MOD: Patch suggestion MOD

[kettyo]

Faster ships is good.
But it's quite bad that air units can rebase to unlimited range and railroads don't take up any movement points.
They severely handicap naval units even with this bonus (especially on a huge/large map).

Ironclad idea is superb.
I swiftly adopted it hope you won't mind.

Anti-barbarian bonuses are quite silly IMO too.
They already have a hp handicap.

Nice work player1 !

[lockstep]

I agree, nice work! A real yardstick for other mods.

[kettyo]

player1,

what do you think about giving blitz to motorized ships?

it's quite funny that it takes a turn for a battleship to 'combat' a frigate.

it's also strange that it's a turns work to sink a bombed-to-death (1hp) ship by an undamaged one.
it would also better for gameplay that bombed fleets could be easily sunk by some undamaged ships in short time.

[kettyo]

would be also some compensation to airforces against the disadvantage they suffered by making ships faster.

[player1]

Originally posted by kettyo
player1,

what do you think about giving blitz to motorized ships?

it's quite funny that it takes a turn for a battleship to 'combat' a frigate.

Simple, Frigates scatter and try to not get hit, one (targeted) gets destoryed other stay intact.

You can't target all enemies in the same time.

it's also strange that it's a turns work to sink a bombed-to-death (1hp) ship by an undamaged one.

it would also better for gameplay that bombed fleets could be easily sunk by some undamaged ships in short time.

Tip: Try using Destoryers for taking out enemies (they are CHEAP), and Battleships for bombard (ROF of 3).

Great combo.


P.S.
And blitz flag has one probelm:
It alows multiple bombards in same turn.

[player1]

Originally posted by kettyo
would be also some compensation to airforces against the disadvantage they suffered by making ships faster.

It's not such great disadvantage after all.

[lockstep]

It is possible to give battleships etc. a movement rate of 2 (instead of 6 as in your mod), treat all terrain as roads, and blitz. Makes for the same effective movement rate, and allows 2 attacks/bombardments per turn.

Still I like your solution better, because it's not confusing for newbie players ('Why has my battleship only 2 movement points?').

[player1]

Originally posted by lockstep
Still I like your solution better, because it's not confusing for newbie players ('Why has my battleship only 2 movement points?').

Or, why is my battleship killed by Frigate (he used its bliz to attack 5 frigates in same turn)?

[lockstep]

Originally posted by player1
Or, why is my battleship killed by Frigate (he used its bliz to attack 5 frigates in same turn)?

Well, the battleship could have attacked only 2 frigates in a turn, but even then it is likely to have only 1 or 2 hitpoints left and be killed by another frigate in the AI's turn.

[Theseus]

player1,

This is a great mod!

As you may or may not know, there are two discussions in the Strategy forum that are converging, and could use a good minimalist mod.

First, there is a thought to 'encourage' the development of "killer AI civs." I sort of started it, trying to use player settings rather than the editor... the highlights of that effort seem to be that varied starting environmental conditions, including especially the clustering of strategic resources that comes with 3 Billion year world age, result in environmental winners and losers, which then get into a feedback loop (the rich get richer). alexman just re-ignited that discussion, with a thread on the use of build preferences.

Second, a couple of us have been shepherding along "Apolyton University,' in an effort to jointly get better at the game, and to prep for MP.

In both cases, we are generally looking for a tougher challenge, and better gameplay, but without getting to far away from stock Civ3 (again, part of the motivation is MP). Thus, it's generally agreed that we'd like to settle on a basic, standard mod. Vel's efforts (with others) in that regard seem a little much, more oriented to scenarios. I'd like to start as vanilla as possible, so your philosophy in this thread is welcomed.

All of that said, it has been suggested that we start with your mod, and I'm very favorably inclined.

Several comments / questions:

* Units: The biggest overall change seems to me to be the upgrade path for Longbowmen and Sword-level units. Any observations on actual game experience for both the AI civs and the human player? I know part of your goal is to demonstrate for Firaxis tweaks that they might choose to adopt... I can;t believe they'd change this upgrade path. Is it too much to ask for a BIC without this change?

