Probably Improved Gameplay Mod

[PieceOfMind]

I have a suggestion: if players don't like to build certain unit or building, or use certain trait or promotion, it's probably a good idea to improve them HUGELY, not just a tiny bit. For example, protective trait may actually good enough now, but in my perception, it's still weak and unattractive. After all, it's perception of balance in player's mind that's really matters. We can always tune down them in the future if we went too far, but then the player's perception will have already changed.

It's funny you say that actually, because I already am a bit of a fan of the Protective trait in the original game, and the boosts I've given it make me feel it might be too powerful now. Consider that Pro leaders are more likely to be able to make early use of the Drill 3 promo and the drill promotion line has received the boost relative to combat promos.

I know what you mean about making big changes, but I'd rather stay on the safe side and make small changes and then re-adjust if it is decided it still isn't enough. After all, most people don't complain the original game is horribly unbalanced.

 

[Dragonxander PR]

Current list of changes for v0.2:

Already done:
-Forts given 1 with a road, 2 with a railroad.
-Clearing jungle now creates produces 10, one third of that when clearing a forest. Small compensation for heavily jungled areas. Though this change is probably unnecessary. What do people think?

In real life, jungles can be far more productive than forests (just think about medicines, minerals & tropical woods). This is what I suggest:

- +1 on a jungled tile
- give the same production yield forests give, but for jungle chopping
- increase the jungle clearing cost (from 6 to 8 turns in Epic)
- allow lumbermills to be built in jungles (then chopping them might not be so attractive after all)
- make them grow on Plains tiles (the barren land obtained from jungle chopping in reality isn't that fertile)

 

[PieceOfMind]

Dragon, some interesting suggestions there.

Now it's time for me to be critical.

IMO jungles are tricky because in the standard game they are always on grassland and so a city surrouned by jungle tiles has significant potential. Giving them the full hammer bonus for chopping IMO makes jungle cities too attractive. In my experience, maps that have a fair bit of jungle tend to have massive chunks of jungle, making them better than forests.

I like the idea of allowing lumbermills to be built on them. This at least makes a good early alternative to forest preserves.

+1 on a jungle? This is at least a moderate change. Along with the health penalty this could be interesting... I will go ahead with this.

Now, the increased chop time along with the increased chop yield is interesting, but I wonder whether it's a good idea. I'm still hesitant to give jungles too large a chop bonus because chopping all the jungles in a commerce city gives a huge boost to getting a granary and library etc. up.

As for jungles growing on plains, I'm not sure about this. I'm not sure what effect that will have on most mapscripts. A jungle on plains would probably still get chopped anyway because of the health penalty.

Mapscripts like Tectonics which generate a lot of plains might be affected?

So at this point, without any further incentive to make those changes, I will stick to the allowing lumber mills and giving them +1.

As a further idea, what about adding +1 to riverside jungles? i.e. the food penalty for having a jungle is removed if it is river-side. I've added this for now but will remove it if people don't agree with it.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Just a couple of updates on my current thoughts:

Explorers were somewhat boosted when I allowed them to take W3. This means you can build a W3 explorer (effectively a medic) off the bat from a city with +2xp (e.g. with Theocracy or Vassalage or a settled GG). This will mean they are easier to use regularly as medics, as a 15% medic is better than a 10% medic.

This might even justify keeping their cost at 40.

Also, with W3, a medic on a forest is 8str with 2 first strikes, which is pretty decent.

And since the scouts are more survivable now, they are more likely to be around for an upgrade.

I am reconsidering my move to give 1 to riverside jungles (making them effectively equivalent to forests).

I'm yet to fix the axemen as per phungus's suggestion, but I think I will take each of them back to 35 as default, introducing the +25% vs. swords as suggested, while making the dog solider 30 with the 100% vs. melee (which effectively means 50% vs. axes).

 

[AveiMil]

So at this point, without any further incentive to make those changes, I will stick to the allowing lumber mills and giving them +1.

As a further idea, what about adding +1 to riverside jungles? i.e. the food penalty for having a jungle is removed if it is river-side. I've added this for now but will remove it if people don't agree with it.

I think this is a bad idea. To specify the change in its self is not too bad, however in my opinion you should change as little as possible in your mod for it to be attractive to the general public. Making changes like these are virtually useless and just clutter up a potential change log making the mod more complicated instead of keeping it as true to the original as possible.

Before making a game change in your mod ask your self:

1. Does this change actually improve or impact game play in a positive way?

Then remember that less is more and ask your self:

2. Is it really necessary?

Unless you answer these two questions with a resounding yes I feel you’re going to end up with a mod that changes a gazillion small unnecessary details which users now have to adjust too.

