AU: A MOD for the curiculum

[nbarclay]

I just thought of one possible down side to the Communism situation. If the mod does make Communism worthwhile for human players, free maintenance on city improvements would benefit human players a lot more than it does AIs because we tend to build so many more of them.

Nathan

[lockstep]

Originally posted by BillChin
The key idea is to make Communism a useful government in competitive games, especially for multiplayer. The example given of cities with every possible improvement is a game that is already won.

Another example: A size 12 city with all ancient and middle age improvements plus a factory would lose about 17 ((12*0.7)*2) commerce units because of the lacking trade bonus, but save 18 gold because of free maintenance. Again, this is a quick calculation, and we should do some tests with AU 201 save games.

Originally posted by nbarclay
I just thought of one possible down side to the Communism situation. If the mod does make Communism worthwhile for human players, free maintenance on city improvements would benefit human players a lot more than it does AIs because we tend to build so many more of them.

An additional downside of free maintenance: It takes away a lot of interesting choice - improvements are almost always worth to be built.

[BillChin]

I floated the free maintenance idea after my idea of increasing Military Police was shot down. May be free maintenance on all buildings is overpowered. However, saved games, especially of games that are still undecided, are stronger evidence than any hypotheticals.

If the free maintenance is taken out, what do people think of the increased unit support proposal? Ten free units, plus doubled unit support 4/8/16. This makes Communism a useful choice for a small empire with military ambitions. It also lets human players role play the huge conscript armies that many Communist states favor. Monarchy would still have the advantages of faster wonder construction and lower corruption in core cities over Communism. With a modest military Monarchy would also have a gold edge (if the free building maintenance is taken out). Also in the mod, Monarchy got three free units as a minor balancing device.
- Bill

[alexman]

I also prefer the increased free military support over free building support because the AIs usually have larger armies than the humans, so they will benefit more from the change.

However, note that lockstep's rough calculations favor Communism because the flat corruption of 30% that he assumed is only for distance corruption. There is an additional corruption due to number of cities, which raises the total corruption much higher, especially for large empires or cities with no courthouses, police stations, WLTKD.

I think we should release a last version of the AU mod (1.06) before PtW. Then, after we have had a chance to play an AU game with stock PtW, we should re-evaluate the changes to be adopted in the first version of the AU PtW mod.

Here is the list of changes for AU mod 1.06:

Add operational range of 8 to Tank, Panzer, Modern Armor and Mech. Infantry.
Add the "Load" flag to Cruise Missiles.
Reduce cost of cannon to 30.
Restore steal tech cost to original value.
Move Longevity to Sanitation.
Remove the Swordsman-Longbowman upgrade path and restore Longbowman stats to original.
Give Communism 10 free units plus double free unit support per city instead of free building maintenance.

How does all this sound?

[punkbass2000]

How about more of Adam Smith from Civ2 solution (ironically enough)? All $1 improvements are free.

[Theseus]

I think Smith's is fine.

alexman, I say go for it.

What's everyone doing about PTW? I'm going to reach UP in AU 201 first (gotta surprise there, I hope ).

[FrustratedPoet]

Anyone suggested setting up an AU PBEM game yet?
It wouldn't take much time if you're only playing 2-3 turns each per week...

[Theseus]

Good idea... I'm going to be in one with SR and nye (when we all get it), but we should definitely do one as AU.

Always War?

[FrustratedPoet]

At least until Firaxis get the MP problems fixed (IF they get them fixed) then PBEM will prolly be the best way for us to play against each other.

[Theseus]

Can you believe the craziness in the PTW forum?

I just wanna figure out when to switch, so we can all stay "synchronized."

[FrustratedPoet]

the craziness scares me away so I haven't looked into the problems they're having too closely.

all those flames .... so many of them ...
/me shudders

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
I think Smith's is fine.

alexman, I say go for it.

What's everyone doing about PTW? I'm going to reach UP in AU 201 first (gotta surprise there, I hope ).

At a quick glance, I think maintenance costs are all or nothing, but I could possibly have missed something. My guess is that the only reason the option tu turn off maintenance costs for a government is available at all is that Anarchy needs it.

In regard to PTW, my usual strategy when something I want comes out is to wait for someone (usually Best Buy) to put it on sale. So that's the most likely probability for PTW. I'm really not that interested in playing against humans (it's too hard to play builder against warmongering neighbors), although a game with more of an "us against the AIs" "divide the world up among ourselves" flavor might be interesting.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Hehe, I posted a lot of those flames! I just got my first MP game to work, it's pretty cool, but requires getting used to.

The changes for 1.06 sound great.

Count me in for a PBEM AU game. Always war is actually a good idea here, because we won't have to catch up to any science craziness.


Dominae

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Theseus
I think Smith's is fine.

alexman, I say go for it.

What's everyone doing about PTW? I'm going to reach UP in AU 201 first (gotta surprise there, I hope ).

I wasn't proposing a change to Smith's. I was proposing free maintenance for $1 buildings for communism. Sorry for the incoherence

[lockstep]

Originally posted by alexman
note that lockstep's rough calculations favor Communism because the flat corruption of 30% that he assumed is only for distance corruption. There is an additional corruption due to number of cities, which raises the total corruption much higher, especially for large empires or cities with no courthouses, police stations, WLTKD.

I thought (and was obviously wrong) that the 'no. of cities' factor only kicked in for huge empires. However, higher overall corruption actually means that v1.05's free maintenance for Communism is even more powerful compared to a trade bonus, because a larger part of the bonus would be lost.

Here is the list of changes for AU mod 1.06:

Add operational range of 8 to Tank, Panzer, Modern Armor and Mech. Infantry.
Add the "Load" flag to Cruise Missiles.
Reduce cost of cannon to 30.
Restore steal tech cost to original value.
Move Longevity to Sanitation.
Remove the Swordsman-Longbowman upgrade path and restore Longbowman stats to original.
Give Communism 10 free units plus double free unit support per city instead of free building maintenance.

How does all this sound?