Introducing the Medieval Pack II

[WesW]

I have made a couple of changes to the files. I decided to put the city bonus square's settings back to their original values until we can see how these other changes are going to affect growth.
I am glad to read about Matte's obseration that city growth seems under control with the previous proposed changes. I need more of these kinds of posts this week, while I am away from my computer, and can't play the game myself.

I have been scribbling some numbers on a notepad to try and figure out how the new improvement costs based on pop are going to affect the game. It's obvious that they are going to at least triple the current costs of improvements' maintenance, since the cost per pop has to be an integer, rather than a fraction as I initially intended.
I need someone to implement this new cost structure as I detailed it above, and play a quick game, and compare the percentage of income going to buildings with that in plain games.
If costs eat up too much commerce, then we may have to raise the effect of commerce improvements, which may neccessitate changes to science improvements and rush-buy rates.
If you could also note the percent going to wages, I would appreciate it. I am fairly certain that the wage rate will need to be reduced from my earlier 8 to about 6 on average, but I can only guess at this point.

I spent Friday night working on the new unit values for land units. I thought that having the Med mod 4 chart as a guide would help, but it didn't much since I changed the ratio that costs increase from half the stat increase to 2/3rd's of the stat increase. And when you factored in Armor in the last two eras, it complicated things even more.
All the units are pretty well balanced in relation to one another, we will have to see if the settings are right for cities' production capabilities. Generally speaking, costs are lower while upkeep is higher.

I am happy to hear Colorme's comments about the diffdb, though I am disheartened that these bonuses still don't seem to be enough for the AIs to give a decent game. I had them playing with almost no bonuses in the Med mod, and giving great competition. We can look at this after all the other proposed changes have been tested.

AW, if you could make a thread detailing what you changed in the TI area, I would be interested in seeing it.

Just a note on posting, since many here seem to be new to the forums:
If you want to mention something you would like to see implemented in the Med mod, or to comment on something proposed to be in it, then that is fine.
If you are asking a question about whether something can be done or not, or posting about independent changes you have made to the game, then you need to start your own thread, where these new subjects can be discussed by themselves. Most of us regulars here try adn check out all interesting threads, so you should not be ignored if you start your own "comversation".
I am not trying to be smug, just trying to keep the thread on topic.

[Savant]

We need a separate forum for Wes' mod. Please.

------------------
'Blood will run'

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Another Report from the Boondocks...
I've just played a game at Medium difficulty through to 180 turns. Modifications used:
My terrain values posted earlier, which reduced most of the Food values to 5 or less, and additionally reduced glacier and tundra tile food values to -5.
Reduced City tile bonus for Food to 5, remaining bonus stayed the same.
Doubled the Support costs for all units.
Used my modified Tech Tree, with doubled Advance costs and 12 additional Advances to provide for Spearman, Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Trireme units, Cattle PW and City State government.
CDs Risk.txt from the CtPI Mod.
Results:
After 180 turns the largest city on the map is a 12, there are about 6 - 7 10 or better in 5 civilizations, and the average city seems to be size 4 to 8.
Doubling the support costs doesn't seem to have made any appreciable difference to my civilization, at least: I still have plenty of cash on hand to accelerate builds (have had as much as 8000, average about 4000) and have PW set at 30%. I only have one trade route, so that income has not been significant.
At near 1AD date the first Knights have been in service for about 10 turns, the bulk of my army consists of Hoplites (Prereq: Tactics), Spearmen (Bronze Working), Archers (Tool Making), and a few Legions (Ironworking). One other civilization is building Dromons (Fire Triremes renamed) but no one has Long Ships yet (Prereq: Joinery + Navigation/Astronomy).
Two civilizations that started the game were wiped out by Barbarians, who now infest an entire continent: I counted 26 Warriors in five stacks at one time, plus 5 'barbarian' cities captured from the destroyed civs.
Tentative Conclusions:
The revised tech tree and costs are very close to where I, at least, want to be. There is room for all the proposed new units, depending on how Wonders or other triggers are arranged. I'll try to get the new Advances, costs, and prerequisites posted later this week. At the hardest difficulty levels you should have a real struggle to get tech at the 'historical' rate, while an 'average' difficulty game gives, I think, a good chance of completing the tech tree by the end of a complete game.
Oversize city problem is controllable. I think I'm close to it, in that cities in swamps, complete forests and other non-agricultural territory are stifled - I got Famine messages on two cities that had no plains or grassland tiles available, and they did not progress beyond size 2 pop until I PW netted some shallow water in their radius. On the other hand, I have not played to Railroad, where I increased the effect of Silo to +25% Food. This should cause a Modern 'bloom' in city size, but I haven't tested it for its exact effects.
Possibly, the increased unit support, slower advance to better defense units, and CD's Barbarian risks caused the two civs in my one test game to go under. On the other hand, it might just be an ai strategy problem, because I didn't have any excessive barbarian threat: a spearman or warrior with Archer support was perfectly capable of defending any city against attack, and until I expanded onto the Barbarian Continent I didn't need any stronger garrisons. I'm going to take another look in the strategies files just in case.
Anyway, the combination of changes that I used seems to be having the effects I wanted: slower tech and military development in the ancient period, slower city growth but steady, and no excessive armies. On the other hand, money still seems to be awfully easy to come by without any extra effort. I built a few trading posts and bazaars, but have no banks, ports, and little trade, yet my civ has no problem supporting a pretty large military force at 100% readiness all the time, and still has enough money to bribe other civs and throw lavish receptions in their cities. Cash flow in the game needs some tweaking.
Now I'd love to see the Wonder triggers and other goodies and see how they integrate into all this...

