AoD2: 1.07 Changelog & discussion

[Dale]

This thread is where I'll be keeping an updated changelog for the next version of AoD2. Please feel free to discuss the changes.

Changelog for 1.07:

[i]NEW:[/i]
- Added some new songs
- Uneducated units can learn professions "on the job"

[i]CHANGES:[/i]
- General balance changes:
	* Stable produces 3 horse per colonist, ranch 6 horse per colonist
	* Small score cheat for AI for new victories to make it fairer on the AI (based on difficulty level)
- Promotion / Trait changes:
	* Disciplined trait also gives -50% equipment needed for dragoons.
	* Co-operative trait now gives -50% equipment needed for pioneers.
	* Canister Shot I, II & III gives +10%, +15% & +25% versus gunpowder units
	* Minuteman III gives +30% settlement defense, +10% vs Melee units & +10% vs Gunpowder units
- Education changes:
	* Education threshold does not increase.  Static education costs throughout game.
	* Education gold cost more static.  Defined by education level.
	* Multiple colonists can graduate each turn.
	* Education buildings now define city's education level (schoolhouse level 1, college level 2, university level 3).
	* Professions now have a minimum education level to learn.  For example stateman requires level 3 building.
	* Can only train specialists that exist in that city, and have the correct education level building.
	* Profession chosen and paid for at start of education.
	* Petty Criminal and Indentured Servant cannot be educated in either education buildings or tribes.
- Unit changes:
	* Indentured Servant can no longer be a scout, dragoon or missionary.
	* Petty Criminal can no longer be a dragoon or missionary.
	* Indentured Servant and Petty Criminal become Free Colonists after 20 turns (gain their freedom).
	* Frigate now starts with Navigation I.
	* Free Colonist available in Europe for 750 gold
	* Privateers, Pirate brig, and Pirate Ship start with Skirmisher I
- Founding Father changes:
	* Pedro Alvarez Cabral switched positions in the Exploration FF tree with Jacques Marquette
	* Washington Irving moved forwards to be the 3rd father in the Political FF tree
	* Washington Irving gives +25% education in all settlements
	* Sor Juana switched positions with Thomas Hooker in the Religion FF tree
	* Sor Juana gives +1 cross per Town Hall, +2 crosses per church, +4 crosses per Cathedral
	* Ethan Allen gives +2 Cannons and Mountaineer I & Ranger I for gunpowerder units
	* William Penn gives +1 cross per Town Hall, free church all settlements
	* Alexander von Humboldt gives +50% production of schools, colleges & universities
	* Peter Minuit gives -50% price of Indian lands
	* Pocahontas gives +2 Indian relations and 1 convert
	* Chief Powhatan gives -20% price of Indian lands, as well as +50% Indian convert str, and +1 movement converts
	* Hernando de Soto gives +100% production of Stables and Ranch, +1 Rancher
	* Ben Franklin gives +4 soldiers, +4 cannons, +1 Frigate & +1 ship of the line
	* William Brewster gives +25% production of churches and cathedrals, and -10% crosses required for immigration 
- REF changes:
	* MoWs no longer carry cargo
	* All MoWs deploy to New World on DoI
	* MoWs will not return to Europe
	* The King receives free galleons to transport the REF
	* Only need to kill all land units to win WoI

[i]FIXES:[/i]
- Total Pirate Plunder wasn't calculating correctly for victories
- Added missing short text keys for Explorer (Xpl), Exporter (Xpo), and Seafarer (Sea) traits
- Pirate Soldier graphics fixed (thanks BioHazard).

[Dale]

DESIGN Bells, rebel sentiment & REF

There's a lot of discussion (mostly negative) surrounding how vanilla works out rebel sentiment and the REF. If you're interested in that go read those threads, as I won't talk about it here.

CRS == city rebel sentiment
GRS == global rebel sentiment
SIF == seperatist influence factor

Issues:
1. CRS is placed on population slots not the individual. Does the house become a rebel or the man living inside?
2. GRS reflects every colonist, including the docks and outside jobs with no way to influence colonists in those roles.
3. Politics did not always manifest itself in treason. Some politicians did great work for the King & Country. Not every bell is a treasonous act.
4. Not all discussion on soverienty ended in a revolutionary war. Canada is seperate but part of a larger Commonwealth.
5. REF growth based on one thing, and one thing alone.
6. REF increases increase (the next increase will be larger than this increase).

