AU Mod: The Explorer

[alexman]

The Problem

The Explorer unit comes at a time when most of the World is already known to some civilization, and therefore the World Map is usually one technology away (Navigation) from being known to everyone.

As a result, Explorers are not usually being built as scouts, which was their intended purpose, but as pillaging units that can move deep inside enemy land.

In addition, the AI is programmed not to build any units flagged exclusively for scouting, so it can't take advantage of the Explorer, even in the rare cases when it provides a benefit.

Possible Solutions

1. Move the unit to Theology. Just two technologies into the medieval Age, there should still be some land left to explore at that time. There would be a good reason to discover your continent with explorers, since Map Trading doesn't come until Navigation. An earlier scout would provide a meaningful upgrade path for the Spanish, who would still get their Conquistador at Astronomy.
2. Increase attack and defense to 1. Perhaps give a HP penalty, so that regular Explorers have just 1HP. Much like the Chasqui Scout, this would enable the unit to be flagged as offensive for the AI, which would build some of them and harrass humans who tend to leave their interior cities undefended.

So what do you think? Does the Explorer deserve some attention? Would the above proposal help the AI, or would it make the unit too powerful? Please share your ideas!

[Stuie]

(Note that I usually play on continents)

Problem is, even with moving it to an earlier tech the home continent is usually explorered by the end of the Ancient Age. Exploring other continents is where the Explorer would add value, but by the time you reach them you usually have the ability to trade maps.

I guess option 2 would give them some sort of utility, even if it doesn't make a ton of sense.

[Kuciwalker]

Remove the pillage ability.

[Dominae]

Neither option strikes me as particularly interesting (sorry): there's no reason to put it at Theology other than it's simply earlier in the tech tree, and letting the AI build a 1-power ATAR unit for offense will not exactly help it out.

How about making them available at Map Making instead?


Dominae

[alexman]

We have to be careful not to diminish the value of the Expansionist trait by giving an uber-scout to everyone.

The AI would not build many 1-strength Explorers, but it would build some. Just like it builds some Guerillas when it has rubber. Not many. And the AI doesn't suicide its units mindlessly when it has better options. An AI ATAR unit would definitely tend to try to capture workers and pillage at your rear, if possible, rather than attack cities. Humans tend to leave their rear undefended much more than the AI, so this would help the AI.

You need a reason for Theology? OK, how about missionary explorers?

[pvzh]

I would suggest 1/1/1 ATR cost 20 (as it now) and no HP penalty (as long as it is in Middle Ages). I used that in Age of Discovery (not the stock one obviously).

Explorer has a cool combat graphics : their are fencing with they rapier (or sword?).

[nbarclay]

I don't like the idea of giving Explorers an attack value. Even "undefended" cities would have police forces, probably high-ranking civilians and possibly retired soldiers with weapons, and civilians with makeshift weapons (and probably some real weapons). So the ability for a band of explorers to walk in and say, "We're taking over," strikes me as fundamentally wrong.

I'm also highly skeptical of how well AIs would use Explorers' pillaging ability if they built them. Spending a 20-shield unit to deprive an enemy of a vital resource or maybe to cut a militarily important road link can be a good investment, but throwing away twenty shields just to waste a little time for enemy workers is another matter entirely. Unless AIs would pillage worthwhile targets and avoid wasting explorers pillaging targets that aren't worthwhile, I think their shields are better spent in some other way. For that matter, if explorers are built but can't find a worthwhile target to pillage, they are a waste of shields.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

One possibility might be to move Exporers to Engineering on the premise that Engineering brings with it some additional surveying skills. That would bring them into play after Expansionists get their main advantage but still in time to be potentially useful for exploring overseas.

[alexman]

I like the Engineering idea.

However, I don't like the idea of strengthening a unit that the AI doesn't build, so I would prefer to also add 1 to their attack/defense, so the AI takes advantage of the change.

[ZargonX]

I think the main problem is that there just isn't a niche for the explorer to fill. Make it much earlier in the tech tree, and you cheapen expansionist. Any later, and you probably know the entire map already. Even at its current time, as pointed out, there isn't much for an explorer to explore.

That said, I don't think I like the idea of giving them an A/D value, for much the reasons nbarclay pointed out. Perhaps engineering is the solution, but maybe someone else has some great idea boiling in the back of their mind

[ducki]

If the explorer was a combo scout-settler-worker type unit, even at it's normal tech, it _might_ be nominally useful for settling those distant islands, finding the best spot on the island, roading the needed resource/luxury, and founding a town.
At least, it would be so for the player.
I don't know how the AI would handle a fast-moving settler than can work it's tiles before settling.

Anyway, maybe just make it a fastmover-settler.
Or give it the ability to see farther than an army, making it useful in battle to some extent - but then it's not an explorer, it's a military scout - which might be a better route for this unit.

