The Quest for Deeper Strategy....

[Meldor]

Seems to me that you are going in a circle with the units cost pop points. You make units cost pop points, but then increase the effects of irrigation so the pop builds faster. Don't they just offset? And have you looked at any of the AI civs when you built embassies to determine if they were building units and having to wait on pop to produce them? Have you graphed the average AI city size in your games vs. the standard to see if what effect it was having? If you want to slow down militsry production why not just increase the costs of those units? multiply the cost of the unit by the era its built +1. Ancient *2, Middle *3, etc...

[Austin]

Originally posted by Meldor
Seems to me that you are going in a circle with the units cost pop points. You make units cost pop points, but then increase the effects of irrigation so the pop builds faster. Don't they just offset?

Not from what I saw. The irrigation bonus didn't cancel out the fact that building two warriors brings a size three city down to a size one, it just made the population grow a bit faster to partially compensate for the population cost of units.

The biggest effect is that military units cost you more than just shields. With just a shield cost the only opportunity cost for building military units is not building improvements, but overall your civ still grows because the pop still grows.

Giving military units a population cost means that a big military buildup comes at a cost of having your civ languish. A long and expensive war will even drain your civ!

The bottom line is that you cannot simply churn, churn, churn, in endless warmonger mode. You need stretches of peace to recover from warfare, and thus whether or not to fight wars becomes a much harder choice.

A civ that warmongs runs the risk of losing even if it wins, if another civ that stays out of the fighting gets to build uninterrupted; just like say the United States did during the first parts of WWI and WWII.

Since military units now cost pop, they also directly compete with worker builds.

You face a juggling act between building military units to defend your civ and/or attack other civs, building workers to improve your infrastructure, or letting your cities grow. And the correct balance of course varies depending upon what the other civs are doing.

I found myself having to think a lot more about my build choices.

And have you looked at any of the AI civs when you built embassies to determine if they were building units and having to wait on pop to produce them?

I didn't see any, but this doesn't mean it never happens.

Have you graphed the average AI city size in your games vs. the standard to see if what effect it was having?

Nothing this precise, but the AI seemed to grow at his usual annoying pace. I was still being inundated by settler teams, and his cities didn't all turn into one sized ghost towns even when losing a war.

If you want to slow down militsry production why not just increase the costs of those units? multiply the cost of the unit by the era its built +1. Ancient *2, Middle *3, etc...

The population cost gives you a synergistic effect, since it now makes building a military compete directly with building workers and with building city population that you wouldn't get by just having a shield cost.

Austin

[Gen.Dragolen]

Update

Greetings All,

I just put the last changes into this one, but haven't had a chance to test it. The version it is based on has played well and where it has not, I have corrected the errors (I hope).

The AI still seems to suffer for not building enough infrastructure so despite improving the land, they are perpetually broke, and making outrageous demands for trading. But they hold their own in combat still.

I'll take a run at it tonight before I go to bed, so if anyone is more ambitious, let me know how it feels.

D.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Igor, bring me another brain.

Greetings All,

I had to pull the update I posted last night: when I started testing it, I found that trying to run without some free support units made the game unplayable. So back to the drawing board...

I will post another update without the changes to the unit support, as I did find and fix some mistakes with a couple of units, and incorporated a couple more suggestions. The mistake was giving Samurai the "All terrain as Road" option. It made those veggie-matic killing machines able to go from one coast to the other in one turn. And seeing them on one border and next seeing them deep inside your empire is quite the shock.

I am going to start posting the changes I make with the updated .bic so you can see what changes I've made without having to play for a few hours before seeing what effect they had.

Has anyone had any success with getting the AI Civ's to build more improvements with these mods yet ? I ask because it appears that the AI Civ's are still just cranking out units and trying to build Wonders, while my test civ (Egyptians) wind up building only improvements and then roles over the neighbours when provoked. I've spend considerable gold checking the cities and they are only starting to build marketplaces around 1400, when I've had them in place around 1 AD or so...

Soren if you are checking this thread, how are those Build Often options supposed to work? I'm figuring that it adds a filter to the build list to remove improvments and units that don't have the appropriate flag set in their properties.

Otherwise, I'll have to see what they do by doing some time consuming experiments to test each option.

D.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Next Draft Ready

Greetings All,

I had some time when I got home from work to give the settings another set of changes.

Vel had posted some suggestions in another thread and I incorporated most of them.