[Peter Triggs]

I think that Daniel and Colorme are to some extent talking at cross purposes about those settings in DiffDB. For what it's worth here's my take on them. It's easiest to start with a specific example so consider gold adjustment on impossible level, but restricted to the ancient age:

Taken from DiffDB (Impossible)
----------------------------------------------------
AI_MIN_BEHIND_PERCENT 1.8
AI_MAX_BEHIND_PERCENT 0.8
AI_MIN_AHEAD_PERCENT 2.0
AI_MAX_AHEAD_PERCENT 3.0
AI_MIN_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0
AI_MAX_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.5
AI_MIN_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0
AI_MAX_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 0.9
----------------------------------------------------

If you graph this data I believe you get:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


max behind adj 1.5 I x0
I *
I *
I *
min behind adj 1 I x 1 - - - - - - - - x2
=min ahead adj I *
I *
max ahead adj .9 I x3 - - - - - - - -
I
Gold Adjustment I
Ancient Age I __________________________________________________ ____________
.8 1 .8 2 3
Factory Settings max_behind min_behind min_ahead max_ahead



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The programmer's comment is not exactly translucent:


# note: scale values linearly between max-min when amount
# behind/ahead are between min-max


but I tend to aggree with Colorme that it means "Put the stars in where I just did". So Colorme is right in maintaining that in this example when the AI is less than 1.8 times as strong as the human it gets helped. Note though that when it is more than twice as strong as the human it gets penalized and bear in mind that this is Impossible level. On easier settings the above line is, roughly speaking, shifted upwards and to the left.

However, I believe that Daniel's original point concerned the situation in which the AI is treated as equal to the human: the horizontal line joining x1 and x2 above. It's true that in this example there's not a lot in it; but surely Daniel's point is valid: no civ-type AI can compete with a really determined human player. So consider his settings:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

max behind adj 1.5 I x
I *
I *
I *
min behind adj 1.1 I x
I *
I *
max ahead adj 1 I x - - - - - - - -
=min ahead adj I
Gold Adjustment I
Ancient Age I __________________________________________________ _
.8 1 .8 2 3
Daniel's max_behind min_behind min_ahead max_ahead

AI to Human ranking



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here, unless the AI is more than twice as strong as the human it gets helped; and the further (relatively) "behind" it is the more help it gets. It's not treated as being equal to the human until it's at least twice as strong as the human. This is surely a better way of doing it and may go a little way to solving Harlan's problem:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem with CTP1 was if you could survive long enough, the game eventually became a cakewalk. Whereas the game should be the other way: not too hard to survive initially, but the longer the game goes on, the greater the challenges.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Of course you can argue that the existing settings do more or less the same thing but Daniel is right in maintaining that they don't do it enough. Clearly, there's a lot of room for experimentation here.