 

[AveiMil]

Current list of changes for v0.2:

Already done:

I'll write my reply in blue below each change.

-Forts given 1 with a road, 2 with a railroad.
I think this change is fine, makes Forts slightly less useless.
-Clearing jungle now produces 10, one third of that when clearing a forest. Small compensation for heavily jungled areas. Though this change is probably unnecessary. What do people think?
Unnecessary. Clearing jungle probably takes more energy or resources than what you can get out of it anyway.
-Marine given +1 first strike, navy seal also gets +1 first strike - now has 2-3 to start.
No opinion.
-First to discover Divine Right receives free Great Prophet.
I like the change on paper.
-Broadway requires Theatre.
Resaonable.
-Qeuchua reduced archer modifier to 50 from 100. Extra 25% city defense.
Agree for now
-Paratrooper drop range increased from 5 to 6.
I like the change on paper but wonder if it might be unnecessary.
-Explorer cost reduced to 35 from 40.
That's fine but again maybe unnecessary.
-Serfdom: +1 on all farms but -25% GPP production.
Makes Serfdom a bit more interresting at least. I like it.
-Jungles given +1, and do not remove the 1 if they are on a river.
This is a fairly major change that I don't like. Keep jungles as is, I don't see any reason to change them.
-Lumbermills can be built on jungles.
This seem pointless and I'd prefer if it was not changed.

 

[Conqistador]

The jungles producing hammers makes a lot of sense. After all, jungles do have quite a bit of wood in them.

 

[Lord Tirian]

The jungles producing hammers makes a lot of sense. After all, jungles do have quite a bit of wood in them.

Don't confuse flavour with gameplay!

On the jungle issue: The problem with jungles is that the game seems to like to drop you close to it, meaning you sit on very bad terrain until you can chop it - jungle is basically the "ugly duckling"-terrain, terrible early on, but later it gives you fun grasslands.

That's a pretty precarious balance, hence I have to say: Don't tinker with it too much, keep changes down. Adding a chop bonus, I think, is a nice way to sweeten the early sting from it. But if you actually start making jungle good (like the hammer/food change), it changes the nature of the terrain entirely (no "ugly duckling" any longer!), in which case you need to take a hard look at how it's distributed on maps and how much the game likes to drop you there.

That's going beyond "subtle changes", I think - hence I suggest keeping the chop (it also plays into the existing way it is designed), but leave it untouched otherwise.

Cheers, LT.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I think the reasoning behind the jungle changes, is that I and many others believe there is very little reason not to just cut down every jungle as soon as possible. Is there a straigth-forward way to give a little use to jungles? As I said before, I'm reconsidering the 1 on river jungles because I don't believe it adds a lot, and I think getting some hammers for cutting a jungle is a common suggestion (one that many mods have already implemented).

IMO a change might be worthwhile if it makes a decision that is usually easy, less easy, or one that is normally obvious, less obvious.

After some reconsideration I spoke of in one of my previous posts, I'm starting to think the cost reduction is unnecessary on the explorer, as the ability to gain W3 is probably more than eough to restore some value to the unit. Certainly moving it any further forward in the tech tree would be too risky in what exploits it might open up.

Back to the jungles, I think at least one change is in order, whether it's the small compensation for clearing them or the single hammer they add (remember they still remove a food anyway, so they're still going to be worse than forests.

Regarding the lumber mills, I'll have to have a think about it but I agree it's probably not a very useful change nor a bad one - falling in category of unnecessary changes.

For the theatre for Broadway, though it makes sense, it probably too falls under the unnecessary changes banner.

The great prophet from DR I think has potential. It is an under-valued tech and assuming we move it below Philo for GP bulbing preference, the change could make the tech a lot more attractive.

I'll be re-evaluating some of the above changes soon, maybe tomorrow.

 

[AveiMil]

Remember to take into account the AI if you insist of changing the way jungles are in the game. Will the AI be able to (adapt and) make use of jungles? If not you'll be wise to just leave it as is.

 

[aday]

I really like a lot of these changes. Some thoughts:

I don't think Jungles need changed. Like Deserts/Tundra/Ice, they are supposed to be a "bad" terrain feature.

I've been playing with a modded Serfdom in my games for a while now. It gives +1 from farms, no bonus to worker speed, and has high upkeep. It may still be overpowered -- all of the AI's except Wang now go Slavery > Serfdom > Emancipation as soon as they can. It's hard to tell how much the high upkeep is actually costing you. I think I may add in the -25% GPP production, it makes sense from a historical point of view -- very few of the GP names came from the medieval period.

