AU: A MOD for the curiculum

[player1]

Because 1 luxury point makes one person happy.

Making it to be 2 luxury point would just make managing happinesss to easy.


In Civ2 & Civ1, 2 lurury points were needed in oreder to make one person happy.

So, in Civ3 luxury point are much more powerfull.

In Civ2 & Civ1 it was all 2-2-2 ration, but you could also impove those effects by marketplaces or libraries.

So having 2-2-1 is closer to Civ2 & Civ1 2-2-2 ration, although still weaker (since you don't impove them by building buildings).


Anyway, as far as I have played 2-2-1 is not unbalanced in any way.

In fact it's only more usefull in anicent age, before you get Republic.

[alexman]

Just to make my point clear:

Our increase in taxmen and scientist values helps the human but not the AI. The AI uses entertainers to keep its cities happy, but the human uses the luxury slider. We should help the AI by making the luxury slider have the same effect as converting a taxman to an entertainer.

[Dominae]

alexman, thanks for your explanations/justifications; although I'm still anxious about Infantry, the rest of the MOD looks great.

Also, the new changes you proposed seem natural, other than making entertainers more powerful. I feel that dealing with unhappiness is quite balanced now, and making a big change just to improve the AI a bit seems out of flavor for this MOD.


Dominae


P.S: I just did a few quick calculations and the better Infantry aren't as unbalanced as I first thought. I look forward to testing it out for real.

[player1]

Originally posted by alexman
Just to make my point clear:

Our increase in taxmen and scientist values helps the human but not the AI.

Maybe, but not too much.
I can see use of taxmen is very early game, but not later.
It just doesn't pay off.

Still anything higher like 3 or 4 IS unbalnced in anicent era.

The AI uses entertainers to keep its cities happy, but the human uses the luxury slider. We should help the AI by making the luxury slider have the same effect as converting a taxman to an entertainer.

If one ententainer could make 2 people content, I would realy have no happiness probelms.

Way too muich powerfull.

In fact 1 luxury point is usualy more powerfull then 1gp or science point.

Othervise you would build Temples just for culture (since they make one citizen content and cost 1gp to mantain).


P.S.
I never use luxury slider (exept if I am realy out of luxury resources). I always think that's cheaper and less wastefull to use entertainers.

[player1]

Originally posted by Dominae
P.S: I just did a few quick calculations and the better Infantry aren't as unbalanced as I first thought. I look forward to testing it out for real.

You'll just need to use Cavalry more for field combat then for city attacks.

And they still have 3 movment points.
(better then Tanks)

[nbarclay]

Am I imagining things, or did moving the "veteran" flag from harbors to coastal fortresses also change things so a coastal fortress instead of a harbor is required to upgrade ships? If I'm not imagining things, I think the change in the roles of harbors and coastal fortresses is a decidedly bad idea. I don't know about others, but I don't build enough ships to justify building coastal fortresses in anywhere near all my coastal cities (and that's a lot more true when there's an upkeep cost attached to them). And bringing ships back to the homeland for upgrade is a big enough hassle without the added pain of moving them to a city that happens to have a coastal fortress in it. (It's not such a big deal with harbors since they eventually get built in any home coastal city anyhow.)

Actually, I don't especially like the change in the first place. The only thing "broken" with the original design was that coastal fortresses weren't worth the bother, and that "problem" could be dealt with trivially by not building them. So far as I'm concerned, the change is a solution in search of a problem, and I think it adds more complexity than it's worth. (Unfortunately, I hadn't taken much interest in the mod at the time the change was originally discussed.)

Nathan

[alexman]

Nathan, you're not imagining anything, of course. Coastal Fortresses now work like barracks of the sea.

Perhaps you're right. This change might not be in the spirit of this mod:

Pros:
Adds the decision of whether to build a CF or not.

Cons:
Adds micromanagement
Changes gameplay compared to original

Although I personally like the change a lot, perhaps we should remove it from the mod, or at least remove the upkeep cost. What does everyone else think?

[Theseus]

Isn't it partially balanced by the changes to most naval vessels?

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
Isn't it partially balanced by the changes to most naval vessels?

The changes to naval hit points do mitigate the disadvantage of building ships without a coastal fortress a little bit (at least with respect to other players; barbarians are another matter). But for the most part, the ship hit point change and the coastal fortress change are independent of each other. The ship changes would work pretty much the same without the coastal fortress change; the hit point issue just wouldn't come into play as often because a city that builds ships will almost certainly get a harbor sooner or later anyhow.

In any case, my main problem with the coastal fortress change is that in my view, the extra hassle vastly outweighs the gameplay benefits. Changes to ship hit points don't affect that to any significant degree.

I do think if the change in roles is kept, the upkeep cost for coastal fortresses should be eliminated to keep the cost of harbor plus coastal fortress the same as in the original game. Ships don't tend to be built in as large a numbers as land units, so I don't think there's as much justification for charging for upkeep.

One last thing: the coastal fortress change is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a change made for the specific purpose of making the AIs more competitive. It thus represents a deviation from the goal of the AU mod.

Nathan

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
One last thing: the coastal fortress change is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a change made for the specific purpose of making the AIs more competitive. It thus represents a deviation from the goal of the AU mod.

Nathan

Actually, there are four goals stated in the readme for this mod (see initial post). One of them is to "present the player with more strategic decisions".

As you said, the number of ships in the game is not that great, and the number of times you can upgrade each ship is not that great either. Is it really that much pain to move each of them to a coastal fortress city a couple of times per game?

Moving on, any feedback on what to do with specialists? I still think all specialists should have the same value in gold, just like the slider effect. The question is do we make their value equal to two gold each, or one?

One:
No change to original, hence no chance of unbalancing the game.

Two:
Adds strategic decision to player
Helps irrigation-happy AI.

[Dominae]

Hi all,

I'm going to cast my votes:

1. Entertainers: no changes
2. Coastal Fortresses: no changes (from last version)
3. Communism: increased effectivness

By "increased effectiveness" I'm not necessarily supporting any of the current suggestions (like making Workers more efficient), but I do think Communism needs a boost. Some playtesting may find the optimal change.


Dominae

[Theseus]

1. Entertainers: no change
2. Coastal fortresses: revertg back to stock
3. Communism: no change (unless we get a hint of a PTW change from Firaxis)

Is there ANY way we can get the AI civs to mine versus irrigate more effectively? Is there a setting equivalent to a city governor in the editor (i.e., Prioritize Production)? This would be in keeping with the goals of the AU Mod.

[Harovan]

What I really hate about the new coastal fortresses is, that I can't upgrade my Galleys to Caravels with Astronomy anymore, if I didn't choose the "southern", almost wonderless (except Leo's) research path first.

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
What I really hate about the new coastal fortresses is, that I can't upgrade my Galleys to Caravels with Astronomy anymore, if I didn't choose the "southern", almost wonderless (except Leo's) research path first.

I agree and therefore vote for going back to the original version, even if it means that coastal fortresses never get built.

Entertainers: Also vote against any changes, entertainers are powerful enough as they are.

And communism: Make it stronger, if only to help the AI, who relies on it way more than the human player.

Just my $.02.

[Theseus]

Does anyone have access to the editor just now?

Isn't there a Governor section for the AI civs? Is there anything about food and shields? Which civs have what priorities?

If it's there, this could be HUGE... I don;t remember any discussion of these settings.