Strategy changes between versions...

[furrykef]

Ah, right, sorry. What exactly was this "tech model change"?

- Kef

[DrSpike]

Well technological advancement came too quickly on the higher levels, making people spend most of the game on Deity buying tech. The AI got a bonus compared to the human so that research costs were lower. For example on Deity they were 60% of the human tech costs, which didn't change across difficulty levels

In 1.29 they tweaked it so that the AI's costs were constant, but the human's costs were dependent on the difficulty level. This meant tech progress was slower, and that the AI was meaner in selling techs, requiring more research than previously on the higher levels. It was an important change.

[Aeson]

Infinite city growth with size 6 city and granary exploit fixed. (How did this work?)

This was because the size 7 granary is twice the size as the size 6 granary. When you grew to size 7, the granary would save all the food from size 6 (20 food), you'd start the next turn with a full food box at size 6.

So in any city which had a Granary, fresh water source (or Aquaduct), and produced 10 shields at size 7, you could build 1 turn workers in. Even if your food intake was very low (it may have even worked with no food surplus at all). So you could maximize production in these cities and still get the equivalent of +10 food per turn.

They fixed this by emptying the granary when dropping from size 7 to 6. Then later (one of the PtW patches I think) fixed that so that it instead you only keep the food from the size 6 Granary when growing to size 7.

---------------

Some things for your lists:

1.16f changed the AI to never trade cities except for stand alone items with peace treaties.

1.16f modified the Great Lighthouse to no longer allow safe movement onto ocean tiles for naval units.

1.17f? Changed the AI trading to allow for them trading during the player's turn. Changed back in 1.21f? (may have been 1.16f and 1.17f respectively)

1.17f changed it so the military advisor no longer viewed Workers (and I assume Settlers) as military units.

1.21f changed the way AI view non-military units in their territory, making them much more likely to demand their withdrawl. Based on proximity to city centers and number of units.

1.21f? got rid of the ability to renegotiate peace treaties.

Other significant changes that I'm not quite sure which patch they were introduced:

Cities may no longer exceed size 256. (I think it's 256?)
Cities may no longer have workers added to them when running a food deficit.

PtW introduced the new less agressive (random) barbarians.
PtW patch: Free Scientific era techs modified to allow for any of the first tier of techs, instead of being heavily weighted towards Monotheism, Nationalism, and Fission(?).

[Arrian]

Minor correction: The weighted tech in the modern era was Rocketry, IIRC. Why I felt this worthy of a correction I don't know.

-Arrian

[ducki]

1.21f? got rid of the ability to renegotiate peace treaties.

Did they add this back or is this something different from what I'm thinking of?
I can currently negotiate w/ an AI, go to "Active", choose Peace Treaty, confirm I'm sure, and then demand stuff from the AI for my continued pacifism.

[furrykef]

1.21f? got rid of the ability to renegotiate peace treaties.

What do you mean?

Cities may no longer exceed size 256.

Umm...was getting a city that big ever a realistic idea? How the heck would you get the food?

Cities may no longer have workers added to them when running a food deficit.

Was this ever a good idea? I wouldn't want to increase the size of a starving city and just make it worse...


I'll add the more important ones soon; I'm kind of in a rush at the moment so I can't just yet.

Thanks guys!

- Kef

[Aeson]

Minor correction: The weighted tech in the modern era was Rocketry, IIRC. Why I felt this worthy of a correction I don't know.

It was worthy of correction because it was wrong!

Did they add this back or is this something different from what I'm thinking of?

Something else. This was where you'd actually cancel the peace treaty, but stay in diplomacy and make a deal for signing peace afterwards. It had the effect of the AI thinking you were at war with it, but circumvented the few turns the AI wouldn't talk to you. It just ended up being free cities for the player who had a powergraph lead. (Which was very easy to have considering Workers counted as military!)

Now when you cancel the peace treaty, you are booted from the diplomacy screen and you have to wait to contact the AI normally again.

0 turn war would be less confusing I suppose.

[Aeson]

Umm...was getting a city that big ever a realistic idea? How the heck would you get the food?

You only lose one pop point per turn from any city, no matter how large the food deficit. So if you add 2 Workers a turn, then you'll grow each turn.

This was a way to circumvent the maximum population limit dictated by claimed tiles. "Worker Dogpiling." Basically a scoring exploit for milking games.

[teaster]

I've been playing Civ III since it's initial release and until you see all the changes listed out you don't realise how drastic the changes have been. Many strategies that were sure fire winners in the beginning have been minimised or eliminated.

