AU mod: The Colosseum

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

As the Corruption Nazi and democracy game players all around well know, you can apply a whole bunch of mathematical analysis to Civ3 if you so desire. Most players do not. Thus they rely on heuristics like: "I am playing a Builder game and will probably benefit from the extra Colosseum Commerce when I hit the Space Race." Having Colosseums at least cross their mind is, I think, a major improvement from stock Civ3.

I'll agree that there are a lot of things in Civ that detailed mathematical analysis can be applied to. But in general, from what I've seen, such analysis provides only an extremely small marginal advantage. The only real exception I can think of offhand is with certain types of micromanagement issues, and even there, the projections are fairly short-term.

In contrast, the tourist attraction bonus has a lag of a thousand years between cause and effect, and of a lot more than a thousand years before the tourism bonus becomes more valuable than having the upkeep cost reduced. Worse, because the lag between cost and benefit is so great, the issue of opportunity cost becomes a much more complex consideration. The combination of time lag and opportunity cost issues makes developing good heuristics without working the math a lot harder, and dramatically increases the risk that casual players who don't work the math will end up misreading the picture. It opens up a whole can of worms, and I don't view the can as having enough benefits inside to be worth opening.

As for making colosseums cross people's minds, yes, the tourist attraction bonus would make early colosseums more interesting. But after a certain point in the game, replacing the current maintenance cost reduction with a tourist attraction bonus would make colosseums worse than they are in the current version of the Mod, not better. I see no good logical or historical reason why colosseums should be worth building only if they are built sufficiently early in history. Nor do I view the gameplay benefits of such a paradigm as outweighing the disadvantages.

Incidentally, Colosseums would retain a short-term benefit of granting two Happy Faces. So the nearsighted among us could expect something useful right away.

If it's worth building colosseums just for the happy faces, we don't need the tourist attraction bonus to make them worthwhile. If, on the other hand, the tourist attraction bonus is needed to make them worthwhile, we're back to the need for complex mathematical calculations to get an accurate picture of how the benefits are likely to compare with the cost. You can't have it both ways.

It may well be that building a bunch of Colosseums really early is unbalancing and therefore too much of a departure from stock; my gut tells me no, especially considering that the AI builds them already. All I am arguing here is that this is an interesting change that should not be thrown out the window just because it forces players to think a bit more (because, you know, that's sort of the point of the AU mod).

There is a difference between forcing players to think and forcing them to get out a calculator.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The combination of time lag and opportunity cost issues makes developing good heuristics without working the math a lot harder, and dramatically increases the risk that casual players who don't work the math will end up misreading the picture. It opens up a whole can of worms, and I don't view the can as having enough benefits inside to be worth opening.

Do you seriously think there will be some kind of "secret formula" that will put serious players at that much of an advantage with respect to building Colosseums? Think about it. The Tourism bonus just gives you more Gold "later on". End of story for 95% of Civ3 players.

For those other 5% (like alexman!), the calculations have already been done, and so we basically know what the effect will be: it will make the Modern era look a bit (a lot?) different. But even casual players could tell you this!

The only way a casual player could "misread" Colosseums is by not using them in a knee-jerk way as he/she has been accustomed to do in stock. But such players can easily go down the same path with, say, the AI's tweaked tech preferences.

Are you just against the Colosseum change because it forces you to think more, or are you against it for balance/conservatism reasons?

As for making colosseums cross people's minds, yes, the tourist attraction bonus would make early colosseums more interesting. But after a certain point in the game, replacing the current maintenance cost reduction with a tourist attraction bonus would make colosseums worse than they are in the current version of the Mod, not better.

I'm confused: is the proposal to increase the Colosseum's maintenance, as a counter-weight to the Tourism bonus?

If it's worth building colosseums just for the happy faces, we don't need the tourist attraction bonus to make them worthwhile. If, on the other hand, the tourist attraction bonus is needed to make them worthwhile, we're back to the need for complex mathematical calculations to get an accurate picture of how the benefits are likely to compare with the cost. You can't have it both ways.

Apparently you are not open to improvements that have a short-term as well as a long-term benefits.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
I'm confused: is the proposal to increase the Colosseum's maintenance, as a counter-weight to the Tourism bonus?

Currently, the AU mod has reduced the maintenance of Colosseums to 1gpt. We would restore it to 2gpt (as in stock) if we were to adopt the tourism proposal.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alexman

Currently, the AU mod has reduced the maintenance of Colosseums to 1gpt. We would restore it to 2gpt (as in stock) if we were to adopt the tourism proposal.

So, in the current proposal, Colosseums would be strictly superior to their stock version counterparts.

