Apolyton University Mod (Thread II)

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by aaglo
To the true nature of berserker, it should have defence dropped to 1 and hitpoints increased with 1

I propose dropping its defence, not messing with its hitpoints, and lowering its freaking cost. For God's sake, the unit is too expensive!!!

[Fosse]

Despite what I originally thought about the berserker before PTW came out (Too powerful, too expensive), I've found that it's actually pretty balanced. You're getting Cavalry level attack with invention, after all. That SHOULD cost a pretty penny. Also, remember that with the militaristic Vikings, all of your Berskerkers will be veterans unless you TRY to make your force less efficient.


Sometimes you'll have the Vikings landlocked with poor production cities, sure. But sometimes you'll have the Iroquois with no access to horses.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ah, I just keep over-REXing with the Vikings and then getting attacked by some screwheads like the Russkies or the Celts... without a good enough infrastructure to fight back.

But I'm sure I'll get my Viking timing right eventually.

[player1]

I dropped Bezerk cost to 50, and attack to 5.

That way they are not to much expensive (much lower loss if you lose them against charging Knights). They are still pretty cost effecive on attack since you can build more of them.

And, as plus, they won't have annoying Cavarly attack of 6.

5/2/1, cost 50, Amp.
Pretty good balance.

[nbarclay]

I don't view the Bezerk as having sufficient balance problems to justify making changes in the AU Mod. I'll grant that Player1's version seems more realistic, but making changes for realism purposes alone goes against the spirit of the AU Mod.

[Catt]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I don't view the Bezerk as having sufficient balance problems to justify making changes in the AU Mod. I'll grant that Player1's version seems more realistic, but making changes for realism purposes alone goes against the spirit of the AU Mod.

I agree.

Catt

[MrWhereItsAt]

That stupid Guerilla is nigh-on useless for ANYONE as it is. Isn't it just a little bit of sense to give it ignore movement cost and 2 moves? The difference between 2 moves and 3 (as for the Cavalry) is huge enough, so IMO Cavalry are still better than the Guerillas for normal (read flat land) combat situations.

[nbarclay]

Keep in mind that in the AU Mod, both infantry and guerillas have had their attack value increased from six to eight. Giving guerillas a faster movement rate, and thus the ability to retreat, on top of that would be a bit unbalancing (at least once artillery have softened up the target). Also, if guerillas had a faster movement rate, it would take away the ability for cavalry, tanks, and MAs to retreat from them.

Guerillas have two main reasons for their existence as part of the game. (1) They provide an upgrade path for ancient and medieval slow-moving offensive units. (2) They provide a more potent attacker for civs that don't have the resources for cavalry or infantry. But the very fact that they are a "no resources required" unit means that they should be, in general, clearly less potent than their counterparts that do require resources.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I don't view the Bezerk as having sufficient balance problems to justify making changes in the AU Mod. I'll grant that Player1's version seems more realistic, but making changes for realism purposes alone goes against the spirit of the AU Mod.

I also think the Berserkir is fine as it is, but I might suggest that these stats would be more historically accurate, in case anyone cares: reduced cost and reduced attack. After all, there were LOTS of these guys... they weren't Gods from the sky, even if they did believe in them.

But for play reasons, the berserk is fine. Just a change I'd like to see the future I guess.

[Buckets]

I'd like to say that some great work has been done here and my hats off to all involved. I'm only sorry that i just discovered this thread yesterday, as i've been tinkering on my own version of an 'enhanced ai/stategy' mod for months now.

If you care to hear some new ideas (maybe they're all old to you) here's what i've done differently:

Since the ai loves hospitals and takes forever to build factories, i've added 2 happiness to hospitals and 2 unhappines to factories to 'reward' growth and 'punish' production. Of course the net result is the same amount of happiness in the end. A nice side-effect is the player has the choice of not building factories at all, hence reaping more happiness >more pop >more commerce, which i think enhances the strategical choice between commerce and shields. Another nice side-effect is that 'Cure for cancer' can now be modded to double the happiness of hospitals (+2 in any city w hospital), which is more realistic.

