AU mod: The Statue of Zeus

[ducki]

EnduringBlue - I like the idea of Ivory as strategic, but would that make it strategic AND luxury, or just strategic?
If both, then we get the added benefit of less AI unhappiness(and therefore less entertainers) I think.
If it can only be one or the other, then the scarcity of luxuries would just be worse.

Nice thinking.

[EnduringBlue]

I just rechecked the editor, and I would like to revise my suggestion. You're right, Ducki, in that only one category (luxury, bonus, or strategic) can be applied to each resource and making it strategic would remove its happiness effect.

HOWEVER

#1 Ivory can have its appearance ratio adjusted. I just generated and compared several maps using this option and it appears to be valid. This might be a good option if consensus is that part of the imbalance of ToZ is the reg C3C scarcity of ivory.

Or, idea#2, you could change/add the prereq for ToZ from a resource to an underutilized ancient era tech so as to reduce the amount of time during which ToZ would be dominant in any given scenario for a human player. this could also be 2 fixes in one within the scope of the AU mod mandate.

I've read enough of the other threads to think changes to other unit strengths are already going to occur, and knocking out the Anc Cav-generating-wonder might push the overall unit changes over the edge to where early game may be very different from a regular version C3C game.

[Tarquinius]

You can also make Ivory a strategic resource, and make a current bonus resource a luxury.
I propose tobacco, because it seems quite useless to me. (only +1 trade) This way you will keep 8 luxuries, and have ivory as a strategic resource for the SOZ (and maybe some other things)
It will change the impact of the game a lot though, I am not sure whether it is too much or not.

[sabrewolf]

before we change strategic, luxury and bonus resources, let's just stick to the less extreme measures.
IF we change the requirements for SoZ, then take horses.

but i still prefer leaving it as it is a weakening it...

[nbarclay]

I think weakening the SoZ but leaving the resource requirement alone is by far the best solution. As I've noted before, there are some at least somewhat interesting strategic issues involved in the ivory requirement. The ivory requirement also adds a bit of extra variety to the game, reducing the likelihood of ruts in which players either almost always try to build it or almost never do. Given those facts, I don't view a change as fundamental as removing a resource requirement as justified.

I think the most transparent thing that could be done to make Ancient Cavalry less overwhelming is to get rid of their extra hit point Since what would be taken away is itself an anomaly from how units normally work, that change might even make the game feel more normal rather than more moddish.

Coupling that with either adding a hundred shields to the cost or reducing the frequency of Ancient Cavalry from every five turns to every seven should result in a pretty good overall balance for the SoZ. In the short term, players could get more punch building conventional units and going ahead and attacking rather than waiting to build the SoZ and then waiting for it to produce enough Ancient Cavalry to form the core of an attack. But in the longer term, the SoZ would far more than pay for itself. Thus, even if the human player knows he's the only one with ivory, the question of how to fit the SoZ into the overall strategy would not be a no-brainer.

Such a composite solution would have only a relatively small effect on the feel of the game. The SoZ would still require the same things, and it would still do basically the same things. It would just do them in a less powerful way.

In contrast, the question of whether or not the SoZ "should" require ivory strikes me as a matter of taste. And as far as I am concerned, changes related essentially just to matters of taste do not belong in the AU Mod.

Nathan

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The ivory requirement also adds a bit of extra variety to the game, reducing the likelihood of ruts in which players either almost always try to build it or almost never do.

This is an excellent point.

[lockstep]

A few remarks: IMO, eliminating a wonder or changing the nature of a resource from luxury to strategic aren't changes suitable for the AU mod.

On with the argument.

Originally posted by nbarclay
I think weakening the SoZ but leaving the resource requirement alone is by far the best solution. As I've noted before, there are some at least somewhat interesting strategic issues involved in the ivory requirement.

The 'strategic factors' you mentioned before were essentialy a) securing an ivory source that is somewhat distant from your starting location and b) coping with an AI that has the Statue of Zeus because you didn't have a chance to secure ivory. a) is - IMO - a rather minor point, and b) just means coping with extremely bad luck of the draw - nothing I'd call 'strategy'.

I think the most transparent thing that could be done to make Ancient Cavalry less overwhelming is to get rid of their extra hit point ... Coupling that with either adding a hundred shields to the cost or reducing the frequency of Ancient Cavalry from every five turns to every seven should result in a pretty good overall balance for the SoZ.

