AU: A MOD for the curiculum

[alexman]

Theseus, great idea!
There are such settings!!!

We can emphasize production and make the AI more efficient. BUT: will the city governor affect workers too?
That's really what we want.

Edit: All civs have the same settings: Manage citizens and production, but no food, shields, or trade priorities.

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
Does anyone have access to the editor just now?

Isn't there a Governor section for the AI civs? Is there anything about food and shields? Which civs have what priorities?

If it's there, this could be HUGE... I don;t remember any discussion of these settings.

OF COURSE!!! Why didn't we ever think about this before?? The settings are in the 'Civilization' tab but we never changed anything... Anybody wants to test this??

[Theseus]

Question #1: Which AI civs have what stock settings?

Question #2: Does anyone understand how the City Governor works for the human player? I typically have it manage moods, and lately I've been playing with "manage production" (as in AU 106...). But in reality, I have no idea how it works!! I'm pretty sure it oversees tile selection for food and production purposes. Does it impact how and which tiles are worked? Does it have any (further) impact on build preferences?

Sidenote: I cannot believe that at this point we don't really know about city governors or anarchy, nor that we didn't think of this editor feature when discussing AI greatness!!

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
Question #1: Which AI civs have what stock settings?

All civs have the same settings. We have exactly the same choices (Emphasize food, shields or trade, no wonders, no small wonders) as we have in our own governor, except that we can't change the AI settings during the game.

Question #2: Does anyone understand how the City Governor works for the human player? I typically have it manage moods, and lately I've been playing with "manage production" (as in AU 106...). But in reality, I have no idea how it works!! I'm pretty sure it oversees tile selection for food and production purposes. Does it impact how and which tiles are worked? Does it have any (further) impact on build preferences?

I'm just setting up a test scenario, comparing three civs with different settings.

[Theseus]

I posted a question thread about this and about anarchy at CFC... I'm fully expecting Lt. Killer M to reply "READ THE FAQ" or Cracker to yell something about the early game.

(just kidding )

[Catt]

Originally posted by Theseus
Question #2: Does anyone understand how the City Governor works for the human player? I typically have it manage moods, and lately I've been playing with "manage production" (as in AU 106...). But in reality, I have no idea how it works!! I'm pretty sure it oversees tile selection for food and production purposes. Does it impact how and which tiles are worked? Does it have any (further) impact on build preferences?

It's been a long time since I used the governors for anything other than "Manage Moods," and I certainly never did any extensive testing, but I hvae pretty clear memories of setting certain cities on "Emphasize Production" and then being frustrated that this handy governor thingy didn't really "emphasize production" the way I might -- tiles producing the most food were still the first chosen (regardless of nearing a growth break like an aqueduct or hospital) and the only differences from leaving the production box unchecked seemed to be that, when faced with a choice of nothing better than a one-food tile, the governor selected the one-food tile that produced shields over the one-food tile that might produce more gold. My governors couldn't ever seem to get away from an emphasis on food.

Catt

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
I posted a question thread about this and about anarchy at CFC... I'm fully expecting Lt. Killer M to reply "READ THE FAQ" or Cracker to yell something about the early game.

(just kidding )

Eh, something like that: In the 'Difficulty Levels' tab in the editor you can set 'max government transition time'. It's 3 for Emperor, which means I miscounted (I counted the turn of the revolution itself as well). Deity has 2, Monarch 4, Regent & lower 0.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Killerdaffy


Eh, something like that: In the 'Difficulty Levels' tab in the editor you can set 'max government transition time'. It's 3 for Emperor, which means I miscounted (I counted the turn of the revolution itself as well). Deity has 2, Monarch 4, Regent & lower 0.

I don't have the editor in fron of me, but I think that's the transition time for the AI -- at Diety even a non-religious AI will have not more than 2 turns of anarchy.

[Killerdaffy]

In my test scenario (very simple set up, one city for each civ, three settlers, all industrious, all grassland) I got the following results:

Egypt (Emphasize food) 11, 7, 20 (irrigation, mine, road)
China (Emph. shields) 9, 9, 19
America (Emph. trade) 10, 9, 22
France (baseline) 12, 6, 21

That's not too compelling so far. The little differences might simply be due to the movement sequence...

Somebody needs to check this out more thoroughly, I really don't feel like doing this 10 times over right now.

[Theseus]

Good work KD! Looking at shields versus baseline, I think that is compelling (although it does need more testing).

