AU mod: Balancing the Governments

[nbarclay]

I hate corruption myself, so I can certainly sympathize with that.

(Edit: More precisely, I view corruption as being at least a useful evil, if not an entirely necessary one. Corruption plays a useful role in counteracting the traditional "the rich get richer" tendency of 4X games, but I still don't consider it a lot of fun when I have cities that are next to worthless.)

[nbarclay]

Regarding the balance between Republic and Monarchy, the thought occurred to me that one of the things that makes Republic seem like it's so nearly always the right choice for many players is probably that a lot of us tend to play with combinations of difficulty level and starting position where we essentially always win. When playing on a difficulty level that is easy relative to a player's skill, the AIs don't produce as many military units as they would on a higher level. That, in turn, means that players can get by safely with fewer units (making Republic's support costs less of an issue) and will have fewer problems with war weariness (since they will lose fewer units offensively and have fewer AI units attack them in the course of conquering the same territory, and are more likely to have clear technological superiority on their side as well). Couple that with a larger empire size at any given stage of the game (since AIs won't REX quite as effectively and are easier to take territory from) and Republic is a good bit more advantageous when players are playing on a difficulty level that is fairly easy for them than it would be in tougher games. Similarly, a good starting position puts players in a stronger position in size and productivity, helping them use Republic more effectively.

Thus, a player who almost always chooses Republic might find himself using Monarchy a good bit more if he moved up a difficulty level and/or played out every starting position. I don't know exactly how much difference difficulty level and starting position make in whether Republic or Monarchy is preferable, but I'm sure they make at least some difference.

Nathan

[Ision]

If a SPHQ option were to be added to fascism - where should it be available - with the Fascism tech itself, or like Commie - with espionage? Personally I would think that having it already available with Fascism would be the better option.

Also, what about eliminating the Xeno flag from fascism? Would this not also be a great boost for this Gov? Trust me, I am as much of a purist as anyone - and strongly dislike changes that remove the unique flavor of the Govs - ( from a purist/historical point of view there would also be some type of 'genocide' flag for commie as well) - but thats not the point really - within the context of making Fascsim a more viable AI gov for increasing late game AI viability - would not the addition of a SPHQ combined with no Xeno flag do the trick?

or would it still fall short?

Ision

[Ision]

One more thought - and this is related to my last post.

Currently Police Stations are availbale with Commie - if as we have already seen - these mid-sized AIs are going to continue going Fascist - would it not be better to move police station availablity to Nationalism?

This would give the AI access to a corruption reducing building - without having to research yet another Totalitarian optional tech?

OR - police stations could be made available with Fascsim instead - this would still help the AI, while also denying the human player (whom almost always goes Commie when he decides to be totalitarian) instant access to another corruption reducing building.

Ision

PS: Alexman, I cannot thank you enough for your 'flavors' addition - my enjoyment of the game has increased significantly due to your efforts.

[ducki]

This would give the AI access to a corruption reducing building - without having to research yet another Totalitarian optional tech?

It would also give the player an advantage in getting Police Stations up without having to get Communism.

I'd rather see Police Stations available with both Communism and Fascism. That way the player still has to acquire at least one of those two techs, either by research or by diplomacy, in order to build Police Stations, and the AI is going to get them one way or the other, if not both.
Can we have two techs enable the same building in an "OR" way, or would it end up being an "AND"?

[Ision]

To my knowledge it is one or the other - not both. I do not believe that you can make a building available with 2 different techs.

Ision

[alexman]

AU mod panel, please vote within 48 hours.

Originally posted by alexman
1. To make Feudalism more useful as a first government:

• A: No change from 1.03b (1gpt unit support).
• B: Reduce corruption for Feudalism to minimal (1gpt unit support).
• C: Reduce corruption for Feudalism to minimal and restore 3gpt unit support.
• D: Remove war weariness from Feudalism and restore 3gpt unit support.
  Add low war weariness to Monarchy.
• E: Remove war weariness from Feudalism and restore 3gpt unit support.