And this doesn't even touch the changes in the units and their ablilities that have been toned down (fast unit retreats), improved (some bombarding units being able to kill units and armies extra move) or added (enslavement).

The latest addition I've enjoyed the most as a warmonger wanna be is the addition of the Temple of Zeus. Though you have to have a bit of luck acquiring some ivory. It can drastically change the strategy of a builder type like myself who would love to be a warmonger but can't seem to stop building long enough to pump out a hoard large enough to roll over my neighbours. Now I can insert a few swordsmen and spearmen into my build queues to support the ancient cavalry and have some fun.

[bongo]

Furrykef (kinda hard trick to pull without taking off your shoes and socks..)

Thanks for starting this thread

I have played civ3+ptw almost to death now, and feel I know everything that is to know about them. Sadly I will not get the time to play c3c to the same level, so I am really looking farward to reading about the changes here.

Much of it is covered in the manual/readme but not in the level of detail I desire for such a game

Things I want to read about:
Traits: Both how the new one works, and in what ways the old ones have been changed (industrious workers are now only 50% more effective, and captured workers only work at half speed of normal workers, regardless of being industrious)
Zero range bombard: Some units(archers..) get one shot at attacking units. It's supposd to work differently in MP than SP(?)

[furrykef]

Originally posted by bongo
Furrykef (kinda hard trick to pull without taking off your shoes and socks..)

And if you don't have opposable thumbs on your feet

Things I want to read about:
Traits: Both how the new one works, and in what ways the old ones have been changed (industrious workers are now only 50% more effective, and captured workers only work at half speed of normal workers, regardless of being industrious)
Zero range bombard: Some units(archers..) get one shot at attacking units. It's supposd to work differently in MP than SP(?)

I'll try to add this and the other stuff I've been meaning to add today or tomorrow.

- Kef

[bongo]

Oh suddenly remembered, unit upgrade cost has been increased, by 50% I think. So that 'mass upgrade of warriors' strategy has become more expensiv. A side effect is that Leonardos Workshop is a stronger wonder now.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Something minor, but can make a difference over the course of a game - Forests now take 4 turns to clear FLAT. No bonus for Industrious workers here (at least, IIRC).

[UnityScoutChopper]

Hiya,

My bit of grist for the mill:

CONFIRMATIONS FOR "QUESTION MARKS"
-- "Commercial trait didn't help fight corruption much. (?)" -- True.
-- "Ring City Placement (RCP) exploit existed but wasn't yet discovered. Cities equidistant from capital suffered less corruption. (This did exist from the beginning, right?)" -- True.
-- (Can a planted forest that wasn't there before still be cleared for 10 shields?) -- Yes. This leads to the micromanagement-happy strategy of systematically planting and chopping forests on every (forestable, originally unforested) tile. However, it's so boring that even the exploit-happy use it but rarely AFAIK.


CHANGES TO ITEMS:

-- "Non-military units viewed more negatively by AI" change -- the top post in the thread (which I assume should evolve as more information is contributed) states that this is so, but not why it's so. The reason for the change is that, before then, on a sufficiently small map, you could be a real scumbag and deprive the AI of resources by placing non-military units on them. Even without a ROP, you would but rarely be asked to remove them. Thus the AI workers could never reach them to place roads on them. In short: "This was done to remove the exploit of denying resources by abusing the AI's high tolerance towards non-military units on its territory."

-- Despot Rush: I'm amazed nobody's mentioned the other change to the model: the release version just plain gave too many shields to pass up! The first citizen killed was worth 39 shields, rather than 20. Imagine: found a city, build some stuff while reaching size two, then invest a single shield in a barracks, and BAM two turns later, you've got all 40 shields of it!

-- MGLs can't build Great Wonders -- extremely important change, as it beefed up the builder style relative to the warmonger style. Yes, armies were improved, but war now brings just the fruits of war itself -- not the fruits of peace as well.

-- Size 1 cities without culture will be auto-razed upon capture... -- no matter why Firaxis did it, this change led to an unnatural strategy (still valid to this day) called "capital chasing". Sir Ralph wrote some excellent work on the matter. Note that "having culture" was not enough; a border expansion was required. This changed either in PTW or in one of its patches. (I never bought PTW, so I don't know.) Now even a single point of culture suffices.

-- "Curragh added..." -- the curragh takes an existing semi-exploit, the Suicide Galley, and shifts it much further forward, especially for Seafaring civs.

