Making war less usefull.

Tarquelne · February 17, 2002, 13:15

A number of people (and I include myself) keep making noises about warfare/conquest being too often the way-to-win in Civ3. So, what are we doing about it?

I've made all the offensive units more expensive. An obvious move. (I increased the costs by, IIRC, 30% or so.)

I've made Cultural boundries exapnd faster (trying to make Culture more important.) I don't know if this helped.

I've tried making the maintiance cost for all non-Anarchy units 2, rather than 1, along with giving every gov 2 more "free" units. (I need to test this more to see if it helps. I crashed and burned due to the increased unit cost in the one game I tried it in.)

siredgar · February 17, 2002, 13:18

I think you're in the minority, because most people seem to think it's too difficult to start/wage/win a war in Civ 3.

The Andy-Man · February 17, 2002, 13:39

its difficult to avoid a war i the bloody game, and even harder to stop one before war weariness sets in.

war is the only way to win, for all the winning options require a massive empire, and even if you dont play for the win, the AI will walk over you unless ypu churn out more warriors then he does.

GePap · February 17, 2002, 15:38

Makign a pacifist game is impossible, preiod. All states, in all period of hisotry, have fought wars. Long term peace was always the result of one power beating all the others into submission for long preiods of time. Thus, I think Tarquelne's attempt are futured to fail, if he seeks a warless world- remember, the A.I./ight just attack you with masses of spearmen and other 'defensive' units hten, or even bring up catapults/cannons.

I do agree though that war is not the be-all end all, and that many players do over-emphasize it.

nato · February 17, 2002, 16:15

War kind of is the end-all-be-all in this game, at least for me. The reason it is, is the simple question: what else is there to do?

Diplomacy win just isn't satisfying. Maybe it is to some people, but I don't think it is to most. I turned it off after my first win with it.

Culture win is pretty dull also. It is just a matter of getting a lot of cities, and getting lots of Temples/Libraries etc. in them.

That leaves space ship win. I understand that may be fun to a lot of people. To me it is just building 10 city improvements. I can understand if you disagree with me on this.

However, I look at the space ship and culture like this ... you build things in cities (SS parts or culture buildings) and the game is done. For war, you build things in cities (military units) and the game has just started. That is why I feel war is superior.

So really I think war is all there is to do. War just seems like the only option that requires a little bit of thinking. No it does not require brilliant thinking, but certainly more thinking than building city improvements.

Just how I see it though.

Worthingtons · February 17, 2002, 17:55

Sucess on the field is much more satisfying than Sucess off it, IMO.

Ironikinit · February 18, 2002, 00:39

I personally don't see much of a difference between diplomatic and SS victories. Diplo wins were sure things. I haven't lost a vote since the first time I built the UN.

I do rely a lot on war. I may try to avoid it for much of the game, but sooner or later I need a war to expand enough to place me in the top ranks so that I can win a diplo vote.

Carbon Copy · February 18, 2002, 02:36

I would agree that war is a much more interesting route to take, strategically, with the stipulation that it's before steam power, and preferably prior to cavalry.

Once you have all your core cities railed up and factories in place, you can spew out units from anywhere on your map and have them on the front lines THIS turn, and the AI just can't cope with it. Once you're to the point where tanks roll off your line once every two to three turns, you're never more than 20 turns away from taking any world power out of contention for any victory condition you choose (except maybe diplo). Even if you don't wipe them out, a stack of 20 tanks razing half their core cities will hamstring them for good, even if you allow them to rebuild their cities on the same spots.

Andrew Cory · February 18, 2002, 04:13

War is a lot of fun, but honestly, I prefer to take cities culturaly. I got pretty good at this, to the point that I had to turn off cultural victory. Don't care for the space race one, so that leaves just conquest and Diplo. The diplomatic vicory always seems too abrupt. I wish that the UN was more like it was in SMAC. Since it isn't, I tend to build the UN just so I can refuse to hold the vote. I dunno, I want to see what happens once I build everything, have my empire set up perfectly...

So I kinda don't like to actualy win, I guess. I just want the thrill of holding on...

Ironikinit · February 18, 2002, 04:24

Well, there's not a whole lot that can be said based on a single game's experience, but I just played the ancient period under the new patch. IMO, war has become more difficult, and not just because pop rushing has greater penalties. That is a factor, but not in that I had a harder time using pop rushing. I didn't use it at all.

The AI used it a good deal. That made their cities reduce to size one and therefore unless their culture boundary expanded, the city was destroyed. This problem was increased by the fact that I made use of catapults. BTW, two catapults probably isn't enough. If I can afford it next game, I'll use four.

Further, the cities were unhappy when I took them. I'll be bringing settlers next time, too.

Losses were a good deal higher due to the new retreat rule.

Ancient era war at least has become a less easy way to expand, although still quite viable.

