DESIGN: End Game Options/General Strategy

[MrBaggins]

My take on improving defence:

War in Civ games in general, seems to easy. Only by mass of defenders can a civ defend itself, and thats the Civ3 solution. Its unlikely that an AI, given the current state of technology will have the broad strategic skill, of even an modestly skilled human, with even slightly less resources at his disposal.

Certainly, effort should be made in AI, to improve obviously bad behavior.

Civ has a theoretical game arc, of... 6000 years or so... maybe 7000. Most games are more or less over before less than a third of the game turns have elapsed.

Good game design aims to extend the game life as far into the game arc as possible, WHERE POSSIBLE. This doesn't mean that every game should go the distance, but there seems to be a problem if the game tends to be deemed over, when such a short time has elapsed.

The usual culprit for this is conquest... that is... that the human has rolled over the other AI's in a military sense, and gone ahead in science, production and so on, as a byproduct.

Whilst it might not be absolutely historically accurate, I would be in favor of making conquest very tough in the early stages, and perhaps making world domination a serious prospect by the Industrial age, with combined forces being important...

Thats not to say it should be impossible, earlier... but that it should take a combination of luck, skill and overwhelming numbers to achieve.

A theoretical situation has been stated... the 12-stack versus the 4 stack. Of course, in CTP2... its not quite that simple.

Armies are constructed of differing units... Offensive, Defensive, Ranged, Flanking, Bombard... basically.

I'm somewhat of the opinion that a city that had significant defensive capability... that is, perhaps, a city wall, and moderate defense, that is 4 or 5 defenders, should be able to rebuff an attack by a 12 stack with contemporary troops, without flanking/bombard.

Thats not to say that the defenders wouldn't be damaged, by a regular offensive/ranged force, and that overwhelming numbers... say another stack.. even a lesser stack.. like 8 say... couldn't finally take the city, or that a good defensive/ranged mix shouldn't be necessary for defense, as its always been.

This would tend to make cities stronger... which would, of course, make life harder for both the AI and human players, early on. However, humans have a habit of quitting the game when they start losing cities (plural) and thus the game, anyway... so its kind of moot.

The other effects would be to make bombard more important generally, which seems intuitive, and to extend the game towards the age of effective bombarding, that is, to some degree, catapults, then cannons, at least.

The AI would need to use bombard and counter-bombard effectively. I don't see that as an impossible goal.

[Myrddin]

There are some interesting ideas in this thread but IMHO it would to seperate them into 3 categories:

What options/bonuses/penalties do we give to the human player?

eg if the human player wants to head for a science victory what options does he get in terms of governments/buildings/sliders

What bonus/penalties do we give to the AI?

eg what bonuses/penalties does the AI get in the same situation as the human to offset for its inefficiencies

What overall adjustments are made to make the game balanced?

eg how do you make sure that no civ (AI or human) gets an overpowering tech lead

The first and third questions are the important ones to get the game working, while tweaking the AI bonuses is a matter of balance

The third point is probably the most interesting - how you handicap the game to prevent a runaway victory:

Science - do you have bottleneck techs to prevent researching a single branch only, compulsory techs to research before you can advance to the next era, variable tech costs depending on the number of civs knowing a particular advance, techs being valued less for trading depending on how many other civs know the advance

Military - do you make the maintenance costs for a large military problematic, significant reputation hits for conquest, increased revolt risk in conquered cities, make capturing cities harder, preventing use of roads in foreign territory, attrition in enemy territory

Expansion - do you have increased risk of revolt as the number of cities increases, increased crime/corruption, reputation penalty for being the largest civ

Overall in CTP2, I believe the importance of trade needs to be much increased and strategic resources introduced. This will make diplomacy more important and make trade embargoes a weapon to use against a militaristic expansionist

[Solver]

Indeed, those early victories are annoying. I generally gte the Cavalry/Cannon combination, at which point I attack the other civs - taking a good number of big developed cities from them. From there, it's often clear already that I've won the game - when I have twice as many cities as the two remaining civs combined, am leading in tech and army...

[kaan]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Solver does not mean if you have a lot of science bonus you get extra defence power in your cities, but he means if you have a high percent of of science buildings you get a science bonus not a defence bonus. Something like a feat, but available for all players and can be lost.

-Martin

oh

well thats something entirely different then

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Myrddin
There are some interesting ideas in this thread but IMHO it would to seperate them into 3 categories:

What options/bonuses/penalties do we give to the human player?

eg if the human player wants to head for a science victory what options does he get in terms of governments/buildings/sliders


What bonus/penalties do we give to the AI?

eg what bonuses/penalties does the AI get in the same situation as the human to offset for its inefficiencies

Ideally, you should not be differentiating so much between player and AI. The player, generally speaking is outnumbered, so this should tend to presenting a challenge.

