Trait balancing

[Kuciwalker]

I have a few ideas as to how to balance the traits somewhat. I'm working from the assumption that Industrial is the most powerful trait, which seems to be the majority opinion.

Industrial - same as before

Scientific - +10% science*, can build Research**, otherwise same as before

Religious - no longer has revolution bonus, +10% luxury*, otherwise same as before

Expansionist - has revolution bonus, otherwise same as before

Militaristic - -1 war weariness***, no drafting penalty in WLTKD****, otherwise same as before

Commercial - +10% tax*, otherwise same as before

* Say the civ is getting 10 gpt, and has tax 30% sci 50% lux 20%. If they were scientific, they would actually have tax 30 sci 60 lux 20. Same thing for religious and commercial (for lux and tax, respectively). Yes, they essentially get 10% extra gpt

** Essentially wealth, except it creates beakers instead of gold. Also, researchers in a city building Research produce twice as many beakers.

*** Refers to the war weariness setting of the government it is in. None = 0, low = 1, high = 2. Thus, a militaristic civ in a Monarchy would actually get a happiness BONUS for being at war, and in Democracy would only have a slight penalty.

**** This ties in with the war weariness thing. If a city in a militaristic civ is in WLTKD, then it won't suffer happiness problems from drafting.

[monkspider]

I actually really like these ideas.

[Spiffor]

Skywalker, those are good ideas

I originally thought religious was made too weak without the revolution bonus, but having a free and permanent 10% luxury is very solid to keep the population in order.

Really good ideas.

[Azeem]

Great ideas.

The Force is indeed strong with you, Skywalker.

[Kuciwalker]

My one concern is that the +10% bonuses are really interchangeable, because your can effectively redistribute it to something else. I don't see how to fix it, though.

[Rommel2D]

* Say the civ is getting 10 gpt, and has tax 30% sci 50% lux 20%. If they were scientific, they would actually have tax 30 sci 60 lux 20.

My one concern is that the +10% bonuses are really interchangeable, because your can effectively redistribute it to something else.

"But ours go to 11!"- Nigel (?)

Sounds like my golf game- 25% driving, 50% fairway shots, 25% chipping, and 50% putting. 8(

How about just adding the bonus after the normal calculation? In your example the scientific civ would end up with 3 gold, 5.5 (6)bulbs, and 2 smileys. The more they put into science, the greater the benefit from their trait. And vice-versa.

[Kuciwalker]

That's a good idea, but the problem is that except for very high levels of the trait or very high levels of trade arrows, the effect wouldn't be noticable. You'd have to raise the bonus to, say, 50%. And you couldn't just apply it over the entire empire, instead of in individual cities, because of luxuries.

[Arrian]

I disagree.

I think the traits are pretty good as they are, it's just that some of them are heavily map-dependant (such as Expansionist).

Religious & Industrious are fine, IMO.

Commercial got a much-needed boost recently. I suppose a 5-10% discount on trade deals with the AI might bring it right up to the level of the top traits.

Scientific is solid as-is, especially with the 1.21PTW fix of the "free tech" bug. If anything, I suppose doubling the effect of research specialists could help it out... 2 beakers from each instead of 1 might make them worthwhile.

Expansionist revolution bonus? Don't get it. If anything, a discount on granaries (though 1/2 price would probably be overpowering).

Militaristic is FINE, trust me.

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

For the expansionist revolution bonus, there are two reasons - a) it makes expansionist less map-dependent and b) a dynamic, expanding civ is going to have an easier time changing.

[Rommel2D]

That's a good idea, but the problem is that except for very high levels of the trait or very high levels of trade arrows, the effect wouldn't be noticable. You'd have to raise the bonus to, say, 50%. And you couldn't just apply it over the entire empire, instead of in individual cities, because of luxuries.

50% would be way too strong. An after-bonus of 20% or 25% would approximate your overall 10% number on average. Since we're talking about percentages, the difference between empire and city level bonuses would be less than 1 unit per city, rather negligable. The type of roundoff could be changed to balance it out also.

I won't hazard a guess as to how your ideas would affect overall game balance, but you have ignored the convention of 2 advantages per trait. Beware the Dark Side...

[Kuciwalker]

The averaging couldn't be done empire-wide, because luxuries don't work that way.

[Rommel2D]

So why not just add 25% per city?

2 thru 5 = +1; 6 thru 9 = +2; 10 thru 13 = +3; etc.

This would be a measurable difference, but not as much as a library or marketplace. Plus, the bonus would only be good for the specific trait.

[Dominae]

Industrious is the best trait, bar none. Even when an Expansionist civ gets a free Settler, the Industrious one is not very far behind. For this reason, I think it's funny that the attempt is to make the other traits better, instead of making Industrious weaker.

An elegant (IMO) solution to the "Industrious problem" would be to only make the Industrious Worker bonus kick in when a certain tech is researched, the best candidate being Construction.

This would have the effect of 1) toning down Industrious' overall power, since there is no "I own the first 50 turns" snowball effect, and 2) forcing the Industrious civs to adopt a more focused approach to the game. As is, the Industrious player basically gets a bonus in everything he or she cares to do, making Industrious "good at everything". This is in contrast to the other traits, which work to direct the player into a more defined role (poprushing Temples and Culture for Religious, Literature beeline and tech leader for Scientific, etc.).

As a side note, given how powerful The Weather Paradigm was in SMAC, I'm still amazed at how its ability was granted to certain civs for free in Civ3. Surely the ability is less potent if many different civs have access to the it, but this just creates a situation where any human player would be silly not to pick an Industrious civ if he or she really wants to win. Play the World and MP have served to make even more apparent this flaw in the game.


Dominae

[Kuciwalker]

Rommel - the reason is that for many cities, adding 25% wouldn't do much.

And scientific is far weaker than the others - just look at the polls we had in the demogame forum.

[Rommel2D]

Maybe not while REXing, but all cities under the OCN would be able to produce a significant bonus once the land gets improved. For science, the benefit would show early and be pretty strong. For tax, you'd have to use a tech trading strategy to see large dividends, but it wouldn't be that difficult. Plus, it would be cumulative with the corruption bonus. For entertainment (I'm assuming this is what you mean by 'luxuries') the bonus wouldn't help until well into the game, but it would provide a unique benefit other Civs couldn't duplicate with improvements. Cheap temples and cathedrals are the real bonus anyway.

As it stands now, scientific gets 1 free tech for very 15-20 discovered. I'll bet 25% bonus beakers per city could more than double that.

BTW, why don't scientific civs start the ancient era with a bonus tech? It would be consistent with current rules and strengthen them a bit without any real changes.