Like ZargonX said, there's really not a niche for this unit. We either need to carve one out, change the nature of the unit, nerf Expansionist by stealing its power, or ensure that all AU courses are configured such that there's still (worthwhile) exploring to be done when this unit comes along.

Change the nature of the unit sounds extreme, but I think it will prove to be less of a change than anything else (except for forcing our course creators to jump through hoops).

Additionally, when you make a useless unit worth building, it's not going to feel stock no matter how little you change. It'll be like a whole new unit since so few of us ever build it. For that reason, let's not be afraid to go a little further with this one. That or just ignore the stupid thing(which I've been doing for some time now. )

[donZappo]

I like the idea moving the explorer up to Theology along with added offensive/defensive stats to it to ensure that the AI builds it. The one thing that I'm leary of is the AI building these units when it could be building far more important units. I don't know how the AI decides which unit to build in order to fill it's "offensive quota" of units. If it would just build a handful of this weaker unit, that seems alright to me. But, at the same time, if it builds a significant stockpile of them as opposed to knights, then that would put the AI at a distinct disadvantage against a human player.

Also, if the explorer was given an offensive/defensive value would the AI use them to explore at all, or would it only use it for military purposes? I know that you can combine flags in the editor (at least I *think* you can) but I don't know what the AI will do with a unit if it flagged as both "scouting" and "offensive." I'd hate for this unit to become greatly different from its intended purpose since this would strike me as a big change from the stock rules.

Overall I prefer Alexman's second proposal but am afraid that it would actually end up weaking the AI or changing the game too drastically.

-donZappo

[geniemalin]

Rather than giving it offensive ability, could you mod it to have a greater visual range, or is visual range fixed for land units? If it could see, for example, 3 squares, it could be a good 'military scout' unit to help check the disposition of enemy forces as well as enabling very quick exploration of any unmapped regions.

[nbarclay]

Here's something to think about: if we give the Explorer an offensive capability, what happens when someone who isn't used to playing the mod has a city five tiles behind his front lines taken when he didn't even realize that such a thing could happen? In terms of "feel of the game," especially for people who aren't good about reading readme files (or who don't remember the change or don't catch its implications), I can't think of anything we've ever done with the AU Mod that could come as a nastier surprise. And that's doubly (or triply) true if the AI could take two or three cities at once instead of just one.

Edit: It could also come as an equally nasty shock to someone who knows about the change and understands its implications perfectly in theory but who forgets to adjust for it or misses a possible attack route when the time comes in a particular game.

Nathan

[alexman]

I just thought of an idea that requires no change to the Explorer unit, but makes it more useful, as well as useable by the AI.

Create a new Small Wonder, called "Cyril and Methodius Mission", available at Monotheism, which spawns an explorer every 10 turns. The actual explorer unit would still become available with Astronomy.

Perhaps this Wonder could be Feudalism-specific (although it would then have to be called something else - Boniface's Mission?), so that we kill two birds with one stone (Explorer and Feudalism). You would then have extra motivation to switch to Feudalism if you've reached the Middle Ages and your empire is still behind in exploration and expansion.

[donZappo]

If you made the small wonder feudalism specific then the AI would rarely ever be able to build it. I've watched a couple of debug games and the AI usually shuns that government like the plague. I don't know if reducing the support cost to 1 gpt and adding a specific small wonder would entice the AI to switch to this government, but my gut feeling is that it wouldn't. I wish I knew what went into the AI decision making process for figuring out which government to switch to.

I think that this proposal does have merit. The small wonder would have to be pretty cheap since I don't view this as being that great of a wonder to have and I wouldn't want the AI to spend too much time using a productive city to make this wonder. I like the timing of it being in Monotheism as well. It wouldn't have to any faster than 1 explorer per 10 turns since you really don't want too many explorers milling about. Definitely make the wonder stop producing guys when map trading is available as well.

Would this be too confusing of a change to add to the mod, though? I know you have created buildings and other small wonders in the past, but I don't know how much resistence there was to those buildings, or if the panel has become more conservative over time.

-donZappo

[ducki]

You would then have extra motivation to switch to Feudalism if you've reached the Middle Ages and your empire is still behind in exploration and expansion.

For non-religious civs, I doubt I'd switch (again).
If I had a big empire with lots of small towns and if I haven't switched to Republic or Monarchy and if I'm on a large enough landmass that I don't have to coordinate naval and intercontinental exploration in tandem and if I can spare a city for building a Small Wonder that's going to give me mostly useless - in MY eyes - units that are going to cost me upkeep, I might switch to Feudalism, go through Anarchy, and build this Small Wonder.
Maybe.

I like the spirit of the idea, it's just the particulars that leave me wanting a bit more. Maybe move the small wonder back to (here's a leap of logic) Mapmaking, make it really cheap, and make it produce an Explorer every 50 turns, give or take a few.