* A number of your other upgrades and cost changes would seem to favor the 'rich get richer' feedback loop... have you, or others, seen killer AI civs emerging more often?

* We do want to adopt alexman's suggestions re build preferences... any thoughts? I know that you are disinclined to do so, but we actually did get Soren into the discussion, and he said that it is the right starting place. If we're right about starting environmental conditions, then we need to give more of the AI civs a shot at becoming killers... it seems like Egypt, France, and a few others are the only ones that currently do so, given the right start. Anyway, if you could take a look, alexman's Strategy thread is called "The key to AI greatness."

All in all, I really like your changes; they are very reasonable fixes, and keep the mod true to the stock game.

Kudos!!

[player1]

Originally posted by Theseus
* Units: The biggest overall change seems to me to be the upgrade path for Longbowmen and Sword-level units. Any observations on actual game experience for both the AI civs and the human player? I know part of your goal is to demonstrate for Firaxis tweaks that they might choose to adopt... I can;t believe they'd change this upgrade path. Is it too much to ask for a BIC without this change?

-The main purpose of this change is to remove Longbowmen and co. from build queue (same applies to Frigates). It would be just bad to have, when making modern historical scenario, these units in build quese.
-Second, it prevents AI from building them again in modern era.
-Thrid, AI was doing pretty well with these changes. Haven't seen any problems.
-Fourth, human player becomes more inclined to build those units witout fear that they will be stuck obsolete in some age (major problem with Longbowmen usability).
-Fifth, it just looks logical (they are all land foot troops, maybe not much logical for Frigate upgarde, but on the other hand how does Galleon upgrade to Assault Transport).
-Sixth, Riflemen now has attack of 5, so these upgardes give additinal offensive capability too (also Riflemen now costs 70 shields)
-Seventh, at least Cavalry does NOT upgarde to Tanks (since that would not be real upgrade because of lower movment).


So far, I haven't seen any complaints from fellow gamers.

* A number of your other upgrades and cost changes would seem to favor the 'rich get richer' feedback loop... have you, or others, seen killer AI civs emerging more often?

I've seen them having less obsolete units then normaly.

* We do want to adopt alexman's suggestions re build preferences... any thoughts? I know that you are disinclined to do so, but we actually did get Soren into the discussion, and he said that it is the right starting place. If we're right about starting environmental conditions, then we need to give more of the AI civs a shot at becoming killers... it seems like Egypt, France, and a few others are the only ones that currently do so, given the right start. Anyway, if you could take a look, alexman's Strategy thread is called "The key to AI greatness."

I don't know how much I would be of help in that thread.

Only important thing that I can say it that Mech. Inf. has no more offense AI flag selected (not realy needed). And Bombard AI is added to Fighter & Jet Fighter units.

I would probably not change "standard" version of this MOD, but you can make yourself "custom" version of this MOD with changed AI prefs and post it here in this thread (and that AI thread too).

[Theseus]

Great. To differentiate we'll call it the AU mod.

I'll ask alexman to make the changes... I'm afraid of BICs.

[kettyo]

BTW player1,

what's your opinion on my version of your mod?

Are there any problems/flaws in it, master?

[player1]

Originally posted by kettyo
BTW player1,

what's your opinion on my version of your mod?

Are there any problems/flaws in it, master?

It's OK!
Most things I would do different are pref. isses (like extended naval and air movment).
In some things it's less conservative (like those extra transport capabilities).
Some of those unit stat tweaks look unneded, but that's just me (more like pref. issuse).



P.S.
I played recently, with my MOD, one arhipelago Standard map with low land mass.
+1 Extnend movment in modern age realy shined.

Also, Battleships are great bombers, especialy since you don't need Carriers to use them (still they are expensive).

In my last war I had no Tanks, so I needed to bomb cities in order to land with Infantry (if I only had Marines).

[kettyo]

It's OK!

In my last war I had no Tanks, so I needed to bomb cities in order to land with Infantry (if I only had Marines).

So is 'city bombing bug' eliminated with this patch? (every improvement/unit/pop hit handled as a miss when there's no imps/units/pop remain)
That would be really nice ! (won't make size 1 cities just for bombard defense for units)