AU501 - Post-game comments

[Dominae]

This is the last thread dedicated to AU501: The Power of Seafaring! I thought it might be a good idea to create a "review" thread, because discussions in the DAR threads can get sort of chaotic.

You can discuss anything here you want concerning AU501, because it's the topmost spoiler thread; [B]do not read any further if you've not finished the game yet[B] (hopefully that will give incentive to those of you who never finish games).

Here are some questions to get you started:

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?
2. About Civ3 in general?
3. Was there anything you would have done differently?
4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?
5. What did you think of the Plague?
6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?
7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

[ZargonX]

Some initial answers, with more in-depth tommorow

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?

Early exploration and contact making can definately give you an edge in the tech race. Even if it doesn't put you ahead, it will keep you even if you trade properly. And extra move ships makes military movement even easier; ferrying troops becomes almost enjoyable

2. About Civ3 in general?

It can make a weekend disappear...

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

I didn't REX out onto the nearby islands aggressively enough in the early years. Got caught up improving my core, and by the time I got around to it, others had grabbed most of them.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

Maya Maya hate hate kill kill. Those jerkwads snuck attack my lightly defended far away villages shortly after we first met, and from there on in we were on and off for war for the rest of the game. They would make GPT deals then sneak attack the next turn. They got theirs in the end, though. Constant alliances against them (led by me, of course ) knocked them out of the tech running.

5. What did you think of the Plague?

You know, I heard the others talk about it, but I never had it once the whole game. I guess that was to make up for never getting any GLs...

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

I was quite pleased with the way the AU mod worked out. None of the changes felt too glaring or struck me as unbalancing. Though it was a bit of a gaff when I forgot that Cavalry had been weakened

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

Other than the mighty whale breeding grounds, nope

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ZargonX
It can make a weekend disappear...

Well, you were the first to finish...good work!

[cracky]

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?

That 4 move Curraghs and 5 move Dromons are a lot of fun.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

The damned Dutch. Despite having 1/3rd of my landmass, they maintained tech parity throughout the game and consistently had 2 to 3 times as much gold in the bank as I did. Oh, and there was that little bit of sabotage against my SS exterior casing which did nothing for our friendship. Maybe they had a perfectly placed FP, but more than likely they just had a better timed golden age (Industrial vs. my early middle ages).

5. What did you think of the Plague?

This was the first time I'd seen the effects of the plague in-game. It only struck one city, and a small desert one at that, so the effect was quite minor. More like two turns of disease than "The Black Death". Come to think of it, the volcanos were a much bigger hastle. I think I lost 2 AC and maybe 3 workers to eruptions, not to mention all those clean-up turns.

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

Just the whales... And why in nearly 6000 years of history couldn't my civilization discover whaling ships?

other observations:

For one, I'm definitely going to try the AU mod next time. Also, for one of my first handful of games on monarch, I think I did fairly well, but I absolutely have to start controlling my workers. Those peons make idiotic improvement choices ALL THE TIME.

Having not conquered the Hittites I had no salt pepper throughout the game. It was actually quite refreshing not to have the standard cavalry rush. I ended up not building a single unit that required salt-pepper and didn't end up suffering for it. In fact, I ended up fighting only 2 battles after the Sumerians were wiped out with knights. Being more of a fighter than a builder this was an interesting change.

Lack of leaders: After winning, I checked the little log that's run by turn-by-turn. I had one MGL and the Dutch has one SGL. For 100 years of modern warfare between every civ but me, as well as plently of earlier wars including my conquest of two civs, and every tech discovered but 4, this seems to be too few leaders. (Yes, I'd be whistling a different tune if I'd had an SGL, but hey).

So, when's the next course due out?

[Dominae]

Nice game, cracky...and welcome to AU!

This was the first time I'd seen the effects of the plague in-game. It only struck one city, and a small desert one at that, so the effect was quite minor. More like two turns of disease than "The Black Death". Come to think of it, the volcanos were a much bigger hastle. I think I lost 2 AC and maybe 3 workers to eruptions, not to mention all those clean-up turns.

I slightly increased the effects of Volanoes for this scenario, and reduced the effects of the Plague.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

"I slightly increased the effects of Volanoes for this scenario, and reduced the effects of the Plague."

So that is why they flow onto non adjacent tiles?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by vmxa1
So that is why they flow onto non adjacent tiles?

No, that's standard. They just erupt more frequently in this scenario.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

So it is not true that they only hit adjacent tiles? I had seen that posted many times, but I never seemed to remember what I have seen to say for sure if it was right or wrong.

[Dominae]

If you go in the Editor, you'll see that the only Volcano variable you can play with is the Max Eruption Period. By default this is set at 5000 years, meaning that each Volcano erupts at least once between 4000BC and 1000AD. I played with this value to make them erupt more often in this scenario.

So, whatever you witness is terms of lava flow is part of the stock rules (i.e. not my fault!).


Dominae

[ZargonX]

One thing I realized today, looking back at the game and reading some other's comments; the AI never once attacked me on an island I fully controlled. That is, they never landed on my home island, never landed on Japan's island, and only assaulted me on the Sumerian island while I was still battling the Sumerians for control of it. Don't know why they never tried to contest me on my own lands..I mean, c'mon, my capital was defended by a warrior for 80% of the game

[cracky]

"I slightly increased the effects of Volanoes for this scenario, and reduced the effects of the Plague."


