AU mod: The ToE - Hoover beeline

[JimiD]

have always felt that this was 'cheating', 'cause we can use it but the AI cant - I am trying to put my thoughts together on this for the MA thread.

The 50% loss is an answer we are familiar with, and I would support.

[JimiD]

FP option - will benefit human over AI because it requires good placing
Reduce corruption - good option if it is free courthouses or police stations, in the vein of other GW - the benefit is open to all, admittedly at a slower pace.
SW - agree with Nathan on why not this option

Providing Hoovers with a weaken Hydro (I assume that the main hydro is left the same, for the reasons Nathan outlined above) appeals, but my problem sort of remains:

It is an avenue we go down (perhaps less often now), but the AI does not.

How about putting Hoovers (as existing or otherwise) at the end of a two 'not required' techs branch (that provide no other benefit):

you must research two useless techs, then build it, to get the benefit. ie the investment is significantly greater, minimum 8 turns research, plus 1000 odd sheilds. The techs could be ToE bonuses, but have little /no value in trading.

This provides a difficult choice for us on long term benefit, versus immediate tech and military race, but how will the AI cope? Hoovers may become an Iron Works equivilent - rarely built, which I can see the appeal of.

May only be researched & bulit once other techs further on are built, perhaps at the risk a trailing AI picking it up.

Re-reading my proposal it seems an 'over engineered' solution.

[nbarclay]

Who is "we"? Believe it or not, not everyone who plays Civ 3 has played Civ 2. I got my start in civ-type games with Call to Power, and while I bought the Test of Time version of Civ 2 somewhere along the line, I never got around to playing it.

A 50% loss on all build changes would be devastating for civs that lose wonder races, and probably worse for AIs than for human players because AIs are probably less adept at anticipating whether they'll win or lose a particular race. I think what's needed ideally is to eliminate deliberate prebuilds without messing up cascades.

[ducki]

The research path has been explored, but vs. the human, it is almost always worth the AI's time to get Riflemen to stop the Cavalry advance ASAP, which then opens up government techs which the AI places a huge amount of stock in. At least, that's how I recall the explanation of why overweighting SciMeth wouldn't work well. I could be misremembering.


Edit: I never played any Civ before C3 1.29f.

[MqsTout]

[OT slightly] Has there been an AU thread discussing the Communism/Fascism cesspool the AI lurks in? I didn't see one in the first couple pages of the forum other than http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...readid=106256, which was the same question. Perhaps someone should start a thread about that before the discussion moves in here.

[jshelr]

We did discuss it above for awhile and I couldn't agree with "cesspool" more. How's the 'burgh doing? Never should have elected an Irishman mayor.

[JimiD]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Who is "we"?

fair comment, a little lazy thinking there. and potentially and unintentially rude, sorry

I think what's needed ideally is to eliminate deliberate prebuilds without messing up cascades.

Agreed.

ducki - does the reduced attack of AU Mod cavalry not go some way to addressing the need for the AI to get riflemen so urgently?

I am working from memory here that it was reduced to 5, but in my current game seem to remeber seeing it at 6 still, which is an AU Mod (Many thanks to those involved).

[ducki]

ducki - does the reduced attack of AU Mod cavalry not go some way to addressing the need for the AI to get riflemen so urgently?

I'll have to yield to the more warmongerly among us on this one. I much prefer Chivalry Wars to Cavalry Wars, though that may just be my struggling with the tech-pace at Emperor.


To wildly speculate, though: If the AI is "ahead" in tech by a fair bit, I'd think Rifles are less pressing. If, however, the human is halfway to Infantry/Tanks, Rifles may be the only hope. Problem is, we can't tell the AI "If you are a branch leader or enter the age first, beeline for ToE."
Since it won't _always_ be best to forgo Nationalism for SciMeth, where do we draw the line on weighting defense against science for the AI?


I'd much rather hear more experienced Cavalry users pipe up with 5-3-3 vs Muskets and 5-3-3 vs Rifles anecdotes, though.

[Buckets]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Under the default rules, coal plants are the earliest plants available, hydro plants give a chance for something that doesn't pollute a bit later but only for cities with rivers, and solar plants give all cities a non-polluting option even later still but at a relatively high price for non-agricultural civs. Nuclear plants work even better in terms of both production and pollution for cities with access to fresh water, but only as long as they don't suffer a meltdown. Thus, all four types of power plants have a useful niche in spite of the fact that a city can only have one type of power plant in operation at a time. I view that balance as very nice as it is and don't want to tamper with it.

Except for Rycycling Stations sort of make non-polluting powerplants pointless. (say that 5 times fast) Why bother with either the hydro or solar plants when you're going to build the recycling station anyway?

I think what's needed ideally is to eliminate deliberate prebuilds without messing up cascades.

Why not make the palace cheaper?

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Buckets


Except for Rycycling Stations sort of make non-polluting powerplants pointless. (say that 5 times fast) Why bother with either the hydro or solar plants when you're going to build the recycling station anyway?