The two most significant changes are to the Civilization: Build Most Often selections, where I turned all of them on for all in order to see if that can force the AI Civ's to build some infrastructure for once. The other significant change is to the hit point the units start with: Conscripts at 2 hp, Regular at 3 hp, Veterans at 5 hp, and Elite at 7 hp. Vel seemed to think this would make the Barracks a much more useful improvment, and allow recently obselete units to still function in the face of more modern regular units.

I will try and start posting a list of all of the changes from the baseline settings with each mod. Is a spreadsheet acceptible or word a test file be better ?

D.

[Grunthex]

I really like the experience-based hp changes (was using 2,4,5,7 - 2,3,5,7 sounds better). But for the era-based hp, I dunno how much it's been considered, but instead of 1 per era, I use +1 for gunpowder (musketeer-infantry) units, and +2 for motorized/mechanized units. Basically tanks and MI.

Haven't really thought how it should be applied to ships/planes (artillery is irrelevant). Just thought I'd throw it out as a possibility. Looking forward to what people do with this.

[Sinapus]

Re: The Quest for Deeper Strategy....

Originally posted by Velociryx
I really enjoyed hammering out ideas for the Mod-With-No-Name, back when we did that. That was cool. That was very cool, actually.

5) Default Barbs: Sorry, but even at raging, the barbs are annoying and little more. I'd LOVE to be able to mod the game so that they could capture cities, but since we can't, I changed the default units: Swordsman, Knight, Caravel. Barbs are now LETHAL, and worthy of the terror they ought to inspire. Simply put, if you're faced with a barbarian uprising in Ancient times...don't even bother trying to defend your towns.

Hm. I ended up making the barb land units Archers and Mounted Warriors. Made them a bit more than annoying (especially the lone Mounted Warriors running around that kept killing my scouts.)

I might try what you have, just to see what sort of horror I can inflict upon myself. Will definitely make clearing barbarian encampments a bit more difficult to accomplish if there's a swordman fortified in one.

[lockstep]

Re: Re: The Quest for Deeper Strategy....

Originally posted by Sinapus
Hm. I ended up making the barb land units Archers and Mounted Warriors.

This is a very interesting idea. I like barbarians that are more than a nuisance, but with knights as their advanced unit, you don't have a chance to defend yourself against a massive barbarian uprising.

[Sinapus]

Re: Re: Re: The Quest for Deeper Strategy....

Originally posted by lockstep


This is a very interesting idea. I like barbarians that are more than a nuisance, but with knights as their advanced unit, you don't have a chance to defend yourself against a massive barbarian uprising.

True. That's why I chose Mounted Warriors at first. They are powerful enough to make life difficult, but defense isn't impossible.

Hm. Maybe I should make the basic unit a Spearman so the barbarian huts are harder to clear out. Or to make things even more difficult... a Hoplite.

[lockstep]

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Quest for Deeper Strategy....

Originally posted by Sinapus
Maybe I should make the basic unit a Spearman so the barbarian huts are harder to clear out. Or to make things even more difficult... a Hoplite.

IMO, the basic barbarian unit should have an attack rating of 2. Currently I'm thinking about a 'barbarian warrior' (uses warrior graphics) with stats of 2/2/1 (same as bowmen). The advanced barbarian unit would be the 'barbarian horseman' (uses horseman graphics) with stats of 3/2/2 (like mounted warriors, but with +1 defense).

Also, only chieftan and warlord difficulty levels should feature an attack bonus against barbarians. From regent on, you should not be able to disperse barbarian camps with your own warriors - you'd need archers or swordsmen.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Cauldron Boil and Caouldron Bubble

Greetings All,

Well it was a brutal weekend with two games finished and 1 at 1000 A.D. using the new 1.29 patch. There are some new problems with the graphics on my machine, but the changes Firaxis made to the editor and to elite units are worth the graphics annoyances.

In answer to our prayers for the abilbity to add units to replace the ones left out of the mix, the editor allows us to add units. This is a potential Pandora's Box, so I would like to keep the lid on it as much as possible and allow only units that seem to be missing from the game design.

The units I would like to propose are as follows:
1. Barbarian Warrior - acts as a 2/2/1 to make them tough as Cimerians
2. Trebuchet - intermediate support weapon - say 0(6)/1/1 so the medieval warfare is a little more realistic.
3. Jet Bomber - basically the B-52 design so we have something between the original bomber and the Stealth Bomber.
4. Advanced Tactical Fighter - the F-22 Raptor, or some other version that is a tougher dog-fighter than an F-15. It should also have a better interception rate, but that is an overall game setting so far.
5. Commandos - I'm not sure how to make it do what I would like it to do: able to move by stealth, make air drops, amphibious landings, and do sabotage, but at the expense of having a ZoC, and a weakened attack and defense.
6. Lancers - a light cavalry unit as an intermediate step from Knights to Cavalry, (equivalent to Musketeers ?) say 5/3/3 in basic game settings or a 6/4/3 in the mod I've proposed.

