Why I am concern about including Blake work and Khael FFH work in BTS.
Some poorly structured trough. This post was originally created for FFH mod, but then I had to include some reference on Blake Mod.
I think current agriculture civic in FFH is result of misunderstanding of global game mechanics.
Khael and Blake make similar mistakes.
Both of them based on wrong assumption that cottages were overpowered in vanilla Civ. It was probably true for Vanilla 1.0 realize, because at that time maintains cost climb to steep with population/level, making on high level adding population producing less then 2 commerce bad and by extremely powerful Kremlin, making rush buy as cheap as dirt.
Firaxis fix this problem by removing upkeep dependency from difficulty level and by nerfing Rush buy and Kremlin a bit, introducing balance between specialists and cottages economies.
This is a correct way to fix problem. One need to look on base reasons why something is unbalance and try to fix it from global prospective.
Global prospective was simple: If adding population need 2 commerce to upkeep, no improvements will be competitive with one producing max commerce. It is actually easy to estimate global balance of improvements player will be forced to build. So, by making other improvements more affordable by reducing cost of working them, firaxis made different improvements competitive.
Both Khael and Blake did not understand game dynamic and balance issues. Blake better AI was good when he optimize city placement, city development, et.., but then he went into direction of exploiting AI bonuses more and increasing AI cheating. Like making AI produce more units just were using AI ridiculous upgrade bonuses more. His idea to improve money management was good, but he include ability of AI to hide even more Money form player, making money useless in trade, the same like forts were useless in Vanilla/warlords. In short, he just make AI use cheap money better, making it to cheat more.
It all come from narrow vision of the game and ignore balance and fun issues. What is fun when AI see and can demand all your gold, but can have 2K gold when you can trade your tech only for 80 gold? Ridiculous. Correct way to fix problem is not by reducing players options and fun by increasing AI cheating by hiding more money. Correct way is to make using money in diplomacy as effective as using tech. This could be done by increasing value of money in trade, as WFUBTA limit already limit abuse of tech buying.
I am worried about what Firaxis include from Blake Mod to BTS, as latest Blake mod changes were reducing players options and enjoyment, making game more linear and increase AI cheating.
The same is true about Khael. He created agricultural civics based on wrong notion of useless of farms. When I read balance experiments in FFH I see people building only cottages and base balance decision on that. Wrong.
Even in Vanilla I always build river farms, not cottages, and that with just 3 food farms.
Slavery, converting 1 food into 2 shields early on is what decisive in SP and MP.
If you go into MP, production matter mach more, then commerce.
At start of game everyone on near = footing technologically, so some one who has better production will win. In FFH currently there is no balance, as agriculture with combination of slavery/sucrify of the week will beat everything.
Tie to tie no mine produce 6 shields, that 6 food farms do. Even if one convert food to production 1 on 1 basis, one will win with farms. Rushing production by population give ability to convert near unlimited amount of food to shields, when specialists, like most common priest converse 2 food into 1 shields at best, or 3 food into 1 shields if one does not have health. Happiness is not an issue in FFH, as there are a lots of way to get lot of happiness, if you have shields to build lot of buildings, expensive ones. Right now there is huge unbalance between water and land ties, between river starts and non fresh water start.
Elves actually are in big disadvantage. There workers/settler more expensive, but they always loose form agriculture civic early in game.
Grassland river agriculture farm produce 5 food + 1 commerce.
Grassland forest river agriculture farm produce only 5 food.
I will not continue with detail, simply good civs do not have option to convert food to production efficient enough compare with neutral/evil. With supper abundance of food it made everything extremely unbalance.
IN addition, result of the game predefine by how mach irrigatable preferably river ties player have near start location.
Bottom line, I am not sure how mach Blake or Khael work can actually damage Civ, as I have little confidence in there ability to undestang global balances of the game.
Some poorly structured trough. This post was originally created for FFH mod, but then I had to include some reference on Blake Mod.
I think current agriculture civic in FFH is result of misunderstanding of global game mechanics.
Khael and Blake make similar mistakes.
Both of them based on wrong assumption that cottages were overpowered in vanilla Civ. It was probably true for Vanilla 1.0 realize, because at that time maintains cost climb to steep with population/level, making on high level adding population producing less then 2 commerce bad and by extremely powerful Kremlin, making rush buy as cheap as dirt.
Firaxis fix this problem by removing upkeep dependency from difficulty level and by nerfing Rush buy and Kremlin a bit, introducing balance between specialists and cottages economies.
This is a correct way to fix problem. One need to look on base reasons why something is unbalance and try to fix it from global prospective.
Global prospective was simple: If adding population need 2 commerce to upkeep, no improvements will be competitive with one producing max commerce. It is actually easy to estimate global balance of improvements player will be forced to build. So, by making other improvements more affordable by reducing cost of working them, firaxis made different improvements competitive.
Both Khael and Blake did not understand game dynamic and balance issues. Blake better AI was good when he optimize city placement, city development, et.., but then he went into direction of exploiting AI bonuses more and increasing AI cheating. Like making AI produce more units just were using AI ridiculous upgrade bonuses more. His idea to improve money management was good, but he include ability of AI to hide even more Money form player, making money useless in trade, the same like forts were useless in Vanilla/warlords. In short, he just make AI use cheap money better, making it to cheat more.
It all come from narrow vision of the game and ignore balance and fun issues. What is fun when AI see and can demand all your gold, but can have 2K gold when you can trade your tech only for 80 gold? Ridiculous. Correct way to fix problem is not by reducing players options and fun by increasing AI cheating by hiding more money. Correct way is to make using money in diplomacy as effective as using tech. This could be done by increasing value of money in trade, as WFUBTA limit already limit abuse of tech buying.
I am worried about what Firaxis include from Blake Mod to BTS, as latest Blake mod changes were reducing players options and enjoyment, making game more linear and increase AI cheating.
The same is true about Khael. He created agricultural civics based on wrong notion of useless of farms. When I read balance experiments in FFH I see people building only cottages and base balance decision on that. Wrong.
Even in Vanilla I always build river farms, not cottages, and that with just 3 food farms.
Slavery, converting 1 food into 2 shields early on is what decisive in SP and MP.
If you go into MP, production matter mach more, then commerce.
At start of game everyone on near = footing technologically, so some one who has better production will win. In FFH currently there is no balance, as agriculture with combination of slavery/sucrify of the week will beat everything.
Tie to tie no mine produce 6 shields, that 6 food farms do. Even if one convert food to production 1 on 1 basis, one will win with farms. Rushing production by population give ability to convert near unlimited amount of food to shields, when specialists, like most common priest converse 2 food into 1 shields at best, or 3 food into 1 shields if one does not have health. Happiness is not an issue in FFH, as there are a lots of way to get lot of happiness, if you have shields to build lot of buildings, expensive ones. Right now there is huge unbalance between water and land ties, between river starts and non fresh water start.
Elves actually are in big disadvantage. There workers/settler more expensive, but they always loose form agriculture civic early in game.
Grassland river agriculture farm produce 5 food + 1 commerce.
Grassland forest river agriculture farm produce only 5 food.
I will not continue with detail, simply good civs do not have option to convert food to production efficient enough compare with neutral/evil. With supper abundance of food it made everything extremely unbalance.
IN addition, result of the game predefine by how mach irrigatable preferably river ties player have near start location.
Bottom line, I am not sure how mach Blake or Khael work can actually damage Civ, as I have little confidence in there ability to undestang global balances of the game.