I got a great response from Bamspeedy on CFC... he also adds new observations re build preferences:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...866#post504866

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
As you said, the number of ships in the game is not that great, and the number of times you can upgrade each ship is not that great either. Is it really that much pain to move each of them to a coastal fortress city a couple of times per game?

It's sort of like the little girl with the little curl in the old rhyme. If the time for upgrading comes when your navy doesn't have anything in particular to do, it's no big deal. But if the time comes when you're trying to take advantage of a window of opportunity to invade with a major technological advantage, especially a narrow window, it can be a very big deal.

The coastal fortress change almost completely destroys the idea of upgrading galleys to caravels for a knight/samurai/rider attack. With the standard rules, such an upgrade can be performed the moment you get Astronomy even if you haven't researched the Invention/Gunpowder/etc. tech line at all. With the AU mod as it now exists, it could easily take twenty turns or more extra just to get the technology to perform the upgrade, and then you still have to build a coastal fortress or fortresses before the upgrade becomes possible. Thus, someone wanting to reuse ships from exploration to mount an attack with knights is stuck either using galleys with only two thirds the transport capacity of caravels or waiting a long time and very likely giving the enemy a chance to discover gunpowder.

(Moving coastal fortresses to Astronomy would not be a complete solution either. With the default rules, there are plenty of harbors in place in the homeland when Astronomy is discovered, and there's a fairly decent chance conquered territory would have at least one harbor as well if the logical staging area for an overseas invasion is far from your core. And in the worst case scenario, a rush-built harbor in badly corrupt conquered territory has uses beyond just a one-time upgrade. But with coastal fortresses, you can't even start the improvement needed for the upgrade before you get the prerequisite tech. And capturing a coastal fortress is theoretically impossible at that stage if the conquered civ was behind in technology, and probably a lot less likely than capturing a harbor in even the best of circumstances.)

Another big problem can arise when a player wants to invade using cavalry and galleons. Depending on the situation, a player may want to upgrade to galleons the moment he gets Magnetism and then set sail for enemy lands the very next turn. But with harbors not allowing upgrading, there's a much higher chance of needing a rush buy to get a coastal fortress in a suitable location to do that (especially if attacking from the far end of the home continent). The alternative would be to waste time upgrading farther away from the target, delaying the invasion two or three or even more turns.

And still another problem is the problem of upgrading in the middle of a war if no coastal fortress is convenient (again, a situation much more likely to occur with coastal fortresses than with harbors in corrupt conquered areas). What happens if those few turns to send ships to a rear area for upgrade come just when you're trying to shuttle troops across to enemy territory as quickly as possible?

Finally, there's the matter of turnaround time for recalled exploration ships. Every turn farther away a returning exploration ship has to go to upgrade before being used in an attack can potentially translate into TWO turns of delay in when it can attack. And even if a coastal fortress is along the way, waiting to reach it to upgrade instead of upgrading at the nearest harbor forces a ship to settle for a slower movement rate longer.

Everything the coastal fortress change does to add strategy, it does by interfering with strategies available in the standard game. Personally, I find it annoying enough when I have to interrupt my normal build priorities to build (if not rush) harbors under the standard rules in order to upgrade at a convenient location. The idea of having to make sacrifices for an improvement that's likely to have no value whatsoever beyond a single upgrade phase is far more annoying.

Nathan

(P.S. As long as the coastal fortress change is part of the mod, the fact that coastal fortresses rather than harbors are needed to upgrade ships ought to be spelled out explicitly in the description. I for one never made the connection that the "veteran" flag is also the flag responsible for upgrades, which is making my situation in AU 106 even more annoying than it would be had I known about the quirk from the beginning.)

[alexman]

I guess that's the end of coastal fortresses for the AU mod!!!

Seriously, you guys have totally convinced me.

I'm still not convinced about leaving entertainers with a lower value than the other specialists (at the very least we should revert taxmen and scientists back to the original effect), but oh well...

About the AI governors now, in the next version we should definitely emphasize production for all civs. A small increase in shields for the AI might not make killer AIs, but it's still much better than what we have now.

[player1]

If you revert scientists and taxmens back, they will not be used.

If you make ententainers better, you'll make Temples and Luxury resources less usefull.

Simple: 1luxury point is worth MORE then 1 gold or science point.

Because 1 luxury point makes 1 citized happy.
And that's a lot already.

And 2-2-1 is balanced.

Did you, while playing found it otherwise?
I'm not.

