AI & Diplomacy stuff...

[skorpion59]

Wes,

After you get the files from Nordicus can you send them out to the rest of us on the List? I'd like to check this out also.

Don

[Nordicus]

Hey, Simpson.

*blush* Thanks.
Yeah, the more I look, the more it appears as though this was thrown together--I mean it, just slammed in there, the boss yelling: "C'mon! Hurry-hurry-hurry! Two weeks on this game is too much! No overtime for you people! C'mon, we're over-budget!" (Crack goes the whip...)

Okay, well not that bad, but yes, sloppy.
(I didn't know I had proved you wrong. I'll have look back and see that part )


Wes, Don:
I just sent you guys the *ahem* squeaky clean string files, but I didn't see the requests here. I thought I sent the others already? Oh well, I'll ship em out again.

Well, off to look something up and then remake my map. The poor thing I'm going one size up, 198 X 396, to ensure a proportional Asia-Pacific relationship (India was too thin in the one that just got erased). So, this will take some time--if I don't post or email you guys for a couple days, this is why.
Anyway, I shall send those files (I'll also add something for the AI Peace Treaty/Alliance continuing boggle...son of a...).

Later.

N.

[tima]

Hey all,
i remember reading on one of AI threads
about exponential growth of the civilizations, and how that makes it harder for low end civs to compete in the end, and i was wondering if someone could change gameplay to be little more linear.
I imagine that it can be done with some kind
of limit of cities per goverment, i.e.
later goverments can support more cities, and if they go over the limit there is a chance with each city limit +1% for that city to revolt and let's say +.1% for all extra cities to revolt (change to barbarians), with this numbers being tweaked...
This way people/ai will have to choose better locations for cities and if they have extra cities they will have to keep everyone in them happy, which i would imagine limit (peaceful?) goverments like democracy that don't like military units out of cities to be less agressive (they should be allowed most cities tho) and aggressive war-goverments will have to deal with less cities.
Also penalty for changing goverment could be little harsher, so people/ai should not like
spies/diplomats on their territory and woudn't want anarchy (perhaps make it possible to support only 15 cities under it, so every time revolution happens every turn you will see your cities break of), but at the same time it should be harder to revolt stable/happy goverments, so people will have to pay attention to their infrastructure.

Just some random thoughts, no time to play
with scripting.
Tima

[Nordicus]

Tima:

Hey. Ah! Numbers! No!
Actually Wes is the number guy, but a couple ideas here might be considered for the next version--I don't know about the current one.
In fact, I think Vlad's new mod might deal more growth and such--see his thread (Vlad the Imp).

This way people/ai will have to choose better locations for cities and if they have extra cities they will have to keep everyone in them happy, which i would imagine limit (peaceful?) goverments like democracy that don't like military units out of cities to be less agressive (they should be allowed most
cities tho) and aggressive war-goverments will have to deal with less cities.
Also penalty for changing goverment could be little harsher, so people/ai should not like
spies/diplomats on their territory and woudn't want anarchy (perhaps make it possible to support only 15 cities under it, so every time revolution happens every turn you will see your cities break of), but at the same time it should be harder to revolt stable/happy goverments, so people will have to pay attention to their infrastructure.

In govern.txt (default/gamedata) you'll see

TOO_MANY_CITIES_THRESHOLD 1000
TOO_MANY_CITIES_COEFFICIENT 0.5
MAX_MARTIAL_LAW_UNITS 5


Now, this is for Anarchy. These can been changed (along with others) to produce all the changes you're suggesting. I haven't touched anything regarding the governments, I'm afraid, and I'm not sure if there's a demand for these changes. But I'd suggest either beginning a new thread on the subject (to see what people think) or discuss this part with Vlad, since his mod deals with governments.
These may be personal preferences, I don't know, but I like the idea of tougher change-gov penalities personally.

Thank you for your ideas

[Nordicus]

Hey, people...

I have attempted to make the changes above a bit easier (again) to understand, since it still looked a bit bizzare to me--took out all symbols--so if there's anything still unclear, please let me know.

Thanks.

N.

------------------
"There can be no maximum of creation without a concomitant maximum of destruction, no supreme good without supreme evil"--Heller, paraphrasing Nietzsche.

"The more passion for the argument, the less evidence for it"--Russel.

"I always wake up angry, cuz I always wake up me..."--Ministry.

"Ak ak-ak-ak ak, AK ak-ak, AK AKakak AK!"--Martian.

[skorpion59]

Wes, I think you asked something about the AIs trading amongst themselves. I believe they are as long as they are peaceful Civs. In most my games, the tech advances stay pretty close. No one has more than 3 techs than anybody else. In my current game, with all militant and agressive types there is a difference of 15 techs between the 1st place and last place guy so they are not trading.

To get around this, is there a way to increase the ability to steal techs from another Civ? I saw a thread about a 'hacker' unit which could do this but can't an existing unit be modified to do this? Also, what would the ramifications be of being able to steal more techs? Would that cause problems elsewhere?

Don

[WesW]

Don, the Spy can steal tech, I believe, though it's expensive.

