The Military Academy

[nbarclay]

I don't think there's a way to make two military academies mutually exclusive, is there? If not, civs that can build the original would end up with two military academies instead of one, and thus with the ability to crank out even larger numbers of armies (as long as they have enough cities to allow them). If the two could be made mutually exclusive, I could go for the idea, but if I'm right that they can't, I see too many problems.

Nathan

[bongo]

A civ with two MA's would be a real killer, I didn't think that far

I don't know the editor well enough to provide a workaround, perhaps triple the price of the MA, make it available to everyone and use the 'successfu army' flag to bring the price back to normal for those who had an successful army? sounds impossible....

[ZargonX]

I don't know the editor well enough to provide a workaround, perhaps triple the price of the MA, make it available to everyone and use the 'successfu army' flag to bring the price back to normal for those who had an successful army? sounds impossible....

Unfortunately, this is impossible, within the limitations of the editor. I think this is going to have to be resolved through reassigning the associated tech, because, as was stated, having two Mil. Acd. available would both be what I consider a major change, and very unbalancing.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I don't think there's a way to make two military academies mutually exclusive, is there? ... If the two could be made mutually exclusive, I could go for the idea, but if I'm right that they can't, I see too many problems.

One thing that comes close is to make the first Mil. Ac. obsolete with the tech (e.g. Fascism) that allows for the second one. But this creates the problem that any AI who had built the first Mil. Ac. would not 'know' to avoid the tech that makes it obsolete.

What I'd be interested in: Aside from the question if a small wonder should be moved to another age in the AU mod - would one Military Academy that is available without a victorious army, but only with Fascism result in a better balance between 'builders' and 'warmongers'?

[ducki]

There seems to be at least some level of concensus that this change did not, does not, and will not help the AI.

If true, (and in light of my current game), I withdraw my support for opening the MA up to all. Should later research show it would, in fact, help the AI, I'm sure we'd all agree that a reevaluation is in order.

For now, though, I'll trust in Theseus and Dominae that the AI does not benefit.

[lockstep]

After some pondering I'm still for a Military Academy that doesn't require a victorious army. However, to evaluate if this change is really suitable for the AU mod, I feel the need to adress at least three questions:

1. Do C3C-style armies provide a crucial advantage when waging war against a player or AI without the ability to build them?
2. How many Scientific and/or Military Great Leaders is a player likely to get under standard game settings if he/she adopts builder, hybrid or warmonger strategies? (As a first approximation to define these playstiles I suggest to use the percentage of landmass owned by the player at the end of a successful game.)
3. To what extent does the AI use a freely accessible Military Academy to build armies that it couldn't built under stock rules? (I'm assuming here that 'more armies' means 'more competitive AI'.)

Questions no. 1 and 2 should be resolved in a while when there's more familiarity with C3C's gameplay. I will read the DAR's of the forthcoming AU games specifically with these aspects in mind (besides also playing at least some of the games). Question no. 3 can't be adressed without implementing the change to the Military Academy at least on a trial basis or in some kind of test scenario.

[lockstep]

Judging from On the Utility and Use of Armies, the tentative answer to question no.1 - do armies provide a crucial advantage in C3C - is 'YES'. These are my favourite quotes:

Originally posted by radegast
With the extra movement point and blitz, armies become over-powered against the AI, it simply has no response or defence.

Originally posted by nbarclay
I'm another one that didn't have much interest in armies prior to C3C but loves them now ... Before, I didn't regard building a Military Academy to crank out armies as all that big a deal. But now it's a very definite priority ...

As the beta v1.12 patch was released yesterday, I'd like to gain some experience about army relevance / leader frequency subject to the 'rectified' AI performance (i.e. with the correct amount of gold at the AI's disposal). In order to do that, I ask the panel to postpone the vote on the Military Academy change for another week.

[Theseus]

Fair enough... good weekend to experiment.

[nbarclay]

Lockstep, there is a huge difference between providing a useful advantage and providing a crucial one. The Military Academy itself costs the shields of about four conventional military units, and each army built with it costs the shields of about another four. (That's before considering the units needed to populate the army.) It may be possible that there are situations where a civ with armies would win a war where one with extra conventional units instead would lose, but my expectation is that such situations would be exceedingly rare. (Consider, especially, the power of artillery-based tactics - something else the AI has "no response or defence" against when properly executed.)

Also consider the fact that armies do not generate leaders, so a civ fighting with conventional forces instead of armies will tend to catch up at least a little in armies as it generates leaders. (That is especially true with tanks and MAs, since their blitz capability makes it relatively easy for them to become elite.) So it's not as if a civ without a Military Academy is doomed never to get a chance to use armies.

As I wrote in one of the messages you quoted, I do regard the military academy as a priority now because I like the power armies provide under the C3C rules. But would I feel like my ability to mount an effective offenseive was critically impaired if I had to do without it in a game? Most emphatically not. Thus, I characterize the Military Academy as providing an advantage but not a "crucial advantage."