So to tackle the biggest area within the game, here is what I propose:
1. Each colonist has their own tory/seperatist setting. Either they support the King, or they support seperation.
2. CRS is a reflection of the percentage of colonists in that colony who are seperatists (the inverse percentage indicates torys).
3. Every colonist's sentiment is based on a swinging 'seperatist influence factor' (SIF). If the influence is towards the King they are a tory, and if away from the King a seperatist (ie: if > 0 then colonist is a seperatist).
4. A colonist's SIF is based on the following (settlement based factors influence fortified colonists on settlement plot [eg: soldiers, pioneers] as well as colonists in the settlement):
- Where born: Europe == 100% tory. New World == CRS percent chance of seperatist (so the higher the CRS the more chance of a seperatist being born).
- With no other factors, the SIF is -1 (tory, natural respect of men towards a King)
- +1: King taxes the good of the profession worked (eg: if you can have a tobacco goods party at a tax rise, all tobacco planters and tobacconists will receive the +1)
- +1: King drags you into a foreign war (more on that in later design doc)
- +1: King makes request (quest if comparing to Civ4 BTS - more on that in later design doc)
- +1: refuse to kiss King's ring
- -1: King assists in colonial war
- -1: King grants military aid (diplomacy request)
- -1: King defends colony against Pirates / privateers (more on that in later design doc)
- -1: REF unit being based in that settlement
- +1: for availability to church and school (freedom of religion and education)
- +2: for availability to cathedral and college/uni
- +1: for FF joining (greater / more respected united voice in New World)
- +-2: randomly allocated value on birth as all men are individual with their own stories
5. Bells translate into political points (and other points as revealed in later design doc).
6. GRS to reflect total seperatist percentage, including outside professions and docks.
7. REF to be influenced by different aspects:
- King's attitude to other European powers (external threat)
- GRS (internal threat)
- Linear time-based growth (represents overall increase in military due to increased manpower and defense spending)
- Possible for REF to decrease due to happy European relations and low GRS
8. Settlements with more tory sentiment than seperatist sentiment on DoI go to the King.

Here are some actual examples of what will happen under the above model for politics:
1. King hikes tax rate from 1% to 3%. You choose to take the tax hike rather than having a rum party. All sugar planters and distillers get a +1 to their SIF.
2. King deploys a MoW to the New World to deal with a Pirate who's been attacking you. All colonists receive -1 to their SIF as King defended the colonies.
3. GRS jumps up due to in one turn you receive a FF, the King passes a tax hike on a commodity a lot of colonists are working on, and drags you into a war with Spain (thus destroying King's attitude to Spain as well). King increases REF due to increased internal and external threats.
4. You comply with the King's requests, fulfill a quest for the King and help to maintain good relations between the European colonial powers (thus helping to keep high European relations). King reduces REF due to lower external threats.

I'll add more to this if I think of it, but this should give a good idea of how I want politics to work in AoD2.

[Dale]

I'll add my design notes on the way the REF should work here:

1. King is able to deploy MoW's to the New World to protect shipping from pirates and privateers.
2. The King will no longer transport troops by MoW. Troops will be transported to the New World in galleons.
3. Galleons will be made at time of loading free of charge for the King (they are free to represent existing shipping the King has access too across the Empire outside the New World).
4. The MoW's will escort the first wave of galleons to the New World and then remain in the New World till the end of the war.
5. Once a galleon is unloaded it will return to Europe. (It will not physically re-appear in Europe but be removed from the game when it hits the Europe sea zone).
6. Galleons are non-combatant and are not counted as part of the REF as a whole (so killing all galleons will not result in end of WoI like defeating all MoW's in vanilla does).
7. To defeat the REF you must defeat all land units. Defeating all the MoW's will not result in a win.
8. The waves will consist of the following percentages of land troops: 50%, 30%, 20%.

This is my plan. Replace the MoW transport concept with freebie galleons to transport the troops over. This means waves are more controlled by programming instead of how many MoW's it has. In the end this will result in the King deploying faster, making the 200 turn slow deployment a thing of the past.

However, the player must remember if the King has a REF of 700, each wave is going to be bigger than the waves of a REF of 150.

[Dale]

DESIGN Education

Education sucks. It's all wrong. It's opposite to reality in almost every way.

1. Who chooses their major at the end?
2. Who waits till next year to graduate just because someone else already did this year?
3. Who learns Law & Politics at a school to become a statesmen?
4. Why does it take my kid twice as long to finish school as it did me?

These and many more questions remain unanswered. However, I believe there is a better way.

1. Education levels are determined by building. Resource professions taught at school. Manufacturer professions taught at college. Artisan professions taught at uni.
2. Major and cost must be chosen/paid at the start of entering education.
3. School profession are free, college minor cost, artisan expensive.
4. After building a school one of two lines of education building must be chosen: civil or military.
5. New education line: military. Military College trains seasoned scouts, Military Uni trains veterans.
6. IS can enter school and become free colonists after education. So IS becomes free via education.
7. PC cannot enter education buildings. (PC become free colonists over time. IE: serve their sentence).
8. No education cost increase. IE: 0% threshold increase.
9. Free colonist can become specialist if in same job for long time.

