Small but decisive balance changes you'd like to see for R&F

[Tomice]

Hi! Apart from the new features, we haven't heard much about basic balance changes in R&F. This is all we know so far apart from the new features (taken from Ariochs Analyst site):

• Additional Trade Routes are now unlocked with the Market and Lighthouse instead of with the base districts.

• All civilizations now get a combat bonus for their units vs. a particular civilization based on their diplomatic visibility with that civilization.

• Map generation has been modified to increase separation between major civilizations.

Here are some examples:

At least some districts are too expensive and are rarely built. Especially theater districts lack realistic adjacency bonuses and take too long to become profitable. Also, preplacing them is a gamey approach to make them cheaper. And finally, we have loyalty now as a city-spam limiter
===> New district cost formula
===> Additional adjacency bonus for theater districts

Chopping overflow "abuse" (debatable) results in crazy fast production.
===> Fix the overflow


I brought this up because we are still far enough from release to make the implementation of certain balance changes realistic.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think discussing small balance changes doesn't make sense as we don't know how the game will play with large gameplay changes of the expansion.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'd like to see Great People Points generated by assigning Citizens to District Buildings, rather than just by constructing those buildings.....as I've suggested in a thread below. Might help to further rebalance Tall vs Wide.

 

[Arent11]

Combat:

(1) Make spearmen/pikemen serious stopping blocks to cavalry
(2) Give infantry units a combat bonus in rough terrain/city districts
(3) Give Cavalry a combat penalty in rough terrain/city districts (and maybe a bonus in open terrain)
(4) Make high pop cities much harder to conquer
(5) Reduce the effects of battering rams to 50% or only apply it to one unit

Diplomacy:

(1) Allow trading of Eurekas/"Blueprints"

Units:

(1) Make Helicopters fly over water

 

[jokii]

For the love of God; please, please fix the Eureka thing !!!!
That is just terrible feature. Researching all of the technology and social polices at half... What ?
They should at least make it so that eureka always fills only the first half of the research. So, if you research 1/4 of tech. and get eureka, you can get only 1/4 of the boost.

 

[darkace77450]

Working district buildings needs to either provide double their current yield or provide an additional GPP per turn.

 

[Ryika]

They should at least make it so that eureka always fills only the first half of the research. So, if you research 1/4 of tech. and get eureka, you can get only 1/4 of the boost.

Why?

 

[Aurelesk]

Districts, City-States and Great People light revamp.

I would like to see Maritime City-State (for Harbor districts) and Recreation City-State (for Entertainment Complex districts), and make Tall playing a thing, giving Food and Housing.

I want Great Prophet working like other Great People, and having a new Great People coming from Entertainment Complex focusing on Housing, Amenities and others bonuses great for going for Tall cities (let's call them Great Visionary).

And I like to have Great WAM points fused together, allowing to choose between one of the 3 when we have enough point. Great WAM should have another bonus like in Civilization V:

• Great Writers could use charge toward Inspiration, allowing to have 2 GWoW, 2 Inspirations, or 1 of each.
• Great Artists could use all their charge at once to create a special tile improvment adding 6 Culture, and +1 Appeal for the City (make their painting as good as Artefacts and can be moved without waiting).
• Great Musician could use charge to perform Concert Tour giving 5 turns of Tourism at once, speeding the endgame and make it more active.

 

[sonicmyst]

Disable city trading of unoccupied cities.

 

[darkace77450]

I would like to see Maritime City-State (for Harbor districts)

I too would like to see maritime city-states. I'd have them grant food to city centers and harbors so that tundra and desert cities can offset limited food production and tall cities can grow into the higher housing caps.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Working district buildings needs to either provide double their current yield or provide an additional GPP per turn.

Sounds like you & I are on a similar wavelength .

 

[leandrombraz]

We also know that CS bonus got the same treatment trade routes are getting. You get the yields from buildings now, so a district without anything built in it doesn't get any benefit from CS.

Ex:
Commercial CS
1 Envoy - +4 Gold in the Capital
3 Envoys - +4 Gold in every market
6 Envoys - +4 Gold in every bank


That's a huge nerf.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Working district tiles would require quite significant game rebalance with additional citizens per city, plus more complex governor algorithms. Not impossible, but I don't see any clear gameplay goal behind...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Districts, City-States and Great People light revamp.

• Great Writers could use charge toward Inspiration, allowing to have 2 GWoW, 2 Inspirations, or 1 of each.
• Great Artists could use all their charge at once to create a special tile improvment adding 6 Culture, and +1 Appeal for the City (make their painting as good as Artefacts and can be moved without waiting).
• Great Musician could use charge to perform Concert Tour giving 5 turns of Tourism at once, speeding the endgame and make it more active.

Couldn't agree more, bringing back those Civ 5 abilities would be Ace. For the Great Artist, though, why not give them a variant of their Civ 5 ability? Using one gets you one or more historic moments....thus increasing the likelihood of a Golden Age. Also, just having more Great People per Age to pick from would be nice too (like 3 per age, or something like that).

What I also want is an extra District Building for placing Great Works of Music. A Concert Hall building around the Renaissance or Industrial Age would do the trick!

Speaking of which, it would be great if they brought back all of the "theme bonuses" you got for putting the right combination of Great Works into Wonders-like the "Library of Antiquity" Theme (IIRC) that you got from placing Great Works of Writing into the Great Library.

Last but not least, I'd like to see Tourism & Foreign Trade play a role in city loyalty, similar to how it was done in Brave New World.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Working district tiles would require quite significant game rebalance with additional citizens per city, plus more complex governor algorithms. Not impossible, but I don't see any clear gameplay goal behind...

The game-play goal is to give players who go tall more of an incentive to do so. If manning district buildings granted more GPP's than simply having the buildings empty, then that would give an added bonus for those who grow their cities. At the moment, there is no incentive to grow a city once you've maxed out the number of districts you plan to build.....which is dumb.

 

[jokii]

Why?

Eureka is feature which makes every game almost the same. It makes the game dull, tiresome and linear.
The problem is that you have to pursue those eureka boosts because they are so OP.
This 50 % tech. boost is a bit too much.
So every game looks like this. Research half of the technology, switch to other one and wait for eureka.
Repeat, repeat, repeat until the end of the game. Every game you are focusing at the same choises. It not even realistic. Research multiple techs. and social policies at the half point and wait for it...
It is huge limitation factor which is dominating in this game and it is not fun at all.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Eureka is feature which makes every game almost the same. It makes the game dull, tiresome and linear.
The problem is that you have to pursue those eureka boosts because they are so OP.
This 50 % tech. boost is a bit too much.
So every game looks like this. Research half of the technology, switch to other one and wait for eureka.
Repeat, repeat, repeat until the end of the game. Every game you are focusing at the same choises. It not even realistic. Research multiple techs. and social policies at the half point and wait for it...
It is huge limitation factor which is dominating in this game and it is not fun at all.

Well that's funny, 'cause I find the Eureka & Inspiration System is what makes every game I play completely different. It was previous iterations of the game that were tiresome & linear.....because the same tech choices almost always were the best.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Not saying that the amount of Eureka & Inspiration boost you get couldn't be toned down a bit 33%-40% perhaps.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

And I'm guessing that just removing them would require a rebalancing of the whole tech tree. Eurekas do make researching faster, but I'm sure the team also made researching without eurekas slower. There is somewhat of an unspoken penalty researching without the eureka

 

[Kyro]

Eurekas and Inspirations multiply Science/Culture yields by 150% for a specifc Tech/Civic instead of paying 50%.