2. To make Fascism more useful as a late-game warmongering government:

• A: No change.
• B: Reduce corruption for Fascism to minimal.
• C: Increase corruption for Fascism to Rampant, and give trade bonus.
• D: Add another Secret Police HQ Wonder for Fascism, that functions exactly as a Forbidden Palace.

3. To make Republic less useful as a late-game warmongering government:

• A: No change from 1.03b. (Republic 1/2/2 support)
• B: Increase war weariness of Republic to high (1/2/2).
• C: Reduce free unit support for Republic to 1/1/1.
• D: Reduce free unit support for Republic to 0/1/1 and add a flat 12 free unit support.

4. To make Democracy considerably better than the Republic so a switch is more often worth it:

• A: No change from 1.03b (Democracy 1/2/2 support).
• B: Democracy gets the same free unit support as Republic.
• C: Democracy gets communal corruption model and no free unit support.
• D: Reduce war weariness of Democracy to low.

[alexman]

My votes:

1. CABDE
2. CDBA
3. DCAB
4. CBAD

[ZargonX]

1. CABDE
2. BCDA
3. DCBA
4. CBAD

[Stuie]

1. CBADE
2. CBDA
3. DCBA
4. BCAD

[lockstep]

1: BCAED
2: BCAD
3: CADB
4: BCAD

[Nor Me]

1. BACED
2. BDAC
3. DACB
4. CBAD

[Nor Me]

As I missed the debate on this one, I'd like to point out that a Democracy with communal corruption would help change the balance of what to do with a large empire back to building and is probably the only way of doing that. The recent improvement to Communism means than attacking may be better for science.

A disadvantage is that it really hurts the Commercial trait.

[nbarclay]

After thinking about it a while, I'm starting to think that Democracy with communal corruption would be a total disaster. The power of communal corruption is almost directly proportional to a civ's size, and human players often build vastly bigger empires than AIs do. With human players and AIs both in Democracy under the standard rules, corruption negates a significant part of the research advantage the human gets from having a larger empire, and Communism even at its best provides no more than a small research advantage compared with Democracy. But a verson of Democracy with communal corruption would give a human empire grown large from earlier conquest a vastly larger research advantage even than what we already enjoy. Further, players could get both that research advantage and the production advantage that Communism provides at the same time, and could use excess gold to rush buy (which Communists can't).

Also consider the power that Religious civs would have with communal Democracy. They could switch to Democracy and still fight to their hearts' content with the confidence that they can always switch to Communism temporarily if war weariness gets too bad. Granted, a similar situation exists with Monarchy and Republic now, but with Republic/Monarchy, corruption eats into the value of the conquered lands rather considerably and the war weariness involved is Low, not High (making the difficulty of switching governments for nonreligious civs less likely to be crippling if they're in Republic). With both Democracy and Communism communal, religious civs could use their ability to switch governments to do extensive fighting and could get essentially full value out of their conquered lands whichever government they are in. Consider the implications of that for AIs' ability to compete!

All in all, changing Democracy to have communal corruption would tilt the balance far more in favor of human players and against the AIs than it is now. Ironically, if we think Communism is now looking too good compared with Democracy, a much better solution would be to (gasp!) eliminate the State Police Headquarters.

Nathan

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The power of communal corruption is almost directly proportional to a civ's size, and human players often build vastly bigger empires than AIs do.

Yes, this is often true, but it is often not true as well. It all depends on the difficulty level that you choose, especially compared to your ability.

Communal Democracy will make higher difficulty levels harder, and lower ones easier, but that doesn't mean that it favors the human over the AI.

When you have a larger empire than that of the AI, chances are that you are going to win anyway. I don't see the point of delaying the victory. Personally, I find the game much less exciting after I have reached the point where I know I am going to win and I just have to play it out.

As for strengthening the Religious trait, I don't view that as a bad thing. It's a small price to pay for having to make interesting choices as a non-religious civilization.

Having said all that, I think removing the SPHQ is a good idea too.