Rules.txt modifications for SP games

[Sore Loser]

I tried posting this in the General/Help thread, hoping to lure people into a succession game. Now I'm actively being chased out of there so I thought I'd try my luck here instead.

What I have assembled is a number of changes to the rules.txt file (and some self-imposed rules) that I believe will offer a different and more balanced game experience. ICS will be impaired as a strategy, as will early rushes to Monarchy or Republic. Wonders are more difficult to get, meaning that you may have to embark on militant quests if you want them. Terrain improvement also provides more decisions to make, as do city improvements and unit selection.

Here is the full list of changes, and the rules.txt file.

COSMIC

1) Road movement multiplier = 2
2) 100% chance coastal ships are lost
3) Citizens eat 1
4) 20 rows in food box
5) 6 rows in shield box
6) Settlers eat 2 if gov <= Monarchy
7) Settlers eat 6 if gov > Monarchy
8) Unrest factor = 8
9) Riot factor = 12
12) Monarchy supports 1 free unit
13) Communism supports 3 free units
14) Fundamentalism supports no free units (except Fanatics)
15) No max science rate in Fundamentalism

CITY

[Just about every building changed, because of 5) above, look at the file]


Only Great Library, Great Wall and Michelangelo's
Workship now expire, the rest are permanent

UNITS

[All units changed, look at the file]
Major changes include:
1) Amphibious for Legion and Musketeers
2) Pathfinding for Archers
3) Ignore ZOC for Paratroopers
4) Bombardment for Catapult, Cannon and Artillery
5) Coastal for all sail ships
6) Settlers now cost 120, Engineers 180, Pioneers 90
7) HP and FP set to 4/2 for all units
8) New units: Rangers are early Alpine Troops, Pioneers are cheaper Settlers with more moves


TERRAIN

1) Desert, Plains, Grassland and Tundra get +1 trade
2) Grassland yields 1/3 food w/without irrigation
3) Irrigation takes 2 turns for Desert; 4 turns for Plains, Tundra and Hills; 10 turns for Grassland
4) Mining takes 4 turns for Desert; 8 turns for Glacier; 16 turns for Hills; 20 turns for Mountains
5) Mining gives +3 shields for Mountains; +2 shields for Glacier
6) Jungle/Swamp get +2 trade
7) 2 moves for Plains and Grassland; 3 moves for Desert and Tundra; 4 moves for Forest; 5 moves for Hills, Swamp and Jungle; 6 moves for Mountain
8) -50% defense for Tundra, Jungle and Swamp; +50% for Glacier
9) Specials receive an overall boost

SELF-IMPOSED RULES

1) You may only establish trade routes with your own cities and only where the commodity is demanded
2) You may not buy any city production ever
3) You may not bribe enemy cities
4) You may not accept or demand tribute of the AI.
5) You may not share maps with the AI.
6) You may not use caravans to help wonder construction along (regular units are okay)
7) You must have both Monarchy and Republic before switching to to Monarchy; you must have both Democracy and Republic before switching to Republic; you must have all government techs before switching to Democracy, Communism or Fundamentalism
8) Airbases not allowed as a production boost

Comments and suggestions of all kinds are most welcome (I try to be a turn-the-other-cheek kind of person, flames will be returned with a smile)

[Paul Hanson]

Most of it seems pretty good, except that making all sail ships coastal is a) unrealistic and b) perhaps overdoing it a little.

As is only allowing trade with your own cities. Perhaps allowing trade with civs that you are allied or at peace with would be a better idea here.

[Sore Loser]

The problem in allowing trade with foreign cities is that you get ridiculous amount of cash that way. That means one of the following occur:

1) Caravans continue to be game-breaking, which I find boring
2) The cost of caravans is raised to ridiculous amounts to keep them balanced

Another idea: You start out with a bad reputation, and you may only trade with allies. This way caravans won't be as unbalanced, as you have to make significant sacrifices in order to use them. It also makes the Eiffel Tower worth something.

