AU: A MOD for the curiculum

[Dominae]

I agree with lockstep. JWs are good enough to use right until the end of the Medieval era (and beyond). So I would very much like to have my JWs only upgrade late in the game.

Whether the AI will use them as effectively throughout this period is another matter. I suspect not. Therefore, I think JWs should upgrade to either Swordsmen or Horsemen. I think Horsemen would be more powerful, however, since JWs - Horsemen - Knights completely undermines Chariots and bypasses Swordsmen entirely.


Dominae

[player1]

Somehow I choose them to upgrade to Horsmen, since someone would actuly like to have "tank-type" Swordsmen and "bandit-type" in same time.

And it looks unnatural that when you get Iron and have NO Hrsmes, to lose only mobile unit.

Luckly, you could delay Horseback Riding for some time, if you like Jaguars a lot.

After that, you could make one huge big upgrade (as some people like to do).

P.S.
Of course if you still prefer Jaguars, you could make several "rural" 2-3pop cities unconnecet to Horses which could make Jaguars. And since Jaguars are cheap, they could do that quickly too.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
I think Horsemen would be more powerful, however, since JWs - Horsemen - Knights completely undermines Chariots and bypasses Swordsmen entirely.

Chariots would be removed from the Aztec build queue. JWs are just cheap chariots, after all.

However, when in doubt, leave it unchanged. So for 1.04 JWs will continue to upgrade to swordsmen. The Aztecs are a powerful enough civ as it is (ask Vel), no need to help them out more.

[Theseus]

KD, I'll start the new thread. I'll also put a thread in Creation just to see if the modders have any contributions.

[Dominae]

Yep, the Aztecs are plenty powerful. As for JWs and resources, I usually "unconnect" one of my big production cities just to produce a legion of the little suckers. Seems like a pretty drastic move, but they're really that good.


Dominae

[player1]

Originally posted by alexman
Chariots would be removed from the Aztec build queue. JWs are just cheap chariots, after all.

However, when in doubt, leave it unchanged. So for 1.04 JWs will continue to upgrade to swordsmen. The Aztecs are a powerful enough civ as it is (ask Vel), no need to help them out more.

Althoug personnaly Jaguar to Horsmen is probebly better option then Jaguar to Swordsmen.

If you don't have Horses, you'll need Iron in order to kill something. If you do get Iron, you'll lose your only mobile unit.


On the other hand, keeping Jaguar to later ages is interesting option too. Surely more then original "Jaguar to Swordsmen upgrade".

But I still think that Jaguar to Horsmen is more natural.

[player1]

Originally posted by Dominae
Yep, the Aztecs are plenty powerful. As for JWs and resources, I usually "unconnect" one of my big production cities just to produce a legion of the little suckers. Seems like a pretty drastic move, but they're really that good.


Dominae

On the other hand, you also want to upgrade them after some time.
Unfortunately, you can't do both things in same time.

[Dominae]

I've been looking at the Governments tab in the Editor, trying to come up with some change for Communism. I have to say, there aren't my options available. Here are a few:

1. Increase Worker production under Communism by 50% (from 2 to 3). This is the standard suggestion.

2. Increase the number of free units supportable by Towns, Cities and Metropolises (under Communism). The exact number is negotiable.

3. Increase the base number of free units supportable by the entire nation, under Communism. I can't think of a number here, but maybe something around 30?

4. Under Republic, decrease the Worker rate from 2 to 1.

5. Play with the Espionage tab to make Communism the one and only viable Espionage government.


Options 2 and 3 make Communism better for war. Since the AI already almost always switches to Communism during war-time, this could help it out considerably. Option 1 is ok, but won't make Communism that mure more appealing, I don't think. Option 5 is (IMO) quite boring, but maybe something interesting can be worked out.

Option 4 is the real eyebrow-raiser. Basically my reasoning is that by weakening of The Republic, all the other playable government get a boost, including Communism. Want to go builder but remain peaceful? Democracy. Want a nice economy but still conduct some war? Republic. Want to conduct long wars but still build your infrastructure? Monarchy. Want to be a warmonger, and rule over vast empires? Communism.

Obviously, these options aren't mutually exclusive.

Any comments?