For Nuclear Plants, I wouldn't change anything about them except to completely disable the meltdown chance. But this is a largely debated topic anyway, I won't get into it here.

I have also been playing with a substantially modified promotion tree. Among other changes, I allow March after C2. This doesn't seem to be overpowered, it just makes March one of the many viable promotion targets. (I also changed CR1 to be available to mounted and gunpowder units, CG1 available to melee. The AI handles these changes remarkably well -- they'll make CG spears, CR1+Flanking cavalry, etc. Even barbarian cities will start to be defended by a mix of units instead of just 3 Archers every time.)

I really like the idea of a free prophet from Divine Right. I had formerly decreased the tech cost, but I think I will kick it back to where it was and add this bonus instead. It would still be nice if there was something to make it worthwhile to take even after the prophet and the wonders are gone though. I'm sure I'm not the only one who plays games through to the modern or future eras without ever picking this up.

One of the biggest things I think needs fixed is the experience gained from retreating. It sucks for your siege weapons that winning (i.e. "retreating from") a 3% odds battle only gives 1 exp. Similarly, I think mounted city attackers would gain more "experience" from a near-death battle that they barely escaped from. However, changing the value in GlobalDefines to 2 causes your siege units to gain 2 exp even from their >99.9% battles, resulting in some ridiculously well promoted siege weapons. Does anyone have any ideas on how this could be improved?

 

[Lord Tirian]

For Nuclear Plants, I wouldn't change anything about them except to completely disable the meltdown chance. But this is a largely debated topic anyway, I won't get into it here.

Apropos nuclear plants... make the chance scale with gamespeed! The worst part about it is a flat chance per round - it needs to scale with game speed.

Cheers, LT.

 

[OnmyojiOmn]

Chopping is one of the most borderline/broken aspects of the game as it is. You should be increasing chop time and reducing yield on forest as a baseline, not adding more chopping to the game.

Chopping make BW too important, which in turn helps make axemen too important. Nerf the time and yield, and move it to Mining.

 

[UWHabs]

Some interesting tweaks. I like the Serfdom changes - would probably make it the choice for financial leaders, since if you're going cottage-heavy, caste isn't too useful, and whipping cottages isn't great. Means you now have to decide whether to work the 3 food/3 commerce farm, or the 2 food/3 commerce cottage to grow it.

I also like the fort change. Makes them somewhat useful to throw inside a BFC.

For castles, I think Steel is still too early to make them obsolete. I mean, one favoured strategy is to go Liberalism->Steel, and that will obsolete them earlier than they used to be. Maybe have them obsolete at Steam Power?

With Explorers, is there any way to allow them to attack only barbarians? Would at least allow them to pop the huts with barbarians fortified on top you might see in Terra, or even to conquer cities in the new world. Although that might make them too strong, or alter the terra game too much (although only being able to take one explorer over per caravel still means you probably won't be able to take barb cities in the new world.

What about for jungles if you had them give +1 health with a preserve or medicine as well? By the time you get to preserves or medicine, in reality, we can grab a lot of cool meds from jungles now. Ideally, it'd be something like, with medicines, for every 4 jungle preserves, you globally get +1 health per city. Might be a little too much to code, but would give a nice late-game boost for jungles.

Another thing that I think would improve gameplay would be to make clearcutting forests not so powerful. Would being able to build lumber mills with machinery be too good? And/or maybe giving them +1 hammers with replaceable parts in addition to/instead of with railroads?

 

[Jaroth]

Looks good, POM! I'm going to keep my eye on this one. I was thinking of making some minor modifications to the game lately, perhaps I'll just use this one.

Here's something that may probably improve gameplay:

Remove the chance for nuclear plants to have meltdowns and "nuke" their own cities.

There's been some good discussion on this topic too. The meltdown is a bit excessive and similar to the annoyance of barbarian uprisings which you've disabled.

Perhaps just give the nuclear plant a chance to destroy itself and cause unhealthiness for a couple turns (similar to the spy mission which causes it) instead of nuking its city.

 

[Dragonxander PR]

Back to the jungle issue, all the benefits of production for jungle I suggested would be nerfed by a longer chopping time (6 to 8 worker turns on Epic). Let's review the jungle properties I suggest:

- -1 (remains the same)
- +1 to jungle tiles: real jungles are excellent sources of minerals & tropical woods
- .25 per jungle tile (remains the same)
- Can grow on plains & grassland: jungle soil is often not fertile, the plains tiles would make this true.
-Allow lumbermills in jungle (again reasonable with suggestion #2)
-Increase chopping cost (from 6 to 8 in Epic; IIRC, it should be 4 to 6 on Normal). The increased chopping time will delay even more the benefits obtained from jungle chopping, therefore balancing the game.