Nathan

[alexman]

This has been three weeks under consideration.
Time to vote!
The panel has 48 hours.

[Theseus]

No.

[ZargonX]

Despite the builder in me, I must vote no.

[Dominae]

No.

[Stuie]

No.

[lockstep]

Although this will make the 'No' official:

Yes.

(Actually 'Experimental', as nbarclay would probably put it.)

I'm still in the middle of playing epic games with the v1.12 patch (five games finished so far), but gaining experience about leaders and armies is much more tedious than I hoped it would be. Preliminary insights:

• When using a 'hybrid' or a 'warmonger' approach, it is likely to get at least one Military Great Leader, although this may not happen until the end of the industrial age (tank warfare).
• I don't have evidence so far regarding a pure 'builder' approach - if I tried this route, a neighboring AI with the Statue of Zeus always forced me to do some serious warmongering.
• Scientific Great Leaders seem to be very rare (as one would assume due to the 3%-chance) - they are certainly more uncommon than MGL's for 'hybrid' players.
• An ancient/medieval MGL - and therefore the early possibility to build the Military Academy - may result in steamrolling the AI with about the maximum number of armies in the late industrial age.
• With the Pentagon also in place, the +100% attack factor of 4-unit armies (plus their movement bonus) make them vastly superior compared to individual units.
• So far, I haven't seen any AI army.

I'll play a few more games using a 'builder' approach under stock rules. After that, I'll use a modified biq-file with a freely accessible Mil. Ac. and watch out if the AI is more inclined to build armies.

[Theseus]

Damnit lockstep, there you go making a good point.

I haven't played enough epic games, but... I have not seen a single AI Army either.

Anybody?

[vmxa1]

I was sure I had seen a few in the early days of C3C, but I can't recall any battles with them.

[ducki]

I've yet to see one. I'll mod my conquests.biq to remove the army requirement from Mil.Acad. as well as the already (in mine) changed SoZ ivory requirement.

As strong as armies are, I'd really like to see the AI getting some and the only times I've every seen them were with the AUPtW mod that had this requirement removed.

[vulture]

I definitely remember seeing one AI army in stock rules - I think it was the Mountain Sage inspired, large map played as France AU game, but I'm to lazy to look up the number. The Mongols turned up with a 3xCavalry army. In an outrageous run of luck, I attacked it with cavalry, and my first cavalry destroyed the army taking 1 hp of damage in the proces. I'd be outraged if that ever happened to one of my armies personally.

With spies, I've seen a few AI armies around - never more than one per civ through, and I very rarely come across them in battle.

[Stuie]

I've definitely seen AI armies, but not in great numbers. And I've seen the AI building armies when investigating cities. So it does happen.

[bongo]

Behold the mighty German army

(As it is from a vanilla civ3 game it is irrelevant to this thread, but I simply could not resist this one....)

[ducki]

vulture - if it was an AU game using the mod, I think someone checked and the modded Mil.Acad. has been in for a long time. If it's not using the mod, or was long enough ago that the Academy had not yet been modded, they are stil very rare it seems, and without the mod I've never seen a single one.

Maybe games with armies are supposed to be rare/random, like SGLs, or maybe now that MGLs have been toned down and tech-leaders/builders/greys have been given SGLs, the attention given to buffing up armies is a sort of consolation prize.

I still contend that hawks reap far more than they sow, above and beyond the doves and that this particular unit should not be locked away from those that want to avoid war - just because you want to avoid war doesn't mean you don't want to defend yourself with the best technology and troops available to you.

I seem to be fighting an uphill battle, though, as most folk either disagree that this change was already in AU or that it had little to no positive effect on the AI or that warmongers should get a special unit as a reward for their efforts(I contend that there are far more than enough (in-game) rewards for making war and too few for keeping the peace) that are not available any other way. With the game as heavily weighted in favor of going to war as it is, I personally think it would be nice to give the doves something to counter this(SGLs are not an analog here) but I also realize and admit that I'm pretty firmly in the minority, at least until someone(me?) does some tests.

On that note, as has been suggested in another thread in regards to the different corruption models, maybe we could have a small group of 2-4 folks that play the AU Courses with any given single rule change that is not in the main mod. The given change could require a sponsor from the panel - sole responsibility here is to say "I think it's worth testing but not yet worth including" - nothing more.

Then again, maybe we'd just end up with 27billion versions of the mod, which would be bad. Harumph.

[Catt]

I haven't played a lot of C3C yet, so can't be certain that I've seen AI armies in action (bad memory) recently. However I can without hesitation say that I have seen numerous AI armies in stock rules PTW and Civanilla, including single AI civs with numerous armies.

Catt

[lockstep]

Originally posted by ducki
vulture - if it was an AU game using the mod, I think someone checked and the modded Mil.Acad. has been in for a long time.

