Looking at the overall worthiness of War

[greenday_234]

I often play civ as a war man. So a few weeks ago I started working on a basic word document that lays out all the negatives and positives of any given war and assigned them a point value. It has worked well for me so far in considering the overall and I thought I'd put it up for anyone who is interested in giving it a shot. Take a look at it, try using it and let me know what you think.

Edit: I have revised the old version in a format that should be a great deal easier to read, it also has notes in it that guide you along the way this should hopefully tide you over until I place it into the excel format that will do the calculations for you.

The new excel calculator on this thread:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=150791

[greenday_234]

Also I've attached an Excel file that chooses the best candidate for a Permanent Alliance

[Ramsses]

Cool, will try it a.s.a.p.

[greenday_234]

Please let me know if you're having any difficulty figuring out how to use it, tonight, if work is slow, I hope to streamline the system and reformat it if it is difficult for people to read. With in the next couple of days I plan on putting out a small readme file to explain each Grouping and how to accurately assign values to each subsection for best results.

Also please let me know if you run across any ideas for modifiers that I might have missed, war after all is such a complex thing. Or if any modifiers are too powerful in your opinion.

Thank you.

[Shaka II]

Very interesting. I usually think intuitively on this issue, but It's nice to see an attempt to quantify this. A few minor points:

When looking at power and troop strength, aren't they sort of the same? I think power includes the troop strength and numbers of troops. Of course, there's nothing like actually seeing the types of troops, to build counters.

When considering capturing cities and building courthouses, perhaps you can add 1/2 point for being organized (1/2 price courthouse). Also, maybe 1/2 point for for being creative, since pop rushing a theater cost fewer pop. I find a quick theater can save several pop in a captured city with almost no cultural borders.

[greenday_234]

Shaka,

I think you're right. I am sort of double counting Power when applying troop strength, however I thought the power graph was more of an overall issue, including things like city sizes, production, technology and military all rolled into one. If this is not true please let me know, in which case i will drop Power and just go with the military tech and troop strength, as I find this to be more accurate anyhow.
Also I'm glad you mentioned the organized trait, this is exactly the kind of feed back I've been looking for. Also this reminds me that there should definately be a bonus for aggressive civs. Your idea will definately find its way into the next revision.
I hope to have a full rivision to you guys by next Monday, the reason I'm waiting so long is I'm hoping for some more input on things to be weighted into the war planner.

Things to be included in the next Revision:

1. A supplemanental workbook in a format easily used for your own calculations. (probably in excel, but I will play around with this)

2. A readme file giving clarification to each grouping, sorry guys doing my best to streamline the War Planner.

3. The War Planner will contain Notes within it to give clarification to each Groupings' meaning and how to assign a point value.

4. Including any modifiers that are suggested on this page i.e. Shaka's recommendation, that are within the scope of this idea.

So thank you for the feedback so far and keep it coming! But please be gentle

[greenday_234]

Quick update, I am currently revamping the entire system into an excel format, that once you enter all data values will do all the math for you. This should make it alot less time consuming thus making it more viable to use. For the time being I stream lined the old workbook, please download it and give it a shot. Note: its alot easier to read if printed.

I hope to have the automated system out by next monday.

[Yosho]

I tend to think you're under-rating technology here.

Sometimes, if you've got a significant tech advantage, say you've got swords against archers or infantry against rifles, you should be able to go to war and at least take a few cities without much cost to you even if his army is much larger then yours. A higher-tech civ can sometimes be beat by a lower-tech one, but there are just certain key technological jump points where you can almost guarentee a victory from that alone.

[greenday_234]

Yosho, I think your probably right, I went ahead and doubled the range of the of Military tech it is now -1 to -24 and 1 to 24 respectively. I attempted to implement military tech they same way I did flight, however this presents the problem that the war planner would be enormous and incredibly complicated as there are many "jump points" and each with their own signifigance. So I leave it to the player to find the proper number.

i.e. If I were about to fight a war with Mech Infantry versus Archers I would clearly assign myself a value of +24 and If I were fighting a war with Mech v infantry I might assign a score of +12.

I also added a "highly promoted Modifier" that attempts to calculate in promotion bonuses, however I kept it fairly small seeing as promotions are very nuanced and I didn't want to give it too much weight sense it is difficult to accurately calculate it in.

Hope this helps Yosho

[greenday_234]

I may be holding off a bit on an automated system. Watching the download amounts and the replies I've been getting, there doesn't seem to be much demand for this type of file. I don't want to do the automated system unless there is enough demand as it is very time consuming. Please keep any responses coming.

[greenday_234]

I updated the permanent alliance spread sheet to automatically calculate scores.

[greenday_234]

I completed an automatic excel calculator for this document, I have to put together a tutorial and a readme and then I'll post it, hopefuly mid-week.

[Jerh9e1k5]

Wow, very scientific approach to war gaming :P