I'm not sure how many years that would be, or where it would put the first Explorer, but surely it's late enough not to steal the thunder of Expansionist, but early enough to be "useful" - relatively speaking - and doesn't force a civ (AI or human) to endure anarchy and a (possibly) sub-par government for the sake of injecting our games with a few explorer units.

It'd have to be zero upkeep, too.

Let's explore(ha!) this idea further.

[nbarclay]

Which would make better use of the explorers generated by a small wonder, humans or the AI? Without a tie to Feudalism, I bet it's us, which would make the small wonder a bad idea. Even with the tie to Feudalism, I view the idea as clutter that adds changes to the mod for no meaningful net benefit.

I think we're best off leaving the Explorer alone. It may not be useful, but its existence does not hurt the game or cause an imbalance, so there's no real need to do anything with it. And I haven't seen any proposals for changes that are clearly better than doing nothing.

Nathan

[donZappo]

Nbarclay, I have to somewhat disagree. I think that the AI would benefit just as much from using the explorer as most humans would. The AI does in fact use scouting units if it has them built, the problem is just getting them to build them in the first place. If you just move the explorer up to an earlier tech then it's guaranteed that the human will be the only one to use them without a drastic overhauling of the unit itself.

I think Firaxis designed this unit to actually be used, and I would find it more interesting to be able to use it myself. As the unit stands right now I find it almost impossible to find any use that justifies its creation. It just doesn't sit well with me to have a unit with such little use as this and I'm surprised that Firaxis has never done anything about it.

I do agree that nothing needs to be done to fix it as it doesn't affect strategic decisions or help the AI at all. It seems like we're looking for some change that will benefit both AIs and humans equally just to increase the fun factor of the game. That may be outside the power of the AU, but I'm hoping that it's not.

-donZappo

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Which would make better use of the explorers generated by a small wonder, humans or the AI?

The AI would definitely get a benefit from free explorers.

As most who have played C3C with the expansionist or seafaring traits know, the AI is terrible in getting contacts and maps now that the trade of these things has been moved up. (Like Nathan, it doesn't seem to realize the importance of exploration ). As a result, humans with early contacts act as tech trading middle men, getting rich in the process, or at least catching up in tech at higher levels.

Free units with the expore flag would help the AI travel through foreign lands and likely get the remaining contacts on the continent.

Humans could get the same benefit, but at least most humans know to try to get contacts with everyone, even without the exporer. So the lack of explorers hurts the AI more than it does the human in exploration.

[Edit]: cross-posted with donZ.
And just let me add that spending a couple hundred shields to build a Small Wonder versus the possibility of discovering new trading partners half an age earlier is a valid strategic decision. [/Edit]

[ducki]

I think Firaxis designed this unit to actually be used, and I would find it more interesting to be able to use it myself. As the unit stands right now I find it almost impossible to find any use that justifies its creation. It just doesn't sit well with me to have a unit with such little use as this and I'm surprised that Firaxis has never done anything about it.

The more we debate this (mostly) useless little guy, the more I start to think that traits are not the only thing geared toward certain maps.

We all agree that the bigger the landmass and the bigger the map, the more the expansionist trait is worth, I think. Since the expansionists start with scouts, my reasoning went, and expansionist is best of the largest landmasses on the largest maps, it stands to reason that the second tier Scout-like unit would also be more geared toward a larger map and larger landmasses.

I don't think Firaxis realized just how fast the world would be explored. There's no real way to hasten the explorer without killing what little edge expansionists have on Standard and smaller maps.

I don't have the time or patience (esp. with the diplo screen) to play huge maps, but perhaps someone who does can tell us if the Explorer is worth building - if there is still unexplored land in the mid-middle ages - on Huge settings.

Maybe the unit doesn't need changing at all - maybe it's as map-specific as Expnansionist.

Any thoughts?
I personally am starting to think adding a wonder in order to get Explorers "built" may be a bit of overkill and beyond scope. Unless we're playing maps that actually have unexplored bits in the Mid-Middle Ages, it may be better off left alone (as much as I hate to see an unused unit, we may just be using the "wrong settings").

[nbarclay]

On standard-size Continents maps (at least on Emperor and above), AIs are aggressive enough about exploring with units that I don't think contact with other civs on their continent is generally a problem. If Explorers would help the AI contact situation at all, the help would be a niche thing for Pangeas and relatively densely populated huge Continents maps. Also note that coastal civs can always be contacted with galleys, although I'm not sure exactly how well AIs take advantage of that fact.

I'm also not convinced that AIs have that much need for greater information about their neighbors' lands. It seems like when I first trade maps with the first civ I meet on the other continent, they tend to have a pretty complete map of their continent and especially their neighbors. Certainly, their information tends to be a lot more complete than mine is (due to my not-very-aggressive scouting practices when I'm not playing Expansionist).