------------------
Yeah, can you believe it. I got wiped out on chieftain. -Don Blevens (aka Scorpion59)
"Remember Salzburg!" -Austrian Premiere

[skorpion59]

Wes,

Exactly. The spy is to expensive and comes to late. The Civ that is 15 techs behind can't build the spy yet and even if he could, it would be to expensive. That is why I never use diplomats/spies. They are useless unless you want to establish an embassy or spy on a city. The one in Civ2 is a lot more useful. Of course, this is just my opinion resulting from my personal play style.

Don

[Vlad the Imp]

I disagree on spies. They are quite useful and pretty well done in the game. The problem is that you don't NEED to use them unless you are way behind in science, and that doesn't happen until the AI is good enough. I personally don't use any special units unless I need to, and I think Noridus and WesW are going to provide that difficulty.

Civ2 spies were too powerful. Stealing tech should be difficult. I do think that special units should be able to become more powerful 'veterans' after a successful mission. I believe this is already written in, but disabled.

[WesW]

I think both of you make good points. I have decided to reduce the cost of the Spy 20% in my mod, to 1200, and I may enable the veteran ability, if it exists. I wish you could vary the cost of stealing advances with the number of turns somehow.

How about making a new unit; an earlier version of the spy. Say we make it available with writing, and obsolete when the modern spy becomes available? Someone could either modify the spy sprite, or the diplomat, like they did for the Noble. Does this sound like a good idea?

------------------
Yeah, can you believe it. I got wiped out on chieftain. -Don Blevens (aka Scorpion59)
"Remember Salzburg!" -Austrian Premiere

[skorpion59]

Wes,

Sounds good. As far as a new unit goes, I would like to try that. Can the noble be manipulated to steal technology for a test. A test could tell us whether this is a bad idea or not. It might be it causes some other problems.

Vlad,
You have some good points and I just have one thing to say, the AI IS now good enough. Try the latest version of Wes & Nordicus' files. (For an added bonus, play with Wes' Emperor-Specific files.) It makes me start looking at special units in a whole new light.

Don

[hexagonian]

Some observations...

IMO, spies are valuable, from the standpoint of observation until Listening Posts. Several of them can be used to track what the AI is sending at you. In my book, that is probably the best use of them. It does seem so darn expensive to use them for inciting revolutions, especially against larger cities - especially if the percentage of sucess is only 50%.
4,000 gold is a lot for stealing an advance, especially when you factor in the 50% chance of success. I think that the risk also goes up when you choose a particular advance to steal too - at least I remember it that way. Using that tactic when you are coming from behind (and that is probably the only time you use that attack) is a big risk - lose and you fall even further back. So making an adjustment there might be in order.

City Numbers
CD implemented lower city number allowances in his mod - that was one of the best aspects of it. It forced me to plan my cities growth strategically, and made me have to make some tough choices on expansion, either by conquest or by peaceful growth, especially when having to deal with government shortcomings and the unhappiness levels they brought. I like the idea that a player has to use various governments. It forces a player to have to consider switching instead of using only a few governments during the course of the game, and that is not a bad thing to have to do. The Infinite City Sleaze factor was weakened too.

I'm assuming that this modpack is going to be compatible with CDs Mod and thus, will have the city number limits already in place - if not, maybe you should consider including some sort of city number limit in your Modpack.

Keep up the good work.

[hexagonian]

One other thing that I forgot...

You are right. Switching governments should be more painful. As it stands now, science is wiped out, production is reduced, and happiness goes up (there's some truth to that last effect). Does crime go up too? Never noticed that. Possibly increase the crime factor, (and place a higher penalty on production that way) is a possibility. Make a government switch take longer, or maintain happiness at the level it was before the switch or even reduce it slightly (oh wait, that would compromise the reality aspect of the game)

More fuel to the fire of ideas and suggestions.

[WesW]

There are lines in the unit text for all the special abilities. Just copy the ones you want to the noble. Btw, could someone explain the 3 numbers to me. I know the first is the success rate. One other one should be the likelihood of getting captured if you fail, but what is the third one?

Does anyone know a name to use for this new unit? The only thing I can come up with right now is to call the new unit a spy, and rename the old one a secret agent.

[EKM]

I think Spy would be the appropriate name for the new unit and Secret Angent quite apt to replace the current Spy's name. I also think that this new unit should come after Classical Education, not writing. It seems to me that most technology exchanges before the idea of universities came from either friendly exchanges between civilizations or from military conquest. Once the university came about there was more an intrest into stealing secrets rather than taking them. Maybe instead of Classical education perhaps philosophy or alchemy. Considering the academies to act similar in school of thought and one up'ing each other or in the case of alchemy a definite attempt to steal each other's secrets in order to attain the stone. More ideas about the unit: Success rate should not be nearly as high as the spies or if it is the unit should have a 100% chance of being killed if caught (the times were tough back then). Also the unit should be pretty inexpensive. Cheap, doesn't work too often and dies a lot. It could still proove to be effective bt would also promote researching your own advances early in the game rather than stealing them just as it was in the past when lines of communication weren't nearly as advanced.