LT50 will be 2.5, based on LT49, here are the proposed changes

[wieder]

Unfortunately something new and something else is needed for the upcoming 2.6 game. This is why LT50 will be a 2.5 one and the signups for 2.6 one will be opened before LT50 is started. The planned date for 2.6 game is "very soon" meaning that it's planned to be a 2019 game or January 2nd one.

LT50 with 2.5 will be launched this week. The first turn is extended 3*23h. If you don't want to play, sign off from the game page,

Feel free to comment on the changes. Here is a quick list. Not yet implemented. Let's figure out what of these would make sense:

The first one is placed like this to see if people read this stuff

- tech leakage (making the techs more cheap after the other have researched it) has been at 100% - this will be tuned down to 60%


- partisans off (made sense for a 2 team game)
- celebration bonus will be back for communism
- fundamentalism will get -35% sci penalty instead of -25%
- monarchy will have more free units at city size 12 (was 16)
- federation will have a sci bonus of 30% (was 5%)
- cavalry will be obsoleted by mech inf
- nukes will cost 200 (was 160)
- crusaders have attack of 3
- grass to hills conversion will be 2x expensive
- an extra +3 prod bonus for the palace in despotism
- tribalism will be the start gov
- math will allow building the pyramids
- migrants will have higher upkeep
- migrants will cost 15
- the workers can't be captured (let's try this to fight the idler problem)
- settlers can't be bribed (again, fighting the idler issue and also makes sense)
- howitzers will have 8 moves (was 7)
- the trireme will have 8 moves
- trireme will be obsoleted by the barge
- the barge will be available with engineering, will have 9 moves, transport capacity of 3, cost of 45, has attack of 1, defense of 2 and 10HP
- the Round Caravel unit is unique, has fuel for 5 turns out of port, cost of 60, attack of 3, defense 2, 12 HP and 9 moves. it can transport 1 unit and it can attack on non native tiles (can kill units on land tiles)
- caravels can caarry siege units
- aegis cruiser can carry 2 missiles (after all, the req tech is rocketry...)
- carrier will be able to carry 4 units (8)
- carrier will cost 120 (200)
- carrier will have the defense of 10 (18)
- carrier will have a vision of 96 (72)
- fusion missiles will have fuel of 3 (2)
- fusion bomber will have vision of 144 (72)
- the great wall will cost 200 and will be obsoleted with gunpowder. the defense bonus is 25% (was 50%). it also only works on the same continent
- the palace will give the city a slightly bigger city working radius
- the atlantic telegraph company will cost 50
- the hoover damn will cost 200 and will give 2 shields to every city the players has on the same continent. Will be obsoleted by environmentalism
- partisans will have defense of 7 instead of 5
- crusaders become availabnle with invention
- funda will have max tax rate of 50%
- crusaders will be obsoleted by fanatics
- alpines will have 2 moves (was 3)
- with fighters losing all the moves when attacking, they could have one or two more moves?
- stealing techs is now with a 12% chance


not sure about this but might make sense for making the nuclear war more strategic:
- subs would no longer move nukes
- a new unit nuclear submarine (unique) will be able to move 1 nuke, would become available after the regular sub (nuclear??)
- battleships and carriers would be able to move nukes (cruiser?) -> the sub chains are gone but can be replaced with more visible ship chains
- SDI will have a 90% chance of defending against the nukes
- SDI + palace will give 100% defense against nukes

and how about making the remote colonies actually important and give them strategical value:
- submarines could have fuel of 6-8 meaning they would need to refuel somewhere
- subs will have 12 moves (15)
- subs will carry 4 missiles (8)
- subs will have less vision

- there will be two types of subs, only the later one can carry missiles and it can carry 4 missiles. comes with nuclear power and the old subs can't be upgraded

[mmm2]

perhaps u could make SDI defense available with earlier tech such as nuclear fission?

with nuclear fission one could build SDI, but it would only block 50% of time.. With new techs such as Rocketry and Laser they could increase percentage by +20% each?

[Vladimir]

gut

[xandr]

Re nukes I think they spice up the game, the problem is when a single player gets them much earlier then anyone else and can deliver them all over the map in a chain of submarines. I've been on both ends (nuking others in LT49, and being nuked in the team game prior to that) and I'd like to keep nuking option, but make it so there's a greater chance of retaliation. There's a few more possible mitigations:
1) One option could be to allow building Manhattan with somewhat later tech then Nuclear Fission, so by the time it's built more players will be able to start building nukes right away (and everyone will have at least some subs with combustion by that time).
2) Re submarines not carrying nukes and increased nuke price I think those will actually hurt rather than help. Subs and cheaper nukes can actually act as an equalizer. If your city is nuked but not captured your nukes could escape on a submarine so you have a chance to retaliate (happened to me in 5 team game), and cheaper nukes can be built by anyone, not just the most powerful nations with high prod.
3) Re nuke power I made a patch some time ago to allow configuring population loss % (vs halving) and chance of a units survival (vs definite death) https://www.hostedredmine.com/issues/801780. It may help to allow some troops to survive vs a total wipeout, so cities can't be easily captured with a single horse.
4) Lastly we could allow a city improvement "Nuclear bunker" that will somewhat mitigate nuke attack (% of units surviving or smthn like that?), but that may need coding. Or do what mmm suggested and allow SDI early, but make it less effective in the beginning and more effective with later techs.

