Apolyton University Mod: C3C version

[lockstep]

Re: Changes under consideration

Originally posted by alexman

• Military Tradition no longer requires victorious Army.

Military Academy no longer requires victorious Army.

OTOH, this could be an interesting proposal to rebalance Cavalry.

[ducki]

Re: Re: Changes under consideration

Originally posted by lockstep


Military Academy no longer requires victorious Army.

OTOH, this could be an interesting proposal to rebalance Cavalry.

Haha, I realize you were kidding, I think you were at least, but I think it would further UNbalance cavalry and dictate behavior for any Civs unlucky enough to have a Cav UU.

Intriguing thought, though.
(Edit: Hit submit prematurely.)
Maybe requires X number of Horsemen/Knights instead of depending on the RNG?
Maybe that's a solution to the whole issue?
Require X number of military units, sufficiently high enough that you still have sacrificed to get there, but not so high as to cripple a struggling empire on the brink?

Can you require X number of Y type of units, or is that hardcoded?

[lockstep]

Yes, I was kidding.

And no, you can't make a small wonder require a certain number of units - only a certain number of armies. (That's how the Pentagon works.) Other possible prereqs are improvements/wonders, governments and resources.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

If something is in the game, I want it to be useful often enough that it gets built sometimes. Some improvements (Colosseums and Coastal Fortresses) are not built often enough, so we make them more powerful. However, if there is no good way to make them more powerful without a big change (Longevity), I am willing to consider that change. The same goes for things that are so powerful that you cannot imagine not trying to build them (ToE). If you can't weaken them, I'm not opposed to making a big change so they are not as powerful.

Alexman, this is where your philosophy and mine are light years apart. To me, the idea of there being elements in the game that are rarely or even never worth building is not in and of itself a problem. So what if I only build colosseums before temples/cathedrals if exactly two more happy faces are what I need for WLT?D? So what if I never bother to research Genetics and build Cure for Cancer or Longevity? So what if I practically never build city walls or coastal fortresses? I'm no worse off than if those features were not incorporated into the game at all, and may, under some circumstances, be better off.

Under such conditions, I tend to view tinkering with the rules to make things more worth building as worthwhile only if it tends to help the AIs more than it does human players. Otherwise, changes are at best unnecessary deviations from the default rules and at worst (as I believe is the case with moving Longevity) directly contrary to the goal of helping the AI.

Nathan

[alexman]

The AU mod is not a 'help the AI' mod. It is a mod that encourages greater strategic depth. Helping the AI is just one way to increase this depth.

If you are satisfied with the stock rules and just want a tougher AI, go play stock rules at Sid level and stop trolling here.

[nbarclay]

To accomplish that goal, the mod tries to improve the AI and present the player with more strategic decisions, while changing as little as possible.

That sure sounds like a "help the AI mod" to me. Not that that is all that the AU Mod is about, but it certainly is an important part of it.

Further, changes that make something that was formerly useless useful, or that make something that was only rarely useful useful more often, do not automatically enhance the strategic depth of the game. As long as they help the AI at least as much as they do the human player, they certianly can. But if the net result is to provide a greater relative advantage to the human player, with the only "strategic depth" being the question of what to build first, any new "strategic depth" comes at the expense of depth that already existed. That is my fundamental complaint about moving Longevity to the industrial era, and is also my big concern about what might happen if Electronics is removed as a prerequisite for tanks (although I think that idea is definitely worth testing).

Also, there is a serious question of how much strategic depth a change needs to add before it is justified. Otherwise, the AU Mod would add dozens of new techs, units, and other features to the game in the interest of "adding strategic depth" until the game is all but unrecognizeable. Making minor changes to existing elements is often justified, but the bigger the changes get, the more they are tantamount to adding something entirely new in their practical effects on gameplay. To go back to the Longevity example, there are whole new wonders that could be added to the industrial era with less effect than moving Longevity has.

As for the idea of just playing on a harder level to help the AI, all that does is cause the AI to "cheat" more in playing by different rules. It does not improve the AI's basic level of ability, and any improvement in balance comes only from the difficulty of doing well enough in the tech race to take advantage of balance issues.

And frankly, with how much of my playing style is centered around a good REX, I find levels where the AI gets a second settler for free (Demigod and higher) seriously annoying. The idea of an AI that plays better throughout the game appeals to me. The idea of just starting off in a deeper hole to have to dig myself out of is far less appealing, which is why I gave up even trying to play on Deity long ago and an not sure I'll ever try even a single game on Sid.

