AU: A MOD for the curiculum

[Dominae]

Re: Berzerks, I'm fine with leaving them as is, but your solution (5/2/1 4hp) is fine too. If I had to pick I would leave them as in the stock version, as usual. player1's reason for making the change isn't very convincing; Samurai have 4 defense, so they're just as good defenders as Musetmen, should we change that too? Similarly, surely it can't be right to have the Sipahi attack higher than the Rifleman's?

Re: Scientists at Mathematics, I thought the goal was to make Literature more attractive, but Math is good too. There is the issue of making Scientists available before Taxmen, but that's a personal preference thing, not a gameplay problem.


Dominae

[ducki]

I think the Beserk attack is in line in the stock version.

Swordsmen, the main infantry of the Ancient Age is 50% stronger than the mounted unit for that age.
Immortals are 100% stronger.

Beserk are 50% stronger than Knights, which seems fair to me.

On Sipahi, the time in which they have their "prime time" - from Mil.Trad. to Nationalism - is just as short as for Cavalry, so giving them a very strong UU for a very brief period seems fair too.


Alliances+PolyT - yes, leave all that at Writing as well, but duplicate all of it - Alliances, Embassies, RoP. See if that doesn't make Monarchy far more speedy.

I've got a gamesave I'm playing now where 3 or 4 of the AIs and I are in the Middle Ages, and if I hadn't researched Monarchy for the Gardens, it wouldn't have been researched until after Feudalism, I think. At least that's what I'm going to try for with Feudalism+Republic. Leave the AIs behind in the Ancient Era.

Should be fun to see what happens.

[alexman]

A first version of the PTW version of this mod is available here!

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae

You're also probably never going to see an AI Warrior (if I understand the build algorithms correctly).

This argument actually changed my mind about the no-tech Spearman/Archer idea, so I let it go... until I just saw that the AI will still build Warriors even though it has Bronze Working and Warrior Code:

[Dominae]

Interesting. I'm still opposed to the Spearmen/Archer change theoretically, but this doesn't mean I'm willing to try it out in practice. However, how about we only make 1, maximum 2 "controversial" changes in every new version of the mod? Even though some changes may be hardly related, I think it's best to be able to compare things to a (relatively stable) standard. In 1.10 we have increased OCN for AI and doubled Entertainers. I suggest we leave it at that for now.


Dominae

[alexman]

Agreed!

[Dominae]

Wow, we agree!


Dominae

[player1]

Originally posted by Dominae
If I had to pick I would leave them as in the stock version, as usual. player1's reason for making the change isn't very convincing; Samurai have 4 defense, so they're just as good defenders as Musetmen, should we change that too? Similarly, surely it can't be right to have the Sipahi attack higher than the Rifleman's?
Dominae

It has more to do with upg. chain of PS mod.
Since there, Med. Infantry upgrades to Riflemen, then it's not apropriate to have Bezerk with attack of 6. It would be same as having Immortal with attack of 5 which upgarde to attack 4 Med. Infantry.

That together with historical resoning convinced me to make decision.

P.S.
Shipai with higher attack then Riflemen (with MODed attack of 5) and same as Infantry (with MODed attack of 8) is OK. If there is supposed to be late age (pre WWI) Cavarly unit, I would probably make it with same attack. I do think that Siphai reflects late Cavarly units.

Samurai defense: well, they are "elite" and mobile troops and Musketmen have early guns. Looks perfectly fine for me. I do think that Samurai is more effective then Pikemen.

As for Bezerk, by reading Civilopeida description, they look more like Swordsmen reaplacement. And now comparing something like that to Guerrila or Cavarly is really a little bit strange.


P.P.S,
Now, if I must choose between 5 atatck/4hp vs original settings I would probably choose original settings.

Although I don't see big deal with cheaper upgrades.
Do we need to make Knights more expensive in order to lower value of Horsemen to Knight upgarade stretegy? I guesss not.

If that bothers you, you could make them 5/2/1 with cost of 60. That why since with original upg. cost of 100 you get atatck of 6, you'll now get atatck of 5 for cost of 80.