Comments?

[Dale]

Updated first post with the education changes up to now.

[Mark123jansen]

I love your plans for Education! Makes so much more sense then the way it is now.

Also colonists learning professions on the job is a lifesaver, especially on smaller maps when there just isnt an indian tribe nearby that teaches sugar/cotton/tabacco planter. Will learning on the job only apply to free colonists or will IS, PC or Converts also be able to learn on the job?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Hi guys,

Dale I am impressed by what you've mentioned.

Comments:

Education

1. How will education boosting FFs effect education now (eg Washington Irvine, John Harvard etc)?
2. Will PC and IC be able to learn from natives?
3. Does learning from natives scale up the time of education (in colonies or indian camps)?
4. Can we train soldiers?

Trade

I see a demand for (especially arising in 15+ colonies empires):

1. Custom House (directly exporting stuff to Europe with tax and embargo applied as normal). It should be very expensive and come with great cost and effort.

What about implementing it as a national wonder?

2. Mininimum value for manufactured goods and silver. Quite low let's say 3.

3. Domestic sales should not affect the price of goods in Europe.

DoI Wars

Not sure there Dale. So with a REF of 1000, the King will drop 500 units in one go, no matter how many ships you got at the costs? It will be quite hard to respond and gather troops.

What you've said makes sense with galleons, it also makes sense if you sink some galleons, King will bring more. So thumb up there.

My idea though is a bit different, rebels should still be able to sink galleons and infict losses to REF in the sea during the phase of transportation.

The idea of bringing in all MoWs in one wave, will provide safety to the transports. Thumb up.

The player should have a rough idea of where REF is landing and respond. I forsee this will push players towards single coastal colony strategy, where REF invasion is easier to predict, and hence easier to defend. I am not keen on strategies which involve only one coastal colony, as I see them as a kind of cheat.

What about REF landing in all coastal colonies with an equal distribution? Even better, REF should land to all coastal colonies with an equal force distributed accordingly to the significance of the colony, in terms of city size and torry sentiment. So the King will send more troops to bigger coastal colonies, and the distribution will increase in respect to loyalist support (CRS %). I am happy to do the formulas if you are interested.

This would make better sense to me. It is pretty impossible to gather all troops in the colony, which REF decided to land in a single turn. So if the first wave consists of 500 units, imagine them attempting a coastal assault! Ughhh! But even after a turn, that is when REF will attack, the player must have already gathered the majority of the rebel forces to relief the siege. Spreading REF would help players to play with more coastal colonies, respond better to REF invasion, require a strategic distibution of forces and would be more historically accurate and realistic (eg. English landed in Boston, NY, Baltimore attempting multiple siges etc.).

These suggestions will reduce the influence of ships, hence I suggest a better implementation of cannons/ships bombing. What about bombarded units to receive a penalty in defence/attack (pinned down, disorganised). This would mean SoLs and cannons will be able to bombard REF on shore -where they land.

How would galleons land troops, if SoLs guard the coastal tiles? Would it require a MoW beating the SoL and clearing the path?

Overall your comments are awesome. I cannot wait! I hope my feedback is constructive and helpful.

Thanks,
Mysh

PS
One nice detail from original colonisation, King was able to incite a rebellion in undefended settlements with no garrison. So even 1% torry support, would be able to revolt in favour of the King, if no military unit was there.

[Dale]

Hi guys,

Dale I am impressed by what you've mentioned.

Comments:

Education

1. How will education boosting FFs effect education now (eg Washington Irvine, John Harvard etc)?
2. Will PC and IC be able to learn from natives?
3. Does learning from natives scale up the time of education (in colonies or indian camps)?
4. Can we train soldiers?

1. The time it takes to train someone is still down to the books made. So FF's increasing book production still speed up training.
2. PC and IS will not be able to learn from natives. However, there will be a tiny random chance each turn to convert to FC to represent "doing time" and "paid out service".
3. Yes.
4. In a military university you can train veterans. You don't train a soldier or dragoon as such, but a veteran.

Trade

I see a demand for (especially arising in 15+ colonies empires):

1. Custom House (directly exporting stuff to Europe with tax and embargo applied as normal). It should be very expensive and come with great cost and effort.

What about implementing it as a national wonder?