[Dominae]

I hope the Coastal Fortress issue isn't dead (if so, just disregard this post!). I'm probably rehashing the reasons for the change in the first place, but still think they're valid.

In the normal rules, Coastal Fortresses are (IMO) useless. I've never used one's special ability, and I have to stretch my imagination to think of a situation where it would really shine. Harbors' have numerous (3) useful abilities: connect coast/ocean squares for trading, produce veteran units, increase food production in coast squares. Any of these is (in some cases) useful enough alone to warrant building a Harbor. Basically you're getting the other two "for free", meaning Harbors are essentially a no-brainer in the build queue (if you choose to build them at all). Again, Coastal Fortresses are also no-brainers, because they're so bad.

So, in efforts of making the game more varied, I think the current change is great. Yes, it may be inconvenient initially to get used to the change, but this is just a reflection of how good Harbors were in the first place. From an aesthetic standpoint, building a veteran navy for conquest only really comes around Frigates in my mind (forgetting the Vikings until Play the World). Not having veteran sea units to conduct invasions is annoying, but something I can definitely live without.

Any further suggestions on how to improve Communism (which, incidentally, I think would really help the Communist-happy AI)?


Dominae

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
Good work KD! Looking at shields versus baseline, I think that is compelling (although it does need more testing).

I ran several similar tests today but can't seem to replicate the results from last time in a controlled environment. I always end up with the familiar checker board pattern, no matter what I set the governor to...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
From an aesthetic standpoint, building a veteran navy for conquest only really comes around Frigates in my mind (forgetting the Vikings until Play the World). Not having veteran sea units to conduct invasions is annoying, but something I can definitely live without.

I think, the issue is not the lacking ability to build vet units. It is the lacking ability to upgrade the Galleys with Astronomy. It's pretty annoying to have 10 Galleys, that remain Galleys until I get Metallurgy, which is pretty late in my research order, due to wonders. Although it's not a very big deal, because Caravels are actually not faster than Galleys and carry just one more unit, but anyway. I don't want to have more, but better units, I simply skip Caravels now.

[lockstep]

My votes for version 1.04 of the AU mod:

• Remove the changes made to coastal fortresses and naval unit hitpoints. I especially didn't like the fact that I couldn't do ship upgrades without having saltpeter at some point. (In fact, this change is the only thing I don't like about the AU mod.)
• Don't change entertainers, the're powerful enough as they are now.
• Communism could need some boost - +100% worker efficiency like in v1.34 of player1's mod may be too much (even if this needs to be playtested), but +50% like in Democracy is a good idea IMO.

[nbarclay]

Dominae, I would regard the change as fine if there were a way to shift the ability to build veteran units to coastal fortresses without taking away harbors' ability to upgrade units. But because the "veteran" flag in the editor affects both, it can't be done.

Also, you're miscalculating when you say harbors have three abilities. The FIRST harbor on a land mass has three, but once one harbor is built, barring a blockade, additional harbors have no meaningful impact on trade. So that just leaves two roles: the food increase role and the naval role.

Now consider a corrupt area where a player knows he will never, ever build ships. With the coastal fortress change, if a player needs to upgrade ships in that area, he has to build (and probably rush) a coastal fortress that will be of absolutely zero use whatsoever (or at least no more use than current coastal fortresses) after the upgrade is complete. In contrast, with harbors, the pain of rushing an improvement to upgrade ships is mitigated (though still not entirely taken away) by the fact that the improvement does have an ongoing value as well. And that's not even getting into the issue of needing to upgrade galleys to caravels in a timely manner.

As for the fact that coastal fortresses are essentially useless in the standard game, I build city walls just as rarely (which is to say, never). And, for that matter, giving coastal fortresses the ability to build veteran naval units makes no more sense than giving city walls the ability to build veteran land units would. Both are defensive installations, and by definition are useful only if the city where they are built is attacked. Not that I mind the idea of making coastal fortresses more useful, but only if it can be done without upsetting the balance of other features of the game.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Sir Ralph and nbarclay, I find both your arguments compelling. I bet it shows that I've never really focused on the naval aspect of the game, focusing more on Pangea-type maps.

So, count my vote to change Harbors back to the way they used to be. However, can we do something to make Coastal Fortresses more useful? The City Walls example is a good one, except for the fact that once a city reaches size 6, Walls become obsolete automatically. I'll check the editor to see what could be done with Coastal Fortresses (just to offer suggestions).


Dominae

[Theseus]

I'm sold... the coastal fortress issue introduces in-game decisions that are to far away from stock. I vote (again) for reverting.