This might already be answered elsewhere. If it is, sorry for the double post....


Thinking back on the game, I don't think I had any eruptions in the Industrial or Modern era. Ok, just checked my DARs. The last eruption was in 230 AD. From 4000BC to 230AD I saw six eruptions: 2 on the home island, one badly timed one in Japan, and three on the coal island. For those three volcanos, that's an eruption every 700 on average. But for next 1600 years (until the end of the game basically) I saw no eruptions. Are volcanic eruptions date sensitive or era sensitive?

I'm guessing no and that I just got lucky there. Of course there's always the chance that I forgot to write down an eruption after RRs were everywhere, due to the quick and easy clean-up.

"...and welcome to AU!"

Thanks! Oh, and I think I might be catching the MM bug. Look out, it's really contagious!

[nbarclay]

Moving a discussion from the DAR 5 thread here:

Originally posted by Dominae


I suppose I should answer this. In formulating my answer, I've looked at the issue from two vantage points:

1. Strategic resource scarcity in AU501 is not conducive to the goals of AU.

I'm not really sure why the lack of resources around the starting location makes you "good" strategy of expansion somehow become "bad"; you've been on a 4-turn research pace throughout the Industrial era, so you must be doing something right. And I'm also not sure why it's "bad" strategy to claim islands, especially when they're prime locations for Strategic resources (for instance, the Tundra islands near the poles, or the numerous Jungle islands near the equator are highly likely to contain Oil/Aluminum and Coal, respectively; although Rubber does appear in Jungle, there's no guarantees that it will because it can also be present in Forest). The only "bad" strategy that I've noticed is expecting to have Strategic resources and not doing a thing about it (other than complain about the map) when this is not the case.

If you've played even just a handful of Conquests games you'll know that probably the biggest change to the epic game is resource distribution. The map for this scenario, although admittedly "cooked", is far from a "perversion" of what the map generator typically serves up in C3C. I can point you to numerous threads on how the resource distribution now "sucks", both in the Conquests and General forums. Since this is a big issue, I feel an AU game that brings it to the fore but without prior warning to the players is completely justified. And, as just stated above, this particular map is not at all far from what you could potentially get in a random map game.

2. Resource scarcity in AU501 is just plain not fun.

Of course, we're trying to enjoy ourselves here, not just learn about Civ3. However, different people have fun in different ways. Although many of us do enjoy UP-style games, it's simply not a good idea to enjoyment and educational purposes to make AU courses to be too easy. Therefore as a scenario creator I feel it's smart practice not to spoon-feed those players who want UP all the time, and this includes "easy" resource distribution. Of course I know how far you will be able to expand militarily, that's why I put some of the Strategic resources a bit further. There's no point in getting angry because you're learning what the course is meant to teach you (or being challenged in new/interesting ways).

For your case in particular, it seems pretty clear to me that you got bummed out when you realised you would have to do a bit of extra work to secure Rubber. I feel confident in saying this because you did not react negatively to the other "unrealistic" map features, such as the Coal that neatly feel within your expansion reach, or the perfect Sea lanes that made trading possible with every other civ. But when Rubber does not fall within your borders, whoa! that's a problem.

I'm sure you can find a way to leverage your impressive tech advantage into securement of a Rubber resource. Whether this is fun or not to you I take no responsibility for. Some (most?) people are actually enjoying the challenge:

Neither of these items hits even close to my objection. If I'm done out of a resource fair and square by the map generator, I can live with that. When you play the odds regarding whether you probably have enough of the right kind of land to have a particular resource, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Of course the better you understand the game, the more often you guess correctly regarding how likely you are to need to settle or conquer more territory to get a resource.

But I think it perverts the game when the scenario designer arbitrarily redistributes resources in a way that rewards some strategies and leaves others at a disadvantage. When that happens, we are no longer playing the odds based on our knowledge of the game, but rather playing a guessing game regarding the arbitrary whims of the scenario designer. The question is no longer (for example), "Do I have enough of the right kind of land that rubber probably won't be a problem?" but rather becomes, "Will Dominae let me have rubber if I control the land I currently do?" That takes away one of the key strategic elements of Civ 3: trying to figure out what the resource situation is likely to be like in the future based on the amount and type of land you control. It is that aspect that I don't view as conducive to the goals of Apolyton University - unless, of course, the goal of a particular game is to deal with special resource situations and players know not to expect a normal resource distribution.

That's not to say that I always consider it inappropriate for an AU scenario developer to change resource allocation. The big question in my mind is, "Will the change benefit/undermine everyone, or will it reward players who adopt some styles of play and leave those who adopt others at a disadvantage?" If the latter, I view the deliberate manipulation of resources as a problem because it leaves people who try to play the odds playing with loaded dice.

As for the effect on me personally in this particular game, if this were how the game came from the map generator, I would have simply accepted it as the luck of the draw. On the plus side, I got my first real chance to play with TOW Infantry in an offensive capacity. On the minus side, I had to launch an overseas invasion that I would just as soon have done without (although I certainly wasn't counting on having every resource needed for the space race without having to attack someone sooner or later). What really bothers me is not so much how the resource distribution affected the game, but rather the feeling of having been cheated out of a fair chance to have most or all of the resources I needed with the amount of land I had claimed.