2. Mininimum value for manufactured goods and silver. Quite low let's say 3.

3. Domestic sales should not affect the price of goods in Europe.

1. Warehouse expansion will allow more trade per turn to Europe.
2 & 3. I've yet to get to trade (I'm sure you've noticed). This update is for politics and education.

DoI Wars

Not sure there Dale. So with a REF of 1000, the King will drop 500 units in one go, no matter how many ships you got at the costs? It will be quite hard to respond and gather troops.

Remember with the changes in politics you don't need to produce as many bells to hit 50% GRS. Also, the REF will be influenced by other factors than GRS. This makes the REF much more predictable on a game per game basis. I think you'll find the REF will ultimately be a little bit smaller than now.

What you've said makes sense with galleons, it also makes sense if you sink some galleons, King will bring more. So thumb up there.

My idea though is a bit different, rebels should still be able to sink galleons and infict losses to REF in the sea during the phase of transportation.

Sinking galleons with troops still leads to victory. Also, much more profitable to pursue the naval war against the King. Avoid the MoW's and get stuck into those fleshy galleons.

The idea of bringing in all MoWs in one wave, will provide safety to the transports. Thumb up.

The player should have a rough idea of where REF is landing and respond. I forsee this will push players towards single coastal colony strategy, where REF invasion is easier to predict, and hence easier to defend. I am not keen on strategies which involve only one coastal colony, as I see them as a kind of cheat.

What about REF landing in all coastal colonies with an equal distribution? Even better, REF should land to all coastal colonies with an equal force distributed accordingly to the significance of the colony, in terms of city size and torry sentiment. So the King will send more troops to bigger coastal colonies, and the distribution will increase in respect to loyalist support (CRS %). I am happy to do the formulas if you are interested.

This would make better sense to me. It is pretty impossible to gather all troops in the colony, which REF decided to land in a single turn. So if the first wave consists of 500 units, imagine them attempting a coastal assault! Ughhh! But even on turn two, that is when REF will attack, the player must have already gathered the majority of the rebel force to relief the siege. Spreading REF would help players to play with more coastal colonies, respond easier to a REF invasion, and would be more historically accurate and realistic (eg. English landed in Boston, NY, Baltimore etc.).

I would err the other direction. Cut down the predicatability of the REF landing site, and that defeats the one coastal colony strategy.

These suggestions will reduce the influence of ships, hence I suggest a better implementation of cannons/ships bombing. What about bombarded units to receive a penalty in defence/attack (pinned down, disorganised). This would mean SoLs and cannons will be able to bombard REF on shore -where they land.

I disagree. With the possibility of actually being able to sink transports (and really reducing the land forces) naval warfare against the King is more enticing. Remember, ships costs less to build now too.

How would galleons land troops, if SoLs guard the coastal tiles? Would it require a MoW beating the SoL and clearing the path?

Yep. But there's plenty of spots to land.

PS
One nice detail from original colonisation, King was able to incite a rebellion in undefended settlements with no garrison. So even 1% torry support, would be able to revolt in favour of the King, if no military unit was there.

You'll note that colonies in favour of the King at DoI will be the King's colony.

[PrinceMyshkin]

OK so we should block all tiles close to colonies forcing REF to land far away, and hence buy 5-6 turns to gather up forces in the right position?

If this is the case, dragoons separate from soldiers/cannons spreading further REF. Perhaps using tactics like this a skillful player could hold an early defense allowing the rest of rebel forces come to aid in time.

Hmmm... if you spawn MoWs on top of Galleons en masse, pretty sure you won't be able to sink many of the galleons in three turns. I would say a 20-30% of casualties would have startegic interest players could consider pursuing.

I would still like to see a strategic interest for naval and land war. If all troops land for free no matter what, there is no point for building a navy other than forcing REF to land far away. I would prefer to build 100 cannons than 20 ships, all in all I I will lose the settlement defense bonus - assuming MoWs will bombard defenses to 0%- for which frankly I don't give a damn. Cannons will do this anyway.

20 ships won't kill a single land unit, 100 cannons may kill some land units and fire back to ships. As for settlement bonuses.

Dale in the fairweather maps, where there is a large continent from top to bottom you can easily have a pyramid structure with colonies spreading deep inside. No matter where REF will land, it won't have many other choices other than attacking the head of of the pyramid, or the 2 colonies inside and close to it. Hence, REF attack is predictable and easier to handle. Anyway!

Hmmm... my feeling Dale, it may be nicer, if we keep a strategic interest for both land and sea war.

You'll note that colonies in favour of the King at DoI will be the King's colony.

Nice, I've noticed. I was talking about inciting a revolt in colonies where torries have only a minoirity, but there is no stationary garrison.

Anyway, hope that helps!

