWN's buff, it should be specifically coded not to double up for Spain. 8 faith + 4 culture (or 16+8 with the Tolerance exploit) is so huge that it might as well be a cakewalk.
Tolerance exploit with pantheon (Where your pantheon is considered a "majority religion") should be patched over as well.
All Pantheons should be equally valid for all civs (no effects unique to the founder) - need to double check to see if all pantheons qualify.

About Tradition vs. Liberty - if those are the only trees to be opened, Liberdition is very viable in this mod, since there is no policy that is an absolute must to rush towards like Collective Rule or Tradition's finisher in the old game. It is entirely possible to hold off finishing both trees until late game, although Tradition finisher would be nice to have early, so there is no conflict for opening Rationalism. Taking a detour to open Liberty still means being able to pick up the good Tradition policies early enough, and Liberty's good policies also come early (+1 production and cheaper roads, free worker+speed).

Not sure if Aesthetics should be closed until Medieval era; keeping it open at Classical adds more value to the tree, which doesn't seem to have gained much. Switching Patronage (back) to Medieval is a good move though, and it's stronk right now.

 

[CunningGabe]

Also, is it me or does National College not work? All it shows is +3 science. I haven't built it yet but that looks really weak.

National College does grant +1 science / 4 citizens in addition(?) to the +3 science. It just doesn't show up on any of the tooltips. If you click through to the 'pedia, it shows it in the "Strategy" section, and if you look at your "extra science from population" yields you sill see that it is included.

The same is true of Persia's Satrap building (Bank replacement) -- they give gold/citizen, but that isn't reflected on the tooltip.

 

[Funak]

Due to the lack of happy-producing buildings and the relative lack of unhappiness, Stupas are way too strong - basically one-shots happiness issues for all but the most overextended empires. Suggest changing the effect to GA points, or nerfing Stupas to +1 happyface. (Or +3/4 faith - a "superfaith" religious building seems good.)

Agreed, 2 happiness is way too much.

City defense is still way too low. Either raise city defense or nerf ranged units attacking cities. The former is easier for the AI to handle.

You're doing a pretty poor job of explaining why you think that the city defense is too low. The defense scaling from pop was removed because you are supposed to need walls and armies to defend cities. A city without walls really can't handle a siege, which makes perfect sense. If someone rushes you before you get your walls up you better have an army defending infront of the city.

Siege is also a bit too strong against cities (beyond the issues with city defense being too weak).

Siege is supposed to be strong against cities, you're not supposed to let siegeweapons get in range.

The +x resources per new citizen is highly abusable, due to how smaller cities grow much faster than larger ones. Those bonuses should scale to city size.

Pretty sure it is coded as "When a city reaches a pop higher than it has been before" most other mods doing he same thing works that way, if not that is probably the way to go. Other than that this isn't really something the AI would abuse, so you could just choose not to abuse it yourself and you don't have an issue.

One With Nature + Spain is ridic. I know it's already OP in the base game, but given OWN's buff, it should be specifically coded not to double up for Spain. 8 faith + 4 culture (or 16+8 with the Tolerance exploit) is so huge that it might as well be a cakewalk.

Natural wonders are rare and hard to grab (and usually they spawn in citystate territory), grabbing them should be worth it, spain or not, just deal with it.

Tolerance exploit with pantheon (Where your pantheon is considered a "majority religion") should be patched over as well.
All Pantheons should be equally valid for all civs (no effects unique to the founder) - need to double check to see if all pantheons qualify.

Some are kinda weird, and I think they require you to have them as a majority to work. like faith for science. I usually found my own religion so I don't really know, but if you don't get the effect from the pantheon as a follower, then something is clearly broken.

 

[Delekhan]

Why do some people obsess so much about exploits?

If an exploit bothers you, don't use it??

It's not as if the AI knows how to work the system.

Just had to say it.