On why I abandoned CTP2, and whether mods make it worth another look

[nbarclay]

Re: Re: Re: Re: On why I abandoned CTP2, and whether mods make it worth another look

Originally posted by hexagonian

Its still less because I'm not clicking and dragging workers onto separate tiles to get the number I want. Simply pushing a button and seeing the numbers...much quicker and efficient.

Managing workers became a lot easier in Civ 3 with the 1.17f patch when they added a form of stack movement. That allows moving entire gangs of workers at once. It's still a bit of a pain sometimes, but not as bad as it was originally.

Then why would I want to keep a worthless city - its just more terrain to defend. Yeah, I know, to deny the land to the AI. But I guess that's the whole reason...

That, and you can't rule the world if you leave cities in other people's hands. Basically, my approach is to only attack civs whose territory I can't make productive if I'm going for a domination or (in extremely rare cases, since I hate razing) conquest victory. But in the later patches, with courthouses and police stations, I can make a pretty good percentage of the world at least marginally productive if I position my forbidden palace well and later use a leader to move my palace to another continent. I'm not entirely thrilled with the system as it stands, but I like it a whole lot better than CTP/CTP2's approach of imposing arbitrary limits on how many cities it's practical to have. (The worst is having someone attack me and not being able to capture their cities because I already have as many as I can handle.)

But look at the handicaps if the AI is ahead of the human...In civ3, I've heard the bonus for the AI is a cost10 (human)/cost6(AI) across the board for Deity. Does the AI benefit by a tech trade system that gives more favorable rates for AI/AI trading over Human/AI trading? That could fall into the realm of a cheat, since it boils down to human against the AI

The 1.17f patch was notorious for giving a "human against the world" flavor to the research system, but it's gotten a lot better since then. I'm pretty sure the AIs do sell to each other on more favorable terms than they do the human on the higher levels, but the same mechanics would work in the human's favor on the lowest levels. In any case, whatever the level of discrimination is, it's by no means enough to squeeze the human player out of the tech trading game.

In regard to Deity level, I think it's a mistake to use that as your benchmark. Firaxis pulled out all the stops to make that level next to impossible to beat, so things are supposed to be almost impossibly loaded against the player on that level. Most of us (at least in the "Apolyton University" crowd) seem to just write off Deity as next to impossible and content ourselves with winning on Emperor.

I'm not going to deny that in the Mods, there are some cheats built in, (and I'm currently tracking down Cradle's incredible science rate and am trying to lessen it) but bottom line for me is that I am looking for a good game... Cheats are needed, and I favor added bonuses for civs that are very far back, because once the human gets a good advantage in any game, the game becomes easier and those small civs are picked off easily.
...
Is there any truth that the AI in civ3 sees the entire map, knows where all the good are before they appear and beelines to undefended cities?...and that the civ3 tech tree is set up to cost more for whoever is the first to research a tech and less for those wh bring up the rear???

The best way I can put it is that different aspects of the AI's personality know different things about the map. Yes, it definitely knows things it "shouldn't," and I can see how people can get miffed over that. But personally, I don't regard it as that big a deal; the AI doesn't get enough extra mileage out of it to bother me.

Making techs cheaper as more of the civs you know learn them is Firaxis's answer to keeping civs that are behind from facing quite such a hopeless situation. It is also eminently realistic that the first civ to research something will have a harder time than those who can see the technology in action in the entire rest of the world. And it's consistent: it's not something contrived based specifically on where the AIs are relative to the human.

But waiting for everyone else to learn a tech so you can get it cheaper also has enormous drawbacks. (1) You can't build useful city improvements as soon. (2) Any time you go to war, your enemies will be at least as advanced as you and likely more advanced. (3) You have no opportunity to boost your economy through the sale of techs to others. (4) You start off behind in all the wonder races. In contrast, the civ that gets a tech first can recoup a good chunk of its expenses selling the tech to others, and with enough of a research advantage, it is quite possible to sell some techs and keep others in order to build up a major tech lead. (In a game I'm playing now, on Monarch level, I'm eight techs ahead of the rest of the world and taking in five luxuries and well over a hundred gold per turn from the sale of Medicine. Who says doing your own research doesn't pay?)

