Liberty Bells and the REF

[Akaoz]

How exactly do they interact?

Is it just a linear relationship? Eg. 200 Lb == 100 Units in the REF, and 400 LB == 200 Units in the REF.

Or does the REF expand every turn you produce LB at all?

It seems to me that because you need 50% Rebbel sentiment to start the WoI you may as well start producing LB's from turn one if the relationship is linear. It makes no difference if the REF builds up slowly from day one or real fast as you start pumping out LB's in the mid/late game to get up to 50%...

If it expands every turn you produce LB's then you need to produce as many LB's as possible on as few turns as possible and a late buildup is a lot better...

[snoopy369]

Basically, it goes like this (based on Dale's peering at the code - Dale correct me if I get part of this wrong, it was late):

You accumulate liberty bells at a certain rate. If that rate is greater than 1, it checks to see how many you accumulated, and compares that to the Threshold. Let's say that's 100. If you're over the threshold, you get a new REF unit. It then sets it back by the amount of the threshold, and you are on your way to your second unit when you cross the threshold again.

I think the reason Dale's strategy works is there is a limit to the number of REF you can get per turn - but I've not explored that in depth yet.

[Akaoz]

So the strategy right now is get a LOT of LB's fast, to exploit the rate at witch the REF grows?

[snoopy369]

That's Dale's strategy, for certain.

[Akaoz]

Mmm... *nod*

Well, after getting my behind handed to me three times in a WoI I had no way of winning, I think I'll be going for a huge cross/food strategy with innland cities focused on making lots and lots of gunns. No navy just guns and cannons.

Then use what money I have on Elders who can come out at the last moment to convert the masses.

Dull way to play though.

[snoopy369]

Navy can be ... very effective, mind you. Something to kill MoW's can pay for itself easily, by killing off a bunch of soldiers for one ship...

[Dale]

Okay there's two things, Snoop got most of it.

Increases in the army are gauged by:
1. Overall bells stored, once a limit is hit then the King adds to the REF.
2. Bell production rate, the more bells per turn you earn the more likely there will be an increase in REF.

So my strategy of holding off till late game works on one level, rate per turn. Because the rate per turn is only calculated once, every bell earned that turn above that rate is a freebie (since you can only be hit once). So by maximising your per turn rate (ie: three elders in a colony with newspaper/press and some FF's) you are avoiding spreading that out at a lower rate per turn for longer and being hit with this check more often.

In other words you can reduce the number of REF increases from say a large amount (100 times) to a small amount (20 times).

[Machismo]

Wow. That just seems like an awful way to do it. It should be that your relations with the king should relate to it.
The accumulated bells make good sense, but the accumulation rate per turn is pretty flawed. It sounds good on the surface but is easily gamed or easily glitched into leaving someone with massive armies to face.

[Wiglaf]

So they rip off most of Civ 4's assets to save time for making design decisions, and they don't even do those right.

[bigcat55404]

Quick question... if you hold off LB production until the end, does that mean you're having to pass up on a lot of FFs as well? When I tried that, I found I was lagging horribly behind the other colonials in political points.

[snoopy369]

It would mean you get fewer FFs, certainly.

[conmcb25]

But whats better a few more FF's with a huge REF or a few less FF's, and a smaller REF?

[snoopy369]

That's called game balance...

[GeoModder]

Jeezz, the game is out barely 3 days and already the acronyms are hitting the 'net.

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by snoopy369
That's called game balance...

Agreed, despite what the rolls from OT say

[snoopy369]

I like that one ... makes it sound like I can eat them for dinner

[Dale]

Originally posted by conmcb25
But whats better a few more FF's with a huge REF or a few less FF's, and a smaller REF?

There are some people who don't believe that's balanced. There are some people that want all the FF's and a small REF.

[bigcat55404]

Heh... to be fair, if you get a quarter of the FFs and still end up having to face 50 dragoons, 80 artillery, and 30 MoWs, I don't know that you could call it "balanced" exactly. I guess my point is that it's hard to play any other way because unless you purposely keep yourself from making LBs, you end up facing an unusually large REF. If the trade-offs are fair, then yes, it's balanced. If you can't really be reasonably expected to play any other way, that's a different story.

