PBEM Mod: Suggestion Thread

[punkbass2000]

I presume there's no way to have railroads without IM, such that their only effect is improving terrain improvements? That's the main issue I have with your proposal. ICS will be even better if Metropolis are even more difficult to cultivate/maintain. A Granary is not going to make a city grow without food to fill it.

[alexman]

Yes, there is no way to get rails without infinite movement.

Personally, the major factor preventing me from spacing my cities too closely in MP is the defense provided by non-overlapping city radii, not the fact that they can grow into Metropolises.

Of course you're right that Hospital-granaries will not increase the population limit of a city, but it will help it reach the limit faster. You can often grow a city past size 12 by irrigating grassland and using surrounding mountains, for example, even in 3-tile spacing.

Not the perfect solution, but much better than having railroads in the game, IMHO.

[punkbass2000]

Is there anyway to give SuperRoads that give 6 moves or some such?

Or how about upping the MPs of IA and MA units? You shouldn't be facing problems from tech superiority without AI; any human that far behind is dead anyway.

[alexman]

No way to make super-roads either, I'm afraid.

Also, strong ground units such as MA with movement more than 3 would be a nightmare in a turn-based game such as civ. Assuming 4 MP, with the loss of a front-line or coastal city, the defender would be vulnerable at a depth of up to 12 tiles inside his own territory before being able to counteract. Much like we have now with railroads.

High MP is a bad thing for turn-based games. That's also why I am opposed to increasing the MP of ships. With increasing ship movement, it becomes more and more difficult for the defender to detect and react to a peding invasion or raid.

[punkbass2000]

I'm thinking of fixes for those (like increasing movement cost for may tiles) but it's seeming like there's gonna be layer after layer of problems, each cure being worse than the previous disease, most likely. I still really don't like the idea of removing the railroad bonus, though. I know putting your cities near each other is already a good strategy, I'm just saying this strengthens it. I suppose there's no practical way to increase food in cities without rails either, eh? I don't suppose we could make Agricultural attached to some tech that everyone could then enjoy (it would slightly help depower Agr in the late game too, which slightly helps, though it wouldn't be much of a nerf).

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by alexman
No way to make super-roads either, I'm afraid.

What has been done in Tarzan and RoR? I take it we can make "super-roads", but we then can't have regular ones at another point in the same scenario?

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by alexman
Yes, chess has simple rules, but the strategic options involved are countless. That's why two games are almost never the same, even though they start from the same map, with no RNG involved.

By contrast, in civ3, even with the RNG involved, the DAR of the best players in AU games are remarkably similar. A strategy game is not a strategy game if there is only one correct strategy.

There are points in chess where only a limited number of strategies will leave you in a position to contend with a good opponent. Playable openings are limited and categorized. The endgame is purely a mathematical excersize after a certain point.

Having strategic 'pinch points' in MP Civ doesn't seem like a big problem to me. Assuming beelining Military Tradition is the only reliably successful strategy for the Middle Ages, that still doesn't determine the number and location of the stacks you attack with, what to do with supporting artillery, defensive, and naval units, how many fronts to attack on, or how to line up allies and enemies through diplomacy. How much should you push for Replacable Parts vs how much cash to pour into producing more cavalry?

I'd hazard a guess that the similarity of DARs in AU games is due mostly to the cooperative nature of that hallowed institution. In the antagonistic PBEM world , I doubt much in the stock rules will constrain our strategic options in and of themselves.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by alexman
To reduce the effect of random events:[list][*]Always play with Scientific leaders turned off. The scientific golden age does not work anyway.

What is the deal with the scientific golden age again? I'm using it now in a RoR game and it appears to be working here- extra beakers appear in the city screen and my current research time went from 8 to 6 turns after I initiated it. Is it just a problem in epic games?

[punkbass2000]

It's lying to you. You'll note that it will be at "1 turn" for two extra turns in this case, or however many you were supposed to be gaining.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

I'm not sure where you get this from- I've seen it discussed before, but the resolution has always been not to nerf scientific tribes. As far as I can recall, every game I'm in or have set up (IC) has SGLs enabled.

Hmm. Well, every time I've heard discussion to the effect, it's always been to turn them off - but I started much later than you, remember, and I suppose when I look back, most of the games didn't discuss it. Anyhow, you still can turn them off ...

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

What has been done in Tarzan and RoR? I take it we can make "super-roads", but we then can't have regular ones at another point in the same scenario?

Yes, sadly the only way to edit roads is the first option in the general tab: "Movement Rate Along Roads". There is no equivalent item for railroads.

I have to say I'm with punkbass on this one, and for one very specific reason. (Well, two, but they're linked.)

It's up to you whether you build a railroad or not - just as it's up to you whether you build a Pyramids or not, or the SoZ, or research Philosophy. If you're worried about railroads letting someone beat you, then don't build them - or don't build them in straight lines; just build them where they do the most good. It's not hard to build 'fire-breaks' in your railroads, if you're concerned about attack. Admittedly I haven't seen too many people do that ... but it's a viable strategy, and one I'd follow if I ever got that far in a PBEM.

I'll agree that offensive use of other folks' railroads is a problem - but so would removing the +1 food railroads provide, and I think the significant limitation and strategic change caused by removing it would be too much. Look at any advanced game you have, and imagine how many of your cities wouldn't be nearly as big without the +1 food. I revel in building cities in mountain ranges, knowing that the five squares of grassland, irrigated, railroaded, will keep it functioning when I'm using 6 squares of mountains to produce a ton of shields.

