Extend the Age of Sail

[Lancer]

First I'd like t say Hi! to don Don, a old friend that I didn't know still posted. Have you been around and I didn't see you don Don, or are you back? Either way, a real pleasure...

Theben, those sound like really good ideas. Has anyone ever done anything to stop the ships from throwing themselves away against ports? I suppose bombard will help in Civ3.

Roman, definatly, add time, add sci. The early carvel might have looked something like a ship of the line, but... Consider that to make a mast big enough to carry the sails of one of the great 'liners' that many trees needed to be used and that to endure the varying stresses they had to be cut and pieced together like a puzzle. The knowledge of how to fit that puzzle together could be considered one of the sci's required to build a line of battle ship.

don Don, I'll give that a try if I ever get back into rules txt in a big way. Maybe I should, what the heck.

Shadowstrike, yes, or if the age of sail, and sword & musket, is made as long and full as it actually was, then rushing through it would be impossible. As Civ 2 is now, I've had long enough durations of peace in many games to be able to replace my phalanx city defenders with riflemen. So, one of the times of greatest conflict is just completely eliminated for the sake of rushing the game into the modern age. I'd like to see this time of exploration made as rich in game history as it is in history itself.

Something that can't be rushed through.

[Shadowstrike]

Yeah, sometimes I like to change the rules around a bit to increase the length of certain ages.... but the downside was that the notion to rush to the modern age to cremate your opponents still existed.... I'm think of creating age specific modpacks sometime in the future...

[Straybow]

Howdy, Lancer! I haven't been around for a while. Partly burned out doing the List, pursuing other interests mostly. As you can see, I also decided on a change of nickname. My nod to Apolyton's Greek heritage, my historical curiosity, and a play on words.

Back from the Philipines? If so, how long?

I usually play with my Paul Revere mod to rules.txt: add one to land movement, double sea movement. ("One if by land, two if by sea!") ;-D Move Steam Engine and Ironclad a little later, too.

[Lord Spam]

I think several people have mentioned the AI's tendancy to rush towards the Modern Age (which was somewhat dependant on the particular Civ in past games.) Wouldn't it also make sense to tame the advancement AI a bit depending on how the player is progressing in the game?

This is done somewhat in Civ II by gauging how far the player has gotten, but could be tempered by more pre-requisites. Perhaps it could take extra shields to produce the first unit gained by getting a new tech and make it harder for the more advanced units.

I wonder how much can be done to extend the playtime of the various 'ages' by just adding techs, adding more prerequisites.

It'd be nice for the game to allow the player to spend more time in the ancient era , but play at Deity level, or at least Emperor without rushing headlong into the space age in the 1600s (not that it couldn't have, but we had a few cultural disasters on the way.) Hopefully adding events like disasters, rise and fall of empires, etc should help prevent this from happening.

[Lancer]

don Don, well, I've never been an advocate of name changes myself. After enough of them it makes it difficult to know who the heck everyone is. Identities built up over time just vanish as good old names like don Don that one can relate to become that new guy 'Straybow'.
Anyway, that aside, it's nice to know you're still around.

LS, yes, I'm all for slowing the race towards modern times and modern tech, but not only on the part of the AI, but us too. Getting there is more than half the fun, or should be. Why the rush? That's the question we're asking, yes?

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by Lancer on 02-02-2001 09:49 PM It was very enjoyable to have the age of sail for an extended period of time, though as I said, the AI hasn't a clue and crashes ships into ports.

Another thing I did was remove destroyers entirely (assumed to be the escort/scouts of larger fleets) and replace them with, uh, you know, those ships after ironclads but before turn of the century cruisers and battleships, which AFAIK are called ironclads, steamships, &/or battleships depending (I call them Steam Frigates; what the heck are they called, anyway?!). I also upped the strength of post-caravel warships. That means in the modern era the AI, instead of building a horde of 4-4-6 destroyers, now builds 8-8-5 cruisers. They don't seem to build as many tho'; I don't know if that's because of some programming or because I've gotten a lot better.

"Straybow"?!? To each his own. I like being known when I'm here. Besides, there are plenty of people willing to change my name for me!

[The Commodore]

Drednoughts.

One nice thing about SMAC is the slow,gentle pace it goes at.Personaly,I prefer the time with destroyers, but no fighters or subs...this is a good idea.