Regarding the sea access to all the other civs, I haven't complained about it, but I can't say I'm thrilled either. That aspect of the game's design vastly increased the potential value of suicide curraughs in obtaining early contact (at least for those of us using the AU Mod), and made a joke out of my decision not to send a suicide curraugh north through the western sea lane because it would most likely run into a dead end (or, of course, end up just plain dead). Both that and the enhanced power of the Great Lighthouse (which I benefitted from) resulted in arbitrary changes in the value of particular strategies. Since I think the odds of a strategy working in an AU game generally ought to roughly reflect the odds of its working in a regular game, I do not view such deliberately introduced anomalies as a good thing.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?

I've played a few games and parts of games with Seafaring civs before, so the only really big thing for me this game was the Dromon (which I'd never used before). It's combination of abilities for transport, sea supremacy, and shore bombardment (including the ability to move into coastal cities and bombard units next to them) make it a much more powerful UU than I'd realized it would be on archipelago maps. The Seafaring trait itself is definitely nice for getting early contacts, but we already knew that, right?

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

Two things. 1) I'd do a better job escorting my settlers since I had the warrior production capacity to do so. Losing an early settler was annoying.

2) I would build focus more on Dromons and less on swordsmen for the invasion of Japan. I wasn't even thinking about using Dromons as bombardment units to soften up enemy stacks when I planned and executed the invasion.

5. What did you think of the Plague?

The vultures were pretty, but othewise, I would have rather done without it. Some people might like having random elements mess up their plans occasionally, but I'm not one of them. I'm just glad the plague outbreak wasn't any worse than it was.

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

The really big thing ws that I didn't use suicide ships the way I normally would as a Seafaring civ. With the reduced movement rate for curraughs in sea and their inabilty to enter ocean, I didn't want to take the chance trying to explore through sea lanes. Similarly, the reduced movement rate for oceans made suicide dromons a lot less attractive.

Due to a bug in the Mod, galleons and caravels were also affected by the movement penalty fo oceans, which discouraged me from trying to explore the oceans even after I had Magnetism. But since that bug will presumably be fixed in future versions, it's not a long-term concern.

The AU Mod did make me consider switching to Democracy a bit more seriously than I would have without the free unit support we put in. With how spread out my empire was, I probably would have switched if it weren't for the fact that I was already researching about as quickly as the game allows. As it was, going through the anarchy (and associated food problems) that would have been involved in a change of government didn't seem worthwhile.

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

The whale breeding ground with no land nearby, of course. Also, a certain initially uninhabited island just happened to have a potential Iron Works site. I can't say for sure that that's Dominae's doing, but I'm certainly suspicious. A Communist civ would find that island especially interesting.

Depending on how one defines "Easter egg," any or all of the following might also be regarded as Easter eggs.

1) The existence of a source of incense on our home land mass looks rather suspicious since the main place where incense existed was Hittite lands.

2) Dominae pretty clearly added a sea lane or two.

3) The distribution of industrial and modern resources absolutely reeks of large-scale tampering. Us and our three closest neighbors with not a single industrial or modern resource on our starting land masses combined? Industrial and modern resources on all but two of the uninhabited islands (with one of the two left out being the one closest to us)? No modern resources at all on our home island, or on any of the other land masses within easy reach? The strategic resource distribution in this game might not be theoretically impossible for a randomly generated map, but the odds against such a distribution are astronomical.

[ZargonX]

Regarding the resource scarcity, it caused problems for me mostly because I was playing a compact builder-type game. The thing was, none of the AI had extras of the resources, so trading was difficult. England had extra coal, fortunately, which I was able to obtain on several occasions. There was no extra oil or aluminum, forcing me into war with the Sumerians for oil, and temple-rushing/harbor-rushing a tiny city out on a tundra isle for Aluminum. The real problem was uranium, which I needed for the SS win. Luckily, Russia had taken over Egyptian territory, giving them access to 2 uranium. By gifting them enough technology to advance them to fission, I was able to buy 1 off them long enough to win the game. I guess my point is that the resource spread was definately difficult, but doable. What would have made it slightly more acceptable would have been giving the AIs an extra or two to encourage more diplmatic haggling for them.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
It is that aspect that I don't view as conducive to the goals of Apolyton University - unless, of course, the goal of a particular game is to deal with special resource situations and players know not to expect a normal resource distribution.

You just said yourself that the resource distribution was certainly possible. In my previous post, I think I made a pretty strong case that the resource distribution was quite a bit more plausible than you make it out to be (far from "astronomical"). The only thing that's really fishy about the resource distribution is the small southern islands that contain one of each Industrial era resource save Coal (and these were last-minute additions designed to prevent anyone from claiming the scenario is "too evil").

It's certainly "fishy' that, from the human player's perspective, that many of the late-game resources are quite far away. But this is completely subjective. Just because the scenario was intentionally created this way does not mean invalidate it as a "normal"-type game (you would hate to see how much map tampering I did with the Power of Randomness!). Would it convince you to hear that Russia's island had no Iron or Horses when I first generated the map in the editor? If I had placed you in that position, you would complained even more.

