AU mod: Balancing the Governments

[nbarclay]

Regarding anarchy, I've played a couple games (or at least enough of them to get a feel) with modified versions of anarchy. With no free unit support, in the initial switch out of Despotism, just paying for building and unit upkeep plus use of the luxury slider to avoid needing specialists in most of my core cities ate up essentially all my income. With 2/2/2 support, unit upkeep was a non-issue. So I'm starting to think 1/1/1 free unit support under anarchy might offer the best balance for making anarchy clearly inferior to other governments but still not too bad. Providing at least some free unit support would also resuce the risk of creating nasty side effects for AIs at least a little; I wish I knew more about how well the AIs can cope with having to pay building and unit upkeep under anarchy (especially when they may have preexisting gpt deals draining their economies)..

By the way, I've very reluctantly decided that eliminating the standard tile penalty from anarchy is not a good thing. I absolutely hate the micromanagement hassles that the standard tile penalty creates for changes in government after the initial one. But the standard tile penalty helps make the choice of staying in Despotism a little longer rather than going through anarchy at an inconvenient time a more interesting one.

[Modo44]

Personally, I would appreciate Republic to be downgraded as a warmongering government, especially in the early stages of a game. I have succesfully wiped out neighbours as a very early Republic (a straight beeline), which does not count as just being able to react to threats. For this reason, I find a reduced free upkeep for this government more than welcome.

But, not having tested this radical change, I worry about the defensive abilities of this new Republic. The AI is difficult to keep calm with diplomacy alone, so a force is very much needed for almost any type of game. This might not be possible, if the unit support would be a flat zero. I would opt for a smaller change, namely 0 flat support, and 0/1/1 support from cities. This would still greatly reduce the military of a Republic, while allowing a decent defensive force.

As to the change of Workers, this is simply a misconception, in my opinion. It will not make the numbers substantially smaller, because the most important period (late Ancient Age, early Medieval Age) often sees a constant Worker deficit, which is sometimes experienced even by Industrious civs. In addition, it takes away one very important reason to go for Democracy, namely the powerful Workers it provides.

[joncnunn]

Fixing a couple of misconceptions:

Favored Govt / Shunned Govt has no bearing on the AIs decisions on what govts to pick.

What it does is affect AI relationships to other AI and humans on the margins by making it slightly less likely that two AIs both in Republic declare war upon each other / an AI while in Republic declares war on a human also in Repubilc and the AIs being more likely to get mad at anyone picking Fasicsm. While in stock its much more chaotic.

I think Republic is too powerful both in AU mod and stock, but eliminating all support is a bit much. I see two choices here.
Either change to 0/0/0 [18 free] or 0/1/1 [NONE free].
I'd keep the worker rate for Republic alone for the reasons Modo44 has outlined.

Thanks on your Anarchy expriment, I hadn't gotten around to my own mod [The current course got in the way] and will incorporate the no free unit suppot into it,

[nbarclay]

A straight 0/1/1 would hurt worst at exactly the wrong time: in the initial transition to Republic before a civ's cities are as well developed. That's especially true in situations with little fresh water, where almost all a civ's cities need aqueducts to grow past size 6 (and hence to contribute to unit support).

A 0/0/0 + 18 set-up might be workable. The difference between 0/0/0 + 18 and the current AU Mod's 0/1/1 + 18 would probably not be crippling in the initial transition to Republic, the time when Republic is weakest. But it would have a greater impact over time as bigger, better-developed cities increase Republic's benefit from the commerce bonus. I might mention, however, that such a change would eliminate the strategic issue of wanting to get cities above size six in order to get greater unit support. So the effect on strategic choices would not be entiely positive.

[Modo44]

I favor a per-city support for one simple reason: it has a similar impact for all map sizes. Contrary to that, 18 units mean much less on a huge map, and mean quite a lot on a small one.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Modo44
I favor a per-city support for one simple reason: it has a similar impact for all map sizes. Contrary to that, 18 units mean much less on a huge map, and mean quite a lot on a small one.

You're looking at only part of the puzzle. Bigger maps are normally played with more civs. A 160x160 huge map with 16 civs has only 28% more tiles per civ than a 100x100 map with eight civs. So while technically, free unit support might more properly scale to 23 units instead of 18 on the huge map, the difference between 18 and 23 is no big deal. Further, since corruption is lower on the larger map, the additional advantage in commerce due to lower corruption can easily make up the dfference.

Granted, with flat support, players who claim significantly more than their share of land couldn't leverage that into a free unit support advantage. But the rewards of claiming additional territory are generally ample without needing to include additional free unit support. A unit support model that helps the rich get richer just makes it that much easier for players to run away with the game.

