Rome

...what? So it doesn’t matter how unbalanced Rome might be, as long as the rubber-banding mechanics are good enough?

Yep. Every civ can be a run away in the right conditions. We have all noted that Rome can be a possible run away in some very specific conditions that are not likely to occur in most games. Again, how is that different from undisturbed Arabia or Korea, or Austria with a bunch of CS in their own isolated pocket of the world. Many civs have the possibility of becoming a shooting star in the right conditions, its why we have anti-rubberband mechanics.
 
Hoo boy...

So balancing is pointless because fringe cases happen and we shouldn’t even bother to control for them? The fact that what I am describing is a fringe case that was only introduced this patch is not a good enough reason to revert the change because 'fringes gonna fringe'? In other words, instances of runaways which are hard to control legitimize the ones that are easier to control?

It would be one thing if someone were to defend the ability to take over an Assyrian Royal Library as a completely legitimate strategy that deserves to be in the game, rather than something someone might do for giggles with Firetuner. At this point I'm pretty checked out, but this new line of argumentation just sounds like giving up.
 
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Hoo boy... I don’t know where to begin with that.

So balancing is pointless because fringe cases happen and we shouldn’t even bother to control them? And this sub-forum exists for.... reasons?

The fact that what I am describing is a fringe case that was only introduced this patch is not a good enough reason to revert the change because 'fringes gonna fringe'? In other words, instances of runaways which are hard to control legitimize the ones that are easier to control? Our eleven year old son, Augustus, should be allowed to play with knives because the neighbour boy, Sejong, cut his own finger off just last week?

It would be one thing if someone were to defend the ability to take over an Assyrian Royal Library as a completely legitimate strategy that deserves to be in the game, rather than something someone might do for giggles with Firetuner. At this point I'm pretty checked out, but this new line of argumentation just sounds like giving up.
Alright I'll try to defend this.
Rome captures an Assyrian Royal Library. In other instance, Rome captures Tabyas.
So, all Assyrian cities get +2 Science on their Libraries, but miss out +1 Prod. on their River tiles, +1 Culture and +10% towards buildings. Regarding the capability of the captured secondary cities, they seem fair to me.

Now, the question is the global effect. Is the Global effect that bad? I don't think so. Getting Royal Library is pretty close to capturing and/or picking Orders/Brandenburg Gate (you can't get the full +45 XP so early in most games). That is the kind of thing that's purely capable of happening, but I don't see too many complaints about that.

It's similar to wonder-sniping. Let's say I capture Petra/Colossus in one game, and Stonehenge/Oracle in another. This is roughly equivalent to capturing Cothon or not, except in an actual game, being able to capture Longhouses, Tabyas, Bazaars, etc. has more value than capturing Stonehenge/Oracle.

Do we ban Petra/Colossus from being captured? Or Brandenburg Gate? Or-God forbid-Palace of Westminister?

No. We give each wonder an equal playing chance. You lucked out a bit in what you got to capture, but you put in effort to capture nonetheless and I think it's fine to reward for that.

For your 3/4UC, I understand that Rome's power level as a whole might be risen too much, given the abundance of UBs/UNWs, but for base VP, I think Rome is fine.

Edit: Actually, why don't you try an AI game on 3/4UC where Rome is allowed to capture everything it can? Just to see if your concerns are valid?
 
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Rome captures an Assyrian Royal Library. In other instance, Rome captures Tabyas.
So, all Assyrian cities get +2 Science on their Libraries, but miss out +1 Prod. on their River tiles, +1 Culture and +10% towards buildings. Regarding the capability of the captured secondary cities, they seem fair to me.
....No.

All Assyrian cities, AND all Roman cities AND all the captured Songhai cities get +3:c5science: science (1 more). So Rome can have Captured Tabyas AND build a flavian colosseum AND get +3:c5science: on libraries, all in a single city. The biggest problem with UNWs is they effect all Roman cities in an almost retroactive way. Consider that +3:c5science: on libraries is pretty comparable to the +1:c5culture:, and maybe +1-2:c5gold: China is getting from its paper makers at that point.

You capture Assyria, you're not missing out on squat; you get everything forever. you basically get a second UA.
Now, the question is the global effect. Is the Global effect that bad? I don't think so. Getting Royal Library is pretty close to capturing and/or picking Orders/Brandenburg Gate (you can't get the full +45 XP so early in most games). That is the kind of thing that's purely capable of happening, but I don't see too many complaints about that.
Yeah, except you can pick up Royal Library AND Orders AND Brandenburg, which you will probably be first to now because you're Rome, but with +3:c5science: in every city, in addition to your regular +2%:c5gold: on :c5trade:city connections, your golden age potential, and your +15%:c5production: for buildings, plus whatever goodies you can snag from other civs.