[Peter Triggs]

I think that Daniel and Colorme are to some extent talking at cross purposes about those settings in DiffDB. For what it's worth here's my take on them. It's easiest to start with a specific example so consider gold adjustment on impossible level, but restricted to the ancient age:

Taken from DiffDB (Impossible)
----------------------------------------------------
AI_MIN_BEHIND_PERCENT 1.8
AI_MAX_BEHIND_PERCENT 0.8
AI_MIN_AHEAD_PERCENT 2.0
AI_MAX_AHEAD_PERCENT 3.0
AI_MIN_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0
AI_MAX_BEHIND_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.5
AI_MIN_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 1.0
AI_MAX_AHEAD_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT 0.9
----------------------------------------------------

If you graph this data I believe you get:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


max behind adj 1.5 I x0
I *
I *
I *
min behind adj 1 I x 1 - - - - - - - - x2
=min ahead adj I *
I *
max ahead adj .9 I x3 - - - - - - - -
I
Gold Adjustment I
Ancient Age I __________________________________________________ _____ _______
.8 1 .8 2 3
Factory Settings max_behind min_behind min_ahead max_ahead



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The programmer's comment is not exactly translucent:


# note: scale values linearly between max-min when amount
# behind/ahead are between min-max


but I tend to aggree with Colorme that it means "Put the stars in where I just did". So Colorme is right in maintaining that in this example when the AI is less than 1.8 times as strong as the human it gets helped. Note though that when it is more than twice as strong as the human it gets penalized and bear in mind that this is Impossible level. On easier settings the above line is, roughly speaking, shifted upwards and to the left.

However, I believe that Daniel's original point concerned the situation in which the AI is treated as equal to the human: the horizontal line joining x1 and x2 above. It's true that in this example there's not a lot in it; but surely Daniel's point is valid: no civ-type AI can compete with a really determined human player. So consider his settings:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

max behind adj 1.5 I x
I *
I *
I *
min behind adj 1.1 I x
I *
I *
max ahead adj 1 I x - - - - - - - -
=min ahead adj I
Gold Adjustment I
Ancient Age I __________________________________________________ _
.8 1 .8 2 3
Daniel's max_behind min_behind min_ahead max_ahead

AI to Human ranking



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here, unless the AI is more than twice as strong as the human it gets helped; and the further (relatively) "behind" it is the more help it gets. It's not treated as being equal to the human until it's at least twice as strong as the human. This is surely a better way of doing it and may go a little way to solving Harlan's problem:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem with CTP1 was if you could survive long enough, the game eventually became a cakewalk. Whereas the game should be the other way: not too hard to survive initially, but the longer the game goes on, the greater the challenges.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Of course you can argue that the existing settings do more or less the same thing but Daniel is right in maintaining that they don't do it enough. Clearly, there's a lot of room for experimentation here.

EDIT: BAH! Why can't I get this thing to re-produce graphs?

[colorme]

I played a game with the increased wages etc. and that's gotten rid of the huge cities problem completely.

This has been mentioned by other folks, but it does seem that the AI being at war with everyone in sight, seems to hurt its offensive capabilities. One sees huge spikes (mostly going south) in the AI power graph, probably because of all the fighting it does.
I've never had such spikes in my power graph, even when I think I've lost several big battles. So, clearly the AI must be losing huge armies because of infighting.

Does anyone know of a way to get the AI to be more friendly with each other, and less with the human?

[wheathin]

Strangely enough, this is exactly the opposite complaint that others have voiced about the AI not fighting amongst itself enough.

The real problem is that the AIs fight, but they don't crush.

Human players slowly gobble up their neighbors and expand. For the game to remain challenging through the mid-game, AI's have to do the same. It is the only way for an AI to keep up with the human player. One or two AIs have to wipe out the others and grow stronger - but it is this process that the AI is incapable of. The AI can fight all it wants; it just can't kill.

Quick survey: how often does one AI eliminate another in your games?

[OmniGod]

Well to weigh in on the does the AI destory other civs... in the umpteen million games... okay maybe only 25 or so I've had the Germans destroyed by either the Russians or Greeks about 5 times... that's only 20% but from what you guys are saying it never happens... it only happens if they start to run outta room or are pushed into a corner.. I find that they don't explore as much as they should... why fight your way out when they can expand to spots that are further away... example colonizing... they'll colonize only when the next island is within a turn or two travel from their home... why is that?

Omni

[WesW]

Diodorus, military support is taken out of your production, not your gold, so that is why you have noticed no difference in that category. Check your units tab, and notice what the support percentage is. It is usually around 20 to 30% in my games, and should not be more than 40 or so for the AIs.

Btw, it seems that my trip is going to be cut short, so I should be back home sometime late tomorrow. Then I can begin to experiment with some of my proposed changes.

[Chris B]

One Random Thought- Could A trigger be made to allow units to capture fortifications? This way yor natonal boundaries could look more solid, and U wouldn't have to build new ones after you conquered.