... But that's just my understanding based on what people are saying. I haven't actually made it to independence yet. *sheepish*

[snoopy369]

50 dragoons, 80 arty, and 30 MoWs is perfectly reasonable. If you can't beat that you're not playing very carefully The complaint that I consider reasonable is the difficulty level not scaling well; at the harder difficulty, you should be able to handle hundreds of REFs.

Remember, a quarter of the FFs is what you ought to get. If you get only that, you're generating an average level...

[gianni989]

Whats a FF and how do you get it?

[Impaler[WrG]]

I call this the "Rapid Revolt" strategy (keeping LB low until late game and ramping up very rapidly to get to 50% and start revolution). Its a bit boring to have have all those FF's (Founding Fathers) through the course of the game but it makes the final war easier.

Speaking of which that war requires radically different tactics from the standard Civ4 tactics, don't defend the cities, they are death traps. Abandon the cities, arm everyone regardless of their training and fight in the forests. Attack any time you can get a royal unit alone, defend only when on excellent terrain + terrain promotions. You will lose cities but if you've built inland you use Russian tactics and retreat using the land to your advantage. Alternatively some players use a "Atlantic Wall" strategy which seeks to drive the royals into the sea with decisive thrusts of your Panzers... I mean Dragoons. You need at least as many troops as the wave size of the royal forces (typically a quarter to a sixth of their total force). If you can annihilate them all on the turn they land and suffer no retaliation and heal up before the next wave its a breeze, but if your forces break your screwed.

[Vesayen]

I had no trouble getting FFs without making liberty bells. Each FF needs politics points and either more politics, or miliarty, trade or exploration. Trade and exploration come easy naturally, just devote 1 or 2 settlements just to build up miliarty or politics points.

[Dale]

I like to overload on dragoons, and concentrate on withdrawal promotions. That way you'll recover a lot more dragoons from battle to retreat to safety to heal while the rest finish off the damaged REF.

[Unimatrix11]

Impaler brings up an interesting point about the rev-war in the game. People complain, that the REF is like twice the size of the force they could possibly field. But they seem to tend to forget, that the king can only land with a fraction of that at once. If the complains are ligit, i cannot say yet, tho, cause i just ordered the game like an hour ago...

[Dale]

I find that you can face a 4 to 1 REF and it'll be 50:50 if you win. It seems that is the breakeven ratio.

People seem to see 500 units in REF and panic, when in fact a rebel army of 200 can clean them up.

[bigcat55404]

Fair enough... I am glad to defer to experience, here, and yes, I'm one of those people that sobs and clutches their blanket when a dozen REF dragoons come over the hill. I have a delicate constitution.

The crux of my point was still that having trade-offs don't automatically mean it's balanced... they need to be *fair* trade-offs for that. But if your sense is that players are not horribly screwing themselves by getting a few FFs (via LBs), I will trust your judgement. I'd even be curious to see if you could grab almost all the FFs and win the war thanks to so many bonuses!

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by gianni989
Whats a FF and how do you get it?

FF = Founding Father.
Accumulate points in five different areas to get a FF in each of those areas.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Dale


There are some people who don't believe that's balanced. There are some people that want all the FF's and a small REF.

But right now the larger REF is too much of a penalty for acquiring some of the FF. The problem may just be that some of the FF aren't very good. I mean... whee! a free Frigate from a late game FF.

I'm thinking the REF should start bigger and increase in size slower. In the original Colonization building a vast, rebellious empire didn't lead to an overwhelming response from the homeland. It was larger, yes. Right now it seems like being successful in the early game is a liability.

[snoopy369]

LBs do a lot more than generate FFs. Indian land becomes yours with LBs, after all, and you get significant production bonuses.

In the harder levels, the REF is pretty much balanced now, I think ... it's only the easier levels where it's a problem.

[Asmodeous]

So snoopy, then would you say the perceived imbalance a lot of us have who aren't honestly fiendish enough to crank along on the highest difficulty levels is because the REF isn't scaling down properly to assume that we aren't butt-kickers like the rest of you?

Me.