By that stage of the game the Recycling Plant is of marginal value vs shields invested. You'll either be building SS parts or military strength for victory. I rarely build Recycling Plants or Mass Transit now, and usually have enough leftover RR workers to clean up pollution where necessary.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Buckets


Except for Rycycling Stations sort of make non-polluting powerplants pointless. (say that 5 times fast) Why bother with either the hydro or solar plants when you're going to build the recycling station anyway?

Recycling is an optional tech, and I'm not sure I've ever gone to the trouble of researching it just so I could build Recycling Centers in even a single game. If enough AIs are close enough that I can trade for it to someone other than the AI tech leaders, I might get it that way, and in the PtW version of the AU Mod, the space race was reconfigured to make Recycling mandatory for a space race victory. (We might want to bring that back, by the way.) But other than that, I don't build Recycling Centers at all. In any case, my impression was that Recycling Centers only reduced pollution that results from production rather than eliminating it, in which case having a non-polluting power plant would still make a difference.

Why not make the palace cheaper?

That would certainly go a long way toward undercutting prebuilds, and I also like the idea for other reasons. I've always considered it a bit absurd how hard it is to move the palace by building one when it is so easy with the "free palace jump" trick, with a leader, or when the city the palace is in gets captured or destroyed by an enemy. Not only is the palace's cost high, but the place a player wants to move it to is likely to have significant corruption.) Increasing the cost of the palace wouldn't be a complete solution, especially with the way small wonders can be used as prebuilds at certain stages of the game, but it would be a step in the right direction if the editor would let us do it.

[Ision]

I believe that the idea behind the TOE is a leap forward in scientific knowledge - could this not be reflected in a 'free university every city on continent' instead of the 2 free techs? The culture boost, savings in shields, and increased science output would still make this wonder quite a prize indeed. The peacefull human player that had already managed to secure a large number of Universities would probably research another branch - but for the player playing catch up or at parity - the wonder would still be invaluable.

Ision

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Ision
I believe that the idea behind the TOE is a leap forward in scientific knowledge - could this not be reflected in a 'free university every city on continent' instead of the 2 free techs?

Radical idea Ision, though quite interesting. By that stage you've probably built a heap of Universities anyway (and most of us need to in order to stay up in research). So the decision to build Hoovers may no longer be a no-brainer.

But still, maybe too much of a departure from stock for AU.

And on the free palace jump, that should be eliminated in my opinion. If your capital gets razed, or you abandon it, you lose your Palace and should have to build a new one (and yes, suffer the horrible corruption in the meantime). That will teach players to guard their capital more closely!

[sabrewolf]

the problem of this idea would be the free culture in all cities.
with the internet you get research labs in all cities on the continent... but fortunatly, it's only 2 culture per turn.
universities give 4 culture. that means that after only 3 turns, the borders expand. that's often the time you need to recover the forces for the next strike (eg. when using a lot of bombard units).
also, i wouldn't try too radical changes here for now. i guess jesse will change the ToE free techs to random ones (as afaik the majority of the community is asking for).

concerning the palace jump: i'd much prefer seeing the forbidden palace city transform into the new capital. it also logically makes sence...

[jshelr]

Originally posted by Ision
I believe that the idea behind the TOE is a leap forward in scientific knowledge - could this not be reflected in a 'free university every city on continent' instead of the 2 free techs? The culture boost, savings in shields, and increased science output would still make this wonder quite a prize indeed. The peacefull human player that had already managed to secure a large number of Universities would probably research another branch - but for the player playing catch up or at parity - the wonder would still be invaluable.

Ision

This, I like

[ducki]

Oh, when I recommended the free libs/unis for ToE, I didn't take culture into account. Damn.

Is there a way to give the ToE negative culture to compensate? Otherwise, if Jesse doesn't switch it to random techs, the doubles scientific research or +50% science may be the only non-culture affecting effect.

Maybe another way to get the effects of increased research would be to have the ToE give courthouses continentally/globally, but that doesn't strictly match the science flavor, has the side effect of increasing production in general(doesn't it?) and non-science income.

Coises, foiled again!

[jshelr]

Why are we so anxious about culture?? Even with the culture story, I still like this idea.

[alexman]

Have you ever built the Internet? As sabrewolf metnioned, it's the warmongers dream. Border expansions without spending money to rush Temples.

By the way, I have no problem with it, as long as we change the Internet to be something else. Perhaps the Internet gives the 2 free techs?

[jshelr]

I usually build labs right away after getting computers.

I agree that the border expansion result is helpful to warmongers. But that benefit is ok by me and already exists early in the game due to the new wonder that gives temples. Maybe the ToE universities should disappear on researching computers to create some havoc later in the game.

[ducki]

I thought the internet did Research Labs, not Unis, though I have trouble keeping tabs on the late wonders.

I actually think the 2 free techs in the Modern Era to be much less of a problem. Most of time I actually end up there, I'm usually in "good GOD can we please hurry this up?!?" mode.

I vaguely remember suggesting that since we moved Longevity to Industrial that we move ToE to Modern to keep the balance, as it were, but met resistance there.