If I remember correctly, in the editor we can also add technologies and improvements, so when I've had a chance to look over that part, I will post some suggestions. There are also a lot of trade goods that were left out in the basic game: Salt, Copper, Tin, Silver to start.

And in the next version of the mod, I will be including a pop cost for the naval and air units as well. Seems only fair as the logistics tails for those units are even bigger than for land units in real life. No more 20 Ironclads running around anymore. because the AI Civ's navy's need help, I think that allowing the Ironclads to upgrade to Destroyers may be a good thing... now if only the Germans would build U-Boats...

D.

[Velociryx]

Outstanding! I've not downloaded your earlier modding work yet, cos I've been doing some map work in the editor, but I'm itching to try out your earlier changes, and these sound fantastic!

-=Vel=-

[Gen.Dragolen]

Vel,

Just be careful what you wish for...

I should have another one with some documentation (that will take a week or two to complete) with the new units tonight. I have some wiring to fix up in my house first. Then I can get to some serious fun with the editor.

Be forewarned. With the 1.29 patch, when you get a GL from an elite unit, you get to name the elite unit. Coming up with names will be a new challenge, but a purely pleasurable one. My first GL in a while came from a Marine unit, so they became Merrill's Marauders. And one other minor detail: the AI Civ's are a little less reasonable about trades: don't bother trying to knock off more than about 5 coins from a trade deal, and they will almost always refuse an offer for any alliance or luxury good you could use. Not sure if that is just better tactics or a change to their behavior rules.

I would still love to sit down and do some analysis of the improvements as it seems that in alot of cases, because I still feel like we are missing on the scale that the game is based on. I keep thinking that improvements like Temples should be on a scale like the Temple at Karnac, or like the Parthanon... opulent and having wider effect than just the one city.

To that end, two of the improvments I would add would be public schools and Manufacturing Plant. The school would have three main effects: +1 hp/produce regulars instead of conscripted troops, +1 culture (Another Brick in the Wall ?) and make one unhappy citizen content (parents can send their helions)

The manufacturing plant would be upgrade of the factory, as the current progression jumps from Industrial Age to Post-Modern. This should improve the AI Civ's and our ability to produce more modern units, at a time when our ability to assemble large ships, aircraft, and buildings dwarfs what was possible in the early 1900's. Pre-requisites should be aluminum, oil and computers ? I want to say robotics, because the recession in the early 1980's was due to the introduction of robotic assembly lines and computer automation, so large numbers of skilled workers were no longer needed. The recession wasn't as bad in the US, but in Canada, you couldn't even buy a job at McDonalds...

From what I've experienced in games so far, I think that many of the modern advances are too expensive and don't have enough pre-requisites to balance. I keep finding out day after day just how interconnected everything in the world is and it should make the game a little more challenging if it reflected this too. And there is no way in the game to account for how powerful the research establishments are at creating new knowledge. Hmmm... new small wonder idea: Particle Collider - acts like Seti Project. A new discovery in sub-atomic physics can have a big impact on weapons and medical technology.

More later. Gotta get some work done.

D.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
I would add ... Manufacturing Plant. The manufacturing plant would be upgrade of the factory, as the current progression jumps from Industrial Age to Post-Modern. This should improve the AI Civ's and our ability to produce more modern units, at a time when our ability to assemble large ships, aircraft, and buildings dwarfs what was possible in the early 1900's.

Ahem ... Manufacturing plants are already included in Civ3. Available with Robotics.

Obviously, many players skip the modern age.

[Gen.Dragolen]

lockstep,

Oops, I had forgotten that they were available after Robotics... like you said, many skip the modern age.

I just never seem to be able to get the AI Civ's to keep up so I can trade for advances. Too time consuming to do everything oneself. So I want to make them affordable and make them not show up just before the end of the game.

This just goes back to my feeling that many of the later advances are overpriced. Either that or corruption is overdone and eats all the beakers that should have given an empire that covers 2/3rds of a planet all of the modern advances.

It just seems odd to me that my empire's usually building space ship components in a early 1900's era factory whose energy needs are met with Solar Power Plants...

D.