I guess the real question here is: do we make Colosseums more powerful immediately (reduced maintenance, cost; increased happiness effects) and risk a potential early-game balance issue, or do we make Colosseums more powerful as they age and risk a balance issue in the Modern era. In terms of conservatism, the Tourism idea seems to me to be less drastic.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

Do you seriously think there will be some kind of "secret formula" that will put serious players at that much of an advantage with respect to building Colosseums? Think about it. The Tourism bonus just gives you more Gold "later on". End of story for 95% of Civ3 players.

That "end of story" is exactly the problem. I would rather players not even consider building colosseums than have them make bad guesses and, as a result, build colosseums when they would be better off building something else instead. The heuristic of, "The Tourism bonus just gives you more Gold 'later on,'" is so vague that I don't consider it likely to produce reliably good choices.

Our current approach of reducing the colosseum's maintenance cost from two to one is simple and straightforward. Replacing it with something that is a lot more complex, but that actually makes a lot of colosseums less worth building than the current version of the Mod does (becuase they would come too late for the tourist attraction bonus to compensate for the maintenance cost), is not something I view as making the game better.

The only way a casual player could "misread" Colosseums is by not using them in a knee-jerk way as he/she has been accustomed to do in stock.

Not true. Players could also fairly easily misread the situation in a way that causes them to build too many colosseums at the expense of other things that would do them more good.

Are you just against the Colosseum change because it forces you to think more, or are you against it for balance/conservatism reasons?

It's not either/or.

1) I wish you would stop characterizing my opposition as being to making players think more. If what the change required were thinking more about strategy, I would view it as a good thing. But when the thinkng required looks more like homework from a Math class, and the heuristics look to me like mostly guesswork, I don't. So one of my objections is that the change requires a type of thinking that I think hurts the game more than it helps.

2) From a perspective of conservatism, I view our current approach of reducing the colosseum's maintenance cost as much more conservative than giving the colosseum a tourist attraction bonus. The dynamics of the current approach are a lot more simple and straightforward, and a lot more in keeping with what players are used to needing to think about in Civ 3. It doesn't introduce a whole new element for players to have to try to figure out. And if we feel a need to go farther, we could even consider eliminating the maintenance cost entirely (although that, in conjunction with giving militaristic civs half-price colosseums, might tilt the balance too much in favor of the Militaristic trait at the expense of the Religious trait).

3) While I recognize that realism is not a stated goal of the AU Mod, I view the idea of creating the kind of huge difference between the value of early and later colosseums that a tourist attraction bonus would as absurd from a perspective of realism. How many cities today have colosseums that are such major tourist attractions due to their age that they account for a significant part of a city's income? I can only think of one that even comes close: Rome. And Rome's colosseum is more akin to a great wonder than to a city improvement in that regard. And while I don't think the AU Mod should make changes just to improve realism, I do think damage to realism can legitimately be regarded as a reason to view a proposed change negatively.

Apparently you are not open to improvements that have a short-term as well as a long-term benefits.

My objections have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the colosseum's short-term benefits. They have to do entirely and exclusively with the tourist attraction aspect, which is purely a long-term consideration.

The fact that the colosseum also produces a short-term benefit reduces the amount of long-term benefit that a colosseum has to produce in order to be worth building. But unless the short-term benefit is so great as to make the colosseum worth building for the short-term benefit alone, or at least so close to it that very little long-term benefit would be needed to make up the difference, we're back to the problem of the complexity of calculating how the value of the long-term benefit compares with the cost. The fact that the colosseum also provides a short-term benefit doesn't really change the basic nature of the issue.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

I guess the real question here is: do we make Colosseums more powerful immediately (reduced maintenance, cost; increased happiness effects) and risk a potential early-game balance issue, or do we make Colosseums more powerful as they age and risk a balance issue in the Modern era. In terms of conservatism, the Tourism idea seems to me to be less drastic.

I would definitely view increasing the number of happy faces from colosseums as not conservative. But how does reducing the maintenance cost threaten to create an early-game balance problem? We've been playing with the reduced maintenance cost from the very beginning of the C3C version of the AU Mod if I recall correctly, and with a slight reduction in the cost of building colosseums on top of that (something we just voted to eliminate in favor of half-price colosseums for Militaristic civs), and I haven't noticed even a hint of a balance problem.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
3) While I recognize that realism is not a stated goal of the AU Mod, I view the idea of creating the kind of huge difference between the value of early and later colosseums that a tourist attraction bonus would as absurd from a perspective of realism. How many cities today have colosseums that are such major tourist attractions due to their age that they account for a significant part of a city's income? I can only think of one that even comes close: Rome. And Rome's colosseum is more akin to a great wonder than to a city improvement in that regard. And while I don't think the AU Mod should make changes just to improve realism, I do think damage to realism can legitimately be regarded as a reason to view a proposed change negatively.

