Apolyton University Mod (PTW version)

[Dominae]

ducki, the AI uses slave Workers. The fact is that the AI is better at terraforming that at bombarding. Yes, the human player puts slave Workers to better use, but then what do we not do better than the AI (forget the AI's bonuses for high difficulties)?

I do not think it is possible to give bombard units a nationality, because they cost no pop to produce. Again, this would not help because the real problem is that the AI does not use bombard well. The fact that the human player can capture bombard units only makes this more apparent.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alexman
OK, no lethal land bombard for Hwach'a. Although I'm not convinced that it would be more overpowering than, say, the Ottoman UU.

We can try it, but for the human player it means no offensive casualties while the Hwach'a is available (and beyond; I would use lethal bombard Hwach'a with Artillery during the Infantry age to accomplish the same thing). The AI will never benefit from this change.

Why lethal sea bombard? I thought we were discussing the Korean UU.

In any case, let's change the upgrade path so that cannons can be captured by the Koreans.

Yes.


Dominae

[Catt]

I never knew that the Koreans can't capture cannons - if that's true, and there's a way to fix it, I say fix it.

on lethal bombardment. A slightly less on lethal sea bombardment. As we all seem to agree, the AI is woefully unerskilled in its use of bombarment units -- anything done to strengthen such units favors the human. I think the letahl sea bombarment for fighter planes doesn't unduly tilt the scales more toward the human, but I've just never seen the AI use land-based bombardment units (particularly in the age of RR) effectively.

The foregoing view is with respect to the AU Mod as a standalone, as I get the sense that a lot of people play regular games with the mod all the time. I wouldn't necessarily be against lethal bombard for the Hwach'a in an AU course game -- provided the human civ wasn't the Koreans, of course .

Catt

Edit: changed ". . . seen the AI use land bombardment . . ." to ". . . seen the AI use land-based bombardment units . . ." at the end of the second paragraph.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
Why lethal sea bombard? I thought we were discussing the Korean UU.

We are. lethal sea bombard means that the Korean UU would be able to sink ships. Unrealistic, but they would at least get a GA. The AI regularly uses cannons to fire at ships, so it would benefit.

Just an idea. Moving along!

[ducki]

Originally posted by Catt
I've just never seen the AI use land-based bombardment units (particularly in the age of RR) effectively.

I've never even seen the AI build an effective land-based bombardment force...

...which may be why I don't see them as a Captured Unit Problem.

If I were able to capture 20 cannon/arty in one go, I'd probably flip my lid.



Edited to contribute: Is there a way to convince the AI to build (much much) more Cannon/Arty without giving the human an undue advantage? Maybe the poor usage is due to low numbers?

[Jaybe]

Go ahead ducki. Let THE AI capture 20 of YOUR artillery and see how YOU feel about it!

Within a few turns, you may see the AI offensively use artillery. They keep all their home-built bombards at home, but captured ones eventually get sent to the front.

[ducki]

Actually, Jaybe, that's a stellar idea.
I think I've got a save from au203 wh...
no, damn, 203 won't work.

I'll find something and experiment to see if the AI will use a "real" artillery stack.

[Dominae]

I refuse to build Artillery specifically for use by the AI. I know where this is going, too: "Let's give each AI civ a stack of 10 Catapults to start out the game with!". Bleh.


Dominae

[ducki]

No, that's not where I am going with this.

If anyone can save me the time, what does the AI do when it suddenly finds itself in possession of a stack of bombard units?


I'm genuinely curious, but mostly to see if there's a way to get the AI to either use them in a way that actually does good, or spend the shields on something that it will use semi-effectively.

[Jaybe]

The AI offensive use of artillery story:

I was Alexander, you see, and next door was Hannibal the Cannibal. He was stronger, and I hadn't the room or the force to successfully wage war against him. My wars became defensive, and I was falling behind in tech. I had repl. parts and rubber while Hannibal was just getting tanks....

I fought off his tanks with artillery, infantry, cavalry & guerillas losing only 1/5 my cities, but when he started escorting his tanks with mech, it got bad. I played to the end....
(end of babbling)

I had 2-3 instances where my cities with artillery were lost. Hannibal would take these pieces home, and then a few turns later they would reappear in an offensive stack, 2-4 arty grouped together. They would be used against both improvements and target cities. I do NOT remember if they were used against enemy units outside of cities (I may not have had much of those by that time).

[EDIT] My speculation is that AI arty stays in the city it was built in. Unfortunately they do not bombard even when enemy units are within range. All others (i.e., captured) are free to rumble.

[aaglo]

I have a question, which may have been asked previously.

Why does the democracy give 1 free unit/city and 2 free units/metropol? I think that the democracy without this addition is a superior government.

I would suggest, that either drop that, or change republic back to nuisance corruption.

With this current model, there is no point using republic government, not even for religious civs...

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by aaglo
I have a question, which may have been asked previously.

Why does the democracy give 1 free unit/city and 2 free units/metropol? I think that the democracy without this addition is a superior government.

I would suggest, that either drop that, or change republic back to nuisance corruption.

With this current model, there is no point using republic government, not even for religious civs...

Why should a civ that has Democracy use Republic under any but the most special of circumstances? The original idea behind the changes was that non-religious civs would almost invariably go into Republic and stay there the rest of the game, never bothering to switch to Democracy. Democracy has to be significantly better than Republic to provide any incentive for non-religious civs to switch to the more advanced government.

Nathan

[Fosse]

Speaking of giving incentive to have non-religous civs switch to Democracy running a Republic...

What if Republic also had the same high war-weariness of Democracy? This would make Republic less appealing when compared to Democracy than it is now, and make the ancient era choice between Republic and Monarchy more strategically viable.
If we agree that the longer amounts of time that wars in the ancient and middle ages represent (500 years to something like 20... don't have the numbers in front of me) then Republic still allows for much longer wars (in years) than Democracy, so the spirit of the two isn't really altered.

However, currently the low weariness of Republic allows for it to be moot. I've been at war in my current AU game in a Republic against two civs for maybe a hundred turns or so, and I've had ONE citizen become unhappy because of it.

[aaglo]

The readme-txt says:

Reduced all resistance modifiers versus Communism by 5.
Doubled assimilation chance for Communism.

What if these would be dropped out, and change hurrying from population to cash?

[alexman]

Aaglo, I agree that rush-buying is better than pop-rushing, but it's not that much better. Changing the rush method would change the flavor of Communism, without significantly improving it compared to Monarchy. I'm not sure I like the change.

What is needed to make this government balanced is a way to reduce corruption. Perhaps we can try a communism-specific building next.

What do people think of the guerilla zero-bombard change? I'm still finishing up AU 203 and the AI guerillas are annoying, I like it. What does everyone think if we also give them a ZOC? It would certainly be realistic and in the spirit of zero-bombard to have a free shot at passing enemy Tanks.