NEW ITEMS:
-- one or several items for the change or changes to the cost of buying workers. The first change was in PTW, but I think there was more than one. The Vanilla price was appx. 25-30 gold per worker (depending I think on the selling civ's Attitude); the current price is, I believe, 125-130. This change removed the exploit of carefully watching all known civs every turn ("SHIFT-D, ENTER, check, SHIFT-D, DOWN, ENTER, check, SHIFT-D...") for worker offers and taking all offers -- the old price was highway robbery in the human's favor (30 gold max in exchange for you GAINING the result of 10 shields and 10 food, and them LOSING it.)

-- retreat chances: unfortunately, I don't know offhand when the changes were (and don't have the readmes at hand), but the REASON for them was that with the old chances, fast units retreated so often that their lower attack didn't matter -- you could for example trade speed for invulnerability, stack them with defenders, and attack, auto-retreat, leave enemy territory, and continue merrily along far too much of the time. There was also a significant change to the impact of unit quality on retreat chances. This meant that you can no longer just build e.g. regular horsemen and use the retreat-sometimes, win-sometimes system to bring them to elite, because regulars now have dismal retreat chances. Originally the impact of unit quality was low or none -- I don't remember.

Take this and add the fast unit's, well, fast-ness, plus cheap upgrades for horses all the way to Cavalry, and plus the former non-existence of Medieval Infantry, and you can understand why Arrian has a horse for an avatar. Which brings me to...

-- the addition of Medieval Infantry. Although technically not a bug fix, it is another tremendous balancer between the Horse path and the Sword path. Just ask Arrian.

-- the addition of Guerillas in PTW. Likewise a balancer for the Archer path.

-- starting in C3C (I think), the AI can accidentally attack invisible units, starting a war. This is annoying on the one hand, and exploitable (for a war free of a rep hit) on the other hand. It is not the only flaw exploitable for a "free war": you can also demand things from an AI repeatedly during one diplo session until they are ultra-ultra-furious, then demand they leave your territory, which will usually work. But it may be a more reliable exploit. In any case, we can assume it will soon be patched out.

-- Vanilla: Min. and Max research times changed in one of the patches. Can't remember when or even for certain how much, though I seem to recall a change from 32 turns to 40.

-- PTW release: new worker actions added: Radar Tower (defense booster) and Outpost (vision booster). Radar tower arguably has real strategic impact; I guess we can agree that Outpost doesn't.

-- Conquests release: Shakespeare's Theater boosted to also act as a hospital, making it only a booby prize instead of The Mother of All Booby Prizes.

-- Conquests release: Temple of Artemis added, bringing a fantastic wonder for warmongers and fast expanders or a hey-this-sucks-I-want-my-bonus-temples-back wonder, depending on who you ask.

-- Conquests release: Map Trading and Communication pushed back to late middle ages (Printing Press for maps and Navigation for contacts or vice versa, b-b-bl-bl stupid amnesia...), removing the "MapMaking Slingshot" effect where a sneaky human who had anything to offer at all could leap forward once somebody got MapMaking, since humans have more valuable maps to start with and are better than the AI's at acquiring and whoring better and better maps. Writing (contact trading) served as a similar, but smaller, slingshot.

-- Conquests release: Max research time upped to 50 turns, weakening the max-turn research semi-exploit.

-- Conquests release: massive increase in resource scarcity, occasionally annoying for humans but arguably deadly for AIs facing a tricky human.

----

By the way, is it REALLY true that Industrious civs don't have faster slaves? I SWEAR they still do, but this is the umpteenth time I've seen somebody write that. I've been using them less than in the past for obvious reasons, and likewise have so maybe I've just overlooked the


USC

[bongo]

Originally posted by UnityScoutChopper
-- retreat chances: unfortunately, I don't know offhand when the changes were (and don't have the readmes at hand), but the REASON for them was that with the old chances, fast units retreated so often that their lower attack didn't matter -- you could for example trade speed for invulnerability, stack them with defenders, and attack, auto-retreat, leave enemy territory, and continue merrily along far too much of the time. There was also a significant change to the impact of unit quality on retreat chances. This meant that you can no longer just build e.g. regular horsemen and use the retreat-sometimes, win-sometimes system to bring them to elite, because regulars now have dismal retreat chances. Originally the impact of unit quality was low or none -- I don't remember.
USC

Here's the retreat possibilities:
conscript:34%
regular 50%
veteran 58%
Elite 67%
Units never retreat when fighting another fast unit or when the defender is down to 1hp

As far as I know this percentages are for vanilla civ3 and ptw, last patch. Found it on my HD, originally copied from a post made by jaybe