...which is why I activated the counterbombard flag in my Mod. Hit a city with a bombard unit inside and you will lose your units - though I generally just march in with my units and slug it out. (and early bombards come later in my game - turn 300-400)

Does the civ3 AI effectively use artillery?

No. Actually, I make little use of artillery either. I prefer to do my fighting in the eras dominated by fast offensive units (cavalry and modern armor, and to a lesser extent knights and tanks). WWI-style infantry warfare is too bloody for my taste. The counterbombard addition does sound like a major advantage over the stock CTP2.

By the way, my general style of play is builder interspersed by periods of warmingering when I have cities with nothing better to do than to build troops or when I need more territory to support the technological pace I want.

My experience with civ3 is not extensive - a few games on the mid-level just to see if I liked it - my last game I was comfortably ahead, and went back to CTP2. Don't get me wrong, I do like civ3, and there are features that are excellent, but its a matter of preference...

Nice to hear. I'll probably give Cradle a try after my current Civ 3 game, and I hope my impression of that is at least as good as yours of Civ 3.

[nbarclay]

Are the bonuses the AI gets when the human is ahead based on where the AI stands in one particular area (e.g. a research bonus based on relative technology) or on overall standings? If the latter, that could explain the situations where CTP2 AIs kept up with me in research even though it seemed like it should have been impossible. My empires had lots of cities, lots of city improvements, lots of people, and were production powerhouses, and if that would have triggered a bonus that affected AI research....

Nathan

[child of Thor]

Hi nbarclay,
I hear your misgivings over CTP and CTP2. And it's interesting to read your perspective having not played a 'Civ' game before you got into CTP.
I'd always loved the genre more than any other. I'd played the origonal Civ and then Civ2 and a couple of preciv games in the 8-bit days.
I bought CTP and then CTP2 before discovering apolyton and for the most part was very happy with both of them. They allowed me to guide my chosen nation through history - and i enjoyed the experience. Of course there were a few things that i'd wished they had done better or in a different way, but for the most part i feel i got my money's worth.
It's been 3 years i've been playing these games(not so much Ctp these days but i still got it), so that's not bad.
As to the Mods i'd say they've added more of a challange and some of the things that have been done and the different 'flavour' they give the game, make them worth trying.
But CTP2 is still CTP2, without Activision giveing the sourcecode to the guys here, there is only so much that can be changed(but IMHO it's amazing what has be done to improve it and is still being done).
Still the fact you are here asking questions and putting points across shows that you still have a glimmer of interest
If you got the time and connection then just try a mod and see what you think.
At the very least you will appriciate what real fans, given a decent amount of modding ability by the CTP2 creators, can acheive.
And even after Activision gave up on CTP2 shortly after it's release, the fact it shipped with a comparatively strong modding langauge, makes it stand as a rare rough gem in a synical games market where good idea's and intentions come a very second place to the publishers desire to make a fast buck(and it's not getting better).
Try it again and see, you don't have much to lose.
Oh yeah and maybe you can change the things you don't like

[Turambar]

Give Cradle a go a see what you think.

Also if you don't like PW there is a Civ3 workers mod you can use too!

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by nbarclay
If I understand you correctly, a tile improvement does not provide 100% of its potential benefit unless you're working every tile in the ring. That's something of a drawback compared with the old way of being able to choose which tiles to work so you can work the improved tiles first. Am I understanding correctly?

Using my above example, if you have a +5 production bonus Tile Improvement on all tiles of the ring, the max production of that ring would be 120 (80+40). With 4 workers (1/2 of the total number of workers for the inner ring) your total intake of production would be 60. So you would not get the full benefit of all the tile improvements (+5 per TI) but 1/2 benefit (+2.5 per TI).

With 4 workers and 4 laborers (each 25 production), you could theroretically get 160 production out of that ring instead ofg 120 if you went with all workers, but you may be sacrificing gold/food/overall growth to do so.

