AU mod: Balancing the Governments

[alexman]

Everything about Corruption.

By the way, I'm not sure about 1/0/0 Republic either. It's probably better to strengthen Democracy instead.

[Nisku]

Thank you again.

Ok here are my final changes:

Monarchy Changes: Nuisance Corruption

Feudalism Changes: Minimal Corruption

Republic Changes: 1/2/2 support

Democracy Changes: Communual Corruption

Communism Changes: Added forced resetlment (but not xenophobia)

Fascism Changes: Trade bonus, rampant corruption

Then I have a proposed wonder added to each.

Making democracy and fascism stronger is a much better alternative then further weaking republic. Ok, now I'm going to try another game with these changes and see how it goes.

[Ision]

Don't you think xenophobia is as much part of Fascism's unique flavor as communal corruption is part of communism's unique flavor?

No, not at all. It is far more akin to Fascism and Commie both having 'zero' war-weariness, or in both Demo and Republic having better economies. Genocide to varing degrees, in both Fascism and Communism has tended to be inherent in the nature of their Government systems and ideologies. The two most famous 20th century 'Communist genocides' were responsible for approximately 60 million murders (USSR-20 million, Red China-40 million).

Ision

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Ision
No, not at all. It is far more akin to Fascism and Commie both having 'zero' war-weariness, or in both Demo and Republic having better economies. Genocide to varing degrees, in both Fascism and Communism has tended to be inherent in the nature of their Government systems and ideologies. The two most famous 20th century 'Communist genocides' were responsible for approximately 60 million murders (USSR-20 million, Red China-40 million).

Ision

genocide - yes, xenophobia - not really.

the soviet union consisted of slavs, turk-folks, baltics, uralics, armenian, mongols, etc etc etc etc.... but unlike the nazis, everyone was killed, not because of their race (ok, sometimes) but because of their opositional political stance.

in the 3rd reich xenophobia led to the death of (besides the oposers) jews, gypsies, slavs and invalids.

what i want to say: both were evil governements, but xenophobia isn't a typical commie thing. besides - stalinism and maoism isn't communism...

[nbarclay]

I just had an interesting thought. If we would give Republic a flat free unit support of 12 plus 0/1/1 per town/city/metropolis, that would make it a lot harder to get a lot of free unit support under Republic by conquering large amounts of territory. Obviously, there's some problem in regard to map sizes - a flat number is more useful on smaller maps than on larger ones - but that kind of support arrangement would make it a little harder for good players with big empires to warmonger under Republic without significantly undercutting the value of Republic (more than we already have) for peaceful builders and for less experienced players who have a harder time acquiring territory.

[alexman]

Found in the first page of this thread:

Originally posted by nbarclay
In my view, a fixed number of free units irrespective of map size would be ridiculous.

Originally posted by Nor Me
How about 1/1/1 with 10 free units for Republic. That might help warmongers on a tiny map but shouldn't cause too much trouble otherwise.

We are obviously going in circles here.

[alexman]

Since the discussion in this thread is not helping to determine what to put under consideration, we will use the ranking method again:

1. To make Feudalism more useful as a first government:

• A: No change from 1.03b (1gpt unit support).
• B: Reduce corruption for Feudalism to minimal (1gpt unit support).
• C: Reduce corruption for Feudalism to minimal and restore 3gpt unit support.
• D: Remove war weariness from Feudalism and restore 3gpt unit support.
  Add low war weariness to Monarchy.
• E: Remove war weariness from Feudalism and restore 3gpt unit support.

2. To make Fascism more useful as a late-game warmongering government:

• A: No change.
• B: Reduce corruption for Fascism to minimal.
• C: Increase corruption for Fascism to Rampant, and give trade bonus.
• D: Add another Secret Police HQ Wonder for Fascism, that functions exactly as a Forbidden Palace.

