MOD: Ancients Civ3 Gov/Balance Mod

[davwhitt]

I'm playing my first game with this patch and have a few observations.

(1) Republic really sucks with this patch. I've found Constitutional Monarchy to work really well but the computer tends to go for Theocracy (I tend to be more of a pacifist).

(2) I see lots of oil on my coasts but not a single drop on land - any land - on the entire planet. So much for armoured vehicles and aircraft...

(3) Constitutional Monarchy has no entry in the Civopedia.

Other than that I believe the patch works well.

[bigvic]

Republic does s*ck

Originally posted by davwhitt
I'm playing my first game with this patch and have a few observations.

(1) Republic really sucks with this patch. I've found Constitutional Monarchy to work really well but the computer tends to go for Theocracy (I tend to be more of a pacifist).

(2) I see lots of oil on my coasts but not a single drop on land - any land - on the entire planet. So much for armoured vehicles and aircraft...

(3) Constitutional Monarchy has no entry in the Civopedia.

Other than that I believe the patch works well.

Yup, republic does blow. Needs to be fixed. Either return to extra $/tile, or increase dramatically the # of forces supported, else its useless. I tried twice, the second time saving the game wisely. Should have learned the first time. Both were under industrious civs (Americans, French), who would especially benefit from that increase in worker efficiency, but w/o extra moolah, I ran hideous deficits both times and didn't feel bad when I gave up and reloaded the last save. My philosophy is that w/ any gov but, perhaps despotism, there should be some reason a human player might want to stick with it until late in the game, even some of the more primitive govs. Like theocracy; if you want to maintain gigantic hordes of huge-world-conquering forces at the sacrifice of tech and rush buy ability, stay theocracy. I'll have to go back and look at the gov descriptions again to see what is needed. I know that I stick w/ despotism pretty long for a couple of reasons - decent military support and "That's right, get out my whip!". Its a great way to build up your infrastructure at a point in the game when population is growing fast enough to make up for losses anyway. Honest Abe Lincoln of the Americans must have made quite an impressionable sight with his personalized, monogramed, gold threaded whip during the made rush to develop the gigantic barbarian infested jungle to his south in the American game! He was quite sad when he had to retire it w/ the switch of gov to republic, then cursed his decision afew short turns later as he wathced his well guarded war chest lighten noticeably every year.
Anyway, Ancient, I really think what you are doing should be looked at by the firaxis boys. This thread is like a beta test group. Your grand experiment is working out fine, with a few shortcomings noticeable as more and more use it. But thats fine - I hope you continue to tweak and experiment. I'll keep up with the changes, congratulate and criticize where needed, and have a lot of fun in the process, as I encourage everyone else to. This game is solid, but it needs the kind of stuff you are doing, and if firaxis has any sense whatsoever, they are wathcing and listening to whats going on here and elsewhere on this sight and others and hopefully will take some cues. I've been playing strategy games for years, from old Avelon Hill classics to civIII, so, without wanting to sound like a self important blowhard, I think I have a good grasp on game balance. I intend to take a serious look at the programming side over xmas, but you know what your doing there (not to imply you don't on the game balance). Keep it up.

[bigvic]

new patch & more on republic

I guess with the new patch coming out any time now, we all need to wait and see, before doing new mods. I'll ask a question, ancient, you probably can't answer, but ask it anyway. What should I do w/ your mod when the official patch comes out? Simply restore the orig. files, right, download the patch, then resore mod 1.8 and see how it runs? Then wriite in w/ the results? Sounds like a logical course of action to me.
OK, republic. Maybe it needs a little more unit support and ability to go to war, a higher draft rate. Maybe a really high draft rate. I'm reminded of the Roman Republic, which was almost constantly at war, and the ability of the American republic (which I would classify as a republic, not democracy, until around WWI, when direct election of senators, universal suffrage and other subtle changes made the US a democracy) which was capable, as per the Civil War and WWI, of raising a huge, doubtful quality, conscript army in a short time. Heck, I might even consider the Great Depression to have been the time of change for us, though I digress too much.

[ancient]

sry for taking so long to reply

The mod adresses only things that arent in the patch so i dont think it should be uninstalled, ive been checking what the patch does and it honestly isnt too much.

About the Republic, i think it should be changed also.. i dont know what would be appropriate, it should fit between monarchy and Democracy though..


the oil on coast is a mistake, i accidently checked that it could appear on coasts, if you open the editor you can uncheck it, im working on a new version that takes advantage of the patch,

thx for the responses.

[bigvic]

official patch, what the h*ll?