We know it doesn't because

a) the AI isn't as efficient as a human with strategies that currently dominate the game
b) that once a player is ahead they tend to have an advantage. The only exception to this rule is that conquest is a momentum swinging force. A nation which can start to conquer even a small number of cities of a stronger nation, will tend to turn the tide in his favor.

The "problem" is largely due to war. Humans are generally speaking far better at war than the AI. War is too easy, has too many rewards, and there is scant reason to avoid it, except due to personal preference otherwise.

If the AI were masterful at war, then it would be an entirely different situation, however.

There are a couple of different methods by which the dominance of war as the first strategy of CTP2 for the human could be reduced...

First is drastically increasing the resources available to the AI, through a bonus. This is usually seen as a necessary evil, but is known to be "unfair". Players, generally speaking, dislike "cheats" like this, thinking them pretty blunt, and perhaps feel that the game is less satisfying because of it. I basically feel this way too.

Second... you can change the game world rules, universally, for instance:

* Change the combat model, so its easier to defend. This will make offensive war harder, and life for the AI a little easier, generally speaking. The AI has to be taught how to siege, however.

* Encourage peace by rewarding civilized behavior, such as trading and diplomacy. A player who is warlike and breaks agreements will lose certain options and benefits.

Indeed, those benefits should be serious and noticable, so that peaceful AI opponents can "keep up" with a warmongering human (or AI, I guess.)

What overall adjustments are made to make the game balanced?

eg how do you make sure that no civ (AI or human) gets an overpowering tech lead

The first and third questions are the important ones to get the game working, while tweaking the AI bonuses is a matter of balance

The third point is probably the most interesting - how you handicap the game to prevent a runaway victory:

Science - do you have bottleneck techs to prevent researching a single branch only, compulsory techs to research before you can advance to the next era, variable tech costs depending on the number of civs knowing a particular advance, techs being valued less for trading depending on how many other civs know the advance

Military - do you make the maintenance costs for a large military problematic, significant reputation hits for conquest, increased revolt risk in conquered cities, make capturing cities harder, preventing use of roads in foreign territory, attrition in enemy territory

Expansion - do you have increased risk of revolt as the number of cities increases, increased crime/corruption, reputation penalty for being the largest civ

Overall in CTP2, I believe the importance of trade needs to be much increased and strategic resources introduced. This will make diplomacy more important and make trade embargoes a weapon to use against a militaristic expansionist

Keeping a balance between maintaining a tech parity between civs and not allowing for an advantage is a tricky subject.

E.G. In Civ2... playing on a world map, you might commonly find that you had a massive tech advantage, over the Zulus. There was something uniquely satisfying about blasting their horse-mounted troops with tanks and bombers. I had the same feeling with later-techs in CtP1. The Space Bombers and War Walkers were very satisfying, "I've won, and now I'm going to blast you with impunity units".

I think tech parity should be closely tied to the difficulty level... that is.. the higher the difficultly level, the harder it is to maintain a technological lead.

There is a current system for rewarding being ahead, and penalizing being behind, based on difficulty level and age, but its woefully inadequate, because its not reactive to the circumstances. Its often just not enough to overcome the advantage involved.

Whilst you could institute a much more free market of tech trading, in general, I think its a bad idea, since it essentially relegates a choice to obscurity. The gold/science slider becomes of secondary importance, when it should really be a critical choice in a players turn, usually. I'm not totally against tech trading. I think though that it should be minimal and special, rather than usual.

I like the idea of specifying the total possible bonus that a civ can get for all other civs knowing a particular technology could get, for each difficulty level. That would be divided by the number of players, minus 1, to give the tech bonus that was given to civs researching that tech, for each civ that already knew it.

I.E. Consider if there is a 40% total parity bonus for the particular difficulty level. There are 5 total civs. This would mean a 10% per civ parity bonus. The first civ to develop... say... Democracy would gain no bonus. The second civ would gain a 10% bonus (of the total cost of Democracy) towards completion, (though this bonus would be limited to the amount needed to complete the particular tech.) The second would gain a 20% bonus, and so on until the last civ, would gain a 40% bonus... the maximum available.

This wouldn't mean that a player couldn't keep a tech lead. Overwhelming tech leads would be essentially impossible with high tech parity bonuses, however.

As for your other points...

I largely agree with your Military and Expansion points, although the unhappiness/revolt/crime model already exists. Its probably not severe enough.

As has been said elsewhere, the happiness model has too sharp a drop-off... that is... crime increases, and then suddenly, the city riots and possibly revolts.

There should be a more graduated system, with increasing crime, and small initial chance for riots and revolt... increasing as happiness drops.

War should indeed cause significant war-weariness... though much less under military style governments, although those governments should be restrictive from a general development and growth sense.

As for strategic resources, I'm somewhat wary of their effect in CTP2. Whilst certainly the player should only control an equal fraction of the land available, we all know that a human player is usually able to concentrate forces to dominate a particular area, should he wish, and it be desirable.