Finally, I would just like to point out that your "strategy" of expanding into a lot of land then expecting to have most if not all of the resources you need is, among other things, highly boring. I was expecting many of the more experienced players to enjoy a little late-game challenge (like the elusive massive inter-continental invasions Theseus craves for), but apparently you like to win in the early-game, and coast in the late-game. Obviously this scenario was simply not for you then.

Any volunteers for setting up AU502?


Dominae

[Catt]

Random Post-Game Thoughts and Observations

I played stock rules, demi-god level.

Weird AI research choices. We all know that the AI often researches optional techs when it would be better served by focusing on certain required techs. Many have also probably heard how the AI has devalued Literature quite a bit in C3C, too. Nonetheless, I still experienced what struck me as odd situations regarding AI research choices. In 400 ad, while I’m researching Navigation, three AI civs are building the Great Library; all three civs have already discovered Education. I researched Literature just after Map Making and built libraries as quickly as I could since I was running max research from move one. I never traded Literature despite requests and a demand to do so – I wanted to keep it to myself to aid in research, and keep it I did until the early middle ages (the Dutch discovered it when I was 2 turns from Education, whereupon I traded it around for available goodies).

Later in the game, I kept waiting for someone to discover Printing Press, Democracy, and Free Artistry. Russia finally did discover Printing Press – Catherine must have been as far as Electronics and Combustion in the tech tree at the time. I had just completed Mass Production and the Dutch were probably working on Flight at the time. No AI got to be a democracy until I was practically into the Modern Age.

No hard facts or certainty, but the optional government techs after Nationalism were either slow to be discovered or very slow to be put to use. The Dutch were the first to go Fascist in 1275 ad, about the time they had already discovered Combustion and Atomic Theory / Electronics. This despite hundreds of years of war, including cities changing hands, etc.

War Weariness Exploits I’ve never seen it present much of a problem before, but the availability of “war happiness” is a large potential exploit – I came to this view by exploiting it considerably in AU 501. AI civs declared war on mewhen they had absolutely no way to attack me – either because they hadn’t discovered Map Making or hadn’t discovered Astronomy and wouldn’t risk the seas. Additionally, given the AI’s well-known inability to launch a credible overseas offensive except in rare circumstances, I was content to stay at war (rather, my citizens were happy to stay at war ) with Japan for a long time (that one actually came back to haunt me) and with the Hittites for the better part of two and a half ages. With sufficient long range interceptors (from dromons to bombers), most AI invasions can be killed off or turned around before ever making landfall. So even a technologically competant foe presents little threat. In somewhat isolated starts where luxuries may be hard to come by, war happiness can be very valuable. Although unlikely to be changed, I think WH should degrade over time (10 – 20 turns) even if no “war weariness” actions eat into the net war happiness.

Power of Seafaring I said it in my DARs, and also said it on the forums before AU 501, and I’ll say it again – the reduced sinking chances are too powerful. Combined with the extra move for naval units, it’s wildly out of synch with other traits (although map dependent, of course). This map wasn’t particularly clear in showing it because one need only risk a few sinking chances to find everyone. With a seafaring civilization, a galley has a better-than-even chance to travel safely between coasts that are twelve tiles apart. Even with curraghs, covering such an expanse runs a sinking risk of less than 60%. With curraghs available from the start (because of starting with Alphabet) and a very strong chance to start on the coast, the opportunity for early exploration is immense.

Unlike expansionist, which is also a map-dependent trait to a great degree, seafaring also gets (i) cheaper “sea-related” improvements, and (ii) a bonus gold in the city center when built on the coast. When faced with a water-laden map like ours, the seafaring trait is huge – and I think many underestimate the single bonus gold available on the coast. In games that remain tight in the middle ages or even the industrial ages, that extra gold, once operated upon by city improvements like markets, banks, libraries, or universities, can translate into two gold per city – across 15 cities, that can be significant (I could buy an extra source of rubber for 40 gpt in my game – the seafraing trait, at the time of RP, was worth almost as much as a source of rubber!

Power of Dromons First time I’ve used these babies much, but they are monsters. On their stats, they seem relatively unremarkable – powerful yes, but not the dominating force I found them to be. The ability to bombard so early, and with force, is magnified by the lethal sea bombard. Used on their own, they’re okay – used in stacks of four or five and they’re practically unstoppable. That means they’re wonderful sea defenders, and transports that can win half the land battle for your forces. I was getting solid use of a large fleet of Dromons well into the Industrial Age, both as a defensive intelligence net but also as a swarm of bombards that can substanially weaken any wooden-hulled interlopers despie the more than full age difference in technologies. Heck, they were useful against ironclads.

Catt

[Catt]

A couple of Learnings

A few specific learnings to share (perhaps learned in the past but worth repeating.

Protecting Distant Colonies

When adopting a peaceful research approach, or at least an opening “farmer’s gambit” as some call it, it is pretty easy to get by with very few military units and rely on being able to switch productive power to units in a hurry if absolutely necessary. It’s easy to forget that this is not the case with distant colonies that require sea transport for reinforcements. Unless one is willing to invest in a large number of sea transports and rely on ship chaining, one must either invest upfront in defenders and attackers for distant colonies or run the risk of a surprise attack that can really do a bit of damage quickly (especially where lack of technology prevents sea pickets well away from coastlines for an early warning system).