I rationalized Modern-era Colosseums in Civ3 as analogous to the sports industry in the real world; a real cash cow, you could say. The Tourist Attraction bonus would just be a reflection of the historical emphasis a society put on such leisurely pursuits.

But, as we all know, you can rationalize the realism of any proposed change, for better or worse (depending on whether you like the change or not).

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
There is a difference between forcing players to think and forcing them to get out a calculator.

Sorry, but I agree with Dominae. You don't need a calculator to decide whether to build a Colosseum with a tourism bonus, just as you don't need a calculator right now to decide on things like whether to build a Courthouse before a Factory, even though the correct answer is not obvious.

Originally posted by nbarclay
But after a certain point in the game, replacing the current maintenance cost reduction with a tourist attraction bonus would make colosseums worse than they are in the current version of the Mod, not better.

But not worse than stock. In that respect, the tourism bonus is a more conservative change to the late-game. The late-game question for Colosseums in the current version of the mod is whether to build them before Cathedrals. In stock and in the proposed tourism idea, the late-game question is whether to build them or not.

In the ancient age, even with the current AU mod change, you usually don't even consider building Colosseums when they become available. That's the no-brainer that needs to be addressed.

So in stock Civ3, Colosseums have a balance problem in the early game: they are rarely worth building early. Later on, you build them after Cathedrals if you need the happy faces. That's not a no-brainer. Therefore, the proposed tourism idea addresses the Colosseum early-game no-brainer strategy without affecting the late-game strategy. Ideal solution, if you ask me.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

I rationalized Modern-era Colosseums in Civ3 as analogous to the sports industry in the real world; a real cash cow, you could say. The Tourist Attraction bonus would just be a reflection of the historical emphasis a society put on such leisurely pursuits.

If that rationalization had any merit at all, Italy's revenue from sports ought to completely dwarf that of the United States. The reality, though, is that revenue from sports has far more to do with the current overall size of a society's economy than with how interested the society was in athletics fifteen hundred years before.

Further, while considerable amounts of money are involved in athletics and other forms of entertainment, the effect from an investment perspective is one of redistributing wealth, not one of creating new wealth that can be invested. The only investment value that athletics have to society as a whole is through whatever indirect benefits increased happiness/contentment bring. In Civ, those impacts are reflected in being able to support more laborers without riots and in the effects of WLT?D.

But, as we all know, you can rationalize the realism of any proposed change, for better or worse (depending on whether you like the change or not).

It is possible to rationalize anything if you want to get absurd enough. But some rationalizations are a lot more reasonable than others.

[Rommel2D]

Granted I'm not a consistant contributor to the AU mod and that it is not particularly concerned with historical accuracy, but I have to say that I really like this proposal.

How many thousand-year-old colosseums are there? I know of only one. It generates income based on tourism. If Yankee Stadium or Lambeau Field are around in the 2900's, I'll bet they make alot more revenue from people that come to see the structures themselves than any event that takes place in them.

Contemporary Colosseums are the product of afluent societies in search of status- venues to bring athletic, musical, or occasionally religous entertainment to large number of people when more efficient means of information dissemination are widespread. They are not practical or efficient when compared to other comperable methods of meeting this end.

I never liked the original AU effort to make Collosseums just another improvement to bring happiness in line with those of temples and cathedrals. I felt stock rules were appropriate to historical perspective. But the tourism flag is a clear improvement on stock rules from all aspects of Civ to me.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

Sorry, but I agree with Dominae. You don't need a calculator to decide whether to build a Colosseum with a tourism bonus, just as you don't need a calculator right now to decide on things like whether to build a Courthouse before a Factory, even though the correct answer is not obvious.

I don't view the situations as analogous. The effects of courthouses and factories are easy to see just by comparing cities before and after the improvement is built. The reason why players can make reasonable (if not always optimal) choices regarding which to build first without in-depth calculations is that they have a good understanding of the effects of each.

But I see no way to quantify the impact of a tourism bonus without vastly more complex analysis. Yes, players can see, "I get more gold in the late game when I have these early colosseums." But translating that recognition into the kind of understanding of how costs and benefits compare needed to make fully informed choices is another matter entirely.

But not worse than stock. In that respect, the tourism bonus is a more conservative change to the late-game. The late-game question for Colosseums in the current version of the mod is whether to build them before Cathedrals. In stock and in the proposed tourism idea, the late-game question is whether to build them or not.