I agree with you insofar as I view the SoZ as overpowered, too (besides from the ivory issue), and that a combination of two of the three changes you mentioned seem to be about right to rebalance 'costs and benefits' of this wonder. Personally, I'd rather leave AC's +1 hitpoint alone and go with a SoZ shield cost increase plus reduced AC frequency, but this is nothing to tough it out.

In contrast, the question of whether or not the SoZ "should" require ivory strikes me as a matter of taste. And as far as I am concerned, changes related essentially just to matters of taste do not belong in the AU Mod.

SoZ's ivory requirement strikes me as a matter of bad gameplay, and changes related to better gameplay surely do belong in the AU mod.

BTW, I find your rationale for removing Ancient Cavalry's hitpoint bonus rather interesting:

Since what would be taken away is itself an anomaly from how units normally work, that change might even make the game feel more normal rather than more moddish.

Replace 'units' with 'Great Wonders', and you have yet another rationale for a SoZ that doesn't require ivory.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by lockstep

The 'strategic factors' you mentioned before were essentialy a) securing an ivory source that is somewhat distant from your starting location and b) coping with an AI that has the Statue of Zeus because you didn't have a chance to secure ivory. a) is - IMO - a rather minor point, and b) just means coping with extremely bad luck of the draw - nothing I'd call 'strategy'.

The ivory requirement can, in particular games, interplay with a number of strategic choices: scouting priorities, REXing priorities, the building of road networks for trade, and the timing and extent of wars. Granted, the ivory requirement is more often uninteresting in its strategic dimensions (since ivory is usually either fairly readily available or not available at all), but the strategic dimensions can be rather considerable when they do exist.

I'm also skeptical of the value of removing the ivory requirement in terms of deepening strategy. The basic argument in favor of removing the requirement is that it would put the SoZ in play for every civ in every game. But would that really improve the game's strategic depth?

The Pyramids are a very powerful wonder, yet on Emperor, about the only time they ever add strategic depth for human players in SP is when we capture them (or, in C3C, when we get an ultra-early SGL). Why? Because competing for the Pyramids is not really practical. The benefits are quite large, but the chance of getting the wonder without a completely unacceptable sacrifice to REXing is negligible, so few of us even try. (At least that's the strong impression I get.) If the SoZ proves similarly hard to get with every civ in the game competing for it, where is the improved strategic depth?

Alternatively, suppose the SoZ doesn't prove especially hard to get if human players really want it because AIs tend to have higher priorities. That would make a fairly powerful extra toy available for warmongers in every game rather than just some games. But would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Do we really want to increase how often human players are encouraged to adopt warmonger rather than builder tactics in the early game?

There is a narrow window in between where the SoZ would be available enough to add strategic depth but not so readily available as to tilt the balance significantly toward warmongering on a regular basis. And if experimentation with a resourceless SoZ can show that the change lands in that range, I might be willing to reconsider. But right now, the idea that eliminating the ivory requirement would improve strategic depth at all seems almost purely theoretical from where I sit.

Incidentally, the ivory requirement also helps keep AU games more similar to each other for comparision purposes since the same relatively limited set of civs is eligible for the SoZ in everyone's game. Without the ivory requirement, we could easily have situations where one player has a neighbor get the SoZ and another has a civ on the other side of the world get it. Granted, the same has always been true with other wonders, but the SoZ strikes me as a much more clear and direct threat than any other wonder a neighbor might get.

SoZ's ivory requirement strikes me as a matter of bad gameplay, and changes related to better gameplay surely do belong in the AU mod.

Your concepts of "bad gameplay" and "better gameplay" strike me as essentially purely matters of taste rather than matters of objective fact. From one perspective, having one wonder that works differently from the others is bad. From another perspective, it adds a bit of extra flavor to the game.

In my view, the real problem with the SoZ is that it is overpowered. In human hands, it leads to relatively easy romps over neighbors without a lot of investment in troops. In the hands of a neighboring AI, it poses a very serious threat.

That problem, in turn, greatly magnifies the importance of the ivory requirement. The presence of ivory becomes a huge advantage, while not having ivory when a neighbor does becomes a major liability. But the high importance of ivory is a symptom of deeper problems that would still be there without the requirement. Without the ivory requirement, the SoZ would still be just as overwhelming in the hands of human players and just as dangerous in the hands of a nearby AI.