Originally posted by nbarclay
Are the bonuses the AI gets when the human is ahead based on where the AI stands in one particular area (e.g. a research bonus based on relative technology) or on overall standings? If the latter, that could explain the situations where CTP2 AIs kept up with me in research even though it seemed like it should have been impossible.

I'm not sure if it is based on overall, or the related area. I've always assumed that it was based on overall... but having played EU2, where small nations get huge breaks, I do see the value of keeping the small nations competitive. And it's actually the same principle as in civ3 - lead the game and those behind you can ride your coattails with lower costs. And as you noted, being in front has the advantage of first shot at wonders/buildings/units.

I guess the only difference is that in CTP2, the human player does not get to ride those coattails himself - he has to scratch and claw his way to the lead. In that sense, when I do win, I feel I earned it. Not to say that you can't have that feeling in civ3, because it is a hard game, (and Soren did a VERY good job on the AI).

Originally posted by nbarclay
In regard to Deity level, I think it's a mistake to use that as your benchmark. Firaxis pulled out all the stops to make that level next to impossible to beat, so things are supposed to be almost impossibly loaded against the player on that level. Most of us (at least in the "Apolyton University" crowd) seem to just write off Deity as next to impossible and content ourselves with winning on Emperor.

I kinda did the same with Cradle - players have had success with it though, so it is not truly impossible, and certain map settings and even when you have contact with another civ does make a difference.

If you want, I can email you a pdf of my tech tree and units. And there are a few things I'll need to point out to you regarding the setup itself.

As pointed out in this thread, the fact that you are here says that there are elements in the CTP2 setup that you do like - if not you wouldn't be considering playing CTP2 again. All I can say is that since you have the game, you do not have too much to lose - an afternoon of play should clear up whether you want to continue or go back to civ3. And the beauty of the community here is that we try to address the problems/inbalances that are reported. Cradle's latest update (1.34a) is a direct result of indepth comments and suggestions made by Velociryx and Ogie.

[Straybow]

CTP2: Big ideas, half-way implemented

I hate the CTP2 city model. If the city is at the edge of a desert glacier icecap it can't just ignore the worthless tiles, as any boneheaded AI in Civ or whatever would do. How hard would it be to program the AI to concentrate on improved tiles and ignore tiles below some threshhold value as long as workers have good tiles to use? The CTP2 method seems sheer laziness under the guise of "simplicity."

The dilution of PW value primarily effects the second ring. Small cities use the terrain poorly in any case. You can load the first ring and it is well utilized above size 4. As soon as the city expands to the traditional Civ radius you're screwed. Any outer tile you improve will only have 1/12th of its full effect for each additional worker. You might as well wait until the city grows to 12-14 because the return on investment is worse than a size 1 city. The problem is doubled again as the city grows to the third ring (unless I've misunderstood something). I gather from what people have said here and in the FAQ that the first ring is always used at 100% as long as you have enough workers, so that outer rings are penalized even more when using specialists.

I do have questions that remain unanswered. The city radius grows at 7, and the FAQ says the first ring is utilized at 1/6 for each worker up to six, but there are obviously 8 tiles, meaning there is a hidden bonus to the first ring. Here you say it takes 8 to work the first ring, so either the 7th and 8th workers give you absolutely nothing, or the 1/6 utilization in the Top FAQ is in error, or there remains uncertainty about how workers are handled.

Any city may not be able to fully claim a ring, for various reasons. I've seen nothing to indicate that reducing the number of claimed tiles affects the utilization ratios. I hang around in the Civ2 section, and there are some wonderfully obsessive people who tested with hundreds or thousands of events to determine values in the code. Has anyone here been able to find out what happens with partial rings?

In any case, after one long game experimenting with various things I decided that allowing a city to grow to the 3rd ring is amost always a waste of resources. The main exception is reaching an ocean special that would be inaccessible otherwise. Replace food improvements with commerce improvements and twiddle with specialists until growth is minimal. After a long period of time at size 18 build a settler to knock it back to 17, just in case.