Please mentally tack on "IMO" where needed.

notyoueither · February 18, 2002, 05:47

Make war less useful?

That's blasphemy to a Roman, dude.

God is on the side of the big Legions.

Although, they are good ideas for a mod. Call it the Civilized mod

Salve

The Andy-Man · February 18, 2002, 12:11

i think war is a boring root. and in Civ3 a hard and unrealistic one (for me). i mean, how does a massive roman empire that is not connected by road to every where, pluss it is mainly pop 1 cities, build 100 roman legions. the human wold never manage this, i tried, but it didnt work, i had 20 knights at most (using unit mania).

also, civ3's combat feels to random, its like, who ever sttacks first will win, cos he takes a HP, then the next guy takes one of his. i mean, how come a knight (4/3/2) of mine never seemed to beet the roman legion (3/3/1) yet the legion always smashed mine? they werent even veterans either.

also, i feel more proud in a game where i have like 10 massively populated high production happy cities, living in a contenented republic, in civ3 i have no choice in the matter, cos the AI seems to always have 500 stupid units that are invincible.

Tarquelne · February 18, 2002, 12:34

Well, I'm going to close my eyes and pretend that all the previous posts were from the people saying "war is the too often the best option", and not you guys

and mention:

Inreasing the number of conscript hit points. Even if you don't want to give conscripts as many hit points as green units (3), increasing all hit points by the same amount will still help. Presently, for example, a vetern unit has twice as many hits as a conscript. Increase all the hits by 2 and the veteran unit will have only 50% more hits.

Ironikinit · February 18, 2002, 12:47

It does strike me a little odd how different people criticize the game in different ways. Some say that war is the only way to go, others complain that warmongers are unfairly limited by corruption.

To make war harder:

Reduce attack values or increase defense.

Make razing not an option (doubt that's possible with the editor, but it really would hurt warmongers).

There's been some talk that under the new patch starving out captured cities annoys the civ you captured it from. I don't know if that's a big enough penalty. I do know that it's odd that you are rewarded for starving out population. Just make them all specialists and they're happy campers, no matter how much you rushed or what the war effects on happiness currently are. Frankly, it smacks of exploitation but I'm not about to stop.

Make iron and horses less common with the editor.

The Andy-Man · February 18, 2002, 13:06

the SMAC/civ2 combat engine would be best. i dont like this new elite thing. its stupid. on civ2 a veteran unit was precious, and they didnt instantly go out of date with an age change (a vet artillary was still usefull even when you had howies). in civ3, whoever wins the battle seems to be a random decisin that has no effect on which unit is better. and veteran/elite units are just to tupid. with 5 hit points and civ3's combat engine, i seen a warrior (elite) beet a regular sworsmad. in civ2, once the first military unit had been discoverd, warriors were obsolete, on a game i just deletedm you could still capture a cty with MR warrior in the medievial period.

Spec · February 18, 2002, 13:07

Originally posted by Ironikinit

There's been some talk that under the new patch starving out captured cities annoys the civ you captured it from.

Hmhm....As soon as you capture a city from a civ, that civ is furious with you so who gives a **** if the're annoyed with us? I dont get your point.

Spec.

Ironikinit · February 18, 2002, 23:22

I didn't fully understand the event, actually, but I ran into it in my current game. Starving out cities might be a very bad idea now.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...406#post192874

MikeV · February 19, 2002, 02:55

[SIZE=1] I've tried making the maintiance cost for all non-Anarchy units 2, rather than 1, along with giving every gov 2 more "free" units. (I need to test this more to see if it helps. I crashed and burned due to the increased unit cost in the one game I tried it in.)

Have you tried making every unit require 1 pop. point? I'd like to hear opinions on how it affects play balance, especially in the early game.

korn469 · February 19, 2002, 05:45

MikeV

in the blitz mod i made all offensive and defensive ground units in the industrial and modern era cost 1 pop in addition to their normal cost

playtesting hasn't been conclusive so far (i was experiencing a crash that prevented me from entering the middle ages, so i haven't got to test it personally yet), but it should have some kind of impact on the game

though early on each unit costing 1 pop point would probably slow the game down to unacceptable levels

Zachriel · February 19, 2002, 06:05

Originally posted by Ironikinit
BTW, two catapults probably isn't enough. If I can afford it next game, I'll use four.

Four! I never go to war unless I have a substantial military. Usually at least 10-20 catapults, 10-20 sword, with spearmen bringing up the rear.

I just fought a glorious battle against the Zulu. The key was a city on a hill fortified with Impi and Pikemen. Horsemen weren't appropriate due to the Impi, so sword and catapult it was. It was a struggle, but worth the effort.

Tarquelne · February 19, 2002, 12:03

Originally posted by MikeV

Have you tried making every unit require 1 pop. point? I'd like to hear opinions on how it affects play balance, especially in the early game.