The coastal ships were primarily to make the Light House more important, but also to make exploration more difficult. Even with archipelago/small mass/large map you can usually hop from one continent to another if you find the route.

[Sore Loser]

Here's an idea on unit balance. All land combat units are divided into five categories: Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry and Artillery. Archetypes are as follows:

Name;move;def;cost;abilities
Lt Infantry;4/3;8;3;2;treat all as road
Hv Infantry;2;11;5;3;amphibious
Lt Cavalry;5;10;4;4;ignore ZOC
Heavy Cavalry;3;13;4;6
Artillery;1;16;1;8;ignore city walls

Terrain values are as follows
Name;move;def bonus
Plains;2;none
Grassland;2;none
Forest;3;50%
Hills;4;100%
Mountains;5;200%
Swamp;4;-50%
Jungle;4;-50%
Tundra;3;-50%
Glacier;4;-50%

This is just a rough sketch with which to construct other units. Ideally, the units should come in sets with 1 of each type at about the same tech level various places in the tech tree. With each level, the units would then be upgraded accordingly in stats and cost, possibly adding some abilities.

[SlowThinker]

A couple weeks ago I started to think about similar things. But I didn't concentrace to SP but to MP (both online and PBEM). SP is much more complicated because you must take into consideration also the AI: AI may behave very peculiarly with modified rules.

I will comment your ideas step by step:

3) Citizens eat 1

Let us see the standard rules: you can convert rules to an equal but better understadable way:
citizens eat 0 (in place of 2), but non-irrigated grassland produces 0 food, forest produces -1, mountains -2 etc. Additionaly a city produces extra +2 food (in other words the square of the 0th citizen produces +2 food: for example forest produces 1 in place of -1) .

Those +2 food of 0th citizen are the element that causes ICS to be so effective.Therefore I agree with your idea to lower
Citizens eat 2
to
Citizens eat 1.
You lose the possibility of -2 food squares, but this is not so important (moreover there is a chance there may be negative values - see Favourite (and innovative) scenario concepts and try to get Kobayashi to talk )
But why don't you lower values of food output of all terrains by 1 simultaneously? Now you have a big amount of food surplus that is neutralized by doubling the food box to 20. But it is very inconvenient to manage such large numbers and to count numerous pictures of food on the screen!

Also if you want to stop ICS then you should lower the ratio
food surplus / size of the foodbox
(so that city grow is more effective).

Edited: the link

[:) Smiley]

Or, up the cost of settlers.

[SlowThinker]

7) HP and FP set to 4/2 for all units

Good idea but...
Then you lose the effect of the pikemen flag.
Also you may want some 'stable' (predictable) units and some 'berserk' (unpredictable) ones.

2) 100% chance coastal ships are lost

The effect is very similar to 50%: a player never dare in open sea.
What about 20%?

Trade may be balanced by another trick - you can give a gold to civ that sacks (kills) the caravan (using scenario means). It is a nice feature, that makes sending caravans very dangerous (at least in MP).

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Paul Hanson
Most of it seems pretty good, except that making all sail ships coastal is a) unrealistic and b) perhaps overdoing it a little.

BTW, don't Sea Faring, Navigation, and Magnetism each halve the probability of a ship being lost? In that case, why not make all ships coastal?

[Sore Loser]

It also annoys me to lose the pikeman flag. However, it is lost by increasing the movement costs anyway. The reason for the 4/2 HP/FP ratings is that I don't really understand the deeper significance of these stats. How does a 2/2-6/2 unit differ from a 3/3-4/2 unit (off/def-HP/FP?

After 10 minutes of toying around with your examples on food production I realized that you were simply explaining the standard rules differently

ICS shouldn't just be made less useful, but it should be made less useful under most circumstances. For example, lots of grassland and hills makes ICS next to useless as those terrain types take too much time to improve and are of little use without improvement. With plenty plains and forest squares you can still expand fairly rapidly, but the city will have a lower potential.