About castle obsoletion, I suggest it to be with Artillery, not Steel. For instance, consider the fortification system used in San Juan,, Puerto Rico during the Spanish colonial period (1508-1898 AD) was against cannons. During the 1797 attack from Ralph Albercromby, his navy still used cannons to attack the walls & castles of San Juan, Puerto Rico, & the walls did resist well. During the Hispanoamerican War, the USA conquered Puerto Rico & its ships used artillery shells that teared through the walls & castles easily.

 

[Jaroth]

- -1 (remains the same)
- +1 to jungle tiles: real jungles are excellent sources of minerals & tropical woods
- .25 per jungle tile (remains the same)
- Can grow on plains & grassland: jungle soil is often not fertile, the plains tiles would make this true.
-Allow lumbermills in jungle (again reasonable with suggestion #2)
-Increase chopping cost (from 6 to 8 in Epic; IIRC, it should be 4 to 6 on Normal). The increased chopping time will delay even more the benefits obtained from jungle chopping, therefore balancing the game.

...all the benefits of production for jungle I suggested would be nerfed by a longer chopping time...

Hmm... I don't know if I agree with this change, Dragonxander. Perhaps I'm missing something...

So grassland jungle tiles become (1 2 ), and you can build lumbermills on them (+1 ; +1 with a railroad).

I'd still rather use workshops for my production needs, which are already a part of the game (and can be more productive). I also won't need to have the associated with jungles.

What would we really be gaining from this alteration to the game? What benefits justify even longer chop times? If they were really beneficial, why would we want to chop them down?

 

[Dragonxander PR]

Hmm... I don't know if I agree with this change, Dragonxander. Perhaps I'm missing something...

So grassland jungle tiles become (1 2 ), and you can build lumbermills on them (+1 ; +1 with a railroad).

I'd still rather use workshops for my production needs, which are already a part of the game (and can be more productive). I also won't need to have the associated with jungles.

What would we really be gaining from this alteration to the game? What benefits justify even longer chop times? If they were really beneficial, why would we want to chop them down?

Grassland jungle tiles would be 1 1 this way, the extra production would kick in with lumbermills, railroads & levee (when each applies).

A plains jungle would then be 2 .

 

[Jaroth]

Grassland jungle tiles would be 1 1 this way, the extra production would kick in with lumbermills, railroads & levee (when each applies).

A plains jungle would then be 2 .

Yes, correct. So grassland jungles would become plains at 1 1 . If they're on a river you'd gain an extra +1 too with the lumbermill.

I still don't know if it's a really needed change worth adding.

Same thing with the plains jungle at 2 ; you can just chop it and add a workshop instead.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Wow lots of posts and not much time to reply. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions guys, but I'm sure you'll all be patient and keep in mind this thing won't be finished over night.


For now I'm just going to comment on this...

Chopping is one of the most borderline/broken aspects of the game as it is. You should be increasing chop time and reducing yield on forest as a baseline, not adding more chopping to the game.

Chopping make BW too important, which in turn helps make axemen too important. Nerf the time and yield, and move it to Mining.

I have to agree with you actually. Bronze Working is an important tech early, though one of the reasons being the strong axeman unit which has now been hit with the nerf-stick, hence already slightly nerfing BW. But the slavery and chopping has not been touched, so far.

Something that would be evil is to increase the chance of the slave revolt event but that would only annoying random event users and not perturb those who turn random events off.

Another option is to increase slavery to high upkeep as opposed to medium, but this will be pretty insignificant, especially at all but the highest levels.

Finally, something I tried in my own modded game was increasing the whip unhappiness time by 50%. 15 turns of unhappiness on Normal speed and you really only start to whip the things that are urgent. A negative to this change is that it still doesn't really affect the decision to use higher pop whips, and if anything actually just forces one more into not using 1pop but 2pop or more whips.

What about a forest chop yield of 20? (down from 30)

We could then, if wanted, make jungles yield 10 on chop to sort of make up for it, or leave them as is to definitely nerf chopping.

I'd imagine that people want chopping to be a hard choice to make, to rush some unit or building at a cost to some long-term development.

What about if lumbermills added another hammer? Would that be too powerful? That would be a significant change and I'm not about to do it but just throwing an idea out there...

Keep being critical of the ideas guys. I don't mind, and I need that critical feedback.