AU mod: The Statue of Zeus

[lockstep]

The problem

(Partially derived from earlier thoughts by Dominae and alexman)

Normally, Great Wonders do not require any kind of resource. The only exception in vanilla Civ3 as well as in PtW was the Manhattan Project (which requires uranium), but this wonder is a special case insofar as it yields its effect (allowing the construction of nuclear devices) to every civ, not only the one that builds it. The other Great Wonders were basically available to everyone. Strategies to secure a particular wonder (besides rushing it with a leader) included

1. being among the first civs that had access to the required tech,
2. possessing a city with high shield production (at least 20 shields without the despotism tile penalty),
3. as a human player, using a palace or other Great Wonders as a deliberate pre-build while waiting to research/trade for the required tech.

In C3C, the new Statue of Zeus wonder - which produces Ancient Cavalry, a powerful 3/2/2 unit with +1 hitpoint, every 5 turns - requires ivory. Because luxury resources (unlike strategic resources) are not spread over the map, but clumped in certain parts of it, any player lucky enough to start next to ivory (usually only one, given C3C's luxury scarcity) has an enormous advantage. Building the Statue of Zeus if you can do so becomes a no-brainer decision, and Civ3 effectively turns into a game of dice. This especially screws up multiplayer games. Furthermore, the AI does not understand the value of either ivory or mathematics (the prereq for the SoZ), i.e. it is likely to trade excess ivory before the SoZ is finished, something a human player never would do.

Possible solutions

1. Remove the ivory requirement from the Statue of Zeus.
2. If you feel that the SoZ should require a resource at all costs, make it require horses, which are more evenly distributed on the map. (EDIT: This proposal is very unpopular because the SoZ is often regarded as 'a second chance if you don't get Horses'.)
3. EDIT: Increase SoZ's shield cost from 200 to, say, 300.
4. EDIT: Make the SoZ produce Ancient Cavalry only every 7 (instead of 5) turns.
5. EDIT: Make Ancient Cavalry somewhat weaker, e.g. by removing the +1 hitpoint bonus.

What do you think?

[Nor Me]

As I've seen pointed out before, they are possibly too many ancient wonders for the AI. The AI frequently puts too many cities on wonder construction and if they are enough players, they won't be successful in some of them.

Taking away the ivory requirement from SoZ makes this worse. At the moment an AI building it has a good chance of actually getting it so the above doesn't apply.



Will it make the human get the SoZ any less frequently? The statue needing ivory gives the human an advantage if they're near it but it may be so good that we'd put extra effort into securing it a lot of the time.

Making it require horses would help the human more. I wouldn't count on all the AIs with horses hooking them up in time.

There would be less chance involved but I don't think that's a good thing especially in single player.

[sabrewolf]

to me, SoZ is too powerful if you can get it and who can build it is completely random, depending on where you start.

also, the AI doesn't prioritize capturing the ivory resources more than any other luxury resource. and i presume, these cities (except if a core city) start building a number of basic infrastructure improvements, before going for the SoZ.

i'm in favour of toning down the ancient cavalry. a free gallic swordsman (which imho is now even more overpowered, now the price was lowered) every 5 turns is too much.

i therefor suggest you adding the idea of reducing the frequency of the AC output from one every 5 turns to something between 6 and 8 turns (16-50% less frequent) with my favourity number lying around 7 ronds per cavalry. so if there should be a vote, maybe my suggestion could be taken as optional point.

making SoZ more available but also weakening it a tad bit.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Nor Me
As I've seen pointed out before, they are possibly too many ancient wonders for the AI. ... Taking away the ivory requirement from SoZ makes this worse.

You are right that C3C's abundance of ancient wonders poses a problem to the AI. However, in case of SoZ's ivory requirement, the solution is worse than the problem IMO.

There would be less chance involved but I don't think that's a good thing especially in single player.

I'm all for some level of chance, e.g. regarding starting locations, huts, no. of civs you can contact early. OTOH, the Statue of Zeus involves too much chance for me.

Originally posted by sabrewolf
i therefor suggest you adding the idea of reducing the frequency of the AC output from one every 5 turns to something between 6 and 8 turns (16-50% less frequent) with my favourity number lying around 7 ronds per cavalry.

Good idea - I'll edit the first post to include it. (And I'll add the option to tinker with SoZ's shield costs of 200 - no wonder is cheaper at the moment.)

[Dominae]

I would like to see this change implemented in the AU mod (and in the stock version).

A Wonder as powerful as the Statue of Zeus should not be secured by a simple luck of the draw, before the game even begins. To put it bluntly: the stock version State of Zeus is strategically uninteresting, because you either can build it (i.e. your starting location is near Ivory), or you cannot. If you can, you do; if you cannot, you do not. In a majority of the "you can" cases, you will have no competition for it. Boring.

The main reason the designers had to include the Ivory requirement is that it's "realistic". IMO, good gameplay should win over realism every time.

Nor Me's argument about the AIs building too many Wonders is, I think, slightly off. It's true the AI spends too much time on Wonders in the Ancient era. But the behaviour that causes this is more or less hardcoded in the game, and there are already enough Wonders that it's unavoidable. Adding the Statue of Zeus will not compound the problem, and actually works to solve it: the Statue of Zeus is something more the AI can switch production to when it loses the race to another Wonder. Furthermore, it's not exactly a problem if each AI is competing for the State of Zeus (competing against each other and/or the human player), since it's a Wonder the AI uses exceptionally well.

