Design: Random ideas for game balance/micromanagement

[Flinx]

Originally posted by child of Thor
moving slavers might be fun, but they are IMO one of the most unbalancing special units in the game - with them its posible to get massive cities quickly, a huge advantage to the player(and the ingame un-incentives are not tough enough to curb the exploit).

Many of the minor special units, the ones that don't get used that often, could remain as units on the map. So i'm leaning towards the thought that if we do decide to abstract any, it should be the most common usage ones and of those the ones that give an unfair advantage to the human player over the Ai.

Are they unbalancing because they are implemented as a unit rather than through an interface window? The current slaver unit could very easily be implemented exactly as it is now but through a window interface: pick a civ, pick a city, pay 250 gold, have a 50% chance of a slave appearing in one of your cities; how is this an improvement?

The current diplomat however: you walk it to a foreign city, establish an embassy, and then what? Either give the unit something to do, or make embassy formation automatic.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch

one of the biggest exploits possible in CIV 1&2, take a horde of diplomats and buy your way through. Cities/tanks/settles whatever, just keep the money rolling

I agree with you, the army of diplomats stealing techs and units in Civ2 is certainly one of the most stupid things I have ever seen in a civ like game and moreover this is a major MP spoiler.

Once again, whether it is about graphics or game features I think that we should not try to implement things coming from Civ3 or Civ2 but rather think about the way we can improve a game while respecting the wonderful concepts it is based on.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Solver
Yes, but ideally we would all lik to see not spies removed, but an AI that can use them competently to steal your tech .

True and in conformity with my previous post...

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by E
Finally, Civ3 has resistors when you take an enemy city and different nationalities. I dont remember the resistors being Ctp2. I think having an itially resisting population, partisans (already SLIC'd) and to simulate reconstruction you have to build the city govt improvement I mentioned above to restore order and abstract reconstruction and civil authority efforts. Since the captured city would be bigger than the settlement 0, all of those population above that number are in resistance until city govt is built and then slowly they are quelled by the improvement (and additional bldgs) and by military units (to quel resistance it should be atleast one unit per one pop). this could slow down war mongers as they have to quel resistors, invest in the conquered city, and figh partisans. (again this might be a new thread)

We should not forget CtP2 is a grand strategy game, something that the Civ3 designer seem to have some trouble to remember. The game is about conquest and empire building at a global level. If we want to limit the warmongers I think that the easiest way is through the amount of money available to the player and through the maintenance costs. But one of the great things about CtP2 is that one can play as he wants, the warmonger can wage war and the "Empire Builder" like me can build.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by Tamerlin


We should not forget CtP2 is a grand strategy game, something that the Civ3 designer seem to have some trouble to remember. The game is about conquest and empire building at a global level. If we want to limit the warmongers I think that the easiest way is through the amount of money available to the player and through the maintenance costs. But one of the great things about CtP2 is that one can play as he wants, the warmonger can wage war and the "Empire Builder" like me can build.

Considering current events and how many times ancient leaders had to do uprisings I think the resistors is a way to abstract and slow down the conquests. Technically if wanted to make it a real global strategy as the "Emperor" just tell your army to take the nation and wait for a report on win or lose. But I really think you just dont like that I mentioned Civ3 not so much the idea

I myself am more of an empire builder player, when I do fight it is to prevent the rampaging warmonger. I think ctp2 still has too much leaning to the war monger side so the resistor would just slow them down a bit.


[/QUOTE] If we want to limit the warmongers I think that the easiest way is through the amount of money available to the player and through the maintenance costs. [/QUOTE]

I think so far you are going along with idea of abstracting logistics and adding maintenance costs and maybe move costs too!

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by E

Considering current events...

The context is not the same, the war in Iraq was not a conquest...

... war and how many times ancient leaders had to do uprisings I think the resistors is a way to abstract and slow down the conquests.

I agree but IMO this is better simulated through the abstract use of spies or the decrease in happiness after a conquest...

Technically if wanted to make it a real global strategy as the "Emperor" just tell your army to take the nation and wait for a report on win or lose.

But We play the emperors... the Alexander kind of.

But I really think you just dont like that I mentioned Civ3 not so much the idea

True, I really don't like Civ3 and what I appreciate in CtP2 (among other reasons) is that it is NOT like Civ3. To be honest, one of the few things I have liked in Civ3 is the concept of foreign population.

I myself am more of an empire builder player, when I do fight it is to prevent the rampaging warmonger. I think ctp2 still has too much leaning to the war monger side so the resistor would just slow them down a bit.

I don't really think so...

I think so far you are going along with idea of abstracting logistics and adding maintenance costs and maybe move costs too!