I re-learned this when the Dutch, taking umbrage at my rapid settling of the far west island, nearly kicked me off the island completely before even my first reinforcements could arrive – and in my case I had units and ships in home port ready to go at the first sign of hostilities. If you enjoy the logistics aspect of offense and defense, island maps are a lot of fun; and if you don’t enjoy the logistics side of things you can get into trouble in a hurry.

Timing of Research Slider at “Full Stops” in the Tech Tree

There are several times during any given game when one might be inclined to turn off all research: building the Great Library, awaiting a ToE build, or, for example, securing a certain tech enabling upgrades and then saving cash for upgrades. One can either slow research to time a discovery to a certain external condition (timing of ToE build, for example). I, and others I suspect, would more often than not choose to ease up on science spending to make available more money sooner – a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. But with the advent of SGLs in C3C, I think it’s better in many cases to go full bore and then turn sicence to 0% once a tech is completed until the defining event occurs, whatever it may be.

For example, in my game I was unable (or unwilling) to establish a decent pre-build for ToE and was able to research both Atomic Theory and Sanitation after Scientific Method but before ToE completed – with ToE 7 turns away, I could research Sanitation in 5 turns at max research, or 7 turns by easing the tech slider and raking in cash. Pre-C3C I would almost certainly have milked the tech slider for 7 turns, enjoying cash for rush-builds as it came in, caring little if I got the tech first or not – the biggest risk I ran would be that another AI discovered it first and traded it all around. With C3C and the possibility of SGLs, I decided to go full bore to Sanitation in 5 turns and then shut off research for 2 turns – the opportunity to get an SGL, especially when playing a scientific civ, and the risk that an AI civ could get an SGL by beating me to a tech by 1 turn, tips the balance towards quick research in most cases where the tech at issue is available to others in the game.

No, I didn’t get an SGL not with Sanitation or any other tech for that matter.

Power of C3C Specialists

The power of specialists in C3C is hard to overestimate. In the early game, converting a citizen to a scientist will almost always produce more science than leaving the citizen working a tile. I’d say there’s a better than average chance that taxmen will produce more gold than a citizen, too. You generally do not want to waste growth (i.e., no food production from a specialist) unless necessary, but again in the early game oftentimes specialists will be required to avoid rioting (ineffectiveness of luxury slider for various reasons, lack of trade network for luxuries, lack of contentedness improvements, etc.).

For those games that remain competitive or at least interesting well into the Industrial Age, the new Civil Engineer and/or Policeman make the Scientists and and Taxmen even more intereting, indirectly. The use of CE’s can substantially improve outlying territories, even for those players who don’t have a taste for micro-management. Take a look at the screenshot below – I can generate 34 beakers per turn by using scientists and still providing for a healthy growth rate in the city, even without a university or happiness problems despite only having 5 luxuries at this point and no content-making city improvments.

[Catt]

Alternatively, if those beakers might be wasted due to beaker-cost rounding of tech prices, I can switch over the specialists to CEs to build a university in only 5 turns, and bump base research from 13 up to 18 (a courthouse might be better here at this time). For those who enjoy some MM, swtiching to scientists when worthwhile and then CEs or taxmen when scientists are a waste, can offer a powerful boost. For those who don’t care much for MM, just setting them all as taxmen would produce an extra 14 gold per turn – not bad when repeated by numerous cities. And MM is reduced in another aspect of the game – all workers around these cities need only clear terrain, irrigate, road, and RR – not much thought on what to do and when to do it.

(BTW, the aqueduct, hospital, market, and library were built through a combination of CEs and rush-buying but could easily have been done by CEs alone if ready cash was not available).

Catt

[Catt]

Questions or Issues from AU 501

In one of the DAR threads, jshelr opened for discussion what, objectively, is the best approach to early research given a defined set of circumstances (like the same game, difficulty level, etc.).

I want to open a similar discussion – what, objectively, is the best approach to early tech trading / tech research approaches given a defined set of circumstances?

I don’t have an answer, but I’ll share what I did and why I did it (although I didn’t give it a lot of thought at the time – this comes only in retrospect). The nature of tech pricing, in trade and in research, is such that contacts with many civs who don’t know of each other is a powerful advantage. The advantage is twofold: (i) early contact enables trading before techs you know are discovered or traded for by AI civs, and (ii) contact with civs who already know a tech reduces the research cost and trading cost of the tech for you. I best of all worlds is to have ultra-early contact with all civs when they don’t have contact with each other. With a desire to speed tech along, you are free to trade or gift techs to all, allowing multiple AIs to put there research advantage to work for you; with a desire to slow tech for any reason, you are free to withhold techs and benefit from tech brokering and/or reduced tech research costs. I noticed that many players were willing to make trades with AIs as those AI civs were discovered – something I do in most games, too. In this game, I elected to forego any trades for some time; I did this for four principal reasons: (i) I wanted a slower tech race to bring Philosophy and the Great Lighthouse into play; (ii) I wanted a slower tech race to give me a bigger jump on Map Making enabled settlement of overseas islands; (iii) I wanted to maintain limited contacts for a slower overall pace while I manually built my FP on an island; and (iv) I wanted to march towards more expensive techs knowing that, with the slower overall pace, I could research / buy / trade for first level techs at 4-turns / next to nothing / one-for-many rates.