No, but I think I'll try it. Have you? How does the AI do with it?

DrFell · February 19, 2002, 12:12

'A number of people (and I include myself) keep making noises about warfare/conquest being too often the way-to-win in Civ3. So, what are we doing about it?'

The only way to solve it completely I feel is to change the game rules completely. It wouldn't be so vital though if the AI on deity didn't get such production advantages.

'I've made all the offensive units more expensive. An obvious move. (I increased the costs by, IIRC, 30% or so.)'

They're already much more expensive than the ones in civ2 (knights cost 70 shields vs 40). Probably the best bet is to make units like musketeers and pikemen a little cheaper.

'I've made Cultural boundries exapnd faster (trying to make Culture more important.) I don't know if this helped.'

I think culture needs a big overhaul in general.

The Andy-Man · February 19, 2002, 15:32

civ2's combat was good, cos in that the game wasnt about superior numbers (in civ3, you win wars by mass producing any unit with a average - decent attck value). bassically, early in the game, you just build loadsa warriors and spearmen, and you will eventuall win a war. later on just mas produce cavalry. and you always need more then 20 to win enough cities to get peace quickly.

in Civ2, 3 veteran tanks could be devestating, as in real life - take WW2 for example, the french were using large tank formations (oetain never was interested in new techniques) where as the germans were using more compact elitist units.

not a great example though, i am not to sue of the facts. but the oint is, in RL, a small group of well trained units can be leathal in a short war, (the German/french war of 1870 - lasted 6weeks, a small modernised german force smashed the french extremly quick, civ3 for ANY military operation you need to just churn out units)

Lorizael · February 19, 2002, 15:51

The problem with war isn't that it's the only option. I have played games where for the majority of history I was peaceful. And really that's all you can expect, after all, wars are very, very common in history.

The problem is that the AI doesn't value the consequecnes of wars enough. They go to war far too easily over insignifigant issues. I've had too many wars started because I demanded that the AI get out of my territory. If the computer were to realize the dangers of war, I think they would be less common. I think that then, a player could play a mostly peaceful game if they so chose.

But I also think that the peaceful winning options need to be worked out a little better. Just so that they are a little more interesting and a require a little more thinking to accomplish.

maxpower · February 19, 2002, 16:00

Hey, Andy,

Good point, but bad example.

The Franco-Prussian War (1870s) was about modernization and tactics. The Prussians had advanced breech-loading handguns/rifles that shredded French troops advancing in Napoleanic lines. Same for artillery. The Prussians also had the worlds most advanced military staff (strategic and planning) and used in to their advantage.
The French's legendary ability to surrender after a few losses helped too

. Maybe, say, negotiate peace, instead.

Think British troops in India, Roman legions (anywhere) or even modern US/other "elite forces" units. Better examples.

The Andy-Man · February 19, 2002, 16:06

damn dbl post

The Andy-Man · February 19, 2002, 16:09

there have been lots of wars inRL, but thats not to say every nation has participated in a major total war every century of its history!!!!

peacful nations can stay peacful by having militaryily strong allies, and also being economicaly strong, so much so that the AI goes the the player (or vica versa) for lones to fight his wars.

there are many ways to implement peace, like a peacful nation being the main trading nation, so other civs rely on there trade to keep an army and to keep happy citizens. so for these nations, the existence of this civ is vital, so if anyone declares war on them, every one else tries to stop the war maker, so they dont loose the vital trade etc.

and maxpower, you could consider the better fild command as being the veteran status of a civ 2 unit, which is why it has better attck, its leaders and troops are more expirienced and so have that little bit extra in terms of ability more then just longevity and hit points....

Ironikinit · February 19, 2002, 16:11

Zach,

I'm still finding catapults a bit useless and relying more on swords in ancient wars.

A nice stack of ten catapults would probably do the trick, tho.

I've started a drinking game. Every time that DrFell mentions that he plays on deity level, I drink. I'm gonna get smashed.

Hey Doc, how bout posting that game like you said you would?

Lorizael · February 19, 2002, 16:11

Of course there are ways to stay peaceful for a long perdiod of time, but really, for how long can a civilization remain peaceful? I can't think of a single country that has not been involved in some type of war in its history.

Eventually, tensions will increase, and someone will do something that will spark a war. It always happens. History has a pattern. So a civilization type game that was extremely peaceful or extremely warlike would be unrealistic. There needs to be a balance between the two. Balancing is always the most difficult part.

The Andy-Man · February 19, 2002, 18:03

well obviously war will eventually start, but in RL no nation has a mssive standing army, its pointless (except aemrica, but we wont go into details), bassically, as it seems there will be war, one builds up. in civ3 you HAVE to have already built up to make sure you have supiriority in numbers. and when your sitting there with 20cavalryu waiting to attack, you get bored just looking at them...