I downloaded the official patch and, not having recieved your reply, ancient, did what I said I would, restoring the game to orig. and doing the download. I think you're right, it doen't matter. Anyway, I'm rather dissapointed in it, to be honest. The most important thing, reducing that absurd corruption crap, does'nt seem to have been fixed at all. I'll reserve judgement a little until I've had a chance to start a whole new freaking game and try again, but on the one I had I noticed no difference. What the hell is the deal with these guys?! Do they never test play anything? I remember the civ II test of time when they had that bug on the extended original game where you built your freakin spaceship, sent it to alpha centauri, and poof, no freakin colonist. How did that get past someone? I'll tell you how - no one test played the damned thing. Then there was that idiotic combat system, kill one, kill 'em all. How many lines of code would it have taken to fix that?
Anyway, now, in an otherwise great game, we have to deal with this ridiculous corruption garbage. There should never be more than a 50% loss of gold/production due to distance from capital, even w/o improvements. Oh, and when you do finally built a freakin courthouse in some far flung colonie, after 80 freakin turns b/c you can only get one lousy shield of production unless you speed it up somehow, guess what satis-freakin-faction you get for all your trouble? ONE MORE LOUSY ROTTEN SHIELD! That's it! A seven shield city with a courthouse produces 2 whole shields. Again I find it hard to believe someone actually test played this monstrosity.
Well, let me settle down. Its early in the morning, I'm sick, and its been a long week. Maybe I'll notice something different when I next play. Keep up the good work, ancient. I look forward to your next mod.

[ancient]

the patch (real one) does do a bunch of things, just none of them affect play much..

probably the most noticable change is that the Coastal Fortresses work

[ancient]

Originally posted by davwhitt
I'm playing my first game with this patch and have a few observations.

(1) Republic really sucks with this patch. I've found Constitutional Monarchy to work really well but the computer tends to go for Theocracy (I tend to be more of a pacifist).

(2) I see lots of oil on my coasts but not a single drop on land - any land - on the entire planet. So much for armoured vehicles and aircraft...

(3) Constitutional Monarchy has no entry in the Civopedia.

Other than that I believe the patch works well.

4) units entrys in civilopedia arent changed accordingly, neither are buildings..

[ancient]

"Plutark, great mod bro. I have added one major wonder in the modern era, am testing it out now: Mars Colony....... before we step out to the stars we will learn to crawl around within our own home system. Let me test out a bit more, its complex and I want to ensure it does not crash your mod or the game. If it works and the computer can pick up on it I will post the full details."

Plutark?

[bigvic]

civmod editor

Hey, I've been messing with the editor. I gave temples, libraries, and marketplaces corruption fighting abilities, courthouses culture, and a buzillion other things. Great fun. Anyway, how do you get to see the entire screen on the rule mod editor? There is always some part cut off at the bottem. I can't even tell if there is anything worth bothering about there.
As I always play on a huge map, I doubled the movement of almost all units, increased road move bonus. I like. It aways seemed silly that in 50 years my legion could only move 1 tile. Anyway, to even approach realism, it helps. Also seems to make the game move along faster.

[ancient]

You have to change the resolution to 1028x768 or higher first.

[ancient]

Hows this for a Fix for the Expansionism and republic

Scout now is a do-it all unit for expansionist only

Scout 3/1/2
Strategies Attack/Explore
-Actions
Load
Pillage
-Worker Actions
Build Road
Build Fort
Join City
Build Colony
Clear Jungle
Automate
Cost 8


Republic being immune to expose enemy mole, and can recieve full trade bonusses, as well as getting two free units..

[Glostakarov]

The problem I see with the do-it-all scout is the AI won't use the worker abilities of the unit. Still, if the expansionist civs are aggressive enough they'll make good use of the early 3 attack strength unit.

You might be able to give Expansionists enough of a boost by replacing the scout with a second settler. That would be a firm jump start even for the AI on Deity level, where they already get several bonus combat units, but only 1 bonus settler.

Republic should be just fine with those changes.

[ancient]

Implaying the Expansionist civ now with what i describes, and even though i had to change it arround a little bit cause it was was crashing, the ai seemed to be able to use atleast the combat portion of it.

i had to change it so it could not pillage, join cities or build colonies.

Its a great jump start if you dont mind having a war very early, also it kind of can be used as a second worker

Heres what i changed it too
Scout 3/2/2
Strategies Attack
-Actions
Load
-Worker Actions
Build Road
Build Fort
Clear Jungle
Cost 8

[ancient]

The new version 2.0 will be out, next week.. just gotta test it and smooth it out.

[Friday]

I played many games with 1.5+ Very good player made patch! I found that Constitutional Monarchy and Theocracy seemed to powerful in certain eras.