There is not a single source of XP more potent than the Royal library, and it doesn't preclude you from going for any other sources of XP either. Maybe you manage to capture a Dojo, too, so that's:
+15/25/15 XP barracks/dojo/military academy
+15XP Orders
+45XP Royal library
and then maybe 15XP from autocracy, because why not?
The point is Rome stealing global bonuses from other civs is a whole other ballgame now.
It's similar to wonder-sniping. Let's say I capture Petra/Colossus in one game, and Stonehenge/Oracle in another. This is roughly equivalent to capturing Cothon or not, except in an actual game, being able to capture Longhouses, Tabyas, Bazaars, etc. has more value than capturing Stonehenge/Oracle.

Do we ban Petra/Colossus from being captured? Or Brandenburg Gate? Or-God forbid-Palace of Westminister?
No, we don't ban people from capturing wonders, because it's not an accurate comparison. As I said before, UNWs are better, 2-3 times better than any comparable wonder for their era. And they are a form of wonder sniping that only Rome can do.

If you didn't manage to build a wonder then that's fair. It was available to you, so you either didn't prioritize it, or you aren't playing well enough. Maybe you can get it by conquering wherever it was built? But so could any of the other civs in the game too. That's fair. Everyone can build it. Everyone can capture it. Rome having a pool of 3 bonus wonders that it can capture isn't playing by the rules.
 
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I think you're forgetting the problem is that you have to conquer them first. Rome doesn't get them for free not to mention the AI build NWs usually in their Capital which means Rome get rewarded for conquering their Capital. What's wrong with that? Rome has to neighbor them. Rome has to successfully win a war versus them to get the bonuses. If you want to nerf Rome, then you nerf Rome's ability to wage war successfully then, not nerf its reward.
 
I think you're forgetting the problem is that you have to conquer them first. Rome doesn't get them for free not to mention the AI build NWs usually in their Capital which means Rome get rewarded for conquering their Capital. What's wrong with that? Rome has to neighbor them. Rome has to successfully win a war versus them to get the bonuses. If you want to nerf Rome, then you nerf Rome's ability to wage war successfully then, not nerf its reward.
I have not forgotten that Rome is not actually able to build these wonders.

Was 100% regular building retention, extra tiles, being closer to a Dom Victory, and the probable capitulation not reward enough already?

In other words, does Rome really need to be such a gosh-darn wonderful snowflake of a civ that it needs to be able to swing games with ultra-rare, but ultra-game-breaking wonder steals? Why do we need this?
 
In other words, instances of runaways which are hard to control legitimize the ones that are easier to control?
In some ways....yes. Other civs have created a bar of power, some of that being runaway power. If Rome has risen to meet that bar, they are still within acceptable balance limits. Of course if they have gone past the bar, then they may be OP.

And its important to remember we are not in completely new territory here. It is possible for Civs to benefit from other players UIs through warfare as an example.

All of that said, your points indicate there are certainly some powerful things Rome can do....but is it OP...well we already have the changes in place lets test it out and see how it looks.
 
Edit: Actually, why don't you try an AI game on 3/4UC where Rome is allowed to capture everything it can? Just to see if your concerns are valid?
Didn't see this before. 4UC will very likely change Rome's UA bonus in some way, but we haven't decided the particulars yet. There are 4x as many UNWs in 4UC, so a standard game with Rome in it means that there is almost certainly at least 1 UNW in any given game. That, and the number of UBs has more than doubled, so retaining this part of Rome's UA is beyond the pail if we hope to keep the modmod balanced. This isn't a knock on base VP; it's just not a workable system with so many more components.

Besides, merely testing Rome's compatibility with 4UC would take hours of work adjusting the lua codes, which up till now have triggered only for their relevant civ. In addition to the actual time spent playing the game, it's too much work just to confirm something that will almost certainly be reverted anyways.

The only realistic thing for 4UC to do is edit Rome's UA going forward. It will have the added bonus of optimizing some lua code as well.
 
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Didn't see this before. 4UC will very likely change Rome's UA bonus in some way, but we haven't decided the particulars yet. There are 4x as many UNWs in 4UC, so a standard game with Rome in it means that there is almost certainly at least 1 UNW in any given game. That, and the number of UBs has more than doubled, so retaining this part of Rome's UA is beyond the pail if we hope to keep the modmod balanced. This isn't a knock on base VP; it's just not a workable system with so many more components.