Give aircraft movement of 2. This allows them to rebase and attack/perform a mission on the same turn, which compared to the movement bonus of railroads, is also more realistic. Note that without blitz, aircraft can only do one bombing run anyway and recon takes up all remaining movement points. However, i'm thinking of eliminating the extra movement from bombers, mainly since it requires skipping their turns if they have movent points left, but also i imagine they do rebase slower than fighters.

Eliminate 'build city' from desert, tundra, forest, jungle and mountains (as before). This make certain regions purely uninhabitable (as they should be) and the ai has no trouble dealing with it. In fact i think it helps them because they won't build cities in usesless desolate locations. And for the first time i actaully saw decent use of colonies! Note that ai's with the 'build often: trade' are more likely to build colonies. The only human advantage here is that the human can first order workers to clear forest/jungle, then settle. But, from my playtesting, i've seen little advantage to this until the late game. It's usually much better to just find a different spot and settle sooner, as the ai does. But hey, if you want to spend 24 worker turns in ancient times to claim a scrap of jungle, be my guest...

Make nearly all units 'wheeled' until replaceable parts. (ie- all but worker, settler, scout, infantry, marine, and paratrooper. plus i suppose guerilla, for ptw.) This means that solid strips of moutain and jungle are now obstacles that must be roaded before normal units may pass. Again, the ai deals with this fairly well. It will not build roads, unless it's within their borders (or for the sake of a colony), but it will rather try to find another way around (quite often by sea). An interesting effect is that non-expansionist civs can be as isolated by jungle and mountain as by islands. This improves the expansionist trait by making them the 'discoverers'. So, again it think this adds to strategic depth and realism. ps- It's been noticed that the ai can move wheled units where they're not supposed to go if they're accompanying settlers. I think this is okay and reasonable since it's usually one defender and they build a road eventually.

Added 4 commerce to gold, for a total bonus of 8. It's about who owns what terrain, really. If you don't have it, you'd better go get it.

Fortresses provide 100% bonus. The ai uses them on their colonies, and occasionally on choke points. Okay, maybe this is too advantageous for the human, but when they do build fortresses, it should be worhtwhile.

Smart Weapons-removed prerequisite Satellites. This is to allow precision strikes somewhat earlier. Precision strikes are the only real reason to build stealth, and what makes the f-15 good, so to balance these units, Smart Weapons comes (possibly) sooner. There's redundancy anyway in the fact that Integrated Defence requires satellites and smart weapons, while smart weapons require satellites.

I've also added upgraded citizens as techs advance. (are you opposed to adding citizens?) The ai loves this as it always chooses the best ones and uses lots of them in size 20+ cities.

I've decided to go all out and change the Marine to 12.8.1, requires rubber, and the paratrooper to 8.12.1 requires oil. Reasoning? The ai does not use the 'special ability of these units (that i've ever seen in over a year...) so i made them into 'alternative' attackers/defenders. For example, you have oil but lack rubber, the paratrooper makes a good defender substitute for MI. If you have rubber but no oil, the marine will make a good attacker substitute for tanks. The ai recognizes this (with the proper flags attached) and you will see them use these units only if they lack resources.

One major difference is that i've taken the approach of decreasing the OCN, rather than increasing it. Why? Thinking about it, there's really only one strategy in Civ3 - expand. Playing Civ3 can be like watching a snowball build -slowly. All the 'victories' come from a general domination strategy. Let me put it this way: What are the advantages of staying small, under your OCN? The ai's atttitude towards you is better.... but then they bully you despite that. Corruption is lower ....but overall production is lower too. Well, that's about it, whopee. Now, what are the advantages of expanding? where do i start? resources, power rating, science, production, culture... need i go on? The advantages of claiming territory all willy-nilly far outweighs the strategic choices of 'optimal placement'. In a nutshell, big is good, small is bad. So, in order to give an advantage to small civs and a penalty to large civs, i've lowered the ocn, added 'free units' to all government types (yes i know this will be map size specicfic), lowered the unit support of communism/monarchy/despotism to half, and doulbled the unit support cost of democracy/republic. The theory is that at a certain optimal size, unit support is equal to the unmodded rules, above is more costly and below is less costly. I may not have gotten the math right but (for me) i think it's a step in the right direction. Oh, and when the ocn only allows 1-2 rings of cities, the ai can't really make as bad a placement choice for the FP.