3. To make Republic less useful as a late-game warmongering government:

• A: No change from 1.03b. (Republic 1/2/2 support)
• B: Increase war weariness of Republic to high (1/2/2).
• C: Reduce free unit support for Republic to 1/1/1.
• D: Reduce free unit support for Republic to 0/1/1 and add a flat 12 free unit support.

4. To make Democracy considerably better than the Republic so a switch is more often worth it:

• A: No change from 1.03b (Democracy 1/2/2 support).
• B: Democracy gets the same free unit support as Republic.
• C: Democracy gets communal corruption model and no free unit support.
• D: Reduce war weariness of Democracy to low.

Note that option 4B is the same as option 4A if Republic's support is not changed from verion 1.03b in item 3.

[Dominae]

1. Feudalism

E
A
D
B
C

I have to note that I'm not too happy about ranking changes to Feudalism in a vacuum (that is, without corresponding changes to Monarchy). See my posts above for my thoughts/solution on this issue (they're still the same, so no point in re-posting them here).

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2. Fascism

B
A
.
.
.
C (too big a change, sorry; trade bonus in Fascism!?)

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3. Republic

C
A
B
D (I really dislike the flat free support concept)

---

4. Democracy

A
B (how is this help Democracy with respect to Republic?)
.
.
.
C (waaay to drastic; not at all in the spirit of AU)

---

Dominae

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
C (too big a change, sorry; trade bonus in Fascism!?)

The only response I have is that Fascism sucks so much that a big change IS needed for balance. A trade bonus with Rampant corruption fills a void in government types. (High income/low production).

B (how is this help Democracy with respect to Republic?)

It's help because no matter what we do to the Republic, Democracy is guaranteed to always be better or equal in terms of unit support, since unit costs are just 1gpt.

[Aqualung71]

My comments from the grandstand, for what they're worth:

Feudalism

I played the "Power of Feudalism" game up to a certain point, trying to be a complete warmonger and taking advantage of the 5 unit support for size 6 and under. While there is a niche there, at the end of the day it would still have been miles better growing to size 7 and being in Monarchy.

In order to make Feudalism a possible choice for a human player, you need to improve it substantially and probably need to handicap Monarchy somewhat.

Removing WW, with unit support not that different from (or worse than) Monarchy, won't make any difference - you still have a better earlier government. Reducing corruption will change the dynamics, but you're still left with a government that limits town size and Republic is a better choice in most cases (subject to unit support costs of Republic).

I think Feudalism may be a lost cause.

Republic

Having struggled to keep my unit support costs under control in AU501, any move to further increase them will cripple Republic IMHO. We are already delaying our move into Republic until size 7 because of the support costs. Delaying that move even further will take Republic out of the game, and players will then go Monarchy --> Democracy.

[Ision]

Are any of the below ideas viable?

1. a 2 or 3 gpt Feudalism that is 5-3-1 with military police reduced to 1 or 2. The 3 support for size 7 and above cities might do the trick. Reduced MP to ensure Monarchy is still 'clearly' superior for war. My goal is a government that is 'in-between' Monarchy and Republic -at both war and trade.

2. leaving Fascism as it stands now - but adding a second 'secret police' small wonder identical to Communisms. SPH part 2 so to speak.

3. this one is probably way over the top - but I would like comment anyway - leave Demo Min-corruption and 0-0-0 support, but change WW to low. From my expierence the problem with Demo is not that the Human cannot cope with the high ww - but that the AI cannot. The AI rarely gets to stay in this form of government for any extended period of time - and yet the AI will almost invariably change to Demo at the first opportunity - only to change to Commie/Fascism shortly afterwards. Will this make Republic completely obsolete - yes, but no more so than Monarchy is made completely obsolete by Commie/Fascism. One way to view this is that the 'Republic' government that is available in the Ancient Age is an abstraction of a more peaceful and representative ancient gov - a Monarchy/Demo hybrid, but this does not correspond to the more modern 'Democratic Republic' that Demo should be the absraction of.