On archipelago maps I’ve had good anecdotal results with limited early trading, whereas on continents and especially pangaea maps waiting to trade can be very costly. In an “early-launch” challenge I play it differently – but how, and more importantly why, did you approach early tech trading opportunities?

Catt

[Catt]

There is some heat on scenario creators' choices of how to lay out a map, particularly with respect to resources.

First off, thanks to Dominae for setting up this scenario! And thanks to the other AU participants who both set up maps and play and report on them. You can't please all of the people all of the time, so complaints and constructive criticism are to be expected. This map in particular provided an awful lot of entertainment and learning by just looking at the starting position and debating what to do with the little information available from the get go!

On the subject of resources in particular: I'm of two minds about Nathan's and Dominae's arguments. On one hand, I agree that as a general rule we should not be promoting abnormal or significantly "out of normal" experiences with AU games -- the principal points of AU are to learn, share, and have fun. When we do choose to impose abnormal game conditions on players it is announced beforehand and intended to shine a spotlight on a neglected or underappreciated aspect of the game. On the other hand, responding to adversity and showing flexibility in approach after circumstances, or expected circumstances, is to be admired and its examples offer an awful lot to learn from for those who weren't adequately prepared for such adversity. Challenge brings out interesting responses. Plus, there is always the subjective analysis of whether a given circumstance is both adverse and abnormal.

I wasn't supportive of the resource approach taken in AU 208 -- Total War, because I felt it opened and closed windows of opportunity on the player without giving any hint that windows were opening or closing, based on the totality of circumstances available to the player and general "normal game" experience with Civ. At the time I wrote: "I think [the set-up was] a bit unfair -- not because it was challenging per se, but because the player, not knowing of the unusual resource changes made to the map, was deprived of the ability to make certain strategic decisions and play out the choices with alternate approaches / strategies remaining available. With a landmass the size of our home continent, I think we could reasonably expect a more representative sample of available resources. Choosing to wait for the discovery of key enabling techs to facilitate an action could prove fatal -- but only when the unusual distribution became known.

While one should certainly be prepared for unpleasant surprises, depriving the home continent of all resources after iron sets up a "strategic death spiral" whereby each turn that the player delays an overseas invasion puts the player further at a disadvantage. Waiting for muskets for a musket/knight assault? A mistake. Researching north towards Education and therefore not learning of the lack of saltpeter for some time? A mistake. Instead beelining for a cavalry rush (and bypassing Chivalry)? Less of a mistake, but still problematic depending on how you prepared for the cav rush. With no saltpeter, deciding to wait for infantry/artillery for the all-out assault? Compounding the mistake. With no access to a navy except for lightly-defended transports, any delay in securing England hurts. Sufficient delay may prove to be fatal."

My fundamental criticism back then was that generic civ experience brought to the game proved to be inapplicable, and also fatal or at least a serious blow, to the AU course at hand. My view remains unchanged that deliberate reworking of maps in a way that invalidates or substantially devalues prior civ experience isn't helpful. I think AU scenario makers should err on the side of caution when devising maps and layouts.

Did this specific map cross the line? I don't think so. In fact I don't think it came very close to the line, but I do fully understand how one could argue that it pushed the limits. I don't think that every resource should necessarily be available or even be within easy reach of our start -- but if it is not, I think there should be a variety of ways available to the player to acquire the resources. Example: placing the sole supply of coal, or rubber, or oil deep in the heart of an area designed to produce a killer AI reduces strategic options for the player. Placing numerous sources of any given resource throughout the map at least allows the player to choose between military conquest and non-violent means of acquiring the resource (trade), or at least gives the player a variety of targets to choose for the forcible taking of the resource. Resource scarcity can be addressed in a number of ways; so long as the various ways remain available and interesting choices to the player the goals of any strategic game and AU games in particular are not weakened.

I'm not convinced that this map is a great exemplar for discussion of scenario-making approaches, but I think the discussion is worthwhile. Don't let the heat of the argument distort any light that might come from the discussion.

Catt

[vmxa1]

Well said Catt. I would offer that AU208 was special in that it came after a number of courses and hence extremes were sort of needed. I would say that going to the extreme of allowing no resources after Iron on that huge land mass for a PTW would have been better if it was announced.

Then at least you would be able to plan your research to try and learn where some were located.
To me it was probably the most memerable map of all. It still gets mentioned from time to time.

With a new addon and a new AU mod, it makes sense to not stray very far. After 5-10 games, another wild one may be needed.

[Dominae]

Wow, Catt.

Your comments, both in depth and volume, I'm sure are very much appreciated by everyone here. Nice game, too.


Dominae

[jshelr]

Quiz

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?
Answer: Seafaring is the strongest trait in the game at higher levels, allowing the human player to have tech parity or better right from the start. (This is also true on pangea maps, by the way.)

2. About Civ3 in general?
Answer: Bombers are more important than they used to be.

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?
Answer: Didn't explore enough early, although I thought we were emphasizing early boats, it should have been even more so.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?
Russia. They were the most effective tech researcher, most bellicose, and close to our Eastern Island.
5. What did you think of the Plague?

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?
Answer: Not sure it did very much. I don't understand the changes in technology sufficiently to have an opinion.

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?! Too early for that, IMO.

I could not build flak.

I also ran into the "bug" where research in the modern era failed to finish a tech that should have finished according to the end of turn information.