Anyway, suppose I want to place a new city in a gap. There is no way to alter the borders of established cities to allow for reasonable growth in the new city. There should be a tool for managing city territories: cede to or claim from other civs via diplomacy or war, block out worthless areas, swap between friendly cities, etc. At the very least, a new city should be able to claim first ring tiles from outer rings of neighbors without a fuss.

There is no "upgrade value" to tile improvements. It costs the same to build an Adv Farm on a Farm, or an Adv Mine on a Mine, as it does to build on an unimproved tile. That makes no sense at all, and it can't have been that hard to fix in code (SLIC may be capable of it, for all I know). At least with Civ2 you have Farming augmenting Irrigation as an extension of the same Settler/Engr function, and the RR serving as an extension of roadbuilding and a limited augmentation of shield production.

Nonetheless, I'll be trying out some of the mods as time permits.

[nbarclay]

Hexagonian, I think you've created a monster. TWELVE techs on the second level? I have a 21-inch monitor and I still can't get them all on the screen from top to bottom at once in a particularly readable way. I've downloaded and installed Cradle and puttered around just a little, but I'm not sure how much I will or won't try to get into something that huge.

Nathan

[hexagonian]

Re: CTP2: Big ideas, half-way implemented

Originally posted by Straybow
I hate the CTP2 city model. If the city is at the edge of a desert glacier icecap it can't just ignore the worthless tiles, as any boneheaded AI in Civ or whatever would do.

Players can ignore or minimize the bad tiles by using specialists. As I said earlier, in a situation like this, specialists are the way to go. When building on a mountainous area for example (poor food), I will automatically use farmer specialists because I need to grow that city.

So in civ2, you would irrigate and have the worker work that tile - in CTP2 you would designate that worker as a specialist, and at the same time improve all the tiles in your radius, preferably all at one time.

I guess it is the apparent loss of control that a player has when he no longer can pick and choose which tiles to work, but the end result is still the same in that eventually in both civ3 and CTP2, that type of city will hit the ceiling in terms of how much it can grow.

Originally posted by Straybow
How hard would it be to program the AI to concentrate on improved tiles and ignore tiles below some threshhold value as long as workers have good tiles to use?

With the exception of dead tiles and glaciers, there is some benefit that can be squeezed out of a tile - remember that the principle involved here is that you take the total amout that a ring offers. So ignoring the tile will actually lessen the total resources that a city takes in. Basically, you would have to go back to the city worker system - this is one area that probably could not be modded back in.

Originally posted by Straybow
The dilution of PW value primarily effects the second ring. Small cities use the terrain poorly in any case. You can load the first ring and it is well utilized above size 4. As soon as the city expands to the traditional Civ radius you're screwed. Any outer tile you improve will only have 1/12th of its full effect for each additional worker. You might as well wait until the city grows to 12-14 because the return on investment is worse than a size 1 city.

Generally, this is what I do. I improve all the inner rings of my cities before tackling the outer rings, and then improve the largest city first. At that point I usually have access to better TI too, so

Originally posted by Straybow
I do have questions that remain unanswered. The city radius grows at 7, and the FAQ says the first ring is utilized at 1/6 for each worker up to six, but there are obviously 8 tiles, meaning there is a hidden bonus to the first ring. Here you say it takes 8 to work the first ring, so either the 7th and 8th workers give you absolutely nothing, or the 1/6 utilization in the Top FAQ is in error, or there remains uncertainty about how workers are handled.

This has been fixed in Cradle - city expansion to the next ring happens AFTER all inner ring tiles can be potentially worked by a worker - if you are using specialists, the city will still expand. So a city will expand after it hits size 8, instead of 6 in the default game.

Originally posted by Straybow
There is no "upgrade value" to tile improvements. It costs the same to build an Adv Farm on a Farm, or an Adv Mine on a Mine, as it does to build on an unimproved tile. That makes no sense at all, and it can't have been that hard to fix in code (SLIC may be capable of it, for all I know). At least with Civ2 you have Farming augmenting Irrigation as an extension of the same Settler/Engr function, and the RR serving as an extension of roadbuilding and a limited augmentation of shield production.