[mmm2]

I like wieder rule change about making default submarine not be able to hold nukes, and creating a separate sub for nukes..

we could also make it easier/cheaper to patrol the oceans by having some slow moving sub that has just enough attack power to kill a sub but not much else...

ie, same as default sub except 4 attack, 4 defense, 4 moves, 20 shields cost to build...

I noticed in last game there were very few patrol ships... building a sub is too expensive/not worth it...

Also we could make it easier to create buoys? radio is needed for buoy.. if we make buoy buildable with earlier tech then players will use buoys, as they acheive same goal of patrolling ocean... by the time radio is discovered,its too dangerous to leave transporters out on the open.. maybe we could have a very cheap transporter unit that can only hold 1 friendly unit (migrant,worker,egnineer,etc).. specifically for purpose of putting buoys with low risk/reward for price it's worth to make buoy...

[mmm2]

...or if possible an ocean going engineer unit? that would be cool to be able to transform oceans and create buoys without loading and unloading stuff...

[mmm2]

we might do as such:
submarine: same as before, except no nukes
nuclear submarine: 4x price as default.. same as submarine, but able to carry nukes
patrol submarine: 1/3x price as default.. slower moving, less attack, used for patrolling
cutter: can hold 1 friendly non military unit, same as transporter, can do engineering tasks on ocean tiles (transforming, buoy making)

[wieder]

2 different subs? one with no missiles and the other with missiles? I'll try to figure out how that would work out.

The rich nations can pay for the more expensive subs and the poor ones maybe not that much. So that might be a problem for them.

The buoys are somehow weird in this game. I'll need to pay more attention to those really.

Subs are not worth the cost? I think they are really quite cheap now.

[Wahazar]

Two types of subs, and this one carrying missiles is introduced later (nuclear fusion?)

[Corbeau]

the hoover damn

Anyway, I'd ask for cheaper settlers, at least in the beginning. If the default government is Tribal, make it Tribal-specific, or at least make them obsolete with Alphabet or something.

Like I repeatedly whined, the beginning of the game is way too slow.

Also, about nukes. I don't think the game reflects the fact that only the biggest, richest an most powerful countries have nukes, and for a reason, which is not only the non-proliferation traty . I'd make a nuke cost 500 shields, dead serious. That way it's a strategic asset. As it is now, it costs, what, 100 or 200, and it is enough to wipe out 1000-worth of units.

[Dim]

For food fundamentalism -35%, science and a maximum tax of 50% are too serious changes. As LT49 showed, all the same, pretty quickly everyone switched to democracy. I think the current setting for fundamentalism -30% (science) and 60% of the maximum tax are balanced settings.

[HanduMan]

I'd make a nuke cost 500 shields, dead serious.

I'd second that if I had a voice. Also I'd suggest giving it the "unique" flag as we did in our private games back in the days.
For reference: our nuke costed 666 shields.

[wieder]

There are now few changes to the nukes. I don't want to make too big alterations since this is the traditional longturn even while this stuff also makes the game slightly different.

- nukes cost 200 (was 160) and not a major change but this still allows them also for the poor nations who just got the tech with a great effort
- the 100% nuke prood SDI is gone (except for the palace city) and it will only work with 90% certainty. If you build the manhattan project you may risk yourself nuked!
- the submarines are no longer able to carry nukes
- there is the nuclear submarine (with Nuclear Power) able to carry nukes but it's expensive and you can't upgrade a regilar sub to a nuclear one. the nuclear sub also has limited fuel (7 turns) and it can carry only 4 nukes at once. Not so easy to build submarine chains for moving the weapons

For funda there are now 2 changes instead of 3:

- the crusaders are more powerful for attack and you get them with invention. they also are obsoleted by fanatics
- the max tax rate is 50%

I think funda was slightly too powerful compared to monarchy. Let's see how this plays out and then fix it for the next one if there is still a problem.

[Corbeau]

One solution for starting Settlers stuck in inhospitable terrain: make the pre-Settler unit IgTer. Soon they become obsolete (Alphabet) and switch to normal Settlers.

[wieder]

This might work... Maybe ignore terrain and only one move (= 3 actual 1/3 moves) so that the players wouldn't be able to expand like crazy. This might be a problem if we have players joining few turns late.

[Corbeau]

Give them also extended vision? What is the default?