Dominae

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Dominae
I've been looking at the Governments tab in the Editor, trying to come up with some change for Communism. I have to say, there aren't my options available. Here are a few:

1. I think this is a viable option, even though the AI wont make too much out of it (take a loot at the discussion on AI workers)

2. Hm, uninspired

3. Creates problems with different map sizes (30 units on tiny is A LOT)

4. Out of the question in this mod (too far reaching consequences)

5. Sounds interesting but I don't see a way of implementing this.

[alexman]

Number 4 is a very interesting suggestion. Unrealistic, but it might improve gameplay as you suggest. The choice between Monarchy and Republic would be even tougher than it is now (Non-religious players now use Monarchy only when they will be fighting for a long time). This actually might be a bad thing though, because it would help Religious civs even more.

Originally posted by Dominae
Want to be a warmonger, and rule over vast empires? Communism.

The problem is that Communism is terrible for vast empires because each new city increases the corruption of each and every one of your existing cities.

What about this: Make a new city improvement that decreases corruption and works only for communism. This is the next best thing since we can't change the hardcoded level of communal corruption.

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Killerdaffy
5. Sounds interesting but I don't see a way of implementing this.

duh!!! sure, just setting all spies to elite but this doesn't change the cost, does it?

[lockstep]

Originally posted by alexman
Number 4 is a very interesting suggestion. Unrealistic, but it might improve gameplay as you suggest. The choice between Monarchy and Republic would be even tougher than it is now (Non-religious players now use Monarchy only when they will be fighting for a long time). This actually might be a bad thing though, because it would help Religious civs even more.

I'll support any tweak that makes the choice between Civ3's rather uninspired governments (compared to SMAC's Social Engineering system) more interesting, even if this means boosting an already good civ trait. But this is a big change, so we should look out for unwanted side-effects.

BTW, I've playtested a worker rate of 1 (for despotism) in korn's blitz mod. This feature definitely makes a difference, but could be annoying for novice players, as it takes forever to build tile improvements on forests, hills etc. A solution would be to increase the worker rate of every government but Republic by 1.

[Dominae]

Killerdaffy, I admit my suggestions are mostly uninspired (other than number 4), it's just that the Government tab doesn't give you much to work with. I didn't think outside the box like alexman at the option of new building (probably since it's "adding", not "changing", so out of flavor for this mod). But that could very well be the answer to the Communism problem.

lockstep, your suggestion of increasing the Worker rate under every non-Republic seems too powerful. It would certainly change the flow of the game considerably. Then again, I can't really justify reducing the effectiveness of Workers under Republic to below the Despotism rate.

But I do really like making The Republic a bit weaker, even if it means Religious civs will be stronger. As is, The Republic is strong enough that a lot of switching is unecessary. This doesn't seem to me the right way to balance the Religious trait (if it needs balancing in the first place).


Dominae

[Dominae]

As for changes to Espionage, maybe some Spy actions (steal tech?) could only be available under Communism and have reduced costs to boot. Again, this seems unsatisfactory to me, because it's too big of a change (and it has no real-world justification).


Dominae

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Dominae
lockstep, your suggestion of increasing the Worker rate under every non-Republic seems too powerful. It would certainly change the flow of the game considerably.

You're right about that one. But there's the possibility of fine-tuning the worker rate by also changing the base costs of worker jobs. E.g. you want every government but Republic to enhance it's workers' capabilities by 10%? Multiply all base costs by 10, multiply the Republic's worker rate by 10, multiply all other governments' worker rates by 11.

Then again, I can't really justify reducing the effectiveness of Workers under Republic to below the Despotism rate.

Yes. No government should have a worse worker rate than Despotism.

But I do really like making The Republic a bit weaker, even if it means Religious civs will be stronger. As is, The Republic is strong enough that a lot of switching is unecessary.

A suggestion to make Republic a bit weaker (adopted from korn's blitz mod and, IMO, in the spirit of the AU mod): Change the Republic's corruption from 'nuisance' to 'problematic'.

As for changes to Espionage, maybe some Spy actions (steal tech?) could only be available under Communism and have reduced costs to boot.

Making spy actions only available for certain governments is not possible with the current editor.