AU Mod: Re-balancing the power of Armies

[Aqualung71]

Seems the consensus of opinion to date is that:
[list=1][*] Armies are too strong for the human, largely because the AI doesn't use them;[*] It would be difficult to encourage the AI to use Armies more often because of the AI's tendency to use MGL's to rush buildings, and more critically, the AI's failure to be able to generate sufficient MGL's in the first place;[*]The way to address the issue is therefore to reduce the power of Armies rather than encouraging the AI to use them more; but[*] Firaxis has already flagged an interest in re-visiting the power of Armies in the next patch, so we should wait to see what they do before deciding on any changes for the AU Mod.[/list=1]

The most practical changes (from an AU Mod perspective, though Firaxis will clearly be able to do more) seem to be:

• Increase the city support requirement for Armies above 4;
• Reducing the number of units that Armies can carry;
• Possible changes to the M.Academy (such as reducing the cost), although these would be less effective and it would benefit the human player just as much or possibly more.

In the interests of achieving a desirable result from the forthcoming patch, should we try to engage Firaxis with some suggestions for Armies?

[Aqualung71]

DP

[alexman]

I don't agree that the AI doesn't generate enough MGLs. They usually have many more units than the human, so they compensate for their poor Elite management by sheer number of battles.

So that means that I don't agree with item 3 above. We should reduce the power of Armies only as a last resort, if we can't make the AI use their leaders to make Armies.

I think there is a way to create a separate leader unit in the editor (military leader) that gets generated from battle, and has combined Army/Leader characteristics. The human would use this new leader unit as he does MGLs now, but the AI would use it to load units, since it would have the AI Army strategy, not the AI leader strategy. The downside would be that the AI would be able to have only one of these units at a time, but this is for sure better than what we have now, where the AI has zero Armies.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by alexman
I think there is a way to create a separate leader unit in the editor (military leader) that gets generated from battle, and has combined Army/Leader characteristics. The human would use this new leader unit as he does MGLs now, but the AI would use it to load units, since it would have the AI Army strategy, not the AI leader strategy. The downside would be that the AI would be able to have only one of these units at a time, but this is for sure better than what we have now, where the AI has zero Armies.

??

So now there would be three Leader-types?

As you say, GOOD, if this gives the AI civs a shot at at least one Army.

PITA, though, for the AU Mod read me, and making sure newer players understand WTF that wacko Leader is, but that is not the end of the world.

And the third Leader would interact with MGLs how (in terms of generation and co-existence)?

[alexman]

Right now there is just one leader unit in the editor that acts as a MGL or SGL depending on how it was generated. My thinking is to separate the two leader types in the editor, although I'm not 100% sure it will work yet.

[Tall Stranger]

This may be putting the cart before the horse, but I think we also need to get a better sense of what the AI would do with an army. Would it do something stupid, like put an Med Inf, Horseman and Warrrior in it? Would it fill it with defensive units and leave it in rear areas? Or would it put its best attacking units in there and use it offensively?

Has anyone given the AI an army and watched how it uses it?

[Theseus]

I had seen a number of pretty dumb AI Armies in PTW (usually veeeery early, when the number of units was quite limited), but for the most part they were darn good.

[ducki]

Was that stock or primarily with the AU mod, Theseus?
(Edit: Yes, this is a leading question. )

[Theseus]

Both, actually, not just my own games but paying attention to reports by others.

I don't think that the PTW AU Mod did anything in particular to enourage AI Armies, other than fostering stronger AI civs.

[alexman]

Well, it turns out that it's possible to separate military from scientific great leaders:

New unit: Military Great Leader. Appears during combat instead of Leader. Has ability to rush improvements (not Great Wonders), to build Armies, and also has the properties of an Army. The AI uses it as an Army. The human uses it as a normal MGL. The normal leader unit still appears unchanged as a SGL, but it would have to require a non-existant resource (easy to do) so you can't build one.

The problem is that the AI still would be able to have just one of these units at a time, while the human would use them to build potentially multiple Armies. Also, any unit with Army properties has just one movement point when empty, whereas we are used to having leaders with 3 movement points. Finally, it gets confusing for first-time users of the mod if they load units into the MGL instead of building an Army. I don't like the idea after all. It's clumsy.

Instead, I would support the idea to make Armies the combat-generated unit and to give them the finish improvement ability. That way both the AI and the human can have just one Army at a time before the Military Academy. Deciding which units to put into your one-and-only early army would certainly make for an interesting strategic decision.

So what is better: Removing the aspect of Elite management from the game after the point where you already have an Army in the field, or leveling the playing field between human and AI?

[ducki]

How about another option - can we have both Armies AND MGLs with the Generated From Combat flag?
If so, what happens? Do they alternate? Would it always be the first one on the list? Would it be random?

I really don't like either of the ideas above, alexman. If we just want the AI to have armies, we could start each AI with an army or let the palace generate 1 army every 3000 years, ensuring the AIs get at least one army at 1000BC - late enough that they don't just put the starting warrior in it(which they do, I'm running a test) and early enough that they could use it in the post-expansion phase.

They still have to decide to put offensive units in and actually use it on offense(they don't seem to with the 4000BC single warrior army) in order to be able to build the Epic and Academy, but then, so does the human. Builders could save it to be used as a strong defender from hell and Warmongers could use to it for either their Sword UU or Knights or hang on to it for late-game conquest.

I'm still running my test on the AI (but not the human) starting with an Army in 4000BC to see if they actually get used once expansion is over, but in the first war, neither AI moved the army from MP duty. Yet.

[Tall Stranger]

I strongly oppose this idea, as it takes away one of the fundamental benefits of a warmongering strategy and thus reduces strategic choice. Only being allowed to have 1 army in the critical early-to-mid game period is a massive change to stock and certainly does not retain the "feel" of standard Civ3.

[alexman]

Originally posted by ducki
How about another option - can we have both Armies AND MGLs with the Generated From Combat flag?

Not possible, sorry.

we could start each AI with an army

This is possible only in scenarios, but not in a general mod.

let the palace generate 1 army every 3000 years

This is not possible either. You can set it to generate an Army every 80 turns (which is what 1000 BC is from the start), but that would make the Military Academy pointless - a big change from stock.

By the way, my bet is that the AI will use the Army to put whatever units they have available at the time.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Tall Stranger
I strongly oppose this idea, as it takes away one of the fundamental benefits of a warmongering strategy and thus reduces strategic choice.

The fundamental benefit of warmongering versus building is that you beat up the AI while gaining territory. This doesn't change.

Armies as currently implemented in C3C are a human-only toy that just makes warmongering ridiculously easy, even against technologically and numerically superior AIs. That's what reduces choice!

[ducki]

This is not possible either. You can set it to generate an Army every 80 turns (which is what 1000 BC is from the start), but that would make the Military Academy pointless - a big change from stock.

How so?