AU mod: The Colosseum

[Theseus]

acb

pvzh on the panel

[lockstep]

ACB

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by nbarclay
To the extent that the difference between one choice and another is too small to make a meaningful difference, the change would add complexity to the game without adding genuine strategic depth, and therefore would violate the philosophy of the AU Mod.

I thought this would at worst fall into the last paragraph's mention of 'cosmetic change' even if the added commerce doesn't help the AI.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

I thought this would at worst fall into the last paragraph's mention of 'cosmetic change' even if the added commerce doesn't help the AI.

The full description of that part is, "cosmetic changes that add flavor but do not affect game-play." For you, the tourism bonus might fit into that category pretty well. But consider the drastic changes punkbass2000 was contemplating to his early-game strategy. I seriously doubt that I would alter my strategy as drastically (and certainly not on a regular basis), but neither can I conclude in advance that the impact on how I play would be negligible. So however much the change might appear almost purely cosmetic in terms of how it would probably affect your game-play, I think the impact across the community as a whole would have been a lot more than just cosmetic.

[alexman]

Not that it matters, but my vote is CBA.

I think the panel has missed an opportunity to take advantage of an elegant, minimum-change solution to the early Colosseum problem, and instead stuck with a change that affects strategy in the entire game.

[nbarclay]

I guess we'll just have to continue to disagree regarding how "elegant" and "minimum" the proposed change was, and regarding whether players' rarely building early colosseums constitutes a genuine problem. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where people who look at a situation in different ways can follow reasoning that is perfectly logical yet reach opposite conclusions. That's the hardest kind of situation to reach a genuine consensus regarding.

[Dominae]

What about making the Palace a Tourist Attraction, or has that been implemented already?

[JimiD]

Hmmm...

Palace jump dilemas..... (nice car)

this I do like.

[alexman]

Let's continue this discussion out of the Colosseum thread.
The Palace as a tourist attraction was pvzh's original idea.

[nbarclay]

How about if we move the discussion of the palace idea back to the a neat bug thread where this whole thing started?

[Theseus]

Originally posted by alexman
Not that it matters, but my vote is CBA.

I think the panel has missed an opportunity to take advantage of an elegant, minimum-change solution to the early Colosseum problem, and instead stuck with a change that affects strategy in the entire game.

Sorry, alex, that I haven't participated more in this debate. While I think the suggested change interesting, I have thus far thought that the changes we have already made to the Colosseum are mostly sufficient... I now regularly build them before Cathedrals, and sometimes even before Temples.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The full description of that part is...

You continue to argue both ends of the dispute and fail to distinguish between the two when attempting to make a point.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

You continue to argue both ends of the dispute and fail to distinguish between the two when attempting to make a point.

I don't think that's what I'm doing. Suppose it were clear to everyone that the tourist attraction bonus would essentially never make it worth changing the priority that players give to building colosseums. Under those conditions, it could be argued that the tourist attraction bonus would add flavor to the colosseums players were going to build anyhow without significantly affecting gameplay. If players would build more colosseums, they would do so only for reasons of flavor, not for reasons of strategic advantage. That, in my view, could qualify as a cosmetic change that adds flavor without affecting gameplay (assuming the bonus would never be large enough to have a meaningful impact).

But the actual situation wiith the proposed change was that even if players could never have gotten more than a very small advantage from building more and earlier colosseums, at least some players would have made significant changes in how they play in pursuit of whatever advantages were available. That made the impact of the proposed change a whole lot more than just something cosmetic that wouldn't affect gameplay.

[Rommel2D]

What I fail to see even hinted at in the philosophy is that challenging the human player is a valid reason to disregard a proposed change. This would not be a random, destabilizing change- the game mechanics themselves are definite and clear-cut. The AI will not become confused and lose it's way trying to figure out the situation. If your fears have any basis, some players would make mistakes and the AI would benefit. The player would be presented with a new challenge and hopefully learn something about the game as a whole based on this new perspective. If you want to argue the letter of what was written in alexman's original post, I have no answer. However, it seemed to me this situation was precisely what the AU was supposed to be about...

[nbarclay]

Basically, the question comes down to how the benefits of the proposed change in terms of improving strategic choices compare with the cost in terms of moving the feel of the game away from stock. Since people's views regarding both of those issues involve major subjective elements, perfectly reasonable people can understand each other's positions perfectly yet still never be able to reach an agreement. Once we reach that point - and I think we pretty much have here - the best that we can do is (as one of my teachers used to put it) agree to disagree without being disagreeable.