Comparison:

Size 2 city, utilizing Plains x2 + Forest/Hills, 5 food produced under both rules sets
Normal rules: 1 surplus food, 30 food to grow, 30 turns to grow
My rules: 3 food, 50 to grow, 17 turns

Size 4 city, utilizing Grassland + Forest/Hills x4, 7 food produced
Normal rules: -1 surplus, 50 to grow, negative growth
My rules: 3 surplus, 90 to grow, 30 turns

Size 8 city, utilizing Grassland x6 + Forest/Hills x3, 21 food produced
Normal rules: 5 surplus, 90 to grow, 18 turns
My rules: 13 surplus, 170 to grow, 15 turns

This doesn't account for the fact that settlers eat more, nor does it account for the extra time needed to irrigate grassland.

If food output is lowered by 1 and the food box is halved then the growth rates will be different. Was that your intention? With this, I hope to create a more marked distinction between terrain types. Grassland and Hills will be more important for perfectionists, Plains and Forests will be more important for expansionists.

As for MP, I'd much prefer working on that, tweaking gameplay balance for MP is more interesting than trying to give the AI a big enough advantage without compromising the gameplay in SP. However, time and equipment keeps me from this.

As for ships, I really don't like the all-or-nothing approach to shipwrecks. The ideal solution would be to make coastal ships helicopter-like, ie. they risk some (possibly affected by a random factor) of their health if they venture in open seas. Certain ship types should be better at this than others instead of just having techs upgrade the odds for all types. This could even work for land units, representing the unit's ability to survive in hostile conditions. It would also add a limited supply element to the game.

I'm going off on a tangent here, since none of this is feasible within the given frame. Any ideas on how to make any of it work?

[SlowThinker]

Sore Loser,
I would prefer some more thoroughgoing approach. First of all we should know what we want from Civ2 from a general point of view. Then we can speak about concrete rules.txt settings with a more clear conception. Please see Scenarios from strategic point of view .

I will answer your posts here later, probably tomorrow

[SlowThinker]

It also annoys me to lose the pikeman flag. However, it is lost by increasing the movement costs anyway. The reason for the 4/2 HP/FP ratings is that I don't really understand the deeper significance of these stats. How does a 2/2-6/2 unit differ from a 3/3-4/2 unit (off/def-HP/FP?

See
Modifiers for Attack/Defense (start reading the debate between me and DaveV)
and this post in Info:Combat : http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...65#post2337865

Ask if any explanation is needed.

[Sore Loser]

Uh oh, that's way too much math for my small head. While I can follow the argument some of the way, I'm lost when it comes to practical application. Please give me some examples on how HP/FP can be used to create further distinction between units.

[SlowThinker]

I prepared a summary here: Info: Combat (GL)

[SlowThinker]

After 10 minutes of toying around with your examples on food production I realized that you were simply explaining the standard rules differently

But in a more clear way. You see that the ICS is caused (also) by that +2 food bonus that every city gets.

ICS shouldn't just be made less useful, but it should be made less useful under most circumstances.

I would like settings where both 4-city strategy and 20-city strategy are approximately equal. You would have to adopt your strategy - to choose correct wonders etc.

[SlowThinker]

There is many ways how to make ICS less valuable. I will try to summarize them:

to increase Settler cost
to force Settlers to work in place of found a city (to lower cost of Irrigation/Mining)
to make city grow easy (smaller food box, more food surplus)
to reduce that +2 food bonus for each city (see last post)
to lower cost of improvements (! they are really useless with standard settings)
to increase cost of wonders that affects all cities
to change both happiness constants of rules.txt

But you must be cautious:
For example you must not make specialists too strong,
you must not make celebration too easy (you can't limit the food surplus, but you should be restrained with giving trade to squares - common squares with 2 trade (Ocean) makes celebration too easy. Better to make some infrequent squares with +5 trade output that will force people to build cities that are supposed to celebrate nearby those +5 squares.)