Thanks for the game setup, Dom. I enjoyed the linear appearance of new obstacles that kept the game seemingly in doubt much longer than usual.

[lockstep]

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?

A sinking chance of only 25% is rather unbalancing, even with the changes to curragh/galley movement in the AU mod. It needs to be at least 33%, maybe even 50% (same as for none-seafaring civs).

2. About Civ3 in general?

Micromanagement may be a pain in the ass, but it pays off - especially in the first 40-60 turns. I will try to avoid any food loss and big shield losses from now on.

(Sidenote: Why, o why did Civ3 not adopt SMAC's solution to transfer the first 10 surplus shields to the next build item?)

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

From my AAR's, it is quite obvious that I should have paid more attention to wonder cascades and to the defence of secondary islands. Additionally, I've learned some lessons from other people's games:

• Build more workers, and don't be afraid to use temporary irragation.
• Build larger artillery stacks.
• Be more aware of tech costs and what makes a tech deal 'reasonable'.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

I was on good terms with the AI civs most of the time. Russia's periodical war declarations without being able to actually attack me were in fact more helpful than annoying - Catt already mentioned the 'war happiness' phenomenon.

5. What did you think of the Plague?

I seem to have been lucky - no plague for me.

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

I wasn't able to observe all AU mod changes in practice, but the mod seems to work out very well. Some notes:

• The changes to curragh/galley movement are a must - they don't completely eliminate the 'suicide ship' strategy, but make it more costly.
• Without my attempt to go for a 20k cultural victory, I would definitely have switched from Republic to Democracy in the mid-industrial age because of the lower support costs.
• 5-attack cavalry seems to be balanced, and I didn't feel the need of an additional mounted unit. If you want to attack in the industrial age, build some infantry. (Or guerilla.)
• Double-strength entertainers really seemed to help the AI.
• The changes to Philosophy obviously worked out. I went for the free tech and succeeded, but from other people's DAR's it seems that people also failed or didn't even try this approach.
• The Statue of Zeus ... well, at least I have to invest a reasonable amount of shields now, and AC's aren't that overpowered. But I still think that my criticism of the ivory requirement is valid. The fact that a small neighboring civ without contacts had the only sources of ivory - and that, therefore, most players opted for the 'destroy Japan ASAP' approach - partially turned AU 501 in the 'pre-scripted scenario' I was afraid of.

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

The distribution of strategic resources was sort of an anti-easter egg.

EDIT: Thanks for setting this scenario up, Dominae!

[ducki]

I'm not quite done with the game - I'm mostly just waiting for the AI to finish the UN so we can pick a winner - slow turns have broken my momentum, plus I have something else I want to start working on, but I wanted to get this in so I don't forget.

On the issue of resources, maybe I just put a higher premium on mid-game unsettled small islands - they ALWAYS seem to contain some resource in the late game, most often for me, oil. I was able to beat the AI to the all but one island and tied the Maya for the rubber(or was it oil?) island, which caused a war in which I took the whole island. England or Russia was happy to sell me saltpeter, though it was mostly useless to me. I expanded on the Coal island fast enough and rushed culture to make sure my Sumerian neighbor didn't flip my cities, so I had coal from very early on.
The only resources that I couldn't get enough of was luxuries, since Sumeria, my obvious target, was also my biggest tech client paying the most GPT for most of the game, and since I had oil other than the one at the bottom of the sub-Hittite island, I didn't need to take them out.

So in my experience, in my game the resources were well-distributed, albeit interestingly so. It made the game fun, though I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't expanded so widely as to have oil, coal, aluminum and rubber without a fight(save the brief one with Maya).

Now, on to the Q&A.

Originally posted by Dominae
1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?

Extra commerce per town is a huge income boost and big help on research. Added movement for ships is always nice. No comment on sinking chances, as I still lost more curraghs/Dromons than I was willling to and had to postpone final contact due to an unwillingness to throw shields away.

2. About Civ3 in general?

1. Democracy + War + losing 2 luxuries + 20-turn alliance = not good. Few riots by turn 10, several, including core cities by turn 12, widespread + most core by turn 15, pain and suffering by turn 18.
2. It (nearly) never makes sense to use a scientist instead of a working a shield in ring 1 or 2 cities and often neighboring islands as well.
3. MMed laborers + Pop. change = PitA. I want to lock citizens to certain tiles.

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

I can't really think of anything. Maybe go ahead and build the UN myself so I can get this game done with, even if I lose. Other than that, I was happy with my off-beat decisions - 2 gov changes(Mon->Demo, Shakespeare's theatre, Ignore Philo, skip SoZ and sell Ivory, forgo Cavalry war, wage Infantry war*

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

Logistically, the Sumerians - they were a prime target, but also my premier client.
Conceptually and strategically, the Maya. There was the 7-tile Island War(for rubber or oil) where I failed to garrison strongly enough to fend off a single longbow, there was my over-optimistic attempt to plant a 3rd spy in a row in Maya resulting in a Looooooooooooooong democratic war where I allied with Russia and tied in GPT so they went the full 20, dammit.
I was planning to war with Maya due to their strong culture and proximity to Uranium and two luxuries, but 20 turns was too long.

