Apolyton University Mod (Thread II)

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Dominae
Yahweh, the idea of giving the Guerilla hidden nationality has been proposed a couple of times already, and was rejected pretty fast. Not only would it change the game significantly, any human player could exploit the heck out of having hidden nationality land units. I personally would cut my Rubber supply and just draft Guerillas until I had enough of them to simply dicate where and when the AI would move (peaceful AIs, that is). That's not the kind of thing we want happening in our games, right?

Well, no. But if one could figure out a way so that the AI used it significantly as well... then...

Perhaps it's not appropriate for the AU mod. But it would be nice to see in some mod, some where. Perhaps in a "real world" mod?

[nbarclay]

Dominae, in what you did watching the AIs in debug mode, did they still go for Map Making quickly in spite of the higher cost, or did the cost push them to go after other of Writing's children first? (You might want to preface your answer with a spoiler alert for people who want to be surprised at how the change affects AU 207, but I view the information as important in weighing the merits of the change.) It seems to me that the ability to research something else while the AIs focus on Map Making is one of the few things that make peaceful research a viable alternative to tech extortion on Emperor level in the ancient era. And I'm a strong opponent of any change that pushes people significantly farther toward the dark side.

[Dominae]

Nathan, I used the PTW 1.14 scenario for debugging, so I cannot tell you anything about the change.


Dominae

[Konquest02]

For guerrilla, is there a way to give it 2 movement only on mountains and jungle? Or maybe treat jungle and mountains as roads, which I'm sure is feasable. It would give them 3 moves on mountains, allowing fast attacks out of nowhere, just as the real guerilla.

Food for tought...

--Kon--

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Konquest02
For guerrilla, is there a way to give it 2 movement only on mountains and jungle? Or maybe treat jungle and mountains as roads, which I'm sure is feasable. It would give them 3 moves on mountains, allowing fast attacks out of nowhere, just as the real guerilla.

Yes, very good comments.

It would also be awesome to see a "contra" unit (not that I'm a fan of the contras in real life... don't get me wrong...) that would represent government-trained "counterinsurgency" (re: mercenary) forces, with similar stats to the guerilla, but slightly better perhaps.

[badams52]

Kon and Yah,

Sounds like changes just for the sake of changes and not much to do with making the AI more formidable. My understanding of the AU mod is to remove as many human exploits/advantages and to improve AI mistakes by way of modding.

[edit: If you can show how modifying the guerrilla unit in such a way would be advantageous to the AI, then we'd be in business.]

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by badams52
Sounds like changes just for the sake of changes and not much to do with making the AI more formidable. My understanding of the AU mod is to remove as many human exploits/advantages and to improve AI mistakes by way of modding.

You're probably right.

Still, someday, when I have a little confidence in my mod-making ability, I'm going to make a "dirty third world" MOD that will include these changes.

If only C3 and PTW included the concept of client states... sigh...

[badams52]

edit: double post

...Now where did my post go...I know I posted it, but I can't seem to find it. ...Oh here it is on the next page..

[Konquest02]

My proposed change to guerilla (treat jungle and mountain as roads) is to have a better shot at realism. I have not tested it (yet) in any way in Civ. My argument is that guerilla is a form of fighting that takes advantage of the terrain, setting traps to the enemy and then fleeing before anyone could catch them.

Would taht work in civ?

--Kon--

[Nor Me]

Konquest02, recently Dominae suggested giving guerillas the ability to treat mountains etc. as grassland.
The problem is that they have one movement anyway.

Giving guerillas all terrain as roads would make them too good compared to cavalry.

Making them faster in mountains/jungle than grassland seems illogical.

Giving all open terrain a movement cost of 4, giving all fast units ignore movement cost in each open terrain and giving guerillas a movement of 4 and ignore movement cost in all other terrain would mean that they only move 1 square in the open, 2 going through forest/mountain/jungle/hills and 12 on road. In the age of rail, the latter might not be a unbalancing. I haven't thought of any side effects yet.

But I still don't think it could be justified.

[Jaybe]

Guerilla: 6/6/2, ignore cost of hills, mtn, jungle & forest.
I have had much experience with this and it works well. I heartily recommend it for anyone's personal mod.

[nbarclay]

1) Giving guerillas faster movement is too much change for too little reason for the AU Mod. One of the goals of the AU Mod is not to change gameplay significantly from the stock game without good reasons.

2) Guerillas' fast attacks "out of nowhere" are a matter of tactical (i.e. short-range) movement, not strategic (i.e. long-range) movement. Or to put it another way, they're quick, not fast. Guerillas attack, do their damage, and then try to get away before before their targets can get organized enough to come after them. (And they may very well have nasty traps ready for their pursuers.) But tell them to travel a hundred miles and they can't do it particularly faster than conventional infantry. The way I see it, guerillas' tactical quickness is part of their attack and defense ability (and where the rationalization for their zero-range bombard ability in the AU Mod comes from), not something that should be reflected in a faster movement rate.

Someone proposed giving guerillas a ZOC ability as well, and that would be another way of implementing a form of "quick attack out of nowhere" ability. I wouldn't have a problem with that from a perspective of realism.

Nathan

[Konquest02]

I like your proposed changes Nathan, but mostly, I like your arguments. I agree that my change might be a little too drastic for the AU mod and I understand it. In fact, I was unaware of the zero-range bombard for guerillas and I like it. The idea of ZOC is good as well and it shows better the guerilla ability I was trying to show.

Thanks for your explainations!

--Kon--

[Dominae]

As of 1.16, Guerillas have ZOC in the AU mod.


Dominae

[aaglo]

To the true nature of berserker, it should have defence dropped to 1 and hitpoints increased with 1