unofficial balance fix/modmod for 1.24

Reason behind this fix
I really like version HR 1.24 but I've always felt expansive, industrious, creative traits were way too powerful. Leaders such as Victoria (Exp/Ind) would dominate the game to an extreme point that it would stop being fun.

Also Imperialist leaders were too weak because all of their bonuses were about conquering others, and they couldn't do it because they didn't have good enough regular bonuses. Only trait ability that might be useful was -33% hurry cost, but it was again useless because slavery civic was very useless against the agrarianism. Quarries and Plantations are too weak compared to a farm-pasture based civ. Therefore AI would never adopt it (neither me), which caused an additional penalty for imperialist leaders.
Because slavery is weak this would also ruin jungle starts.

I also think Commando promotion given for the Aggressive trait is pretty annoying. AI plays like it can see anywhere on the map, so it can casually snipe a worker 10 tiles away with this promotion. And it is not really useful either for taking and keeping cities.
Defensive leaders' ability to prevent pillaging improvements is another broken ability because AI don't understand it. AI attackers would sit on the same tile for 10 turns trying to pillage it, which makes very easy to abuse AI/prepare defenses while AI is losing time.

Some early strategic resources are also too critical and become game-breakers. You might get screwed if you don't have any copper in the early ages or don't have any saltpeter in the renaissance. Moreover they are revealed just when you need them, which is a bit unfair, so discovery of these resources pushed to earlier techs so players can plan their strategies accordingly.

Changes

Traits
Creative trait now gives free kilns instead of +1 per level.

Industrious trait now gives free tanneries instead of +1 per level

Expansive trait now gives faster road&railroad speed instead of +1 population when founding cities.

Aggressive trait now gives free March promotion instead of Commando promotion, to the melee, mounted, and armored units. In the original HR gun units also used to get commando but now they are excluded.

Defensive trait does not prevent tiles from pillaging anymore, instead when defensive leaders lose cities they gain the partisan event which gives a group of units around the captured city or near the capital.

Techs - Resources

Reveal of Saltpeter is moved to the Alchemy, which is also more historical.

Copper is revealed when Mining is discovered.

Iron is revealed when Bronze Working is discovered.

Mines now give only +1 rather than +2. But they also gain +1 with iron working. This amplifies tools aspect of this tech, rather than merely improving weapons and makes it appealing for peaceful civs.


Civics-Tenets
Slavery gives +1 from Quarries and +2 from Plantations instead of +1 from both.

Preservation is moved to priesthood since alchemy became crowded, also it makes more sense.


Units
Caravel now has 4 instead of 3. It was frustrating to see caravels getting destroyed by random pirate ships with same strength.

Pirates can't enter ocean, even with compass.

Skirmishers and Longbowmans have reduced city attack (-25%). Skirmishers were better than catapults in almost every situation, and it was more reasonable to use them for sieges rather than actual skirmishes. (I also considered reducing their strength to 3 , but it seemed too low.)

How to Install
Just copy the contents of the zip file into a fresh History Rewritten 1.24 install in your /Mods folder. This will change your mod.

 

There is an update in the modmod and the main post is edited.

 

Hi, do you have a plan to make your modmod enable for 1.25? Cause I really like the way you revised.

 

That's nice balancing, thanks! However, I get this error message when I start a new game with your mod:

Error in GameStart event handler <bound method BugEventManager.onGameStart of <BugEventManager.BugEventManager instance at 0x13C58828>>

(The "0x13C58828" part changes randomly with each new start)

Is that something to be worried about?

 

Thanks! As far as I know 1.25 has a broken (very passive) ai at the moment and I don't play it, but I am planning to prepare a 1.25 version once it's more playable. (imo a balance fix is unnecessary if ai is not attacking at all).
I am also using some programs to keep track of the changes I made, so they can be easily applied to new versions of HR.

thanks! I don't think it is something to be worried about since my fix doesn't change any parts of the Bug module.
I think original HR changed some functions of this module and this is causing errors but I don't have a precise idea.

