AU mod: The ToE - Hoover beeline

[Stuie]

YES to "the removal of the Electronics requirement from Motorized Transportation."

Obviously the overpowered ToE still needs to be addressed. In the absence of any better ideas, I'm still in favor of swapping it with Longevity.

[lockstep]

YES to the Electronics / Mot. Transport change.

Let's leave the ToE alone for now.

[Theseus]

sabrewold, we've messed about with tech tree stuff since the beginning, although I admit this is probably the biggest change.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Theseus
sabrewold, we've messed about with tech tree stuff since the beginning, although I admit this is probably the biggest change.

iirc, these "messings" were just stuff to change the AI emphasis slightly - like giving many later age techs "allows communication trade", changing research prices (map making +4, maths -4) or making stuff like printing press mandatory etc.

those were all minor and medium changes. the TREE structure itself wasn't changed. that would be a major change.

i really would prefer to see other - less drastic - solutions. at least something were the mod comes on it's own and not with a new industrial age tech background file.

[ducki]

What if ToE had upkeep? Like 5 or 10gpt, maybe more?
Make the free tech cost cold hard cash.

And if that's done, would it be possible to expire the upkeep at a later date/tech? I know we know how much tech costs, surely we could figure out a way to make this actually balance out the books. Maybe it adds unhappies due to the rapidly changing times(quick tech advances) - the old fogeys just get cranky about all these new-fangled inventions and ideas. Say, add 2 unhappies per city or something.

Make it a serious tradeoff without having to jiggle the tech-tree around. Serious enough that the player might consider letting the AI build this one sometimes.

[alexman]

So I can save a leader, build it in a crappy city to get the free techs, and then raze it to avoid the consequences?

[ducki]

That's what house rules are for, no?

[lockstep]

You could also gift the ToE city to the AI.

Seriously, I don't like the idea of balancing a specific wonder by adding a disadvantage.

[ducki]

Yeah. Just trying to think of ways to make it not a forgone conclusion.
Are there any research/science related buildings that come at about the same time that we could require 5 of as a pre-req? I guess that wouldn't really help the AI, would it? Argh.

[ducki]

Originally posted by alexman
The Industrial Age is different because you need both branches to get the era's warmongering tool (Tanks). So even if you are planning a Tank blitz, you don't lose anything by taking the lower 'builder' branch first.

I would really like it if we removed Motorized Transportation's Electronics requirement.

I'm sorry to dredge this up again, but I was just looking at the custom graphic and I don't see how the solution actually solves the problem.

You want to break the Warmonger path away from the 'builder' path, but this only removes 4 techs out of the original 14 techs required to get to tanks.
2 of those 4 are free if you take the lower path and nab the ToE, so now you're only 2 techs ahead. Now if you factor in the effects of Hoover(including saving 3 gpt/per city in addition to the production boost) and that 2-tech advantage towards a tank rush looks pretty slim. Finally, if you consider the trade value of Scientific Method, Atomic Theory, and Electronics and I'm not completely sure that the Warmonger path actually has _any_ advantage where all other things are equal(meaning that the warmonger path-chooser has the required water and a high-shield city for producing ToE and Hoover).

You could argue that by removing AtomicTheory and Electronics from the path to Motorized Transport that the player could build ToE and take the other path, except that means researching a tech off of the warmonger path and building a wonder to gain back 2 techs of the advantage(but having researched one, you only gain 1), putting you up by 3 techs and missing out on a wonder that can save a lot of money and help you crank out tanks like nobody's business much sooner/faster than building power plants individually.

In my experience, I have rarely found it worthwhile to attack an opponent who has Infantry, with Tanks. Even if you beeline to Tanks, Modern Armor is only 5 techs away (Flight, Radio, Ecology, Rocketry, S.Fibers).

I think this further weakens this change. That's 5 more research cycles in which the Hoover-builder can catch up the 2 or maybe 3 techs that he is "behind", giving at the very least 20 turns for the benefits of a more productive empire (free power plants everywhere) to make up a 2-3 tech(maximum) deficit.

Just thoughts that hit while looking at the custom industrial era tech-tree graphic. I just really don't understand how this change accomplishes the goal.
I wonder how many folks will opt for Tanks over Hoover in The Power Of Seafaring(assuming we're not on a teeny tiny island).

[Myrddin]

Working through a 1.01 mod game, the changes to cavalry make it far harder to roll over an opponent by getting to Military Tradition first - you will take high losses in taking Musketmen defended cities

However it makes Replacable Parts a key military tech as it gives you

Infantry - defence 10
Guerrillas - attack 8
Artillery

vs Best attacker 5, best defender 6

So instead of a cavalry blitz, you have a SOD rolling over the cities 1 by 1, almost immune to counterattack. It is slower but inevitable; at least a cavalry blitz could suffer from counter-attacks

Replacable parts is on the Builder path, and so can be easily incorporated into the ToE beeline

Should Guerillas (and possibly artillery - which needs toning down anyway) be moved to the upper path on the tree?

[jshelr]

I don't want to be overly tiresome, but, hey, why change my pesonality now?

We were down three or four techs to the Dutch in the ToE race in the AU game, lacking physics and metal when our banks finished and gold per turn shot way up. At that point, we traded using the lux that wars had brought in over time.

The upshot is that we now have medicine and nobody has any other techs on the way to ToE. The Dutch are wandering around in the Nationalism tech swamp, probably researching facism and commie.

As far as I'm concerned, the game is broken at this juncture. Something has to be done to turn ToE back into a race. After all, my Byz civ is winning the race and we've not researched any tech to completion since philosophy

We will now opportunistically buy techs until we can sprint to scientific method, adding a few libraries in core cities to make the sprint faster. The only trick is to start the prebuild at the right time.

[ducki]

Has ToE ever been a race if the human is at or near parity?
Maybe it's my usual level of play, but I never saw this item as a return to good AI behavior. I saw it as us trying to fix a fundamental flaw.

One thing I don't think we can ever tweak to be "right" is once an AI has Nationalism, I doubt we can do anything to make them not go after Government-enabling techs.

I do think we can make the first rank a bit more "random", though.

And my first question is serious, not rhetorical - I just don't ever recall the AI giving me a run for my money on ToE if I have parity. It's nearly never a race for me, though I do agree it is broken.

[jshelr]

I wrote, "Something has to be done to turn ToE back into a race."

I agree with ducki that the ToE race idea is a non-starter. On reflection, what bothers me is that winning the non-race is both easy and game-over. It's the game-over part that is a bummer.

[ducki]

Ok. I was afraid maybe I'd missed something.

As far as turning it into a non-game-over situation, alexman mentioned on one of the AU:501 DARs moving it to the Modern Age.

Since we're considering moving Longevity to the Industrial, I think it would be ... sensible to just let the two "problem" wonders trade places. 2 freebies in the Modern Age is, I doubt, nearly as overpowering as in the Industrial, especially since it would no longer guarantee Hoover's.

Just a thought. Maybe it'll spark someone else's imagination and we'll find something less.... extreme.


Another idea I had was to severely reduce the cost of Nationalism, Communism, and Fascism, transferring the cost to Scientific Method - The AI is likely going to go for those top techs(and with a human cavalry running about, it's probably not such a bad idea to get rifles), and if we can't deter them, why not make it just take a lot less time? If the human still wants ToE and Hoover, they risk letting the AI get a sizeable branch lead, and with the longer research time, maybe it would be more difficult to time a prebuild, giving the AI a better chance.

Or maybe not.

I, like jshelr, do wish that the race for ToE-Hoover's was actually exciting/dramatic, or at least not "the best" strategy.