Logistics are already abstracted through the maintenance costs... I am not in favor of changing the movement costs, they are well balanced like this IMO and they allow a clear difference between modern and older units.

If we want to slow down the warmonger the best way, though the hardest, would be to improve the AI. Once the AI would have learned how to build balanced stacks, how to use planes, how to embark and disembark units and how to chose and keep its objectives adequately it will be a tough opponent and war will not necessarilly be the best way to win as it would take a heavy toll on the belligerents. And if the AI Civs learn how to stage a coordinated attack on a player...

But IMO this is only viable if Diplomacy can have a real effect on the AI Civs behavior.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Flinx
Are they unbalancing because they are implemented as a unit rather than through an interface window? The current slaver unit could very easily be implemented exactly as it is now but through a window interface: pick a civ, pick a city, pay 250 gold, have a 50% chance of a slave appearing in one of your cities; how is this an improvement?

The current diplomat however: you walk it to a foreign city, establish an embassy, and then what? Either give the unit something to do, or make embassy formation automatic.

yep true - ok then that leaves it down to cost of use(monetary as well as diplomaticaly), or maybe a much reduced chance of success? And this thing has been discussed many times before so i'll leave it as it is - if its just unit balance issues thats fairly easy to do in comparison to abstracting. So it looks like the vote is going to the Diplomat does anybody like him as a unit?

[Gilgamensch]

Only a dead diplomat is a good diplomat

[Tamerlin]

As long as the Embassies are automatically recreated when you are once again at peace with an AI Civ (like in the SAP2) I am not against the Diplomat as a unit. But if you have to move another Diplomat across the map to create a new one after a war I must admit it becomes a painfull process.

[Peter Triggs]

As long as the Embassies are automatically recreated when you are once again at peace with an AI Civ (like in the SAP2) I am not against the Diplomat as a unit. But if you have to move another Diplomat across the map to create a new one after a war I must admit it becomes a painfull process.

I've already put this into the vanilla game (not posted yet). For technical reasons it was both easier and better to add a SLIC handler to dipomacy.slc rather than do it via the source.

[Flinx]

Does the AI ever build diplomats in the vanilla game? The AI never seems to have an embassy with anyone. This limits its ability to conduct diplomacy.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Flinx
Does the AI ever build diplomats in the vanilla game? The AI never seems to have an embassy with anyone. This limits its ability to conduct diplomacy.

As far as I remember, the AI builds some diplomats but seems to use them more for an exploration purpose than for diplomacy.

The main problem of the AI Civs is that they are as clumsy with the human player as they are between themselves. They seem unable to conclude a peace or an alliance when it is their interest to and they are equally unable to assess the threat another nation represents. I have seen some AI Civs declaring war against a vastly superior foe in order to earn a petty advantage.

The main problem of the AI, IMO, is its difficulty to assess threats and to evaluate what is its best interest. If it could be modified, and I am confident in the fact it can, the AI would be far more interesting and efficient. But tweaking the AI is the toughest part of the sourcecode project.

[Uchuu-kun[SM42]]

Just something on the topic of mercenaries:

I think that's rather a good idea. It'd be interesting if you could hire them from a menu interface, and the number of units and units available were determined (in part) by disbanded units. Of course, the idea of 'bribing' units to become mercenaries is also a good one; it'd just be one with a fairly random chance of success. Perhaps higher for 'damaged' units?

I'm not entirely coherent right now, but I hope that what I was saying was clear enough.

[_X_]

abstracting unconventional units ? omg noooo why? those are one of the greatest things about CtP 1 & 2 ....
how about bringing back Space exploration and the Alien Life Proyect?

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by _X_
abstracting unconventional units ? omg noooo why?

I don't think all the unconventional units should be abstracted but some deserve to be. The diplomat for example, though I can admit you have to move one into a foreign territory to create the first embassy, it is a real pain to move them again to create new embassies once you are at peace with a nation. The SAP2 allow you to automatically recreate the former embassies once a war is over.

The slaver is good the way it is and I think that the fact a spy must be moved into an ennemy territory reflects adequately the difficulty of operating into a foreign country.

But it would be easier to abstract the Corporate Branch rather than having to move it from city to city... that is not the more interesting thing you have to do in a CtP2 game IMO.

The goal is to reduce the micromanagement when it doesn't add something valuable to the game. The best example is the Public Work system which is replacing the infamous Civ2 and Civ3 worker system in CtP2. When you are reaching the end of a Civ3 game most of your time is spent moving and giving a tasks to a horde of workers instead of managing your empire, a real pain as far as I am concerned.