5. What did you think of the Plague?

N/A

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

I'm not really sure. The Dutch did really well until they maintained a multi-age war against Maya, so Seafaring is strong, he just wasted his lead(he was strongest) waging an unwinnable war.
I skipped SoZ, Philo so can't speak to those. Some of the AIs seemed really strong, very competitive while some just stagnated. I'm not sure if this is due to the mod or the map or a combination, but there was a pretty strong line between the strong and the weak(at least until I started gifting techs and opening the 99cent tech store.)

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

Not sure if this qualifies, but it was a real surprise to find rubber on a tundra tile that just happened to have forest on it. I had hoped for just one oil on all those islands and was pleasantly surprised when I accidentally found rubber waiting for me - several turns after it became visible, I might add - I didn't even bother to look there. Chalk it up to inexperience.


Other thoughts:
Bombers are, well, the bomb. When I invaded Maya, I sent two transports of MechInf and one of Arty. Once I had a carrier, I had 2 bombers(later 4) and about 6-8 ships completely dedicated to 3 things : disconnecting the area of the Wine penisula from the rest of the empire by destroying Railroads and roads; disconnecting Wines, Coal, Iron; making my MI/Tank job easy by reducing defenders to as few hps as possible before bothering to attack - being on a mountain made this viable.

I was able to isolate 3 towns, remove insta-reinforcements from the equation, kill Maya trade deals, make their citizens unhappy, and whittle away at their military all without endangering a single unit. Since I didn't want the territory other than as a beachhead and to take away the wines, tile destruction was acceptible.
Being in democracy and having replaceable parts made this even more acceptible.

Bombardment, while making the war seem slower, is too strong not to utilize, IMO. Especially with the range on Bombers and fighters, if you have enough, you can control the flow of reinforcements or even willingness to wage war by unconnecting entire sections of your enemy.

I really, really, really miss 8-unit transports. 6 is just too small, IMO. By the same token, having so many means using one to rush a harbor/airport in a beachhead doesn't hurt much.


In all, what a great course! This was a complete blast! I didn't have the resource problems that some did - maybe because I got lots of world maps in trades and was able to see that there were islands to be settled before the AI got back to them - and so I might be a bit biased.

[ducki]

doublepost

[nbarclay]

Dominae, to re-iterate:

1) Having not a single instance of any of the five industrial and modern resources on our home land mass, or the two land masses that were home to our three nearest neighbors, or the easiest island for us to REX onto once we start settling other land masses, felt seriously contrived. Having a continent with neither horses nor iron is rare enough, but having three starting land masses without a single instance of any of those five resources? Anything is possible where random chance is concerned, but that doesn't mean everything is reasonably likely. (Keep in mind that if you deliberately start players in an area that is relatively poor in industrial and modern resources, that alone provides a worse than average starting position in that regard. From there, it doesn't necessarily take much deliberate modification for the map to go from below average to highly improbable.)

2) The choice of whether or not it makes sense to seek out and settle distant islands is normally governed by the rules of the map generator. On the plus side, an island might have a useful resource. On the minus side, settling and defending an island far from home costs resources that have other potential uses, and my suspicion is that it may even sometimes drag a player into an unwanted war. I made my choice not to seek out and settle distant islands in remote oceans based on my knowledge of Civ 3. When I found out that the game was deliberately rigged so that my strategizing based on the normal rules of Civ map generation had been deliberately rendered worse than useless, I felt something along the lines of cheated or betrayed.

As for what kind of game I enjoy, what bothers me is not the kind of game I was pushed into, but rather that the nature of the push felt so contrived. If most of my starting terrain had been sweeping grasslands or plains empty of forest and jungle, doing without rubber would not have come as a particular surprise. If aluminum or uranium one had been readily available, having to chase after the other would not have been particularly surprising. It's not inconceivable that the map that came out of the map generator was a statistical fluke that required only minor modifications to achieve your goals, but from where I sit, the end result looks heavy-handed and contrived even aside from the absurd overabundance of resources on remote islands.

[Mountain Sage]

Some comments:

1. Seafaring: I just *LOVE* archipelago settings for the increased challenge of exploring, logistics and trading.

2. The Mod is *GREAT* (I still have to go back and learn all the differences, though).

3. Dromons *ROCK*. In my wars with the Hittites and Sumeria, I put a few of them in harbours and used that as early cannons).

4. Japan was a tough nut; it took 15 Infantry to get rid of the 150+ spears and bowmen.

5. As somebody said: protect your far-flung settlements. The best part of my army was glued in towns, defending them from possible attacks. A tip: build a Wall immediatly and bleed the city if it gets over size 6.

6. Don't hold back technologies. All the trades fuel your research, military, happiness and improvements.

7. Why didn't I build the FP before (it was 1410 AD). First of all, I did not invade Japan soon enough, then I did not want to spend 80 turn building it on Hittites' land. A mistake? possibly.

8. Resources scarcity *SUCKS* I had to start 3 wars just to get rubber, aluminium and uranium. Coal was annexed via a far-flung perfecty indefensible city (I did not even bother to put a warrior as defense).

9. Corruption is as bad as usual. The cities in the other islands were just useless. Therefore, you build cities there only for future resources but nothing else.

Now, some highlights:

My first and only GL:

[Mountain Sage]

A clash of civilizations? You don't see it wery well, but the unit in front of the MA is a longbowman

[Mountain Sage]

A perfect example how NOT to found a city...