Wolfshanze Mod = Dumb AI ?

[Robert]

Thanks, it's the newest form of spamming, together with sig-spam.
Anyway, let's get back on topic!

[Blaupanzer]

Did we beat the subject of the OP to death? Fact is, I'm not a player of mods, but dumbing down the AI in such would seem counter-productive. Does that sound right? Would some of you want the AI to be less effective in return for some new techs and units? I would want it smarter, bless Blake's heart.

[rah]

So would I. But we have to stay more standard due to MP.

[Blaupanzer]

Can the MPers play a mod as long as they all have it? As I said I am not into those, most appear to be free. Just load it down and start it up with appropriate tweeks.

[sorinache]

Can the MPers play a mod as long as they all have it? As I said I am not into those, most appear to be free. Just load it down and start it up with appropriate tweeks.

I'm not a big fan of MODs myself - fact is, it's simply too easy to screw a delicate game balance so I expect the vast majority of mods to be inferior to the original game. But still I wanted to try one that appeared to bring only minimal (mostly graphic) changes to the original.

With hindsight, the AI might not be any dumber than in the standard game : I finished the game and I reckon the starting locations might have been a bit cramped : they spent most of their time and resources fighting each other for vital space because the AI likes so much to expand. Me being able to thrive on 5 - 6 cities didn't suffer that much. At some point though Justinian started growing bigger and bigger and gradually subjugated everybody else except me and Kim Il Jong. He had Asoka, Mansa Musa, Boudica and De Gaulle as vassals. He then DOW-ed on me. The best thing for him was that he had his minions do his bidding - we had no common frontier, instead my neighbors were De Gaulle and Kim. So he suffered no direct consequences from the war and kept his military production capability intact after losing the first war (where I destroyed the French civilization).

Back to the MOD itself : ok it somewhat improves on graphics. But it's also confusing because some icons remain the same and then I have trouble connecting the little guy on the map with the icon. Aside form this it adds (at least) two new wonders which are pretty cool and not very disruptive : Brandenburg Gate which gives the owner the "twice great general generation speed" bonus and Trafalgar Square which does the same as the Colossus (and it's additive with it, which leads to coastal tile producing 4 commerce for a non-financial and 5 commerce for a financial, wow ...). It also adds naval and land units which makes a much smaller tech advantage show immediately on the battle field. In the original, you have for instance Tank and Modern Armor. If for instance you have Plastics and your oponnent only just got Industrialisation, you both fight with equal stregth units. Wolfshanze introduces Early Tank and Heavy Tank before and in-between.

The bigger error IMO has to be the alteration of the tech tree : Artillery gets more weight and becomes necessary much earlier. As someone said, in strategy games "one choice means no choice" - in the original I do play games when I don't even research artillery but instead get it from free from The Internet.In wofshanze you can't, every research path goes through artillery

[Felch]

The requirement for artillery reminds me of a plot point from Lawrence of Arabia. T.E. promised the Arabs artillery, but the Brits back home wouldn't allow it. Giving them anything more than small arms would make it possible for them to resist British rule after the war.

Artillery really should be more important than it is in the main game. How can you expect to have a real tank without the knowhow to make breach loading cannons? Like you, I skip it most games. The modern artillery units just don't have the impact on the game that they should

[wodan11]

By the way, with the Wolfshanze mod, all you have to do is delete the DLL that comes with it. From then on when you load the mod you'll use your main BtS DLL, along with any BetterAI you have installed. But you'll still get all the "meat" of Wolfshanze such as the units and buildings.

(The main/only reason he put a DLL in was to get the 34-civ mod.)

[prelynmax]

Wolfshanze Mod = inbalanced mod.

[wodan11]

Nice troll. I would have thought you'd have learned from that other thread.

[prelynmax]

Nice troll. I would have thought you'd have learned from that other thread.

I live to please.