Yeah, I wish this was possible

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Hexagonian, I think you've created a monster. TWELVE techs on the second level? I have a 21-inch monitor and I still can't get them all on the screen from top to bottom at once in a particularly readable way. I've downloaded and installed Cradle and puttered around just a little, but I'm not sure how much I will or won't try to get into something that huge.

Well, I'm not going to apologize for creating an in-depth Mod.

It is heavily focused on Ancient/Medieval ages, and it does start out slower than a civ3 game too.

I guess that's why I offered to send you the pdf file beforehand...

[Straybow]

Re²: CTP2: Big ideas, half-way implemented

Players can ignore or minimize the bad tiles by using specialists. As I said earlier, in a situation like this, specialists are the way to go. When building on a mountainous area for example (poor food), I will automatically use farmer specialists because I need to grow that city.

Yeah, well you might as well say, "Hey, everybody gets the same handicap" (like that's a good deal). I'd still rather not have to make up for being short-ended by the model. It can't be hard to prioritize tiles with wide differentials in values.

With the exception of dead tiles and glaciers, there is some benefit that can be squeezed out of a tile… So ignoring the tile will actually lessen the total resources that a city takes in.

No, m/n·(sum of n specific tiles) is never more than (sum of m greatest values of n specific tiles). Do the math. Unless you stop m before it reaches n in the second case but continue on to m=n in the first, truncation of lower values is always better.

Let's say I cut off 3 tiles from the corner of the second ring because they're desert. After I use up 8 workers on the inner ring and 9 workers on the second ring the remaining 3 workers before the city expands become specialists without diminishing the efficiency of the remaining workers. Why? Because all available tiles can be fully utilized, just as if the ring were full and no specialists were used.

But if the model fails to account for diminished availability of tiles (or fails to consider specialists worth more than working negligible tiles), then we're shafted. It is even more important if the city is on the edge where there are no tiles to count, or if the city radius was blocked by an existing city's radius of control. (More on that to follow…)

"I don't mean to go off on a rant here… Yes I do!"
Furthermore, the model says that specialists are a zero-sum game or worse. For example, if a researcher produces 25 beakers but some arbitrary number of units of tangible goods, food, and money are lost to "inefficiency." That is only true of what is called opportunity cost—if that specialist would have been more efficiently employed on the farm, mine, or behind a cash register.

But if the other choice is sweating his arse off herding scraggly goats in a desert, nothing is diminished by finding something else to do. And then his sweaty-butt neighbor can take over the abandoned territory and increase his efficiency. Now both are better off.
OK, rant over.

[City expansion] has been fixed in Cradle… So a city will expand after it hits size 8, instead of 6 in the default game.

And, I assume, the second ring goes to 8+12 = 20, and the third to 44, etc. What happens when a city (as described above) doesn't have the full 8 tiles in its first ring? If there are only 6, does CtP2 total the 6 and divide by 8, thus robbing the city of capacity? I suspect it is so, and txt files can't fix it.

[child of Thor]

Straybow you could try CTP (the first one), this was a good civ varient too and had a more hands on approach to worker placement within a city radius. I never did try the Mods for it, but i think Wes(the creator of Medmod for CTP2) also did a Medmod for CTP - so that might be worth a try and less irritating for you?
I never had a problem with CTP2's system once i had adjusted from my Civ preconceptions of how an historic tbs should be. It just made me think about city placement more than i used too, which IMO isn't a bad thing.
And overall the feeling of actually participating in the rise of your nation is something that the CTP games do very well, that IMHO is what make these games favourites of mine and others here. No game is perfect but these are both good games in my experience, and add to the genre in a mostly positve way.