Civ3 has a bit better military AI than CTP2, was designed to contemplate strategic resources from day 1, and they still fudged the AI benefiting by location with regard to these resources anyway, to some degree.

However, I have still heard and seen myself, situations where a human can utterly deny the AI particular resources.. usually later ones, like Oil... which becomes a catch-22.

As is, I think CTP2 would be hurt by the inclusion of strategic resources. I think if we could fix the game balance, more generally, and then carefully structure the game for their inclusion, then they might very well add another compelling dimension to trade and war.

[Myrddin]

Most of the suggestions that I made above on ways of preventing a runaway or momentum win (bigger empire = better in all things) are tweaking existing parts of the game

Where I feel a major change would be of benefit would be in

Trade - making the advantages from trade (whether cash/science/happiness/strategic resources) so important, that maintaining a good reputation to get access to trade becomes a major part of the game and opens up a peaceful path to victory

Does anyone have a detailed understanding of how the current trade system works?

[MrBaggins]

Yep, and this has already been mentioned.

Originally posted by MrBaggins
OK... heres the further explanation to clarify what I meant:

At present there is a fairly lame system of good (resource) trading in CtP2. Essentially, you build a caravan unit, and then can choose to trade a good... like beaver or opium, or whatever, to another city.

That city can be foreign... that is belonging to another civ, or national, that is, within your own civ.

This trade, when complete, garners you some extra gold, which is effectively meaningless at present.

What I am suggesting, is that instead of getting just gold for the INTERNATIONAL trade route, you should gain income for that city... that is gold and/or science, based on your slider settings.

This would encourage peace, and diplomacy, rather than being an unused function as it is now. (in my experience, at least)

[Maquiladora]

Why should domestic trade exist at all? Trading to yourself for profit, yeah right.......

I think there should only be International Trade and it should give only commerce, if the city sending the good has a Port (city improvement not tile imp, tile imp called instead "Dock" or something) then the route creates 1/4 more commerce than before on all outgoing trades from that city, or whatever other ideas.....

[Myrddin]

The current trade system has trade routes independent of roads/ports - I think it is unrealistic but may be too complex to change

I also don't like the emphasis on domestic trade - this should be abstracted and the effects built into city/tile improvements

[MrBaggins]

Well.. national trade means something... but shouldn't mean TOO much... what with, as you say, it being self-profit.

As for requiring that International Trade, with commerce requiring a Port... I don't think that it makes sense to: Many nations have used land routes for trade. Indeed, you only use a sea route, when necessary, but these international trade routes were important, in either case.

Perhaps require a Bazzar OR Port city improvement? Thoughts?

[Maquiladora]

I didnt say International Trade routes should require a Port, i just said they should get a bonus on that route if the city does contain a Port. I wouldnt like to see a building needed for initial trade because its going abit far IMO, just buildings that give bonuses would be a nice addition.

There was an option in CtP1 to "reset route", where after you had roads/rail everywhere, when you reset the route it would take the fastest path instead, which would generally be, roads/rail then into the shallow water then deep water.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
There was an option in CtP1 to "reset route", where after you had roads/rail everywhere, when you reset the route it would take the fastest path instead, which would generally be, roads/rail then into the shallow water then deep water.

I think the Freight bonus in the CTP1 tarrain.txt was used for the trade routes instead of the move costs, therefore I added that Freight flag to the tileimp.txt, unfortunatly the path for the trade routes seems to be generated like the path for air units. Indeed it is a little bit tricky if you like to have the path generated like a path for land/shallow sea/deep sea units, actual it does make sense for me to have an extra Freight bonus for the terrain and use this instead of the move costs to calculate the path. So first the path needs to be calculated properly then we can readd the reset trade route option.

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

Oh yeah thats right, but hopefully do it right so i dont build all my roads then all of a sudden the route vias off one tile into shallow water then back onto road

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Oh yeah thats right, but hopefully do it right so i dont build all my roads then all of a sudden the route vias off one tile into shallow water then back onto road

It shouldn't be a problem if you just copy the move costs values from the terrain or the roads as it is doen for the terrains. Otherwise you could raise the move costs for water terrain significantly.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

I apologize if I repeat what anyone else has said because I only skimmed this forum. Of course I've been a big advocate for an economic victory. I dont think growth should be its criteria but perhaps dominating resources or also the positive bank account gpt per turn.

I also think that besides the city limit perhaps the settler cost should double for each one produced making it harder and harder to make them?

Also as a balancing tool, perhaps certain civs on certain victory paths can build "small" wonders that give them bonuses against other civs. Like the internet allows a flow of info from a scientif civ to a non scientific reducing their lead or "victory points" (if gained by achievements on a certain path)

Or an global media small wonder that creates one unhappy citizen per city in a militaristic civ when they attack a city? Or when a militaristic civ faces big punishment when it loses a city.

Maybe ideas like this where a civ of one type can "hurt" the path of others...perhaps too complex but it would be fun to "screw" the other player when they ar on a path.