Speaking of the FP, i've made the real Palace unbuildable, for obvious reasons.

Sorry that was so long (first post here). Whether you use these things or not, i hope these ideas help in some way.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Buckets, those suggestions were like buckets of gold.

Seriously, those are all very good suggestions. I would have to differ with the final one, though, about the palace. Real palaces are built, and capitals shifted, all the time (relatively speaking) in the history of nations. Just look at the Roman empire. From Rome to Byzantium. Or China, from Xian to Beijing. Or Japan, from Osaka to Tokyo... but you get the picture.

Other than that, though, I think those are great ideas, and seem to pan out well in use, too. Do you have a mod we could D/L?

[Nor Me]

Buckets, all very interesting suggestrions .

Unfortunately, I don't rate the chances of getting any of them implemented very highly. Some of them are too radical for this MOD. About the others, I've seen similar suggestions already debated to the death. You'll notice the link to 2 prevoious ~500 post threads in the title. Not to mention the threads for player1's Patch Suggestion MOD.

[Dominae]

Yup Buckets, those are some good suggestsions. I may have time to go back and comment on each in turn later. For now, I must say that most of them fit into the "too radical a change from stock Civ3" category.

Concerning the OCN, you have to consider the fact that the AI's decision to claim more land is directly related to this value. Lowering it means that AIs will not expand. As you said, expanding is all-powerful, so you with your change you would end up having large, powerful and inefficient human empires, and small, weak and efficient AI empires. The human would be at the advantage here (moreso than usual).


Dominae

[Nor Me]

To reply to specific suggesttions:

Originally posted by Buckets
Since the ai loves hospitals and takes forever to build factories, i've added 2 happiness to hospitals and 2 unhappines to factories to 'reward' growth and 'punish' production. .

I suggested giving factories the abilities of a barracks to make the AI build them more often but that was vetoed as too radical because the human could save 1 gold a city per turn! You risk reinforcing already bad AI build choices so that would have to be playtested. The human knows how to use the luxury slider properly so has the advantage in dealing with unhappiness. Are you sure your not underestimating the AIs ability to build factories when its at peace.
If it passes those tests, it's a good change but I don't see alexman agreeing with it

Eliminate 'build city' from desert, tundra, forest, jungle and mountains (as before).

Firstly, does the map generator know that these are uninhabitable? This could give very bad starting positions and inaccessible resources on islands. Does the AI eventually colonise forest/jungle?
I've played Marla's world map with desert and tundra uninhabitable (and unreforestable) and I've not seen oil move to an arctic island but I've not tried it with generated maps.

Make nearly all units 'wheeled' until replaceable parts. (ie- all but worker, settler, scout, infantry, marine, and paratrooper. plus i suppose guerilla, for ptw.)

I'll suspend judgement about the early effects of this until I've tried it but radical is an understatement for this one. I've seen the AI unload wheeled tanks on the other side of a jungle before now. Tanks were originally wheeled in this mod but it's been changed.

Added 4 commerce to gold, for a total bonus of 8. It's about who owns what terrain, really. If you don't have it, you'd better go get it.

a more reasonable change but why?

Fortresses provide 100% bonus.

I think that's already been suggested and debated. Only the human can use forts effectively when they're useful.

Smart Weapons-removed prerequisite Satellites.

Suprisingly for civ, I can see the realism behind the original prerequisites. Although this is a change that might be strategically more whatever. ( WTF do I mean by realism in that sentence anyway. It's certainly not Platonism nor even pagmatism.)