From that perspective, I view fixing the problem of the wonder's excessive power as also fixing the problem of making the presence or absence of ivory too important. If balance is good, a civ with ivory would have only a modest advantage over one without rather than an overwhelming advantage, so what is objectively "bad" about the requiremnt in the stock game would no longer be a serious issue. As long as the impact of the presence or absence of ivory is not out of line with the impact of countless other factors related to starting position - bonus resources near the starting position; access to luxuries for happiness; access to strategic resources; presence or absence of rivers; the advantages of grassland and disadvantages of jungles and desert; what neighbors you end up with; and so forth - any claims that the ivory requirement for SoZ makes ivory too important are nothing more than a matter of subjective taste.

Replace 'units' with 'Great Wonders', and you have yet another rationale for a SoZ that doesn't require ivory.

Note that I said "might even," not "would." I was never trying to argue that the fact that the extra hit point is unusual is, in and of itself, a reason to remove it. I was just pointing out that the fact that the extra hit point is unusual would tend to work against a moddish feel to removing it. That working against might even, in the eyes of some, make the modified rules seem more normal than the default rules. That mitigating factor is why I like the idea of removing the extra hit point better than I like other changes we could make to tone down the power of the SoZ.

A similar argument can be made for why eliminating the ivory requirement for the SoZ would not create nearly as much of a moddish feel as other types of tinkering with resource requirements would. But while that is a good reason to think that eliminating the requirement would not destroy the feel of the game, I don't view it as a sound argument for why the change should be viewed as a good thing.

I contend that the burden of proof is on those who want to eliminate the requirement to show that the benefits of doing so are sufficient to justify a deviation from the default rules. So far, all the arguments I remember seeing in support of such a change seem to come down to one of three things:

1) As a matter of personal taste, people don't like having one wonder depend on a luxury resource when others do not.

2) The requirement makes ivory too important.

3) People believe that being theoretically able to compete for the SoZ in every game would translate into more interesting strategic choices.

I reject the first line of reasoning as incompatible with the purpose of the AU Mod. The second, I view as a problem with the wonder itself being too powerful; with that cured, the importance of ivory is not out of line with other factors that affect how good or bad starting positions are. As for the third, I have serious doubts as to how well the theoretical benefits would translate into practice (as noted above) and it will take experimental evidence to overcome those doubts.

Nathan

[lockstep]

Hmm ... I'll try to keep my answers shorter.

Originally posted by nbarclay
The Pyramids are a very powerful wonder, yet on Emperor, about the only time they ever add strategic depth for human players in SP is when we capture them (or, in C3C, when we get an ultra-early SGL). Why? Because competing for the Pyramids is not really practical ... If the SoZ proves similarly hard to get with every civ in the game competing for it, where is the improved strategic depth?

This is not a critcism of a modified SoZ, but of Civ3's general gameplay on Emperor and above.

Alternatively, suppose the SoZ doesn't prove especially hard to get if human players really want it because AIs tend to have higher priorities. That would make a fairly powerful extra toy available for warmongers in every game rather than just some games.

As I already said, I agree that the SoZ needs to be toned down so that it is not that powerful.

Incidentally, the ivory requirement also helps keep AU games more similar to each other for comparision purposes since the same relatively limited set of civs is eligible for the SoZ in everyone's game.

And predictability of which civs are likely to build a specific wonder is a good thing? I want to play an epic game, not sort of a pre-scripted scenario.

Your concepts of "bad gameplay" and "better gameplay" strike me as essentially purely matters of taste rather than matters of objective fact.

I regard as bad gameplay - wonder availability by luck of the draw - what you regard as matter of taste. 'Objective fact' is something we both should strive for.

In my view, the real problem with the SoZ is that it is overpowered ... Without the ivory requirement, the SoZ would still be just as overwhelming in the hands of human players and just as dangerous in the hands of a nearby AI.

Yes, but at least the nearby AI would have got the SoZ despite my technical possibility to build this wonder.

(E)liminating the ivory requirement for the SoZ would not create nearly as much of a moddish feel as other types of tinkering with resource requirements would. But while that is a good reason to think that eliminating the requirement would not destroy the feel of the game, I don't view it as a sound argument for why the change should be viewed as a good thing.

I didn't say it was a sound argument - only a rationale very similar to the one you brought forward regarding the AC hitpoint change.

I contend that the burden of proof is on those who want to eliminate the requirement to show that the benefits of doing so are sufficient to justify a deviation from the default rules.

As I said above, making a Great Wonder available by luck of the draw - and a luxury resource requirement is essentially just that - is, in my opinion, bad gameplay and justifies a deviation from stock rules. Obviously, you view SoZ's ivory requirement either as good idea or at least not as bad enough to overcome your general disinclination to rule changes.