It has been in since version 1.0. (There were some test versions of the AU mod without it - v0.1 to v0.5 -, and then the Mil. Ac. change was included in v0.6, which essentially became v1.0.)

I still contend that hawks reap far more than they sow, above and beyond the doves and that this particular unit should not be locked away from those that want to avoid war - just because you want to avoid war doesn't mean you don't want to defend yourself with the best technology and troops available to you.

Where can I sign?

... but I also realize and admit that I'm pretty firmly in the minority, at least until someone(me?) does some tests.

As I said before: A few more games using a 'builder' approach under stock rules - from then on, I'll test a freely accessible Military Academy in my epic games.

[ducki]

Originally posted by lockstep
As I said before: A few more games using a 'builder' approach under stock rules - from then on, I'll test a freely accessible Military Academy in my epic games.

I've also made this change to my .biq(along with no-Ivory SoZ) but with the jump to Emperor forcing me to do a lot of focusing on the early game, I rarely even get to Knights before Ctrl+Shift+Q to try to do even better.
I think I'll drop back to Monarch and actually play one out to try to see the effects of those two changes instead of working so much on the Ancient Age, at least for a little bit.

[lockstep]

Actually, I'm doing one half of my test games on Monarch, the other half on Emperor.

As for Ctrl+Shift+Q ... either do it shortly after the start, or stick with your game until you can secure at least a Culture or Diplo victory. That'll yield more Mil. Ac. test results.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Catt
I haven't played a lot of C3C yet, so can't be certain that I've seen AI armies in action (bad memory) recently. However I can without hesitation say that I have seen numerous AI armies in stock rules PTW and Civanilla, including single AI civs with numerous armies.

Catt

Agreed. I am furthering lockstep's question specifically in regard to C3C, where I have not yet seen an AI Army.

[nbarclay]

After all the lobbying I did against changing the Military Academy so it doesn't require a victorious army, I've run into a situation that changed my mind. If the Military Academy were just a Military Academy, I would want to stick to the stock rules. But both the Military Academy and, once it's built, armies are also valuable as prebuilds for wonders. Having a situation where warmongers have a prebuild capability that builders (and unlucky warmongers) don't doesn't seem quite fair, and the only way to fix that problem is to make the Military Academy available to everyone.

So does the panel want to reconsider in light of this new evidence?

Nathan

[Catt]

Originally posted by nbarclay
If the Military Academy were just a Military Academy, I would want to stick to the stock rules. But both the Military Academy and, once it's built, armies are also valuable as prebuilds for wonders. Having a situation where warmongers have a prebuild capability that builders (and unlucky warmongers) don't doesn't seem quite fair, and the only way to fix that problem is to make the Military Academy available to everyone.

That seems to me to be a much smaller advantage relating to the availability of the MA than the actual ability to build armies (and would also work only in favor of the human player). How is this pre-build ability any less 'fair' than the ability to build armies offered to the (lucky) warmonger?

Catt

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Catt


That seems to me to be a much smaller advantage relating to the availability of the MA than the actual ability to build armies (and would also work only in favor of the human player). How is this pre-build ability any less 'fair' than the ability to build armies offered to the (lucky) warmonger?

It's a smaller disadvantage, but it is also in addition to the disadvantage of not being able to build armies. Being unable to build armies plus being denied access to a 400-shield non-palace prebuild is greater than being unable to build armies alone.

There are also two philosophical reasons why I attach an importance to the prebuild issue that is out of proportion to its relative impact on gameplay. The first is the issue of how the game was designed. When an effect is intended as part of a game's design, it is hard to argue objectively that the effect is "unfair." Unfair by what standard? Under the rules, it's fair. But when a rule has loopholes or unintended side effects, it is possible to argue that the result is unfair in the sense that it creates a disadvantage that was not intended as part of the game's design. Thus, even if being unable to build armies is assumed to be "fair" because Firaxis deliberately planned it that way, it can be argued that having to do without a useful prebuild option is "unfair" because that disadvantage is (presumably) an additional disadvantage above and beyond what Firaxis intended.

The second has to do with the main argument used to defend the standard rules: "The Military Academy is a warmonger toy, so it is reasonable to require civs to earn the right to build it in battle." That argument holds true for warmonger uses of the Military Academy, but is clearly not valid with regard to the prebuild issue. It turns out that the Military Academy gives warmongers a building advantage that leaderless builders are denied, which is directly contrary to the "it's a warmonger toy" argument.

The way I see it, even purely in terms of the ability to build armies, the situation was borderline. And in borderline situations, I believe very strongly that the AU Mod should leave the default rules alone.

But when something is teetering in the balance, it doesn't take a whole lot of extra weight to shift the balance from one side to the other. And I think the extra weight of the prebuild issue is enough to shift the balance in this case. It's one thing for builders to be denied a warmonger toy, but placing them at a building disadvantage adds insult to injury.

Nathan