Ision

[nbarclay]

The real question is whether we want Democracy to be pretty much always worthwhile compared with Republic if players are willing to take the time for a switch or whether we want Democracy to compete with Republic. If the former, reducing Democracy's war weariness would be an excellent step. If the latter, reducing its war weariness would be a step in an entirely wrong direction.

(Note that I would oppose increasing Republic's war weariness in the strongest possible terms. That might be a workable solution for the best players, but it would be disastrous for many others, especially since players don't always get to choose when and whether to fight.)

With Communism beefed up so much, people who build large empires warmongering can get a lot of advantage out of it compared with Democracy without Democracy's having to have crippling war weariness. Under the right circumstances, Communism is much better than Democracy at production and can be almost as good at research. Thus, Democracy no longer needs to have devastating war weariness for the choice between Democracy and Communism to be an interesting one.

[alexman]

I edited the proposal under consideration, above.

• Replaced option 1D with 1E plus a corresponding change to Monarchy.
• Added option 2D: A secret police small wonder for Fascism.
• Added option 4D: reduce WW for Democracy to low.

[alexman]

Some comments:

I don't like strengthening Democracy by making it better for warmongering. We already have Communism, Fascism, and Monarchy for war. Just my opinion.

Also, I would like Feudalism to be between Monarchy and the Republic for both war and economy. Monarchy is the best for war, Republic is the best in terms of ecomomy, Feudalism should be between those two, perhaps having an advantage in production for uniqueness. That's why I like the minimal corruption solution.

[ducki]

Regarding using the Power of Feudalism as a baseline - that game has an insane abundance of food and the Civs you are given to choose from are Agricultural - the entire game, to me, screamed out "Monarchy!" along with (maybe) "Always War!".

I actually think AU501 might be a good test-case for Feudalism - limited land(pack 'em in), resource scarcity(war, war, war for many), intercontinental invasions(pre-Demo/Comm, a need for a navy, adding significantly to your troop count/support costs).

Take a look at Theseus' spacing/number of cities on the home island. That would be, IMO, good for Feudalism as a first govt. The PoF game seemed a bit wet and food-rich to choose Feudalism over Monarchy and a bit luxury rich to choose Feudalism over Republic, in my opinion.

I really don't think Feudalism needs much of a boost, and if AU502 is well-received(read "I don't suck at mapmaking"), I'll try to come up with another, later course on Feudalism/Fascism. I think we just haven't been presented with a situation where Fuedalism shines or haven't recognized it, partly due to the nature of AU and its student body - all of us are "good" players, seeking better strategies and very importantly, optimization.

I ramble. I just wanted to point out that I (personally) didn't feel Feudalism was the obvious(optimal?) government in PoF, though it was no slouch if planned for.

Edit: Just so there's no misunderstanding, I really like PoF and thought it was well-built. Nice job pvzh! I just didn't think it was the optimal setup for Feudalism, which was probably part of the point. Not dinging you at all, pvzh, just questioning using that game as a baseline for Feudalism in the AU mod.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

Also, I would like Feudalism to be between Monarchy and the Republic for both war and economy. Monarchy is the best for war, Republic is the best in terms of ecomomy, Feudalism should be between those two, perhaps having an advantage in production for uniqueness. That's why I like the minimal corruption solution.

To me, an orientation toward small towns does not seem at all compatible with a builder economy. Feudalism seems more like the kind of government you'd want if you were too busy building troops to get around to building aqueducts, or perhaps on a nasty archipelago start where many cities will be held to size six or under by the terrain (at least until Electricity or until irrigation from a very distant water supply is complete). Another use would be if a serious warmonger keeps conquering cities faster than his established ones grow so there are always plenty of small towns to provide free unit support. But the small-town orientation of Feudalism strikes me as antithetical to anything resembling normal builder operations.

Nathan

[alexman]

All of these suggested uses for Feudalism are nice, but the situations where that government is better than Monarchy in practice are extremely rare.

