Readiness Modifier: War-Peace-Alert

[Ekmek]

I was hopping through the code the other day and ran into readiness. I checked the 'ReadyWarCoef' and stuff in the govern.txt and saw that it is always the same for each govt.

I then recalled in my game that it was a useless slider and I stayed at 'War' all the time because I didnt want my units at 1/2 HP for peace.

Does anyone have any experience messing with this or is it ignored?

I was thinking of a couple of possibilities:

1) Vary the governements so that the CoEfficient is higher than 1 when at war to make Wars more expensive (especially for democracies but give them more peaceful bonuses). May be have it .5 at peace, 1 at alert, and a whopping 3 at War just to feel a pinch.

2) adding in the code where the coefficient doesnt only affect the shieldcost of units but the upkeep of buildings so that if you go to war its a bigger drain on cash and limit the game's gold-gush.


Any comments? I think the AI may handle this (I know thats the usual comment)

[HuangShang]

it makes sense

but theres a point where the building cost will be the majority of by turn expenses... so it might come to always trying to obtain as small a coefficient as possible while running an army of special forces and half-health arty

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by HuangShang
but theres a point where the building cost will be the majority of by turn expenses... so it might come to always trying to obtain as small a coefficient as possible while running an army of special forces and half-health arty

thats a good point and more realistic I think. operating in a "cold war" situation until something happens and you have to ram up your forces and go all out which means no PW for infrastructure and hurting domestic construction.

I think I'll incorporate this in the next EMOD (the mod of files that had the elephant warrior and resources)

[HuangShang]

o yea, that makes even more sense, and adds more macromanagement

[realpolitic]

Sounds good. I'm almost always in a slave-taking mood before Emancipation, and usually with ancient units, so I don't leave war mode, especially in the early game. Maybe if things were moded enough, I'd change my evil ways. As for gold costs, after playing plenty of civ3 at Diety, I realise that Empire size can help a backward country catch up, so I'll probably continue taking lotsa slaves.

[Peter Triggs]

IIRC, one of the problems with the 'ReadyWarCoef' was the number of turns it took to get from a peacetime to a wartime economy. You might want to check out the 'Call to Conquest' code: I think I shortened the time involved and used SLIC to control the AI civs' readiness states. But it was in very limited circumstances, as I recall.

[Tamerlin]

I have always found the time needed to "ready" the units for war far too long (given that a turn is something around "10 years", the result is rather ridiculous), as far as I remember I have cut the number of turns needed to half (if not a third of) the original values in my CtP2_ApolytonPack configuration. You still need a few turns, which can be harmful when you have to face a surprise attack, but it is no more the burden it was before. As "E" wrote it, I was reluctant to put my units at rest.

I think that this interesting concept could be managed differently. For example : Your army could be automatically put to rest the turn following one you are at peace with all the nations (though the player should be asked whether he wants to keep his units ready or not) and could be prepared for war in the turn following an order from the player or a declaration of war by another nation.

[Protra3211]

E could this be tied to the diplomactic relations with other AI factions? What I mean is if you are ready for war at a any moment a loss of trust should be given.
This is used in Suprme Ruler but is called Defcon level
I do recall that the first CtP had the AI civs using it readness level and as we all know CtP2 1.1 version is stuck at war.
I think more cost should be given to some forms of goverment as way to balance off faster research given to them.

[HuangShang]

i dont know about losing trust, but gain trust when readiness is only at peace sounds good

[Ekmek]

I think it may be tough to SLIC regard but I'll look into it.

But also looking at peace-alert-war I really doont think the labels match what is going on there.

Perhaps it should be looked at as the defense training budget and how much resources you put into it.

Or in terms of manpower/force structure, in this case I would label it as

Volunteer (militias) ----- Regular (Conscript)------- Professional (standing)

it would certainly justify the costs (high costs too) and the HP in terms of troop quality. But I think I'll look into adding an EnableFlag in the advances in the code, so you have to develop advances to go to different levels as well. I'll make sure I add it to 'TOOLMAKING' The beginnig advance so it does not offend the tamerlin-purist camp

I guess I could re-do the graphics too