[sabrewolf]

how about a vote?
the options seem quite clear.

let me try to sum up
A) make SoZ more expensive (300? 350? 400?)
B) remove ivory requirement
C) replace ivory with horses requirement
D) change frequency of output (7?)
E) remove the extra hitpoint of the ancient cavalry

have i forgotton something?
i'm not allowed to vote. but if i could, it would be
yes: A (300g), D (every 7 turns), E
no: B, C

[lockstep]

Regarding the vote: alexman (the 'father' of the AU mod) should be back in a view days and can mark any proposal as 'under consideration'. A vote should be held about a week later.

Regarding the options you proposed: This is about what I had in mind - perhaps without the horse requirement, because it was really unpopular in the discussions.

[lockstep]

Proposal under consideration

Hmm ... I can't edit alexman's posts to mark a proposal as 'under consideration', but at least I can bump the relevant thread. Also, arguments for and against specific changes have been stated, and, as sabrewolf said, the options (at least the ones somewhat suitable to the AU mod) are quite clear. So here goes:

The following proposal is under consideration:

1. Yes/No: Remove the Statue of Zeus' ivory requirement.
2. EDIT: Yes/No: Move the SoZ from Mathematics to Construction.
3. Yes/No: Increase SoZ's shield cost from 200 to 300.
4. Yes/No: Make the SoZ produce Ancient Cavalry only every 7 (instead of every 5) turns.
5. Yes/No: Remove Ancient Cavalry's +1 hitpoint bonus.

AU mod panel members will have the opportunity to caste their votes after a period of one week after alexman has edited the relevant post (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...postid=2524160).

EDIT: I included ducki's proposal to move the SoZ to Construction as new no. 2.

[ducki]

I just had an idea that might fix at least part of the problem. (Emphasis mine)

The ivory requirement can, in particular games, interplay with a number of strategic choices: scouting priorities, REXing priorities, the building of road networks for trade, and the timing and extent of wars. Granted, the ivory requirement is more often uninteresting in its strategic dimensions (since ivory is usually either fairly readily available or not available at all), but the strategic dimensions can be rather considerable when they do exist.

I find the same. Either I have Ivory of my own or I am not willing to expend the effort to conquer or build "extra" roads to trade for it, especially if the AI only connects one of them.

The Wonder comes with Math, which is fairly early in my games. Usually the AI has Math by the time I have Philo if I head for Philo. Some players here can beeline for Math and amass a big AC force, which is also, I think, part of the Overpoweringness. It's too early compared to the defenders of the age - it's like getting Mounted Warriors without being Iroquois or Conquistadores. In numbers, even though Conquistadores often fall after Muskets, they are still effective - at Astronomy!

(Warning: numerical looseness ahead. Take all numbers with a pound of salt and correct as needed.)
What if SoZ was moved to Construction? It's one of the last two techs before the Middle Ages in my games, which means at most you've got 50 turns in which to build the Wonder and collect your ACav before Pikes begin to appear. IIRC, typical build time on SoZ is around 40 turns, but I could be wrong. So, at the most, you could amass 2 ACav before Pikes if you follow a "typical" research path. Let's say you use a prebuild and finish SoZ on the turn after you research Construction - you've got 50 turns, so you'll have 10 AC by the time Pikes appear.
How many free shields would that be? Anyone know the cost of Conquistadors and MWs offhand?

Seems like a nice bonus, but not overpowering. In fact, I may mod that to be a small wonder and move it to Construction to see what happens.

[lockstep]

A couple of points:

1. By moving the SoZ to a later tech, you reduce the no. of turns the wonder is in effect and therefore the no. of AC's produced. Not a bad idea, but a similar effect can be achieved by increasing the no. of turns it takes to spawn yet another AC (from 5 to 7), and this change is far less drastic IMO.
2. I view the effect as 'similar' because, in my experience, Ancient Cavalry is still very useful against pikemen (admittedly not as deadly as against spearmen).
3. The typical (unmodded) SoZ build time should be far less than 40 turns unless you build wonders in a 5-shield city.

[Risa]

What about increasing the cost of SoZ to 500 shields? Even compared to ToA (the only ancient wonder that costs 500 shields under stock rules), SoZ provides larger benefits. Moreover, 500 shields will be much closer to the free shields (ACs) SoZ spawns, which moves it toward balance.