And don't forget that railroads provide internal DEFENSIVE bonuses as well. It basically forces an enemy to make a choice - attack, aiming to take over your whole country in one turn, but if he/she fails, knowing that you can redeploy your entire force in a single turn. The point of RRs, after all, are to simulate the massively faster transportation of units - essentially a military revolution - that came with them, and changed warfare from a slowly paced, large-battle thing, to a quick-paced, skirmishing and redeploying combat experience.

Maybe the answer, anyhow, isn't to nerf railroads, but to increase defensive power? Railroads mostly come into effect in the cavalry/rifleman and Tank/Infantry period. That means 6 versus 6 (same cost) and 16 vs 10 (100 vs 90) and then Modern Armor/Mech Inf (24 vs 18, 120 vs 110). Cavalry vs Rifleman is fine, but the other two are significant offensive advantage points. Why not take Tank down to 12, ModArm down to 16, and Mech Inf down to 15? This is drastic - but it significantly increases the chance of defending against a modern attack. A fortified mech inf in a city would withstand a couple of modern armors, probably, at least 2 - and that means a unified attack (such as vs. lego) would either require a lot more units or a much smaller scale. It would also have the effect of significantly increasing the need for combined arms - howitzers and defensive units. (I'd also cut the tank defensive points down a little - 16/8 to 12/6 and 24/16 to 16/8.)

This change would give you one of the other #2 benefits - increasing the effectiveness of marines (although I'm glad to give another unit amphibious) simply by reducing the defense of MechInf and reducing the dominance of tanks.

[snoopy369]

On the Government issue:

Democracy: I agree that Democracy could be more utilized - but just adding in free unit support is not the answer, as that makes it far better than republic. Republic, to me, is the first of the "end-game" governments, along with Democracy and Communism. They are the three governments you might want to play most of your later game in, depending on your circumstances (and a religous civ might add feudalism in there). Democracy, if it is to play its role as "peacetime government", *must* have expensive units, at least beyond those needed to support your cities.

So, how about:
1/3/4 free support
+4 gp per unit above that?

Essentially, you're allowed to defend your cities for free, but you pay a high price for any units above defense-level numbers. Hard to use during offensive combat, but acceptable during defensive combat or peace time.

Feudalism: I'd make corruption Nuisance, not Minimal, and reduce unit support cost to 2gpu, or even increase free support in addition. Minimal corruption is too low imo, but unit support cost shouldn't be too high - this is essentially a wartime government, or at minimum 'expansionist' government. The military police ability, higher draft rate, and higher assimilation chance are all somewhat meaningful advantages; giving what is essentially Democracy these advantages is too much to me. (Yes, forced labor is a big negative, as is the lack of standard trade bonus. That's why this is a war-time government, not a peacetime one.)

[Rommel2D]

I wasn't concerned with the offensive RR problem- although that is obviously troublesome, it can be prepared for. I was thinking in terms of the defense being a problem- the defender's entire military force can rally to any single location in a single turn. The only recourse as an attacker is bombing, unless you have an army of conquistadores...

[alexman]

The problem with railroads is not that they make attack easier than defense, because they don't. The problem is that they make the game unstable, and military tactics a joke. It's easier to defend any single location, but if you lose one battle, you can then lose your entire empire in a single turn. That makes for a heck of an anticlimactic ending to a PBEM game that took up to 2 years to reach that point. By the way, if you chose to not build railoads everywhere, it will not guarantee safety, and you will lose the game because of the lost food and production.

As for governments, Democracy needs to be better than the Republic in most cases, otherwise the anarchy is not worth it, and the Religious trait suffers. Democracy also needs to be improved to be able to compete with Communism in the late-game.

Also, keep in mind: 1) minimal corruption is not that different from nuisance corruption 2) changing unit support costs is a big change for MP, where you typically have many more units than in SP.

[snoopy369]

I agree with improving democracy - but I disagree that it needs to be better than republic in most cases. I think it should be better in some cases... hence giving it some free units, and then making the units very expensive. Similar to Feudalism in stock, for that matter, but for high-population nations. I don't see why democracy should be always or almost alway better than republic - unless you see republic as a lower-tier governmnet like monarchy, in which case it should be weakened (perhaps it should?). However, I'd rather see more than just 2 "final tier" governments available - 3 or even 4 would be better, to allow more strategic options. (3 would be 1 peacetime government for builders, 1 in-betwen gov't, and one wartime government for very warlike games; 4 would be 1 peacetime for builders, 1 peaceful with some army support, 1 fairly warlike, and 1 very warlike) This makes the choice of what government choice you make more important, and more meaningful ...

Right now, I see democracy being structured (with 0 free support but 1gpu) actually for a more warlike nation than Republic. Republic, once you pass the free support limit, is very expensive, and I often have armies where the support total for an army is greater than one per unit overall - especially on small maps where I only can fit 8 to 10 cities > 6 size, yet either because of slow mobilization or accelerated production, have armies of 8 or more units per city - a 70-80 unit army is easy to imagine (especially remembering you still need some defensive units) on a map of that size, and it would have only say 35 free units (5 small towns plus 10 cities), meaning you're paying for 35-45 units at 2gpu, whereas in a democracy you'd only pay for 1gpu. I'd rather see democracy structured to allow a defensive force only, making it a peacetime government, and the feudalism strengthened a little to allow it to be used as a wartime government.

One consideration: Is it worth considering lowering anarchy times, to encourage choice of later governments? I'm not sure if you can do that, unless anarchy time is defined partially by difficulty level (Chieftain ie), in which case you could mod the difficulty levels.
Alternately, you could make anarchy not as bad (not make corruption=100% for example)... you'd have to strengthen religous civs a bit, of course, but it might be worth it to make government changing not as bad. No matter how good you make the governments, the possibility of 8 or more turns of anarchy is going to scare pretty much anyone off ...