AU mod: The ToE - Hoover beeline

[Strollen]

I agree that discussion on TOE seems a bit rushed and certainly radical compared to modest changes proposed for most of the AU university.

My observation is that all of the attention seems to be focused on TOE, which frankly isn't that powerful. The real unbalancing wonder is Hoover. It is reasonably common in my Emperor (and rare diety games) that I have a GL that I gain from my Cavalry charges. In that situation, I will use the GL invariably to build Hoover, and then build TOE normally. In fact if I can only get two wonders in the industrial age, I would much rather have Sufferage, and Hoover than TOE. Moving Longeitvy to the industrial age adds another important wonder to get.

Hoover along with Sistine and/or JS Bach have always been among the must have wonders. Perhaps we should look at making Hoover at bit less awesome instead of changing the tech chart.

Or delay the TOE AU mod until after the changes of Longeitvy are better understood?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
In regard to Dominae's idea of making a police station a prerequisite for ToE, prioritizing policie stations normally makes the least sense in cities closest to the capital. The AI isn't going to build a police station in a city just so it can build ToE there, so I'm concerned that making a police station a prerequisite for ToE may tend to cause the AIs to try to build it in cities that aren't among its most productive. If so, that would largely kill the advantage in undercutting human prebuilds.

Good point.

I still contend that the real problem here is with the power of the Theory of Evolution, and not the Hoover beeline. But I agree with alexman that they are, in fact, seperate issues. One just seems a lot more important than the other (to me).


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
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).

Another reason to keep the Change!

That assumes you beeline to Modern Armor, which means a significant delay in getting research labs to aid in your modern research. In looking for the simplest, quickest route to a domination victory, such a path probably makes sense. But personally, I care too much about my civ's ongoing tech progress to make that sacrifice.

Still, I agree that it usually seems to make more sense to wait until Modern Armor. But would having tanks come two techs sooner really make that much difference if the enemies have infantry? And I for one do not want to increase the odds of tanks' going up against riflemen just to make tanks more useful. That seems like something that would hurt rather than help both game balance and AI effectiveness.

The change of eliminating the Electronics prerequisite from tanks might be worth a game experimenting with later, but I view it as too experimental to include in the initial version of the mod. We have more than enough changes to evaluate in our first C3C AU game as it is.

Further, the tank change most certainly does not solve the problem of how powerful the ToE/Hoover beeline is. The only way it diverts the player away from that beeline is by providing an alternative that players may regard as even more powerful, which, if anything, hurts rather than helps game balance.

Nathan

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Dominae
I still contend that the real problem here is with the power of the Theory of Evolution, and not the Hoover beeline. But I agree with alexman that they are, in fact, seperate issues.

To put it another way, alexman's proposal that solves (or at least alleviates) the problem of the 'no-brainer'-beeline for Hoover vs. ToE (and then for tanks) has directed our attention to another - maybe even bigger - problem, the power of ToE. (And I guess/hope there are ways to solve this problem, too.)

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Dominae

I still contend that the real problem here is with the power of the Theory of Evolution, and not the Hoover beeline. But I agree with alexman that they are, in fact, seperate issues. One just seems a lot more important than the other (to me).

I, on the otherhand, disagree that they can be addressed separately.

Part of the attraction of the Hoover beeline is the fact that you can pre-build and grab ToE on the way to slingshot you through Electronics, thus grabbing Hoover. If you take the free techs out of the equation, you are left to research two expense techs before getting Hoover; still attractive, but not as attractive for a beeline.

Therefore, I think addressing the power of ToE goes a good way toward solving the beeline issue. So I would still consider removing ToE and replacing it with Longevity as a possible solution, or changing the benefits of ToE from free techs to double scientific output in the city in which it is built (with a slight cost reduction).

The beeline is still there, but now you have to earn it.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Stuie
I, on the otherhand, disagree that they can be addressed separately.

Part of the attraction of the Hoover beeline is the fact that you can pre-build and grab ToE on the way to slingshot you through Electronics, thus grabbing Hoover. If you take the free techs out of the equation, you are left to research two expense techs before getting Hoover; still attractive, but not as attractive for a beeline.

If we removed ToE from the game and didn't change anything else, the player would be left to research two expensive techs that make another very powerful wonder (Hoover) available AND are a necessary prereq for tanks. This is way more attractive than going for the 'upper' branch of the tech tree, at least if the player don't has a major tech lead anyway.

IMO, the two problems (ToE - Hoover beeline, Power of ToE) are somewhat intertwined, but can be adresses separately, and alexman has made a clever proposal to adress the first.

[sabrewolf]

i see the main problem lies therein, that the AI doesn't build the ToE while the human knows it's value.

couldn't i be possible to motivate the AI to research scientific method soon (eg. using flavours)? that way, maybe the AI will get this GW in some games...

also, like this, there isn't need for any real changes to graphics (the research background picture), prereqs and playability.