LET'S TALK ABOUT PRODUCTION!!!

[Dominae]

Could someone clarify the reasoning behind giving all naval units an extra hit point? The documentation says it's to "reduce randomness in naval combat", but I can't see why naval combat is any more or less random than ground combat. Why change one system and not the other?


Dominae

[lockstep]

A quick suggestion: We could boost the naval attack / naval power of coastal fortresses from 8 to 12, so that it becomes some kind of early immobile artillery.

(And a quick try to give a rationale: 'The cannons of these coastal fortresses were the biggest, most powerful ones of their time, and it was nearly impossible to move them from one city to another, given the bad condition of medieval roads.')

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Dominae
Could someone clarify the reasoning behind giving all naval units an extra hit point? The documentation says it's to "reduce randomness in naval combat", but I can't see why naval combat is any more or less random than ground combat. Why change one system and not the other?

This change was linked to the fact that veteran naval units were only available in the late middle age in v1.03 because of the changes made to coastal fortresses.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
Could someone clarify the reasoning behind giving all naval units an extra hit point?

The hit point bonus for naval units will be removed with the removal of the veteran flag for Coastal Fortresses.

The reasoning was that with CF required for veteran units we would get battles involving 3-HP units, which are too random. Naval units are generally more expensive than ground units, so we wanted to reduce the risk of a galley sinking a battleship. This is no longer a concern.

Lockstep, I'm afraid your suggestion would help only the human. I have never seen the AI build coastal fortresses (except with AU 1.03).

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
LET'S TALK ABOUT PRODUCTION!!!

Seems like an issue worthy of a new thread. There is some basic research to be done, we might solicit input from Soren and/or some of the file wizards, etc.

[Theseus]

Did you see Bamspeedy's comments?

Should we start a new thread or revive the "AI greatness" one?

[lockstep]

Originally posted by alexman
The hit point bonus for naval units will be removed with the removal of the veteran flag for Coastal Fortresses.

Lockstep, I'm afraid your suggestion would help only the human. I have never seen the AI build coastal fortresses (except with AU 1.03).

It was only a quick suggestion that is very low on my modding priority list.

BTW, Alexman, what is your time-frame for finishing v1.04 of the AU mod? If it's more than a few hours, I'd have the chance to dig out some old ideas from other mods that are high on my priority list for a 'standard' mod. (If you want to release v1.04 rather soon but are still interested in additional ideas, I could do this 'research' for v1.05 of your mod.)

P.S.: Regarding player1's idea to make jaguar warriors upgrade to horsemen, I ask you NOT to include it in the next version of your mod - I think it's a very big change with mixed effects, just like the changes to coastal fortresses that will be removed now.

[Killerdaffy]

Yep, I think it sounds very encouraging. I'm for a new thread, not everybody who has information on this will want to read through ten pages of only partially related discussion. We should give some introduction, though and put in a link to the old one.

[alexman]

Originally posted by lockstep
BTW, Alexman, what is your time-frame for finishing v1.04 of the AU mod?

It will be out in time for AU 107, so there is no need to get it out today. I'm looking forward to hearing any fresh ideas that you may have for AU 1.04.

Regarding player1's idea to make jaguar warriors upgrade to horsemen, I ask you NOT to include it in the next version of your mod

You're right that it changes the ancient-age strategy for the Aztec player (needs horses instead of iron for a JW upgrade), but I actually like the idea. It seems like a more natural upgrade path. Are there other implications that I am missing?

[lockstep]

Originally posted by alexman
You're right that it changes the ancient-age strategy for the Aztec player (needs horses instead of iron for a JW upgrade), but I actually like the idea. It seems like a more natural upgrade path. Are there other implications that I am missing?

IMO, jaguar warriors are still useful at least in the early middle ages because they are mobile and REALLY cheap. Player1's original tweak to make them upgrade to riflemen instead of swordsmen therefore was a good solution IMO. A jaguar warrior - horseman upgrade will make jaguar warriors unavailable in the middle age because Horseback Riding is needed for era advancement. If you want to build jaguar warriors and swordsmen at the same time, but don't want to introduce additional upgrade paths, I suggest to make jaguar warriors upgrade to nothing.

Last but not least, I'm fairly sure that jaguar warriors (like standard warriors) will upgrade to the new medieval infantry in PtW (via swordsmen). You could make them skip swordsmen and directly upgrade to medieval infantry (so that they are available in the early middle age). No need to entirely change a UU's upgrade path.