To be fair, I should note that the difference in usable tiles per civ between a maximum-water standard map and a maximum-land huge map would be significantly larger than 28%. But since tech costs vary only with map size, not with water percentage, the fact that flat-rate unit support favors high water percentages would tend to mitigate against the fact that larger amounts of land make it possible to control more territory and thus collect more commerce for research. I do not view evening out the tech pace just a tiny bit between land-heavy and water-heavy maps as a bad thing.

So I don't see the scaling issue for flat support as being anywhere near as serious as you make it sound.

Nathan

[Dominae]

I like alexman's proposal.

The Anarchy tweak is definitely a significant departure from stock, but I'm convinced it's a necessary starting point for balancing the governments in Civ3; time and again we refer to Anarchy duration as a major deterrent to switching more than once.

I do not see any significant problem with Republic forcing a peaceful builder-type game (note that this is different from a "peacefully building up Horsemen to override the enemy when I'm good and ready" game): that's what the government was initially supposed to be. Even if Monarchy does become a slightly better choice in the early to mid-game, I regard this as a good thing as the power of the Philosophy beeline would be reduced somewhat.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

I do not see any significant problem with Republic forcing a peaceful builder-type game (note that this is different from a "peacefully building up Horsemen to override the enemy when I'm good and ready" game): that's what the government was initially supposed to be.

That is patently untrue. The fact that Republic has low rather than high war weariness leaves no doubt that Republic was intended to be able to support a certain amount of warfare. Granted, players have gotten good enough at avoiding war weariness that good players can almost certainly get away with significantly more fighting under Republic than Firaxis originally intended - especially with the greater power of bombardment units in C3C. But the image of Republic as a government that is supposed to force players to pursue a peaceful builder type game is clearly not an accurate representaton of Firaxis' intent.

[joncnunn]

I agree that the flat city over big maps isn't such a big deal as it looks, not only by nbarclay's arguments but also that Republic is still at a point where on open maps your still limited by the # of settlers you could have produced.

However, I do think that 0/1/1 [no free units] is marginally better than 0/0/0 [18 free units] because it gives an incentive to reach size 7 cities and also because it gives a definate DISINCENTIVE to switch to too early. In Stock Vanilla, it was often needed to delay switching to Republic until you built up a few marketplaces. So I don't think it would be a terriable idea if those with a shortage of natural aquaducts have to delay switching to Republic even until two techs into the middle ages waiting for either Marketplaces to boost the economy enough to pay the unit costs or Aquaducts to be constructed to directly reduce the unit costs.

On WW, I'm not sure why Firaxis bothered with the "low" level, the easyist way to counter it is to go out and conquer additional unique luxaries.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
That is patently untrue...

Actually, I have it on good authority that I'm correct in this matter. While all the governments were meant to be able to engage in warfare to some extent (i.e. in order to defend themselves), Republic and Democracy were meant to be peacecul and for peace-time. Republic's lower War Weariness was to avoid being too easily crippled by aggressive neighbors in the Ancient and early-Medieval eras. At least, that's what I was told when the discussion arose in the C3C beta.

Why is this important anyway? The AU mod is supposed to improve on the developers' choices. I just throught I would mention that tidbit regarding Republic because I thought it was a clear mistake. But obviously some disagree.

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I'm also concerned about what eliminating all free unit support for Republic would do to the AIs, especially on difficulty levels where AIs don't get massive bonus free unit support. Would AIs still use Republic, and would it be a good idea if they do?

As I said above, the AI will be able to deal quite nicely with the change because unit support gets evaluated correctly by the AI when choosing governments. I have tested this extensively. It even takes into consideration the free unit support from difficulty level, so a Deity AI will choose Republic more often than a Regent AI.

What happens if an AI switches to Republic at a time when it's relatively low on units (for example, right after fighting a major war) and then builds up a significantly higher number of units?

The AI evaluates its government choice every turn. Every turn where the AI is in the 'wrong' governent, it has a chance of switching to the 'right' government. I have tested this too.

Originally posted by Modo44
As to the change of Workers, this is simply a misconception, in my opinion. It will not make the numbers substantially smaller, because the most important period (late Ancient Age, early Medieval Age) often sees a constant Worker deficit, which is sometimes experienced even by Industrious civs.

I guess it's a matter of play style. I always try to build enough workers to keep up with the number of tiles worked by my population. At the very least though, if you build the same number of workers, you will make up some of the income lost to unit support by having more roads.

In addition, it takes away one very important reason to go for Democracy, namely the powerful Workers it provides.

Actually, switching from Republic to Democracy is much more tempting under this proposal, since unit support costs are always halved, and the penalty for Anarchy us so much less costly. Compared to these things, the faster workers are not a significant factor in the late middle ages.

