AU mod: The Statue of Zeus

[vmxa1]

My experience has been that two civs have access to Ivory most of the time, but not always (last game). That is my view for most luxs, they are often in two civs lands, but rarely more than that.

Call it 1 in 5 chance for an 8 civ game, so is that a prblem or not?
Of course as Nathan said, you may be able to trade or take it from someone, so that puts in some what more likely that you could build the wonder.

All I asks is that if I don't have, that my neighbors don't either. Worse case for me is the biggest civ on my landmass gets the wonder and is not very close to me, so I have little chance to take it before they hit me with lots of AC's.

[Jeem]

I'm with Dominae on this one. All Zeus tends to do is turn a civ which is already in a good position into an uber-civ. That's why I'd rather a lack of resources were desirable for building it.

If we could at least build it (without needing Ivory) and deny a civ with ivory the chance of free AC, it would be a lot better. In other words, everyone can build it, but only civs with Ivory can get the free AC. This should be possible I think?

[bongo]

So you want SoZ to produce ACs only when that civ have acces to ivory? Interesting concept, the AI would of course not 'understand' it, but they may still build it, thereby denying it to other civs.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by bongo

Funny you mentioned that, cause that exactly what have happened in ALL my games so far.


(well, it's more like my only game actually... )

This may not mean much in the long term, but in all 3 of my Epic games I have not had Iron nor Horses near me. In two cases I got the SoZ and managed to secure at least one of the resources with my first civ conquest. I admit that it is sheer fantastic luck of the draw to have Ivory nearby those two games, but from the maps I have generated I have seen a disturbing number of occasions where neither of those critical early strat resources have been anywhere near me (or several other civs). Although no-one except perhaps those with nothing else to do but civ (oh how I wish!) or the programmers could claim to have seen enough C3C to make a proper call on the likelihood of these events, I am certainly beginning to believe lacking the starting resources is not an uncommon occurrence.

Dom, the greatest use for the SoZ is in just such the situation you describe. If you can think of other situations that ACavs are greatly useful please let me know! ACavs have decent stats, but they are hardly fantastic if you and/or your neighbours have Iron and Horses anyway. Despite my love of them though, I admit they redress the balance a little TOO far. I would still prefer to lessen the impact of ACavs however with a reduction of stats or a reduction in the frequency one is generated rather than the other solutions proposed here.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Dom, the greatest use for the SoZ is in just such the situation you describe.

As you just stated, it's a very rare situation. Far more likely will be a situation where a civ has either Horses, Iron or both and access to Ivory. Just because it's great in the situation where it saves an Iron-less and Horse-less game does not mean it was meant to be that way. Are you suggesting that all Iron-less, Horse-less civs should start close to Ivory?

If you can think of other situations that ACavs are greatly useful please let me know! ACavs have decent stats, but they are hardly fantastic if you and/or your neighbours have Iron and Horses anyway.

That's the way it's supposed to be. Not every Wonder needs to be "fantastic". Still, the Statue of Zeus is no slouch: it removes some military production burden on your cities and gives you an edge in combat. The fact that only one (rarely, two) civs have the ability to do this makes it luck-dependent and therefore unstrategic.

Luck-dependent things should be small and plentiful (like combat results, etc.) not large and rare (like the ability to build the Statue of Zeus).


Dominae

[Arrian]

What about a combination of two of the relatively minor change options:

removing the hp bonus + increasing the shield cost to 300?
-or-
removing the hp bonus + increasing the # of turns between AC's (from 5 to 7 or 8).
-or increasing the shield cost + increasing the # of turns.

Stuff like that. Stuff that might make you think twice about whether or not it's worth building if you already have iron and horses (if it's 300 shields, perhaps you might rather toss that and try for the Pyramids).

-Arrian, AU lurker

p.s. I've gotten the SoZ once. It did feel overpowered.

I've also seen the SoZ turn an AI into a quasi-KIA (they were in the midst of becoming one when I hit them from behind and flattened them). Persia w/iron, horses + SoZ is nasty.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by ducki
No, no, no to horses.