I've also added upgraded citizens as techs advance. (are you opposed to adding citizens?) The ai loves this as it always chooses the best ones and uses lots of them in size 20+ cities.

The effects of the original specialists have already been doubled. There are alternative uses such as highly corrupt cities that have to be balanced. If it can be shown that increasing the effect of specialists at any point helps the AI and it works graphically then why not?

I've decided to go all out and change the Marine to 12.8.1, requires rubber, and the paratrooper to 8.12.1 requires oil. Reasoning? The ai does not use the 'special ability of these units (that i've ever seen in over a year...) so i made them into 'alternative' attackers/defenders. For example, you have oil but lack rubber, the paratrooper makes a good defender substitute for MI.

Firstly, I've seen the AI use both abilities. In the case of marines, I've seen it use it effectively (although I've not yet seen a 1 square island fall). I've also finished off a conquest victory with 10.8.1 marines because they could be researched earlier than tanks. Is giving the AI an alternative defender a good idea? Or do we want civs with no rubber to die?

One major difference is that i've taken the approach of decreasing the OCN, rather than increasing it.

As Dominae said, the AI would really take the perfectonist approach when it might be better to have lots of corrupt cities. With a well placed FP, a human can have a productive empire twice the size of any AI. Lots of 95% corrupt cities can be used for specialists or conscripts. A Communist empire at 5 times the OCN and enough corruption reducing improvements might have every city very corrupt but it can outproduce any other reasonably sized empire.

Speaking of the FP, i've made the real Palace unbuildable, for obvious reasons.

I've tried this. But it just means I should be prepared to palace jump (abandon the capital) which is even more of a silly exploit than just building it elsewhere.

[nbarclay]

I'm not going to address all of Buckets' proposals right now, but I'll go ahead and address a few of them.

Giving aircraft the ability to rebase and then do something else is an intriguing proposition. If others use aircraft as rarely as I do, it could be useful from an "additional strategic options" perspective as long as it doesn't undercut AI effectiveness unacceptably. (The thing that drives me nuts about aircraft is how hard it is to get them where they're needed in time to use them effectively. Defensively, artillery can go anywhere on the continent to bombard sufficiently close enemy ships or troops, while aircraft are only useful if the enemy happens to come near where the aircraft are. Offensively, aircraft can't keep up with a full-speed MA blitz. Giving aircraft an extra movement point would go a long way toward offsetting the extremely limited range of Civ 3 aircraft.

Adding the "wheeled" flag to most units has the undesirable side effect of making bad starting positions a lot worse. Sometimes there's only room for a handful of cities (maybe even just one or two with real growth potential) near the starting position and then you have to cross several mountain or jungle tiles to get anywhere else. Such situations are hard enough to deal with without having to road through the tough territory to get military units out (especially for a non-industrious civ).

I don't like the idea of taking away the ability to settle other terrain types. Virtually any type of terrain can support at least small settlements in the real world (even deserts tend to have an occasional oasis), and I think the difficulty of making cities with only desert, jungle, forest, or tundra available grow reflects that. Also note that with a harbor, a coastal tundra city can be well worth having if only for the extra commerce.

Making gold more valuable than it already is in terms of commerce would tend to give a civ that can exploit gold early too much of an advantage. And unless AIs know to plant cities on gold hills to get the commerce bonus without sacrificing growth, it would also tend to shift the balance in favor of human players. I see no significant advantage in terms of gameplay that would offset those factors. (Keep in mind that conquered gold would tend to be far enough away not to be worth a whole lot in the early game even at twice the value.)

The idea of a happiness bonus for hospitals and a happiness penalty for factories is intriguing. With my usual strategy of having many cities not really designed to grow past size 12, Sanitation tends to be a relatively low priority for me these days and many of my cities never do get hospitals. A happiness bonus for hospitals would shift the balance of advantage a bit away from such strategies.