[Martock]

had another random thought bubble....how about making barbarians change units based upon the age of the game. i remember this happened in CIV II...seems a bit daft to me that warriors and hoplites are still hopping about in the diamond age...and still further in that thought bubble...how about creating barbarian STEALTH units...i had great fun creating a barbarian infector and watched as it went from city to city infecting it's merry little way, while the ever alert and always prepared AI (snicker snicker) did nothing to stop this little terror. i actually plopped down a fort and then a listening post next to each other, manned the for with 3 spies and 1 infantry man just to see what happened. yes the listening post has been tweaked to see out to 8 tiles and the whole shebang was done with the help of the cheat menu but that's besides the point! it would seem to me that as the game progressed, barbarians would change from "barbarians" to "anarchists" to "terrorists" and use appropiate units. i don't know if this could be done, but it'd make the game a lot cooler if in the diamond age i had a loose barbarian INFECTOR running about in my back yard the a barbarian hoplite.

is this something that can be done?!

[Ioannes]

This may be of the recent subject line but a simple and nice tweak to add to the difficulty of the game. Wes, would you consider changing the starting contentment level to 72 on the impossible level and 73 on the very hard level. This change does seem to add to the difficulty of the game when desired.

[WesW]

Below is a copy of a post I made in Harlan's happiness thread. Hmm..."Harlan's happiness thread." Does that sound like a Beatles album to anyone?

"I have been thinking about the new happiness system myself. Remember that happiness is directly related to crime, and that a few percentage points really add up over time. Not as much as the benefits of the lowered sliders though, I assume.
Gedrin sent me a copy of the his mod today (who knew he had his own mod?). Anyway, in looking through his govt stats, I noticed the flags for positive and negative coefs in the three slider areas (food, prod, and wages). They are all set to 1 right now. I am going to set them to 4 for positive and 6 for negative, and see how that works. This should mean that moving the slider one notch causes these changes to happiness, and that the resulting changes to crime should about equal the benefits or penalties incurred from the slider areas."

Martock, your Barbarian ideas seem good, and very funny as well. Look in risks.txt and strategies.txt and see what you can piece together. I think everything you mentioned can be done, if you want to take the time to learn how strategies.txt works.

On other topics, I have been working on the text files, and have learned a lot about how the various costs and benefits work together when figuring out gold and science.
I think that the new improvement cost system is going to work out very well, perhaps even better than I expected. As you know, cities get their wealth in the real world either from having a valuable commodity they can trade, or from being on a trade route, like an ocean port.
With the previous cost system, this wasn't shown as dramatically in the game as in the real world. If you had a large pop, you were going to have a pretty good income regardless, and at least decent gold and science production, since many improvements' benefits increased directly with size, but costs did not.
With the new system, you really have to think about where your city's strengths lie before deciding to build something. I think it will be possible to see large but poorly producing cities, ala the third world, with the new system.
Unlike wages and upkeep, which are taken out of commerce, the pop-based costs come out of gold only. I don't know if this is better or worse, but it does make things simpler, since you don't have to worry about balancing science improvements as well.

I have doubled the effect of gold improvements, to 40%, for the initial trials. This seemed to give a pretty good balance in my very limited testing so far.

Right now, I have the food/prod/wage sliders set to 12kg/8hr/5commerce at the neutral position. Each notch represents 3kg/2hr/2comm right now.

Finally, I have been getting 1 or 2 emails a day asking when the mod will be ready, or where people can get it.
All I can say is to keep up with the forum here. I don't know when I will get my new website, but once it's up, I should be ready to post the alpha version of the mod.
As to when a public verison will be ready, that is anybody's guess at this time. There is just no way to know what we will be able to do as far as slic is concerned, much less when things will be balanced and stable. There are many, many things I want to do with the standard text files as well.
We are still figuring out what things need to be balanced in the existing features, and uncovering all the new flags that will allow us to balance them, as well as do new things with the game.
The more I look into the texts, the more new things I see. These new factors make the game harder to balance, but at the same time give us more opportunities than ever to customize and improve it.
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited December 21, 2000).]

[Pintello]

Hi Wes,

Good to have you back. Just thought I would alert you to another tread that is going on in the General Forum. It is titled "My AI Analysis." I don't remember who started it, but is has some good ideas about improving the AI's attack ability. I thought you might want to look at it to see if there is anything there you haven't thought of or could use.

Regards,

Timothy Pintello

[Martock]

i'll take a look into those 2 files tonight but i don't expect to have any reports on them till at the earliest, dec 28. i'll be going home for the holidays and my folks don't have a pc worth it's weight in peanuts. once i'm back i'll more time to tinker around with this.