As I recall, in our original C3C discussion of the colosseum, you came down very strongly in favor of making the colosseum-or-cathedral question more interesting.

In the ancient age, even with the current AU mod change, you usually don't even consider building Colosseums when they become available. That's the no-brainer that needs to be addressed.

The argujment you use here reflects a major difference in our philosophies. In my view, the only time when an issue "needs" to be fixed is if it causes actual damage to people's ability to have fun with the game. Game balance issues that hurt AIs' ability to compete can create a "need" for changes. Rules that result in genuinely perverse situations, such as a UU that's worse than the standard unit it replaces, can produce a "need" for changes. But as long as a game feature isn't actually hurting anything, there is no genuine need to do anything.

I'll grant that under the standard rules, building colosseums is not as interesting as would be ideal. But I see no way in which the default rules for the colosseum actually hurt anythiing. Therefore, I see no genuine need to change the colosseum from the stock rules at all. Arguments of the form, "Let's do this because the standard rules are broken and we need to do something," carry no weight with me in this kind of situation.

To me, the quesiton is entirely one of whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages enough to justify the amount of deviation from the stock rules. And my view is that it is not.

So in stock Civ3, Colosseums have a balance problem in the early game: they are rarely worth building early. Later on, you build them after Cathedrals if you need the happy faces. That's not a no-brainer. Therefore, the proposed tourism idea addresses the Colosseum early-game no-brainer strategy without affecting the late-game strategy. Ideal solution, if you ask me.

I have yet to hear a good reason why colosseums should be valuable if they are built early but not particularly valuable if they are built a bit later.* It looks to me like you're trying to force-fit the capabilities of the building to fit a strategic situation you want to create instead of allowing strategy to flow naturally from the capabilities of the building. In my view, that is not a good thing when the new capabilities don't make sense on their own merits.

*Using the Colosseum in Rome as a reason doesn't work. The reason why the Colosseum is viewed as such a big deal is that there isn't another one like it anywhere in the world. In contrast, when old structures relatively similar to each other can be found in numerous places (medieval castles, for example), the structures might have some cultural significance but their economic impact is negligible (except maybe at the local level in a relatively small town).

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

I never liked the original AU effort to make Collosseums just another improvement to bring happiness in line with those of temples and cathedrals. I felt stock rules were appropriate to historical perspective. But the tourism flag is a clear improvement on stock rules from all aspects of Civ to me.

What in the AU Mod did you view as making things worse than the stock rules?

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by nbarclay
What in the AU Mod did you view as making things worse than the stock rules?

Trying to make collosseums as efficient as temples and cathedrals in a cost-per-happy face calculation. In the real world's strictly practical sense, Cols aren't as efficient as other improvements in affecting citizen attitudes. I just don't see any culture addressing a difficult social discontment by building a colosseum. Having it not be cost efficient reflects this, so reducing maintenance costs ruins this dynamic. It may increase 'playability', but destroys historical relevance IMO.

There are actually other ancient colosseums that we know of, but they are not a part of cities that have remained thriving population centers over the ages, so they are merely archeological curiosities. Similarly the Pyramids of Egypt have remained a constant point of admiration for other cultures of the world, while the pyramids of Central America remain largely an educational destination due to a collapse of the cultures that built them.

The key seems to be a historical continuity that leads to a tourism benefit. Egypt's Pyramids are not the only such structures in the world, yet they are of greater significance because they remained part of a viable culture. There were what amounts to collosseums in Central America and in other Mediterranean cities long ago, but the one in Rome endures because the city itself has endured. Would the Romans have been able to extrapolate from this model had they wished to plan millenia into the future? It's impossible to say, but I think the proposed values represent the historical situation closer than either stock or the former AU versions...

[Moonbars]

Originally posted by nbarclay

I'll grant that under the standard rules, building colosseums is not as interesting as would be ideal. But I see no way in which the default rules for the colosseum actually hurt anythiing. Therefore, I see no genuine need to change the colosseum from the stock rules at all.

The AI is quite dumb when it decides what to build, therefore it seems to build Cols regardless of if it needs one, or if it would be better building something else. If you have an under-powered building, you are hurting the AI.

I find all the historical referencing to be counter-productive to the arguement, we need to focus more on the gameplay effects.

[Moonbars]

[SIZE=1] I never liked the original AU effort to make Collosseums just another improvement to bring happiness in line with those of temples and cathedrals. I felt stock rules were appropriate to historical perspective. But the tourism flag is a clear improvement on stock rules from all aspects of Civ to me.

Yes, if it is the same as a cathedral and/or temple, we might as well just remove it from the game. This change gives Cols a difference from other happiness buildings that adds interesting choices and options for the player.