Next AU course

[conmcb25]

If we aren't going to do PBEM, then what will the theme be?

Lets do someting that would appeal to the nOOb's.

[Modo44]

There are many strategy threads that say you should learn to live without great wonders. Others state, that one should learn to select and build only the improvements a city actually really needs and will profit from.

If I'm not mistaken, this important skill was not a part of any AU course to date. So how about this: Win without building any great wonders. You could capture them, but perhaps only a small number, then you'd have to raze any conquered wonder cities. In addition make sure that every city has at least some infrastructure not built at all times. We would need a strict rule that assures that, because some people (like myself) don't stop unless told to . For example leave at least 1 structure in the build queue in the Ancient era, 2 (or more?) structures in the Medieval era, 4 (or more?) in the Industrial era and 6 (or more?) in the Modern era. That would assure that a player actually has to make choices, and doesn't blindly build everything. In addition it would make an interesting study for all the builders among us.

[Dominae]

Not sure this would appeal to everyone, but: how about a "one improvement per city" challenge? Maybe this is something I should post in the Strategy forum instead (although we already did NIC once upon a time).

[Risa]

Originally posted by Dominae
Not sure this would appeal to everyone, but: how about a "one improvement per city" challenge? Maybe this is something I should post in the Strategy forum instead (although we already did NIC once upon a time).

Another ICS course?

Originally posted by Modo44
If I'm not mistaken, this important skill was not a part of any AU course to date. So how about this: Win without building any great wonders. You could capture them, but perhaps only a small number, then you'd have to raze any conquered wonder cities.

That sounds interesting. Or perhaps better, we should be prohibited to attack those wonder cities at all. "Those are GREAT wonders! We couldn't bear to think they would be damaged even a scratch by our accidental misfire!" Peaceful take-over could be allowed, like cultural conversion or propaganda, if you can achieve that.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Risa

Another ICS course?

You mean there was one? I didn't know that.

Originally posted by Risa
Or perhaps better, we should be prohibited to attack those wonder cities at all. "Those are GREAT wonders! We couldn't bear to think they would be damaged even a scratch by our accidental misfire!" Peaceful take-over could be allowed, like cultural conversion or
propaganda, if you can achieve that.

Yes, that's nice. Would make for some strange twists in history.

I find the part about restricting the number of improvements per city just as important. Don't know if it's enough to have a separate AU course, though. That's why I thought about doing both things at the same time.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Modo44
There are many strategy threads that say you should learn to live without great wonders. Others state, that one should learn to select and build only the improvements a city actually really needs and will profit from.

If I'm not mistaken, this important skill was not a part of any AU course to date. So how about this: Win without building any great wonders. You could capture them, but perhaps only a small number, then you'd have to raze any conquered wonder cities. In addition make sure that every city has at least some infrastructure not built at all times. We would need a strict rule that assures that, because some people (like myself) don't stop unless told to . For example leave at least 1 structure in the build queue in the Ancient era, 2 (or more?) structures in the Medieval era, 4 (or more?) in the Industrial era and 6 (or more?) in the Modern era. That would assure that a player actually has to make choices, and doesn't blindly build everything. In addition it would make an interesting study for all the builders among us.

That has sort of been done already with AU209. The point of that game was you had to avoid a Golden Age at all costs. You're playing as Russia so you can't use Cossacks or cavalry (a staple of many players conquest wins), and you have to be extremely careful that the wonders you capture/build won't trigger a GA. It was a fun course...though Dom is an evil course designer.

[Modo44]

Sorry, but not building any wonders at all and building less normal improvements really seems quite different to me. And no unit restrictions were proposed here. You could burn your GA any way you like, so where does that resemble AU 209?

[Rhothaerill]

I said it was "sort of" like AU209 not the exact same. The point I was trying to make was that in AU209 you really couldn't build wonders anyway...or even capture several of them.

As to leaving certain improvements still on the board in each age, that's completely different from AU209.

[nbarclay]

I don't like the idea of a game where we're required to deliberately leave some city improvements unbuilt. Ultimately, there are two main reasons why players opt not to build a city improvement. Either other improvements or wonders are higher priorities, or military units are higher priorities. On rarer occasions, upkeep costs for improvements or a desire to build Wealth for research may interfere with building city improvements.

But the idea of deliberately limiting the number of city improvements players build has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with those natural decisions and the reasons behind them. The only real value I can see in such a course is that it might make players think more about which improvements are more important and which are less important. But even that would be contaminated by problems of, "If I build this now, the limit will get in the way of building something else later that I don't need now but that will ultimately be more useful in the long term." Thus, choices under the special rules would not necessarily reflect what makes sense in a normal game.

Also, any significant restriction on the building of improvements would all but force players to build more military units - and probably into using them since a large military is wasteful if all it does is sit around. Once cities build all the improvements they can, they have only two choices: build military units or build wealth. The return on Wealth is so small that most players rarely exercise that option, and would therefore end up building units. That's a side effect that I personally don't like.

I do think it might be useful to have a game where players are encouraged to pay special attention to what improvements they build when, and why. The only problem is, I'm not quire sure what the best way to handle such a theme in DARs would be. (That same basic issue of how to handle DARs in an appropriate level of detail would also apply in a game where the number of improvements is limited.)

One thought would be to have a game with "Living Without Wonders" as its primary theme and paying special attention to city improvement build priorities as a secondary theme. The only catch is, that combination of themes would remove the question of prioritizing between improvements and wonders.

Note that I'm not necessarily endorsing the "Living Without Wonders" idea; I'm enough of a builder that I like building wonders. But it's a possibility if we don't come up with something better.

[nbarclay]

In AU 209, you could capture any wonders you wanted to as long as you did not build any wonders yourself after capturig the wrong ones. It is building a wonder yourself that triggers the game's checking whether you have a combination of wonders with the right traits to trigger a GA.

[Krill]

Why not try to combine some of these ideas?

Why not try to do another succession game, but In PBEM?

[ToeTruck]

I do think it might be useful to have a game where players are encouraged to pay special attention to what improvements they build when, and why. The only problem is, I'm not quire sure what the best way to handle such a theme in DARs would be. (That same basic issue of how to handle DARs in an appropriate level of detail would also apply in a game where the number of improvements is limited.)

How about placing a restriction on maintenance costs? You could arbitrarily say no more than X gold turn on city improvements. Or, you could use the editor to really bump up the maintenance costs of the most popular improvements. I'm not sure how that would impact the AI, though.

There must be something fun here.

- TT

[Dominae]

I still think "one improvement per city" is our best bet so far. It's a fixed NIC (which was never really fun) that poses some interesting questions, like: do you specialize, or standardize? which improvements are absolutely critical? how big of a military can you support without running into income problems?

Wonder-building would not be restricted, but consider that Wonders would count as sole possible improvement for any given city (no happiness help, or corruption fixers, etc.).

As for the scholastic value, the course would help players steer away from the "build everything" mentality so common to TBS fans. Obviously this would be a "warmonger" course, since it severely restricts builders in doing their thing. Many players do not appreciate a simple fact about Civ3 that you can be very successful without the help Courthouses, Cathedrals, Universities, or even any Wonders.

The Zulu would fit the theme rather well, methinks.

[Dominae]

Another idea: "wide spacing"; you cannot place cities closer than five tiles apart. This should be fun, and would certainly be accessible to the newbies (no offense)!

[Modo44]

How about wide spacing and no building wonders? This is getting weird. And interesting.