Who knows, maybe I could give them upped price of 60.
(still not sure)

Or maybe not, since my Musketeers (french) have 4/4/1/50 stats.

[player1]

By the way, Archer upgarde price is already changed in PS MOD by making Longbowmen cost 30 instead of 40 shields (but it has no bombardmens like in AU). So Bezerk 60gp cost not too cheap deal, if something similar other civs do for 20gp.


P.S.
Anyway, since AU has unique Longbowmen and Archer, why don't you just make Bezerk an unique unit which is NOT in Arher/Longbowmen upgr. chiain. (it does not have bombardement, RIGHT?)

[ducki]

I actually like the Archer->Beserk path.

To me, it makes a certain amount of sense.
Originally, Archers were not really part of the "organized" military, they were the peasants and peons drafted into service. A bow was very cheap to make and maintain, and anyone could fire it with a modicum of training. In essence, it was the poor man's weapon. It was only the advent of the crossbow - partly an attempt to disarm the poor (and unhappy) populace, to suppress revolution - that made the change from a military of drafted farmers to a truly professional army.

Sorry, that was a bit longwinded.
Anyway, it leads to the Viking equivalent of an "elite" fighter - the beserk - the antithesis of "organized" military, hence, the follow-up from both "warrior code" and the other "poor man's military", archers.


Anyway, that's beyond meta-game reasoning - that would probably meta-meta-meta-game reasoning, but it works for me.

I like a lot of the stuff you do in your mod, p1, but I also find some of it a bit extreme, not necessarily on a case by case basis, but some of the domino effects - one change requires multiple other units to be changed and moved from one upgrade path to another.

I'm not saying anything is wrong with that, just that it's not for me. Keep up the good work, though. Even if only 1 out of 10 suggestions from anyone make it in, that's a helluva contribution no matter what.


Besides, I'm willing to test just about anything.

[player1]

Originally posted by ducki
I like a lot of the stuff you do in your mod, p1, but I also find some of it a bit extreme, not necessarily on a case by case basis, but some of the domino effects - one change requires multiple other units to be changed and moved from one upgrade path to another.

True.

Like first making better Musketmen, which lead to better Riflemen and Infantry, Marines and Patroopers.
Also, adding swrod & bow upgarde in order to remove dead upgarde chain. But, now comes PtW, so you can't go back to Guerrilas, sicne changes are laredy deep enought.

Still, I think that PS is pretty conservative MOD comapred to all other MODs that can be found (even compared to AU, since it has no things like mass changes in govements, building maintainance and AI bahavior).

When making a MOD I was moslty guided by what would Blizzard do if it is making Civ3 (you know all those balance patches for Starcraft and Warcraft3). Which means fine, but not drastic tuning.

It think that I was doning good job, but sometimes everybody could make mistakes or change thing that are not necessary.

[ducki]

Yeah, I wasn't disparaging what you are doing at all, and I definitely realize that there are some very radical mods out there.

[player1]

True.

[Dominae]

player1, my point was just that your reasoning for making the Viking UU have 5-power instead of 6 is purely aesthetic. Sometimes it sounds like we need to change the power and defense ratings of some units to help the mod, when in fact we're just making it look prettier. I'm okay with that, but there are some pretty dumb things in civ that you just won't change. Samurai for instance would have been slaughtered by any musket regiment, which is why muskets were such an important trade item in Japan (back in the day). Or even their 2 movement points (which we've added to the Musketeer...): it simply wasn't the case that horses were useless in Medieval Japan because Samurai were just so quick. Of course, I'm talking pure realism here (aesthetics, as I put it).

Maybe I just don't like odd-powered attack values (weird, I know). But I'm also still in the mindset that the AU mod should change as little as possible, and things seem to be getting changed a lot these days. ducki's domino effect is a great example of this. There is no gameplay reason to reduce the attack effectiveness of Berzerks, so why not just leave well enough alone?


Dominae

[ducki]

I think the reason that Samurai may not require Horses of the Empire is that they came with their own, historically.

They were like the Medieval Japanese military equivalent of an IT consultant - they brought all their own tools to do the "job".