[hexagonian]

Re: Re²: CTP2: Big ideas, half-way implemented

Originally posted by Straybow
And, I assume, the second ring goes to 8+12 = 20, and the third to 44, etc. What happens when a city (as described above) doesn't have the full 8 tiles in its first ring? If there are only 6, does CtP2 total the 6 and divide by 8, thus robbing the city of capacity? I suspect it is so, and txt files can't fix it.

Several edits later on this post...It helps to write it out.
Now there are two possible ways on this, and I'm not sure which model CTP2 uses, not having tested it (I suspect like Straybow, #2).

First a basic premise...I consider each ring to be a single large tile that needs to be built up with TI and workers. The size of the ringtile is dictated by surrounding conditions. If it is smaller, then most likely, its capabilities will be less. The game allows limited control over the size of those ringtiles in that as you set up your cities, you can exercise some control by placement.

OK, lets figure this out...a city with access to only 6 tiles instead of the normal 8. Say each tile in that city's radius generates an average of 30 units of commerce/food/production (very possible with tile improvements). So the total capability of that ring is 180 commerce/food/production.

Now the CTP2 model may use the following 2 ways to figure it out. The city either gets 1/8 of the total pie per worker or 1/6 of the total pie per worker.

Option A
That city, if it were at pop. size 3 would generate 90 commerce/food/production - at pop. size 6 it would generate the max amount that it could from those tiles (180). The question then becomes, what if that city is pop. size 8 - what do the additional workers do? The city is already generating the full amount it can from the tiles.

At that point, those 2 workers need to be switched over to some form of specialization to get something out of them. Neglect to do that and you are shafting yourself, but you can only blame yourself, because the model has provided a means for you to still get a benefit from those additional workers.

This is the same principle in civ3 too, because with overlapping cities, you will eventually run into a time when EVERY tile will be worked and you have no place to put additional workers - but at that point you have access to tax collectors, scientists to put those workers to use...Its just that in CTP2, you have access to specialists that also cover production and food.

Option B (the most likely way it is in CTP2...)
The city at size 3 would generate 68 commerce/production/food and would not get the full benfit until it reaches size 8. That city WILL be less efficient than the city in Option A because it is getting less bang for the buck per worker, but it is also working under the principle that a ring is actually a single tile and that the number of workers that can potentially work that ringtile remains constant (In those situations, specialists should be more valuable too because worker efficency is lower.)

Taken to the extreme - a ring only has 1 or 2 tiles. In those situations players are much better off using specialists and shouldn't bother upgrading that ring at all. One thing in favor of the player is that specialists are removed from the outer ring first, so his more productive rings are safe.

I do not have a problem with Option B though because it works within the framework of the game (the rule is constant) and there is a certain logic to it based on the initial premise - and it will make placement of cities more important than civ2/civ3 from the standpoint that future growth does have to be factored in as pointed out by CoT.

Given the choice, option A is better though, but as I said earlier, it is not achievable without going back to the worker system, (and I have also said that I do miss it). Its just that the current system is not a backbreaker for me in terms of my enjoyment of the game...

[Straybow]

Yes, coT, I did try CtP. Unfortunately, no matter what I did, it didn't work right on my system after about 50 turns. When cycling through the units the cursor would appear where the unit had been at the start of the previous turn. Weird, huh?

hex, is the "efficiency" simply a ratio of worker productivity at current specialist settings over what worked tiles would be worth w/o any specialists?

[hexagonian]

Well in my example above, the efficency would be

Option A
Each worker would generate 30 units gold/food/production

Option B
Each worker would generate approx 23 units gold/food/production.

So if a specialist generated 30 food, you might want to consider using them in Option B because they give you more units. It's more of a tossup in Option A because you are getting 30 units either way - the question then becomes what you want to focus on???

And in an extreme situation when each worker only generated 10 gold/food/production (very possible in situations when the ring has been truncated by other cities or with very terrain-poor cities) specialists suddenly become the way to go.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Not to throw a monkey wrench into the equation but where does crime come into the picture. Is it applied to both specialists as well as workers on a given ring.

If so the comparison holds.

If not and specialists are immune to crime losses, then specialization is still favored all other resources gathered being equal.