I admit full well that removing the Ivory requirement from the Statue of Zeus is a "big" change; it would alter the character of the Ancient era significantly from stock. Although I'm usually against "big" changes, I would not at all mind seeing this implemented in the AU mod. On the other hand, I can live without it.


Dominae

[Jeem]

Zeus is possibly the most screwed wonder ever devised IMO.

Small fixes :-

1) Ancient Cav start as conscripts instead of vets (Elite ancient cav with only a barracks? GREAT idea Firaxis... )

2) Change the stats to 3/1/2

3) A combination of the above, maybe starting as regulars and 3/1/2 stats.

Drastic Fix :-

The SoZ can only be built by races that have NO Iron available (swap this with needing Ivory). As soon as the building player has access to Iron, Ancient Cav are no longer built (like with now if you lose the Ivory after building it).

This could go a long way to rescuing a terrible start and lessen the reliance on Iron on the early era. Whether it can be done in the editor is something I have no idea about.

If it can't, perhaps making the luxury requisites to build both Ivory and Silks (assume these ancient cavalrymen like to dress for the occassion ). This at least will put it into the 'rare' category and enforce a bit more effort for the human player to hunt down one of the two luxuries. As it stands, Ivory is getting on better than Iron as a strategic resource in the ancient era.

[Kuciwalker]

1) Ancient Cav start as conscripts instead of vets

Is this possible?

This could go a long way to rescuing a terrible start and lessen the reliance on Iron on the early era. Whether it can be done in the editor is something I have no idea about.

I don't think it's possible, though maybe with upgrades...

If it can't, perhaps making the luxury requisites to build both Ivory and Silks. This at least will put it into the 'rare' category and enforce a bit more effort for the human player to hunt down one of the two luxuries.

This might make it as rare as the IW.

[vmxa1]

I like the change to once in 7 or so turns. The cost in shields is not an issue in my mind as it will be yours only most of the time.
I just played where I had ivory and if it cost me more shields, it would only impact the time it took to build as no one else had Ivory. I had 5.

I sort of like the reduction in HP, but if it was lowered, I am not sure it would be of any value at all. A 2HP or 3 with a barracks unit is not so attractive. In many games at higher levels, the AI will soon have units that will not have that much trouble with the new weaker AC. They may become mobile shields only.

[geniemalin]

IMHO part of the problem is that the number is fixed (1 per 5 turns) no matter what the map size. I often play on Tiny or Small maps and the SoZ can be overwhelmingly powerful. OTOH on a Huge map with the capacity for large armies and multiple productive cities it wouldn't be nearly as good.

I do also agree the 3/2/2 with +1 hp is insanely powerful - more comparable to Knights than Horsemen.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Jeem
Small fixes :-

1) Ancient Cav start as conscripts instead of vets (Elite ancient cav with only a barracks? GREAT idea Firaxis... )

They don't start as vets, but have a bonus of +1 hitpoint. IMO, this is rather confusing - took me quite some time to realize that my 4hp Ancient Cavalry meant that I'd better build a barracks in the SoZ city.

I've edited the first post to include a 'tinker with Ancient Cavalry's stats' option.

Drastic Fix :-

The SoZ can only be built by races that have NO Iron available (swap this with needing Ivory).

This is not possible with the current editor.

[Jeem]

Too bad the editor can't make the lack of a resource an option. I think that would have been a pretty good game-balancing fix.

Making it require Ivory and Silks should not make it as rare as the IW - there will always be Ivory and Silks available somewhere, but the chances of Coal and Iron within the same radius are very small.

Good call on the extra HP. I knew I'd seen a few of the AI's 6 hp ancient cav running around.

[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.

With C3C, I've had 3 games now where I had no horses and none within striking distance before mid-Middle Ages.

Making SoZ require horses would have meant an instant restart. As it is, all three of those times, I've had Ivory at least within striking distance. Also, you can trade for it.

Yes, SoZ is strong, but I don't think it should be changed. Free units should require a resource - doesn't KT require Iron?

My vote is to leave it as is. Maybe we should have a future AU game where there's no horses within range before Chemistry, but put Ivory in striking/superREXing distance and see if folks think it needs a change. Personally, I think it's one of those Resource-scarcity-sucks-but-at-least-I-got-SoZ/KT-so-I-was-able-to-stay-in-the-game Wonders.

YMMV.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by ducki
Free units should require a resource - doesn't KT require Iron?

No, it doesn't.

[nbarclay]

I thiink eliminating the ivory requirement would change the wonder's character too much. Getting rid of the extra hit point for ancient cavalry would leave the character of the wonder essentially intact while making it a bit less overpowering.

Nathan

[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 have yet to get these rare buggers in 3 Conquests games so far before the Medieval Era/the first Civ conquest.

This is a tricky decision, tricker for me, as I have come to love my little ACav armies and the civs that they supply me with If forced to make changes, I would go for reducing the stats of ACavs, maybe to 3/1/2 or even as far as just being a Horseman. They would still be worth it if you are without Horses at all, or even if you had them it's a free 6spt towards a Horse every turn at a time that this amount is rather decent.