I think that swapping the effects of, say, the Internet and ToE would be much less unbalancing while maintaining the flavor of stock. I don't, however, think it would make ToE less desirable for the human, although if the AI actually managed to get it, I think free Unis would be far more beneficial to the AI than 2 free techs that it's probably going to choose "incorrectly" anyways.

EDIT:

universities should disappear on researching computers to create some havoc later in the game.

On the off-chance that the AI builds ToE, wouldn't this really hurt it? Would it waste a lot of time going back and building Unis so it could build Labs? Maybe that's such a slim possibilty that we shouldn't even bother thinkiing about the AI getting ToE, I dunno.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alexman
Have you ever built the Internet? As sabrewolf metnioned, it's the warmongers dream. Border expansions without spending money to rush Temples.

You mean like the Temple of Artemis?

[smellymummy]

free unis is a little too much imo... toe costs 600 vs unis at 200. as far as getting random techs from the toe, wasn't that how civ3 was originally released?

[nbarclay]

Originally, ToE gave the cheapest tech you didn't have yet, which too often meant you got an optional tech from the middle ages. It also just gave one tech instead of two (or one and part of another if you don't time it perfectly) if I recall correctly. Firaxis "fixed" the problem of the wonder's being worth next to nothing if there were old optional techs you hadn't learned yet, but went to the opposite extreme and made it what we now consider too powerful (in part because we've gotten so much better at building up big tech leads that ToE makes even bigger).

The thing that bothers me about having ToE give free universities is that that makes it far more a warmonger's toy than a builder's toy. The Internet can be useful to a builder because it provides free research labs just a tech and a wonder build after research labs become available. Thus, delaying building research labs until the wonder can provide them for free generally works out pretty well. But builders will have already built most of their universities by the time ToE becomes available, leading to a situation where warmongers can get a bunch of free universities as they conquer cities (and in cities they already conquered but haven't gotten around to building universities in yet) while builders get next to nothing.

Conceptually, as something tied to advances in science, ToE ought to be at least as much a wonder for builders as a wonder for warmongers. So I don't think having it give free universities is good fit.

Nathan

[ducki]

But builders will have already built most of their universities by the time ToE becomes available, leading to a situation where warmongers can get a bunch of free universities as they conquer cities (and in cities they already conquered but haven't gotten around to building universities in yet) while builders get next to nothing.

But what's the upkeep cost of a University per turn? Is that instant income increase significant? How much gold could you get (per university) for selling off the ones you built from scratch? What's the value of not having to build Unis in your corrupt towns? Would "Doubles Scientific Research" or "+50% Scientific Research" provide an equivalent increase in science funding for the "average" empire, builderly or warmonger? (I don't know the answers to any of these, just trying to find out the comparative benefits.)

[alexman]

How about making the ToE effect exactly like the Internet: free labs.

Free labs work even before computers, giving the builder with universities and no more science improvements to build a great advantage. They give less culture than universities, reducing the advantage of the warmonger compared to that of free universities. But is having research labs half an age earlier too powerful? And of course the usual question, is the change too drastic for this mod?

[jshelr]

What if a civ, upon building ToE, is enlightened sufficiently to learn facism (the evolution of superior beings and all that) and communism (the evolution of the perfect society). That would make the build worth something, but not a game breaker. (Can the AI be taught not to both build it and research the governments?)

[nbarclay]

Here's a thought:

1) Create a new building that works the same as libraries, universities, and research labs but produces no culture.

2) Have ToE give one of that building in every city in the civ.

3) Make ToE expire with whichever tech we think is most likely to be the last mandatory tech players research in the industrial era.

That would cause ToE to give a significant research boost through most or all of the rest of the industrial era without the kind of sudden jump it provides now and without giving warmongers cultural goodies. Also note that the four-turn minimum would still apply, so players who are already on a four-turn pace couldn't get two free techs in addition to the lead their four-turn pace provides.

[jshelr]

Nice job Nathan -- that fixes the issues with ideas others above had and produces a reasonable wonder that gives you an edge without going overboard. I think we are getting near an acceptable solution.

[alexman]

Sounds good to me too.

Give the new improvement a dummy resource requirement so that it's not buildable on its own.

Make it expire with computers, so there is no overlap with research labs, but there is more incentive to research the Industrial Age optional techs.

[nbarclay]

The problem with making the wonder expire with Computers is that it would give the player with ToE a strong incentive to delay researching Computers because instead of providing a scientific advantage, Computers would provide a scientific disadvantage. I view that as a very bad thing.

If Firaxis makes Advanced Flight mandatory when they get rid of Radio (assuming they do), or if we would do so, we could have ToE expire wth Advanced Flight. If players have any optional techs they want to research, they could research them before Advanced Flight. I'm not quite sure what would be best if Firaxis gets rid of Radio without making Advanced Flight mandatory and if we don't want to make Advanced Flight mandatry. (With Radio still in, having ToE expire with Radio would be a good fit to give players a chance to research optional techs if they want to.)

Nathan