The main reason is that Feudalism is not available until the Middle Ages, which is the time when you usually have enough cities to make unit support not a problem, both for Monarchy and for Feudalism.

Reducing corruption for Feudalism is not an attempt to change this government's character, but rather the only way I see to improve Feudalism while keeping its current unit support model and retaining the balance of Republic versus Monarchy.

That way, you could still take advantage of the the 'traditional' advantages of Feudalism, listed by Nathan above, but in addition you would have some extra cases where Feudalism might make more sense than before.

For example, a typical builder (with a 'normal' city size and placement) might choose Feudalism over Monarchy if he has relatively few units so that he's under the free limit with either government, but enough units (or lack of luxuries) so that Republic is not the best option.

Another example might be a slow starter who wants to build up his infrastructure and unit count before turning warmonger. The lower corruption will help a faster build-up than either of the other governments.

[ducki]

main reason is that Feudalism is not available until the Middle Ages

Why not just move it to the Monarchy tech to see if this is indeed the main reason? If it were available at around the time of either Monarchy or Republic, then it would be more used/useful is the logic as I understand it, so perhaps we could try an earlier timing to see if that is so.

Feudalism as a government is new to C3C, so this would not be as radical as, say, moving Monarchy and/or Republic to the Middle Ages.

Any support for trying it out as an Ancient government to see if it's just the timing that kills it as a viable option for most players?

[Theseus]

1. DECBA

2. CBAD

3. CBAD

4. A (nerf Republic)

/me chants: "Two government switches! Two government switches!"

[alexman]

As a reminder, it's better to rank all options (preferably after the voting period starts ) even if you don't like some of them at all, otherwise the system doesn't work.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by ducki

Why not just move it to the Monarchy tech to see if this is indeed the main reason?

I was just going to say that, and then saw your post!

Better still...move it to Monarchy and make it a required tech, then move monarchy to Theology.

ducki, I agree with your comments on the PoF game. I never finished it off because I didn't feel it made sense to push forward in Feudalism at a time when Monarchy was clearly a better government in every sense.

Conclusion: Feudalism currently becomes available at precisely the same time as you want to move from size 6 towns to size 7 cities, and so is exquisitely mis-placed in the tech tree based on its intended (?) niche of being a semi-warmonger government for low-pop and possibly cramped empires.

[ducki]

then move monarchy to Theology.

No, this undermines the experiment. We want to find out if it is avoided _because_ it comes too late. We don't want to transfer the problem to Monarchy, we just want to see if there are enough "typical" game situations that the government would be "good" for were it not delayed in availability.

On Feudalsim's "intended" niche, someone quoted a Firaxian as saying it was good if you were behind in expansion(I assume in a big, bad way.) I imagine on Demigod/Deity where the AI outexpands you and the only way to field a large enough army without killing your economy is Feudalism, that makes sense to me. Otherwise, I don't understand it as explained, 3rd or 4th hand information though it is(coming from me, that is).

[Theseus]

First, sorry, I thought voting had started.

Second, I guess I don;t understand the options for #4. A&B are the same? C, while intellectually cool, is too big a change for me, at least for now. D is... too strong for Demo when compared to other late game govs. So I just voted A (prematurely, I guess).

[Ision]

Just a question:

When I posted the suggeston about 'low' WW for Demo - I knew that it would probably be considered too great a departure or radical in concept.

However, just for my own purposes - I would be greatly interested on your opinions of what the effects would be in game terms?

Personally I believe it would;

1. Delay the standard AI impoverishment that occurs in early Industrial by virtue of the AI vs AI wars that commonly occur, or those world wars that the human player (peaceful builder OR warmonger) usually manipulates the AIs into. IMO it would do so by greatly delaying the point at which the AIs will be compelled to go Commie/Fascist. The AI unlike the human player is usually going Commie/Fascist because they 'have to' in order to survive and avoid riots. The Human usually is going totalitarian by 'choice' as a matter of pursueing a Dom/Conq victory - Usually - not always. I know that KAIs do spring up from time to time.