 

New update regarding the aggressive and defensive traits is added to the main post

 

This mod is interesting, but isn't it updated anymore?

 

this is not a standalone mod but it's rather a balance modmod so it doesn't need frequent updates, but I occasionally fix things that I found bothersome. last fix was released this month so the modmod is active.

 

I'm not sure about that latest change to Aggressive. I can see the problem with the old Commando, but Blitz+Mobility don't actually do anything for melee units (other than some UUs), since they're only move 1. Did you intend for this to be a cavalry/armour-only promotion? Or did you maybe mean Blitz+Morale? Although that doesn't feel right either, since it looks extremely strong.

I'm no designer, but maybe something like March would fit better with the rapid invasion playstyle that Aggressive is trying to create (similar to the original Commando but less annoying).

 

you are completely right, I was playing some other mods recently and I thought mobility gave +1 movement for all units when designing this thing rather than reducing the terrain cost.
I will replace it in a few days with march.

 

Hi, when you are on changes i want to ask how sound this to you:
Citizenship (Society) - Instead + :happiness in biggest cities, -1 dissent or +1 for cottage per level (2-5) [hamlet -1, village -2, town -3 dissent] And town +1 or something similar.
Subsistence (Labor) Half or none pollution from dessert and similar tiles. Or/ and/ maybe +1/2 from Forrest.

Progressive (Trait) From (+50% Great scientist, +1 per specialist, +100% grow for cottage, hamlet, village) to (+1 per specialist, can turn 1 citizen to scientist, +0.1 for cottage, 0.2 for hamlet, 0.3 for village and 0.5 for town)
Tactical (Trait) (No upgrade cost for military units, +50% great general, free city raider for siege and armored) to (+100% free unit support, +50% great general, free +10% city power [maybe new promotion])
Defensive (Trait) (Walls, partisans, free medic promotion for melee, archer, guns) to (Walls, partisans, free +10% defense total or +20% city/ coast defense [maybe new promotion] not for mounted and air units)

Stadium - Reducing +1 :happy from 20% on to 10% (it seem that 20% are to costly for this feature that only [i think] stadium have)
Factory - (I think for 1.25 it was heavy modified but for 1,24 Instead (+25% and + +50% whit power [power plant]) to (+1 and 20% as base) plus (+1 and 20% whit any fuel [coal, oil, gas, (seals/ whale oil?), prime timber (as char coal?) ]) and plus (+1 and 20% for power)
Then Forge, shipyard, (maybe Tannery, dock) (+1 from electric power)
Sewer - Instead (+1 opulation and +2), -25% overall
Pharmacy - instead +1, -25% population (maybe OP, but then +0,25 per food type resource sound OP to)
Solar Plant (normally build restricted to 45 degree) but whit some tech (i don't know maybe one of the lattes) the restriction are moved to 65 degree or higher

Can game show 1/2 of something on tiles like from forest or from dessert/ mine/ village?
There is max limit to withdraw chance like 85%, right?
The pacifistic (aggression level) on 1.25 are not something stupid like civ 5 or six over aggressive Gandy when his pacifist stats drop from min and return to max (lunatic), right? like our aggression past max and returned like min, right? (No more levels to be more aggressive so they become pacifist or because of that there is no command to be aggressive and they do nothing, because this new higher level is "Not Defined" in game.)
Remove climate change from citty pollution to destroy improvements.