[nbarclay]

The reason I'm skeptical about making the AI more effective at racing for ToE is that if AIs put a higher priority on Scientific Method after ToE is finished (or too close to finished for them to have a realistic chance at it), they're diverting their attention from techs that have a greater intrinsic value. Thus, while their chance of getting ToE might possibly be better, they end up worse off if they don't get it. If there were a way to tell the AI, "If it looks like you have a good chance at winning the race, make that your priority," it would be a useful thing to do. But while Firaxis might be able to do that if they were willing to put in enough time and effort, I'm not aware of any tools we have available that could give that level of precision.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

I think one of the questions here is, "What is the problem?" Alexman seems to view the problem mostly in terms of, "The problem is that going for ToE and then Hoover is too obvious, and we need to make other choices more interesting." Thus, to him, making a beeline to tanks without the techs needed for Hoover more interesting solves the problem. To me, the problem is that we have a situation where getting one wonder makes another one practically a sure thing, Thus, for practical purposes, ToE grants the player two free techs plus (for at a cost of some additional shields) a free hydro plant in every city. But that can't be cured just by making other paths more interesting because as powerful as the ToE/Hoover beeline is, any alternative that would lure a player away from it would be (in the eyes of the player who is lured away) even more powerful.

One idea that might be worth considering would be to increase the cost of Scientific Method from 100 to 200, decrease the cost of Atomic Theory from 200 to 180, and decrease the cost of Electronics from 180 to 100. That would keep the total cost of the techs on the way to Radio the same for civs that don't get ToE but would reduce the value of what the civ that gets ToE can get for free considerably and, at the same time, make the cost of the free techs available on the two different branches more comparable. By the way, the reason for the huge change to Electronics and the relatively small one to Atomic Theory is to keep players from benefitting too much by researching Atomic Theory and then getting Radio for free.

The biggest drawback with this idea is that at cost 200, it would probably be next to impossible to make AIs compete seriously for ToE even if we wanted to. Which raises the question of whether we think we can make AI competition for ToE a serious threat, or whether it makes more sense to write off ToE as something human players are almost certain to get so our main focus needs to be on "damage control." In one respect, reducing the odds of AIs getting ToE might even be a good thing, since in games where there is a serious danger of an AI's getting ToE in spite of human prebuild and beeline tactics, the human player probably needs all the help he can get.

I'm not quite sure this is a good idea, but it seems worth considering.

[Kuciwalker]

Nathan - actually, removing the Electronics prereq DOES decrease the value of using ToE to get Hoover, because it devalues the lower tech branch. Previously, the lower tech branch was necessary for both strategies.

[nbarclay]

Thinking some more about it, the real question may be how much earlier AIs will get tanks if the bottom path of the research tree is unnecessary. If the risk that human tank or MA offensives will run into AI tanks becomes significantly greater, that would tend to counteract the advantage human players could take of the change (and especially to devalue delaying tanks to get Hoover). If AIs tend to research at least Atomic Theory by the time they get Motorized Transportation in spite of the change, the change would have a clear tendency to favor human warmongers.

The risk of AIs getting tanks earlier is the only factor that would actually reduce the power inherent in the Hoover beeline. The human player's ability to get tanks earlier by deferring research into Atomic Theory and Electronics merely adds another way of getting power rather than devaluing the previous one. Thus, from that perspective, my fear is that we might be increasing the power of ToE rather than reducing it.

Nathan

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The risk of AIs getting tanks earlier is the only factor that would actually reduce the power inherent in the Hoover beeline.

Whoa! Bold and italics!
What about the risk of the AI getting stronger defensively (more time to upgrade to Infantry, or whatever), while you delay your Tank offensive to go for Hoover?

Anyway, no matter what we do here, two free techs in the Industrial Age will be unbalancing. So I think I like Stuie's proposal best: Remove the ToE completely, and replace it by Longevity.

[Dominae]

Removing a Wonder is as drastic (if not more) than adding a new unit. Sorry, but I would prefer not changing anything at all than doing this.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

I think removing ToE and replacing it with Longevity is the best option too, especially since so many people seem to like having Longevity in the industrial era. (Actually, I like the idea of having Longevity there myself if it replaces ToE rather than adding adding another powerful wonder to the era.)

Regarding Hoover delaying the tank offensive if the Electronics requirement is removed and a player goes after Hoover, that "delay" really just puts the tank offensive back where it would have been under the default rules. Thus, unless AI tanks cause more of a problem as a result of the change, the player who goes for Hoover is no less powerful, and has no less of an advantage, than he would under the default rules.

In any case, if there are no objections, we'll probably go with the option of removing ToE in favor of Longevity. That still leaves the question of whether Sanitation should be tied to Scientific Method or, as it traditionally has, to Sanitation.

[alexman]

How about swapping ToE with Longevity then?
Or maybe just swapping the effects of the two wonders?

The ToE in the Modern age would not be nearly as unbalancing. Do I invest shields in a Wonder which is on a non-spaceship tech (Genetics), or do I invest shields in Spaceship parts?