AU Mod Test Game: Explorig Colosseums as Tourists

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay

I haven't tested yet to see whether the same bug hits other scenarios with built-in maps. If it does, we need to make sure we release AU games as .sav files rather than as scenarios, at least as the primary format.

It does, but it's no big deal because there is an easy solution. When you are designing an AU game, just change all map size settings to match the actual map size.

[Rommel2D]

Could this bug have slipped into the Iron Civer Final? I don't remember messing with any of the map size settings...

[alexman]

No, I checked the tech rate in that one already as soon as you sent the first save.

[Rommel2D]

[nbarclay]

This isn't my first attempt, but it shows what can be done with the right civ and a bit of luck. The game is Aztecs, Emperor level.

In this particular game, I had the good luck to get a settler from a hut near my capital about 2950 BC, and to have my nearest neighbor not REX particularly well. But I also had the bad luck to get beat to Alphabet so I had to research Masonry myself instead of being able to trade for it. I ended up getting Construction in 1200 BC, with two cities with prebuilds that I could switch in order to complete colosseums the same turn and a third that could do the same with a rush build. The following turn, I used pop rushes to finish another four colosseums. Then more pop rushes and a couple forest chops in 1150 gave me another three. So as of 1150 BC, I now have ten colosseums.

Now, what can each of those colosseums be projected to do later in the game?

130 BC: Tourism bonus will kick in at 2gpt
360 AD: Increases to 4gpt
610 AD: Increases to 6gpt
730 AD: Increases to 8gpt
860 AD: Increases to 10gpt
1110 AD: Increases to 12gpt
1355 AD: Increases to 14gpt

And that's before marketplaces, libraries, and so forth kick in.

Note the role that pop rushes played in doing what I did. With a Militaristic civ, a size 4 city can build 20 shields toward a colosseum, rush the other 40 shields at the cost of two citizens, and be back to the happiness situation it was in before it started. Or with 40 shields (possibly some of them from forest chops), a pop rush only costs one citizen. That makes it easy for a Militaristic civ to get early colosseums even in cities with significant corruption. And a Militaristic civ can also use rushes to reduce the amount of time settler or worker pump cities lose slipping a colosseum into their build queues.

[Risa]

Indeed. Once you get the tech early enough, it isn't that hard to rush a 60-shield building.
But it will be a lot harder to rush a 120-shield building. That is, if the TA feature would be kept, the militaristic flag so probobly be removed.

Edit: One more point: If there is a 40-shield building (like scientific library) as stepstone, the town will only need to grow to 3 population to rush that colosseum.

[punkbass2000]

N/M

[Moonbars]

Originally posted by nbarclay
This isn't my first attempt, but it shows what can be done with the right civ and a bit of luck. The game is Aztecs, Emperor level.

that looks broken.. How many Cols. do your AI neighbours have?

[nbarclay]

I only just discovered the tech on a beeline myself. The AIs (or at least certainly the ones on my continent) don't know how to build colosseums yet, and I'm in no hurry to teach them.

[JimiD]

ah, go on...

[punkbass2000]

Not a lot of time ATM, but I think this will be more powerful on smaller maps as well. TEch rate will be faster, and those ten cities that have Colosseums are fairly likely to be the only cities you were able to REX as well, if that. This is pretty much every useful city and then some (double OCN is eight and around where cities start going useless, correct?) This makes the Colosseum at least on par with the Marketplace, if not more important. And you're next stop probably will be Currency, since you're already down this way. And the AI doesn't even know to research that way, so they will both be highly tradeable (I assume Constr. and Curr. are the last two techs in the AA almost all the time, when played "normally". That the Militaristic civs get it at half-price is clearly game-breaking (can you imagine a half-price MArketplace?), but I think the whole concept, even if not inherently ruining game-balance, definitely deviates too far from stock. Good choices are nice, but ones the comp can't follow and that drastically change a traits value (Mil. jumping from, IMO, 7th/8th to 1st/2nd) are simply too far from stock. The entire dynamic of the AA would be irreparably altered; I would completely change my strategy for the game. It wouldn't be, 'Oh look, I happened to throw up my first Col. at 10BC. Now I'm making an bonus 2gpt, offsetting the maintenance cost, eventually breaking even!) It would be, 'My proverbial Wall Street of Colosseums is now creating ~130bpt. Who needs Copernicus and Newton?' If we want these choices, we should play RaR, a mod dedicated to the concept. I say, vote 'No on proposition 'Tourist Attraction'!

[alexman]

To make any sort of conclusion about nbarclay's 10-Colosseum game, you have to play it out (including the free Settler) by building units instead of Colosseums, and conquering your continent in the BC.

My guess is that playing the Aztecs with an militarily aggressive strategy like that will achieve ultimate power sooner and easier than a with colosseum approach.

[joncnunn]

I think it's an inhertatenly bad idea to put tourist attaraction onto any building that normally costs money to maintign.

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by alexman
To make any sort of conclusion about nbarclay's 10-Colosseum game, you have to play it out (including the free Settler) by building units instead of Colosseums, and conquering your continent in the BC.

My guess is that playing the Aztecs with an militarily aggressive strategy like that will achieve ultimate power sooner and easier than a with colosseum approach.

Yes, of course. But the militaristic approach is almost universally better in this game, so I think that's not really a valid criticism. If you're even considering building Colosseums, regardless of any change we're likely to make, you're clearly not very dedicated to war already. I'm planning to try Carthage on a Tiny, Random Deity map shortly. If I can get half as many Cols by 1000BC without seriously falling behind, I think this will show, even without the Miltaristic thing, that this change is over-powered.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
To make any sort of conclusion about nbarclay's 10-Colosseum game, you have to play it out (including the free Settler) by building units instead of Colosseums, and conquering your continent in the BC.

In my view, the fact that we even have to ask the question is troubling. Traditionally, changes in the AU Mod have been aimed at relatively minor tweaks to the game's balance. If something is overpowering, we try to make it a little weaker, and if something is too weak to be interesting, we try to make it a little stronger. But the basic, fundamental nature of the choices remains pretty much the same.

In contrast, the tourist attraction proposal introduces an entirely new element almost as if we were introducing an entirely new building or unit - something we've always very clearly viewed as beyond the scope of the AU Mod.* It could be argued that adding new buildings and units could add interesting strategic choices, but we don't do it because it alters the game too much compared with stock rules. Similarly, while giving the colosseum a tourist attraction bonus can be regarded as creating interesting strategic choices, it does so by altering the dynamics of the game in a deep and fundamental way. It does not merely improve the balance of existing choices, but opens up the possibility of an entirely new strategy that did not exist before for the ancient era. That, in my view, goes beyond the proper scope of the AU Mod.

*While technically, we added a new unit splitting cavalry into light and heavy cavalry, our goal on a conceptual level was something else entirely. On a conceptual level, splitting one unit into two gave us a way to implement the goal of, "Let's weaken cavalry during the time when they're overpowering but give them back their power around the time riflemen become available to provide a counterweight."