Nathan

[ducki]

Originally posted by alexman
If you are satisfied with the stock rules and just want a tougher AI, go play stock rules at Sid level and stop trolling here.

Wow. I thought we were having a community discussion about what sorts of changes we felt were warranted to meet the stated goals of the mod.

This isn't the first time there's been big differences of opinion on changes in the mod - it's just that since we're trying to do a bunch of changes at one(instead of just a couple as in normal iterations), we're seeing more differences of opinion at one time.

I thought debating and arguing our various views was the whole point of this forum.

[sabrewolf]

i don't know how this sounds.
but couldn't there be in addition to the official AU mod an experimental version where all the more radical changes are tested. if the changes are positive, then they can be incorporated in the real mod, if negative, not.

imho this would be especially important if changing tech requirements (eg. physics needing education or motorized transport not needing electronics).

[alexman]

Sorry, that sounded bad, but it came from increasing frustration with nbarclay in numerous AU mod threads, first refusing to even acknowledge his nomination to the panel, and then disputing not only already voted changes, but the entire philosophy and method of the mod.

The philosophy of the mod is not disputable. The interpretation of how to implement it, is.

[Theseus]

/me is on the verge of slapping both Nathan and alexman with large and very smelly trout.

Play nice, boys... this is EXACTLY why we have a forum and a panel.

Otherwise, we could just let panag make all the hard choices!!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
And frankly, with how much of my playing style is centered around a good REX, I find levels where the AI gets a second settler for free (Demigod and higher) seriously annoying. The idea of an AI that plays better throughout the game appeals to me. The idea of just starting off in a deeper hole to have to dig myself out of is far less appealing, which is why I gave up even trying to play on Deity long ago and an not sure I'll ever try even a single game on Sid.

Unfortunately, the game was designed with one AI that simply gets bonuses or penalties based on difficulty level. I'm still amazed at how well this worked out, but I admit it can a tad frustrating at times (especially when you pass that "hump" on Deity and realize the rest of the game will play out just like it does on Emperor or Monarch).

Back to the point.

The purpose of the AU mod is not solely to improve the AI. Since the AI is always the same (ha! I knew I wrote the first paragraph for a purpose!), the game gets pretty repetitive if you're just looking for the AI to challenge you in interesting and different ways. No matter how hard we try with the AU mod, it will never do this.

There are two broad sources of "challenge fun" in Civ3 (and in games in general):

1. You versus the AI.
2. You versus your own abilities.

The first one is obvious, the second one less so. By it I mean the challenge that arises out of trying to play to the best of your ability. In a TBS like Civ3, this involves knowing strongest economic strategies and how to implement them (like a strong REX phase); in a FPS this involves acquiring game-specific reflexes (like aiming for an opponent's head in Counter-Strike). Like I've said above, we can only do so much to improve point 1 in the AU mod. So the rest of our efforts lie with point 2.

Clearly providing more strategic options for the human player results in a more challenging game:

"Hm, these new Colosseums are pretty attractive. But is it better to build Temples to allow Cathedrals?"

"Well, well, Republic is a lot weaker than in stock. Maybe I should try Monarchy-Democracy instead."

"Interesting, this modifed Conquistador may actually be worth building!"

So, changes which force the human player to think more, even without the AI's influence, are a good thing IMO. Of course, too much change is not a "good thing" for the AU mod (as I've posted above), because what makes the AU mod special (for many) is that it does not "feel" like a mod.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
Sorry, that sounded bad, but it came from increasing frustration with nbarclay in numerous AU mod threads, first refusing to even acknowledge his nomination to the panel, and then disputing not only already voted changes, but the entire philosophy and method of the mod.

Refusing? That seems rather strong.

The reason I haven't pursued trying to get on the panel is that it's a responsibility I don't have time for, or at least that I don't need to take the time for, especially on an ongoing basis. If I've "refused" to acknowledge my nomination, it's really more just a matter of never having gotten around to explaining that fact. Just getting involved in the discussions of some of the matters I'm most interested in or concerned about takes more time than I'd like. If I were on the panel, I would need to carefully evaluate every issue that's raised, which would involve even more time.

I'm sorry about being so "prickly" sometimes as Theseus put it in another thread. It's easy to get frustrated when we think we're right and have a hard time convincing each other. I'd like to think we can avoid taking the occasional heated passions too personally, though.

Nathan

[Dominae]

This should solve some of our problems:

/me is always right.

[vmxa1]

That makes it easy.

[Theseus]

Nope.

/me is always right.