Ram, Siege Tower: +50% against archer units (They only defend)
Longbow (6, +50% chance to withdraw from combat, +50% collateral damage 3 units, +50% hill attack) Remove up-gradable to Musket man and Rifleman to be up-gradable to grenadier and antitank.
Grenadier (12, +50% again rifleman) to (10, +25% again Rifleman, +25% city strength, +25% chance to withdraw from combat, +50% collateral damage 3 units) Not up-gradable to infantry but to Anti-tank and maybe SAM. If limit for withdraw then allow flanking. Move from Guns units to Archery units because it throws
Anti-Tank (14, 20% chance to intercept aircraft, +100% against armored, start whit Ambush [+25% against armored]) To 20% chance to intercept aircraft, +100% again Armored units, +25% city strength, +40% chance to withdraw from combat, +50% collateral damage 3 units, no Ambush on start
Musket man (9) Give him +10% city strength
Cavalry (15, +30% chance to withdraw from combat, +50% against Cannon, flank attack again siege to cannon) add (if possible +20% withdraw from combat against armored and siege units, or extend flank to all siege) up-gradable to mechanic infantry (Just flank or extra power against siege or armored units dint seems right)
SAM (18, 40% chance to intercept Aircraft, +75% helicopter units) If okay +25% to 75% withdraw from combat, flank attack again air units and helicopter (Like when they bombard airfield) If no withdraw limit remove Guerrilla III
Rifle Man not up-gradable to Anti tank and Sam.

i had those notes writen down so i post them, how it sound?

 

I am not making an overhaul of this mod, I am just changing unbalanced stuff or things that doesn't work with AI.
Which of your suggestions are related to the balance of the mod? Do you think some of the current mechanics are OP or UP? if you think they aren't balanced then argue for it by giving examples.

For example I can see you want subsistence to be related to the health because of its realism, but it's not in the scope of this mod-mod since it's not a balance issue.

 

RuntimeError: unidentifiable C++ exception
File CvEventManager, line 568, in onGameStart
File BugEventManager, line 340, in _handleDefaultEvent
Traceback (most recent call last) :

Getting 4 pop-ups (one for each of these lines above) right after generating a map; on top of of the screen that recaps your civ/leader/etc ("trusting that you can build a Civilization to stand the test of time")

I don't know a thing about civ4 modding but I'll try checking the files later.
The game SEEMS to run correctly in spite of these... So I'll do some turns and see what happens.

Edit: I compared my game with your list of changes in the main post and everything seems fine except Slavery - it's unchanged from unmodded HR.

 

I guess you mean Morale....?

 

Sorry for the belated update! fixed that bug now, gave march promotion to units of the aggressive leaders.
and two additional features:
reduced city attack for skirmisher-longbowman units. AI uses them like siege units since they are very cheap and very strong in their eras. esp. the skirmisher. I want think of these units as skirmish units not siege/doomstack staples. they are still very strong for harassing invaders or fighting in open but won't help much in sieging cities anymore.

pirate units no longer go to ocean with compass. right now there is almost no need to build caravels since pirates have all of the same features, except for carrying a single missionaire/spy etc. meeting new civs with a ocean traveling pirate doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Yeah this was my initial intention, but march seemed more reasonable to me after the suggestion in here. I am not sure which one is a better promotion tbh. morale is a great general only promotion, so I didn't want to use it for this one right now.

 

moving the discussion here to not hijack the other thread

I checked the xml files and I don't think it's possible to modify redistribution like this, closest thing I can think of is a number of cities maintenance reduction(*), but vassalage already does something similar to that and I am not sure.

* it's not food related but it fits the theme of managing a relatively large scale empire with limited economic capacities (without much trade infrastructure) compared to the reciprocity. also I think reciprocity should have a high civic maintenance to discourage it running with large empires. it is supposed to represent small communities but +1 commerce from orchards is usually the best choice until the early renaissance for large empires. it also has low dissent+maintenance which unintentionally synergies with the large empires

 

BTS 3.19 has all starting civics to have no technology requirement and low upkeep. So from that point i feel "starter" civics should have low upkeep as well.

That said, you may be right that reciprocity shouldn't be used other than in the early game. So the high upkeep might be a good thing to discourage using it for too long. Or maybe have it boost Orchards commerce but giving one less food, to force the player to have a meaningful decision between growing the population or the economy?

Redistribution on the other hand should not have a bonus that's already being used by another civic. If the bonus stored food from granaries can't be implemented, and to make it a little better, how about a commerce bonus to internal trade routes? Might not make much sense thematically but at least it wouldn't be as bad?

I'm not a modder nor a designer, i just like to have options in strategy games and right now using Redistribution does nothing for me, so it's not an option.