AU: A MOD for the curiculum

[alexman]

Originally posted by lockstep
Change the Republic's corruption from 'nuisance' to 'problematic'.

This would work fine if these two levels of corruption weren't virtually identical!

On a side-note: Theseus started a new thread to get people's suggestions of what to do with the AI food/production/trade emphasis.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by alexman
This would work fine if these two levels of corruption weren't virtually identical!

I know. The 'nuisance' level is actually pointless because it's only slightly better than 'problematic'. Still, changing the Republic's corruption level to 'problematic' is a small step in the right direction, isn't it?

[Dominae]

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

Correct. I was confusing the "Immune to:" tab with the "Available missions:" tab (which is a product of my imagination) in the Governments section.

Question: Will increasing corruption under Republic make it economically similar to Monarchy? In other words, which is more powerful: corruption or trade bonus?

If the change in corruption is slight (as some have mentioned), then it does seem like a possible "fix" for Republic.


Dominae

[player1]

Ugh...

Do you know that all those changes to Govenments would a pain to balance?

P.S.
I won't change anything more in my own MOD (or maybe at least unit changes here are playbalanced).

I included +100worker speed in Communism for flavor reasons anyway.



P.P.S.
Anyway, if I would try to change something else, it would be free upkeep in Despotism.

I always felt that Despotism is the militray HEAVIEST govement at expense of all others (economy & co.)

So having despotism with 4/8/12 free units (instead of 4/4/4) could make it good choice for empires which have so heavy militray that it's even too much for Communism or Monarchy.

That's way there is theoretical possbily of having Despotism better then Monarchy or Communism is some rare cases.

[player1]

Originally posted by Dominae
Question: Will increasing corruption under Republic make it economically similar to Monarchy? In other words, which is more powerful: corruption or trade bonus?

Dominae

Trust me.

If you had govement with Rampant corruption and TRADE bonus, it would still be better from govenment with Minimal corruption WITHOUT trade bonus.

(at lest from gold and science point, production will be more probelematic becasue of higher waste)

[Dominae]

Ok, thanks player1. So it would seem that increasing Corruption under Republic is a viable option.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Increasing corruption under Republic would also provide a little extra incentive for non-religious civs to switch to Democracy, and maybe even go to the trouble to research it. Under the standard rules, it's too hard for Democracy to pay back the cost of researching it (or so the consensus seems to be among those who have considered the best path to win the space race early). I hate the thought of doing something that would increase the best-case corruption for a big chunk of the game, but I have to admit that taking away Republic's corruption advantage compared with Monarchy is probably a good thing in terms of balance.

The one question I have is whether it might adversely affect the AI. But since current corruption levels are toned down compared with when the AI was originally designed, and given Alexman's claim that the difference is minimal, I wouldn't expect major problems. (Then again, with the upkeep cost per unit the same regardless of the corruption rate, higher corruption might take away a noticeably higher percentage of an AI republic's after-expenses gold than it would a human republic's.)

Nathan

[lockstep]

Originally posted by player1
If you had govement with Rampant corruption and TRADE bonus, it would still be better from govenment with Minimal corruption WITHOUT trade bonus.

(at lest from gold and science point, production will be more probelematic becasue of higher waste)

I don't have exact figures right now, but can confirm (from playtesting korn's blitz mod, which experimented a lot with corruption) that player1 is absolutely right.

[Dominae]

Playing with the editor yesterday I saw some areas that coud potentially be improved (IMO):

Civilizations:

Zulus: Add 'Defensive Units' to the Build Always tab.
Iroquois: Add 'Offensive Units' to the Build Always tab.

The change is simply to make these civs build their UU more often. Although it shouldn't be a problem, this gives five checks to both these civs under Build Always.


Dominae

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
Zulus: Add 'Defensive Units' to the Build Always tab.
Iroquois: Add 'Offensive Units' to the Build Always tab.

Why are they different than other civs without the defense or offense flags checked? Do you find that these civs don't build enough of their UUs?

In my experience, the AI already builds too many units at the expense of city improvements. I would even go so far as to remove all offensive and defensive unit build preferences from all civs. The AI civs that generally do well in the game (Egypt, France, Greece, for example) don't have any units in their build preferences.

[Harovan]

In the Creation forum is a thread about upgrading Swordsmen to Knights, where they raised another interesting idea: Upgrading Swordsmen to Longbowmen.

What about increasing the defense value of Longbowmen by 1, making them 4.2.1 and simulating medieval infantry. We then could let Longbowmen, which aren't built in vast numbers by the AI anyway, upgrade to Marines, that also have the Offense flag, so the AI upgrade path won't be hurt. This way we could get rid of that annoying upgrade gap and the availability of 2 obsolete unit in modern city build orders.

[alexman]

Good idea for preparing for PtW, SR.
But would the new Longbowmen require iron like Med. Infantry? If yes, then be prepared to see the ironless AI attacking pikemen and knights with - gasp - archers!
If they don't require iron, is their cost still balanced after the increase in defense?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alexman

Why are they different than other civs without the defense or offense flags checked? Do you find that these civs don't build enough of their UUs?

These civs are different in that they will best be played by the AI in the early-game (in fact, by anyone, since they're early-game civs). Since the success of the Iroquois and Zulus depend heavily on their production of MWs and Impis, respectively, early on, I think it can only help if the appropriate flags are checked. Yes, this will affect their performance in the late-game, but the other flags should balance that (maybe remove the 'Explore' flag, which doesn't seem to do very much).

I don't think these civs build quite enough of of their UUs, especially the Iroquois. Again, to make the AI play these civs better, they need to build their UUs early on.

I don't see much of a problem with the UUs of the other civs. For instance, the AI really likes to build Knights anyway, so all the Knight variants (Rider, etc.) don't need to be explicitly flagged (well, implicitly, but you know what I mean).


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
Good idea for preparing for PtW, SR.
But would the new Longbowmen require iron like Med. Infantry? If yes, then be prepared to see the ironless AI attacking pikemen and knights with - gasp - archers!
If they don't require iron, is their cost still balanced after the increase in defense?

Considering how rarely people seem to build Longbowmen now, the change in balance would seem to be more in the direction of making a unit that's not normally worth building now a little more worth building rather than in the direction of making a unit that's already worth building excessively powerful.

Nathan

[Theseus]

I'm not good enough with Impis and JWs to make a valuable observation as to how many should be built, but I do agree (very much so) that the Iroqouis should build a LOT more MWs.