Originally posted by joncnunn
Favored Govt / Shunned Govt has no bearing on the AIs decisions on what govts to pick.

Yes, it does. See earlier posts in this thread.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

Why is this important anyway? The AU mod is supposed to improve on the developers' choices.

But there is major disagreement regarding how the concept of "improvement" should be defined. What one person views as improvement, another can view as making the game worse.

In joncnunn's view, a disincentive for players to change to Republic "too early" is a good thing. In my view, deliberately sabotaging a more advanced form of government in order to make it harder to change early goes completely against how things ought to work; civilizations should want to move to a more advanced form of government at the earliest practical opportunity. In your view, Republic should be a government that more or less forces players into a peaceful strategy. In my view, it should be a more flexible government that makes a certain amount of warfare - including at least some offensive warfare - practical.

The way I look at it, what we are dealing with here is essentially a matter of taste. You place a higher value on the strategic choice of what government to use at a given time, while I place a higher value on the flexibility to make different choices while within a particular government. The issue is not one in which a proposed change would add new interesting strategic choices while leaving existing interesting strategic choices more or less alone, but rather is one in which you deliberately seek to demolish existing strategic choices that I find interesting and replace them with a different set of choices that you regard as more interesting.

To me, making major changes over such matters of taste is completely outside the proper scope of the Apolyton University Mod. The risk of seriously harming players' fun or of driving them away from using the Mod at all is completely out of proportion to whatever benefits the proposed change offers.

Or, if we want to get in the business of making such radical changes over what are essentially matters of taste, I would strongly recommend that we start putting out two versions of the AU Mod instead of one. Then we can make the more controversial proposed changes available to players that want them without forcing players who do not to either accept them or reject the entire AU Mod package. Frankly, I'm skeptical regarding how such a path would work in the long term because players who like one radical change may strongly dislike another. But I'd much rather at least give that path a try than force the entire AU Mod community to accept drastic changes over what are essentially matters of taste. And if the alternative path fails, the result will be to prove that our traditional conservative philosophy was the right one.

I'm willing to consider the possibility that something like 0/0/0 + 18 free unit support could make Republic less powerful while still keeping its fundamental nature acceptably intact. But I strongly oppose any change aimed at changing the nature of Republic in a deeper and more fundamental way.

[joncnunn]

I think the detalied analysis of what causes WW under govts subject to them does show that Firaxis intended defending yourself to be not a problem.

(Doesn't hurt WW to kill enemy units in your OWN territory; while WW will sky rocket [up to max allowed under Low WW / colapsing the govt under High WW] if your units are killed outside your cultural boundary.)

The problem is that the game counts newly conquered territory as your own. Being within your cultural boundary when it's 100% foreign leads to this exploitation. Can't be fixed by any mod; Would require a change in code to only count for WW purpo;es within the cultural boundary of a city at least half your own population are nationals.

Originally posted by Dominae

Actually, I have it on good authority that I'm correct in this matter. While all the governments were meant to be able to engage in warfare to some extent (i.e. in order to defend themselves), Republic and Democracy were meant to be peacecul and for peace-time. Republic's lower War Weariness was to avoid being too easily crippled by aggressive neighbors in the Ancient and early-Medieval eras. At least, that's what I was told when the discussion arose in the C3C beta.

Why is this important anyway? The AU mod is supposed to improve on the developers' choices. I just throught I would mention that tidbit regarding Republic because I thought it was a clear mistake. But obviously some disagree.

[joncnunn]

There is another option to delaying leaving Despotism, especally combined with this improved Anarchy, namely go to Monarchy while you finish geting ready for Republic.

Monarchy can usually be switched to immedately upon reseraching. (Exception if too large a military and no size 7 cities)

It was the usual second govt in Civ II and only fell out of favor in Civ III as an intermediate step to Republic due to the large number of turns of ZERO production III.

(The peaceful paths in Civ II was beeline to Monarchy, then get the various city improvements and grow the empire enough to make Republic reasonable, then Republic, followed by Democracy.

Another popular option especally at Diety level was beeline to Monarchy, and then beeline to Staue of Libery wonder and pick Fundamenalism. )

[joncnunn]

I know this is too radical for the AU mod, but with regard to govts, I'd also move Republic out of the Ancient Era and make it a first level optional Middle Age tech. (Mostly to eliminate it as an option from an ultra-early Philosphacy reserch)

Move Democracy to the end of the Middle Ages by requiring Metalurgy. (Free Artistery to require Music Theory and Printing Press)

Move Communism back to middle of Industrial by requiring both Nationalism & The Corporation.

Move Fasicsm back to late industrial by requiring both Nationalism & Mass Transportation.