Thanks

[PrinceMyshkin]

Regarding education question 3

Does this mean learning from the indians for the 2nd time will increase education time in colonies?

Regarding DoI wars

I am worried because even if rebels had 500 SoLs, the impact on the war would be insignificant -which is not realistic. In my opinion we need a reason to force players fight equally for the land and the sea.

What if adding a supply penalty to REF forces, which would diminish their combat effectiveness? Destroying a MoW would result losing a % of this bonus every time -showing the dependency of REF to Europe, supplies and reinforcements arriving from the sea.

Alternatively, what if you give free MoWs to King's forces? REF could never had less than half of its starting MoWs. So destroying all MoWs would not be possible and will not result winning independence war.

[Dale]

OK so we should block all tiles close to colonies forcing REF to land far away, and hence buy 5-6 turns to gather up forces in the right position?

If this is the case, dragoons separate from soldiers/cannons spreading further REF. Perhaps using tactics like this a skillful player could hold a defense.

That's a lot of SoL, and you'd still be at very real risk of MoW's prowling the seas. The MoW is still able to take 1.5 SoL's if lucky.

Hmmm... if you spawn MoWs on top of Galleons en masse, pretty sure you won't be able to sink many of the galleons in three turns. I would say a 20-30% of casualties would have startegic interest players could consider pursuing.

But that's not the case. The REF already spreads itself out very nicely. Just expand that a little more and the galleons and MoW's would be spread.

I would still like to see a strategic interest for naval and land war. If all troops land for free no matter what, there is no point for building a navy other than forcing REF to land far away. I would prefer to build 100 cannons than 20 ships, if all I I will lose will be the settlement defense bonus - assuming MoWs will bombard defenses to 0%.

I don't understand how you can say the proposed changes don't introduce a lot of strategic interest. As it is, I never build a navy. There's no point. The investment of time of a SoL to take between 50-100% MoW's is not worth the investment. But with one SoL I have the potential to take down 3 galleons, and if I hit them on the way in to the New World that's 18 land units. That's an investment worth it, even more so with the cheaper costing SoL's.

20 ships won't kill a single land unit, 100 cannons may kill some land units and fire back to ships. As for settlement bonuses, I seldom rely on it.

20 SoL have the chance of defeating a LOT of land units by sinking full galleons. 6 land units per galleon. I think you are severely overlooking this. For me, this makes making a navy (even ANY navy at all) very much worth it, and very much strategic. The strategy of avoiding the MoW's whilst engaging galleons would be worth the thrill! Much like the old sub wolf-pack hunting games.

Nice, I've noticed. I was talking about inciting a revolt in colonies where torries have only a minoirity, but there is no stationary garrison.

I'd rather not go there. I'm sure you'd agree that this would hamper the AI much more than the human player. The human would turn one colonist in town to a soldier for the DoI and then return him to the colony, where an AI wouldn't.

[Dale]

Regarding education question 3

Does this mean learning from the indians for the 2nd time will increase education time in colonies?

No, not at all. The learning time with the indians is independant of learning time in the colonies.

Regarding DoI wars

I am worried because even if rebels had 500 SoLs, the impact on the war would be insignificant -which is not realistic. In my opinion we need a reason to force players fight equally for the land and the sea.

What if adding a supply penalty to REF forces, which would diminish their combat effectiveness? Destroying a MoW would result losing a % of this bonus every time -showing the dependency of REF to Europe, supplies and reinforcements arriving from the sea.

Alternatively, what if you give free MoWs to King's forces? REF could never had less than half of its starting MoWs. So destroying all MoWs would not be possible and will not result winning independence war.

I think you are severely overlooking the strength of having 6 land REF units exposed per ship to the rebels. A SoL will take out a galleon 95% of the time. Whereas it is more like a 40-60 against a MoW. This single fact makes me want to build a navy now. Previously, I never built a navy.

EVER!

[PrinceMyshkin]

1. Thanks! BTW training veteran soldiers would be so cool!

2. Hang on, I am slow and I am not getting things first time.

Are you saying I will be able to sink down ships while they are on move transporting land army, and hence, having a navy makes sense?

What I thought, is they were going to land in a vanilla 1994 fashion.

[wodan11]

Honestly I'd be more worried about the AI being smart enough to sufficiently protect its galleons. If it escorts each galleon stack with only 1-2 MoWs (which is what I would expect from CIV behavior), then it will be far too easy to send way too much of the REF's land forces down to Davy Jones' locker.

[PrinceMyshkin]

But aren't MoW supposed to spawn on top of galleons?

To my understanding all will appear in one stack by the coast, and either they will land or landing will happen during the next turn.

Only guessing though!