Besides, merely testing Rome's compatibility with 4UC would take hours of work adjusting the lua codes, which up till now have triggered only for their relevant civ. In addition to the actual time spent playing the game, it's too much work just to confirm something that will almost certainly be reverted anyways.

The only realistic thing for 4UC to do is edit Rome's UA going forward. It will have the added bonus of optimizing some lua code as well.

Is that what this is about, then?

G
 
Is that what this is about, then?
No? I'm trying to say that talking about 4UC isn't relevant to the discussion because it can just adjust Rome's UA to solve a perceived issue.

As I said, if UNWs are retained then 4UC will be forced to do the change anyways, and it's not a particularly hard change to make. I don't know why base VP players would be comfortable with this though. UNW is still an insane and wholly preventable fringe case in base VP, it's just more common in 4UC.

But, people seem interested in at least trying it.
 
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No? I'm trying to say that talking about 4UC isn't relevant to the discussion because it can just adjust Rome's UA to solve a perceived issue.

As I said, if UNWs are retained then 4UC will be forced to do the change anyways, and it's not a particularly hard change to make. I don't know why base VP players would be comfortable with this either though. It's still an insane and wholly preventable fringe case in VP, it just ceases to be a fringe case in 4UC.

But, people seem interested in at least trying it.
While I’m leaning to think it might be too strong to capture UNWs as well, I’ll be giving it a shot this week just to see how big of a difference it really makes.
 
No? I'm trying to say that talking about 4UC isn't relevant to the discussion because it can just adjust Rome's UA to solve a perceived issue.

As I said, if UNWs are retained then 4UC will be forced to do the change anyways, and it's not a particularly hard change to make. I don't know why base VP players would be comfortable with this either though. It's still an insane and wholly preventable fringe case in VP, it just ceases to be a fringe case in 4UC.

But, people seem interested in at least trying it.

Until I see real game examples I’m not convinced. I can imagine lots of scenarios in which civs get prime runaway starts. China alone on the old world? Austria with 8 CSs on an isolated island? The Huns, surrounded by weak babies? Etc etc.

G
 
Honestly I think capturing a bunch of Runestones, or an Ikanda are more rewarding than the Great Cothon or Royal Library anyways.
 
Honestly I think capturing a bunch of Runestones, or an Ikanda are more rewarding than the Great Cothon or Royal Library anyways.
I mean the big weakness of Ikanda or Dojos for Rome is that you need to produce your military units with that/those cities. That means you probably need to buy them, which has been nerfed pretty well.
 
I mean the big weakness of Ikanda or Dojos for Rome is that you need to produce your military units with that/those cities. That means you probably need to buy them, which has been nerfed pretty well.
I thought a single Ikanda affected all units regardless of cities, nevermind
 
Honestly I think capturing a bunch of Runestones, or an Ikanda are more rewarding than the Great Cothon or Royal Library anyways.
Why not both? If you capture a UNW, the global benefit would appear in a city that you captured with a Runestone.

ie. If you got a Cothon, your runestones generate +4:c5culture:
I thought a single Ikanda affected all units regardless of cities, nevermind
Ikanda affect all units ever built in the city the Ikanda is in. This means promotions can be added retroactively, after Ikanda have been built, but sice Rome can only capture Ikanda, this doesn't apply to them. Dojo works the same way.
It's been fixed with the hotfix. Can't capture Printing Press, Scrivener's Office, etc.
Note, however, that any UNW added by a mod (eg, a custom civ) will be capturable by Rome, and could stack with a pre-existing national wonder of the same class.
  • A unique scrivener's office would mean Rome could steal it for extra early paper.
  • Any unique Grand Temple or Circus Maximus replacement which keeps the base global yields to Temples/Arenas would stack with a pre-existing NW of the same class, if Rome built one. (+2:c5gold: on Arenas from C.Maximus; +2:c5culture:/:c5faith: on Temples from G.Temple)
  • Capturing a unique intelligence Agency could raise all spies 2 levels.
  • Any Hall of Honor/Finance Center/Palace of Culture & Science replacement would give those WC votes
Also, I never thought to ask, but reformation wonders aren't capturable, right? Celestial Throne, Grand Ossuary, etc? If they are capturable, that's a lot of stackable bonus yields on holy sites.
 
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