2. I could also foresee those AIs that managed to stay out of the wars or had limited participation would become far more viable opponents late into the game. The exception being a Commie/Fascist AI that is a threat because it has managed to become a KAI. Also, it may even make the ToE race 'slightly' more competitive for the human playing severe catch-up.

I suppose that the bottom line for me is that I know that no matter what, 90% of the AI Civs will go Democracy Government - that being the case I am trying to find a way to make that change of a greater value to the AI. I realize that the immediate objection will be that it may benefit the human more than the AI- perhaps so? I believe it would greatly benifit the AI. Personally, even under the old PTW Republic model (with its 1 gpt, trade bonus, and low WW)- I still always used Monarchy-Commie when I was serious about dominaton/conquest victory. Republic was my 'balanced of power' warmonger/builder combo gov - Demo for the pure peaceful games of culture or space race. I do not see that changing even with a Demo with low WW. The only difference being that Demo would replace the role formerlly held by Republic in PTW. Except now, unlike before, one would have to switch Govs at least twice and an early Republic Government may be replaced with Monarchy. A commitment by a human player in Demo to a long aggressive war of total conquest or survival - will still require him to go Com/Fas at some point.

Okay, - please feel free to agree-disagree, rip apart -support.

Help me out Nathan, Alex, Dominae and the rest of the gang! If nothing else, I would like a heads up for any personal modifications I would make to my personal version of the AU Mod.

Thanks Gentlemen - any comments will be appreciated.

Ision

[alexman]

Originally posted by Theseus
I guess I don;t understand the options for #4. A&B are the same?

They are the same only if we don't change the free unit support of the Republic in #3 (1/2/2). Otherwise they will be different. By the way, don't be sorry for voting - I was just giving you a hard time. It's fine if you vote early, and you can always change your vote if you change your mind during the discussion period.

Ision, with Communism so good, and if we boost Fascism, I don't think an AI switch to a war time government due to war weariness is such a bad thing. Also, the AI anarchy period is much shorter than that of the human above Regent.

The idea to give low war weariness to Democracy is a good one because then you ensure that Democracy is always better than the Republic. I just feel that having special war governments for war is better for forcing the player to make choices, and for keeping the original flavor. That's why I prefer to nerf the Republic instead.

[alexman]

By the way, it seems the AI currently likes Fascism much better than Communism. I have never seen an AI in Communism when it knows the tech of Fascism. This will likely be even more true if we strengthen Fascism.

Any ideas on how deal with that? Just let them be Fascists?

[ducki]

I'd have to go look at your chart again, but outside the realm of a human empire going for domination(far beyond the OCN) isn't Fascism "better" anyway? Since the AI doesn't tend to get massive, wouldn't they be within the part of your chart where Fascism is slightly better than Communism, or am I misremembering the chart?

[alexman]

The chart assumes a good FP placement, which is not usually the case for the AI. AI Fascist empires will be less efficient than human Fascist governments, on average. But even with a good FP placement, Communism is better than Fascism by the time the map OCN is reached. The AI usually reaches that number unless it's being beat up.

[ducki]

Hmmm, ok.
I thought the new FP made the typical AI FP comparable to the human. Back to reading, I guess.

I wonder if there are certain hardcoded triggers that determine which govt is "better" for the AI or if it just picks the "highest" form of govt depending on "mode", war=fascism, peace=demo.

If Fascism got a SPHQ, that would push back on the crossover point between it and Communism, right? Hmm..

[alexman]

Originally posted by ducki
If Fascism got a SPHQ, that would push back on the crossover point between it and Communism, right?

For sure, and so would reducing corruption. That's kinda the reason for wanting to stengthen Fascism.

But remember that adding another FP (SPHQ) to a non-communal government type will usually help the human more than it will help the AI, although you're right that the difference under the current corruption model is not as great as it was in PTW.