If you ever have a game where you don't have and can't get to horses, you'll understand my stringence.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
A definite no to changing the resource requirement to Horses. The SoZ's biggest advantage for me, and doubtless for others, is a second chance if you don't get Horses.

I edited the first post to include the widespread unpopularity of the 'SoZ requires horses' proposal.

(Sidenote: If I'd like to have a second chance, I wouldn't want this chance to be dependend on ivory. )

Originally posted by nbarclay
The fact that ivory is required can add a number of strategic dimensions that would not exist if it were not required or if a more widely available resource were substituted ...With no more than we've played C3C thus far, it is far too early to write off the strategic dimensions of that requirement as uninteresting.

In my opinion, making a (unit-spawning!) wonder dependend on a luxury resource simply means replacing strategy with a game of dice. Neither is it fun to build the SoZ and steamroll the AI's on my continent, nor is it fun to cope with an AI that managed to build the SoZ while I had no ivory.

As for the argument 'limited experience with C3C's gameplay' - this is true for me and may be true for you as well, but I'm quite sure that Dominae (who was one of the first forum members to criticize SoZ's ivory requirement) was a beta tester.

Originally posted by Arrian
What about ... stuff that might make you think twice about whether or not it's worth building if you already have iron and horses (if it's 300 shields, perhaps you might rather toss that and try for the Pyramids).

-Arrian, AU lurker

p.s. I've gotten the SoZ once. It did feel overpowered.

I agree with you insofar as the SoZ may be even overpowered if available for everyone - that's why I edited my first post to include additional suggestions to tune this wonder down. But my main concern is not that SoZ is overpowered, but that its availability is largely dependend on luck. This is a bad design decision IMO, and needs to be changed.

To put it another way: If the Statue of Zeus didn't require any resource in the first place (like most of the Great Wonders under stock rules), and you would prefer to play under stock rules or in any case to 'change as little as possible' (part of the AU mod philosophy), what would be your main concern? That the SoZ should require ivory?

[Arrian]

I guess you're right about the ivory requirement. If the stock game didn't have a resource requirement, adding one wouldn't even occur to me. My main concern would be cost-benifit (too little cost, to much benifit).

-Arrian

[petermarkab]

Re: AU mod: The Statue of Zeus

Rather than reduce the potency of SoZ and it's ivory requirement, why not introduce one or two new wonders similarly dependent on other luxuries, such that six or seven civs have an excellent chance at completing one of them.

For example, a new wonder could be 'The Praetorian Guard', available with Construction, requiring incense, and producing a 'Praetorian Guard' (!) every 5 turns, with stats [1,3,1, zone of control].

Regards,

Pete

[Kuciwalker]

Adding new wonders is a definite no-no for the AU mod. First, you'd have to download something whether or not you were playing from a savegame (the txt files) and second, it is a HUGE change to the game.

[ducki]

I agree with you insofar as the SoZ may be even overpowered if available for everyone - that's why I edited my first post to include additional suggestions to tune this wonder down. But my main concern is not that SoZ is overpowered, but that its availability is largely dependend on luck. This is a bad design decision IMO, and needs to be changed.

Would it be possible to change it to a small wonder, remove the ivory requirement, and have it merely enable the building of ACav?
That seems a more strategic option for me.
Do I take a long time and expend a lot of shields building this enabler or do I just throw all those shields into units and do a little extreme pruning?

Is that even doable with the editor?

[Kuciwalker]

Is that even doable with the editor?

I believe not.

[lockstep]

No, it isn't. Only techs and resources, but not buildings/wonders can be a prereq for a unit.

(Okay, building armies is enabled with the Military Academy, but that's a specific editor flag - 'build armies without leader'.)

[Kuciwalker]

Btw, a wonder can also enable building units with the "Nuclear Weapon" flag, but I don't think we want to give that to Ancient Cav

[lockstep]

Yep - aside from other unintended consequences, you'll need the Manhattan Project to build Ancient Cavalry.