So while I won't deny that AIs would get some benefit out of having Explorers, I find it hard to believe that AIs would tend to benefit more than humans would from getting them earlier. Or perhaps the situation is more complex: AIs would benefit more than humans who do a lot of early exploring but less than humans who don't, with an end result that the price of humans' focusing on REXing at the expense of exploration would be lower. Certainly, having Explorers available earlier would dramatically reduce the price of not doing aggressive scouting early for humans, thus decreasing the significance of an important strategic choice.

One thing that would make Explorers a lot more useful, but that would require recoding by Firaxis, would be to change things so both civs have to have Navigation for map trades to take place. If you think about it, in the real world, Europeans couldn't trade for maps of the continents they were exploring in the Age of Discovery because even though the Europeans knew how to make maps, the people in many of the areas they were exploring did not (or at least had no interest in making maps of areas a significant distance from home). One of the main reasons Explorers are so useless in Civ 3 is that only one civ has to know Navigation, so even when discovering a seriously backward people, trading for their maps is no big deal.

Nathan

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Which would make better use of the explorers generated by a small wonder, humans or the AI? Without a tie to Feudalism, I bet it's us, which would make the small wonder a bad idea. Even with the tie to Feudalism, I view the idea as clutter that adds changes to the mod for no meaningful net benefit.

I think we're best off leaving the Explorer alone. It may not be useful, but its existence does not hurt the game or cause an imbalance, so there's no real need to do anything with it. And I haven't seen any proposals for changes that are clearly better than doing nothing.

Nathan

I agree strongly with this. I think that making a unit "useful" by changing its function is bad - you aren't making that unit useful, you are inventing an entirely new unit that has the same name and removing the old one. Frankly, I don't really see a reason for Explorers to be useful. They don't hurt anything, so just leave them useless.

[alexman]

Originally posted by skywalker

Frankly, I don't really see a reason for Explorers to be useful. They don't hurt anything, so just leave them useless.

The reason is to add strategic options to the player. It falls under the category of weakening strong units and strengthening weak ones.

The correct balance between minimum change, helping the AI, and adding strategic options, is highly subjective. Everyone has a different idea of how much change is too much for the AU mod. That's why we have a vote. See the main AU mod thread for older discussions on the topic. (Please please please don't answer this here. )

[Dominae]

Sorry, alexman, but creating a new Wonder that spits out Explorers is really drastic, and really does not belong in the AU mod. I can confidently say that without the panel's verdict (the panel, as it was set up, is supposed to uphold the mod's philosophy, not dictate it through it's votes).

Right now it feels like we're voting on stuff that just sounds cool, which is not the way to go about crafting a conservative mod. Ideas that clearly do not fit the mod's philosophy should be recognized as such, and should not proceed to the voting stage.


Dominae

[alexman]

I don't see why it's clearly not in the mod's philosophy. It makes a weak unit useful without changing it (it gives you the option of using explorers), and it doesn't hurt the AI. It's up to the panel to decide if the magnitude of the change is worth the benefit. That's what the panel is for!

I'm not saying I would vote for that particular change, I just don't see why it's out of the mod's philosophy. If you disagree with any part of the mod's philosophy as stated in the main thread, please point it out.

[nbarclay]

Doesn't hurt the AI? If I can forego early exploration and still find out where the AIs' cities and resources are for a medieval war, not to mention having some units that can quite possibly strike deep and pillage my enemy's iron and/or horses as the war starts, that doesn't hurt the AI?

[Dominae]

The creation of an entirely new Wonder with new strategic dimensions does not preserve the feel of stock Civ3, at least not IMO.


Dominae

[alexman]

Dominae, that's a perfectly valid reason not to vote for the change, if it ever goes under consideration. And don't worry, unless it gets more support, it won't.

Originally posted by nbarclay
Doesn't hurt the AI? If I can forego early exploration and still find out where the AIs' cities and resources are for a medieval war, not to mention having some units that can quite possibly strike deep and pillage my enemy's iron and/or horses as the war starts, that doesn't hurt the AI?

It also helps the AI because they can get contacts they would otherwise not have, and increase their trade opportunities. It helps them, and it helps the human too. That will happen whenever you add strategic options to the game!

[ducki]

Short of being on a different landmass, I almost never see AIs that don't know each other.
Separate landmasses are another thing entirely, and not really the domain of the Explorer, not for the AI.
As far as increasing trade opportunities, I think the thing what would hasten that is making them build Harbors before Astronomy/Navigation(whichever one it is).

I don't think anything we can do is going to make the AI explore inter-continentally any better than it does now, we can only hinder the human on that front.
I also think the AI does a far better job at home-landmass exploration than I do, so we don't need to help him on that front.

I think if we want to make the explorer useful, that's one thing. If we want to shoehorn the explorer into usage by tricking the AI into a new building, that's another.