Cradle Middle Game Thoughts

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Finally, I guess I gotta learn to shut my mouth. 'cause if I keep telling you guys ways that I used to beat the game, you'll end up taking them all away from and then I'll have to learn to play the game for real. LOL

Check the quote database:
"Yes, yes, list your favorite tricks and strategies...I will then alter the game to render them ineffective! Ha, Ha, Ha!"
-- WesW

(WesW is IMNSHO the greatest CtP1/2 modder of all times (now semi-retired))

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Yeah....that's a better term for what we do....'speriment with the boundaries of a game....I like it!

One caveat tho, re: specialists:

Research is derived from your total commerce such that (I think):

Total Commerce Collected - Loss via Crime = Net Commerce

Net Commerce * Science Rate = Science Collected

Net Commerce * (1-Science Rate) = Income

So your worker generating 30 commerce wouldn't generate you 30 science till you were running a Technocracy with 100% science and no crime. In the early game, with a cap of 50-60% science, that's when you really see the huge difference that specialists can make. One point of pop, by himself, can generate the same science that it'd take 4+ workers in the field to do.

-=Vel=-

Yepper thats what I think as well. If science contribution is pure and not lessened due to effects of crime (inefficiency in SMAC terms), then pure science contribution from worked squares is net commerce * allocation rate whilst a scientist will generate quite a bit more due to no loss in crime or allocation (although on the flip side no money either)

Further, If you really think things through its the same paradigm as the old Engineer specialist I used to argue for all the time in SMAC. Max your food and thereby max your population points. Given a normal square is say a 20/20/20 (we'll call this Square 1 for argumment sake) vs. a square that generates 10/20/40 (square 2). Your initial thought is go for the commerce laden square 2. But.... (assuming your rations are 10) then square 1 delivers enough food to develop another pop point (albeit in future turns thank god no pop booming to make it effective immediately) If specialized this makes square 1 worth in future terms. 0 (all food converted to pop points)/ 20/ 50+ commerce points. Furthermore fully 2 thirds of the equivalent commerce is free of crime (unless I'm mistaken) Equivalently speaking that would be the same perhaps as having a 10/20/60 square2.

So again for every X food (where x = rations set) it is equivalent to having 30+ commerce as pop points are added.

One other point I noticed was as I massively specialized I required less entertainers to keep the peace. If I set all citizens to worker I would need say 3-4 entertainers. If I set all available workers to scientists, remaining folks as workers to keep from starving, I would need but 2 entertainers to keep the peace.

Whoops looks like I opened my mouth again Locutus. LOL

PS - Vel,

A lot of people say SMAC was broken upon discovery of the power of the Engineer. I'ld hate to be the cause of breaking two games LOL . Fortunately this one is still fixable.

Og

[hexagonian]

Hey, thanks for the breakdown. Ogie, it's my job to try to close any loophole that comes up.

Math was never my strongest suit, especially since my last math class was in 1979.... (So I'm writing this out for my own sake...)

Race to grow your cities ASAP and then switch whatever you can to Scientists - Do not bother with Merchants because the payoff in science is not as great, plus you should generate sufficient gold thru trade and gold producing tile improvements.

And the thing to remember is that as you build tile improvements (especially the advanced ones) you will obsolete the need for farmer and production specialists but not the scientists. Not by a long shot - in fact the scientist becomes even more important as you build science buildings.

Ogie, do you think that dropping scientists down to 15 will help balance it out, or will this put Merchants in the can't-lose position?
At 20 for a scientist, it seems that the choice is still weighted toward the scientist.

This will be the breakdown.

(at 15) Scientist - no gold/15 science

(at 20) Merchant - approx 10 gold/10 science at optimum, (minus the crime factor), plus the flexability to emphasize either gold or science via the science rate slider. The crime factor will make the decision a little harder though, but Merchants suddenly appear to be a good choice.

The only issue would be in the fact that later-game specialists may be all but obsoleted, but only if your rings are fully tile-improved.

Any problem in keeping Food/Production specialists at 30 - these can be toned down. Actually toning down the Farmer (to 20 or 15) is a good thing because it will still keep their importance in mountainous cities, but greatly lessen their need in flatland cities - those cities grow fast enough as is.

The happiness difference in your specialist/non-specialist cities is probably due to lower pollution rates because you cut production in those cities.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Hex,

Howza about this as an option. Allow a philosopher/merchant specialist at 10/10 and then keep the scientist around but only available in the late game (upon advent of one of the something like Age of Reason or later)?


Whadya think?

Og

PS Your synopsis is on the money growth, growth, growth and specialize what you can. Trade for gold.

I see no problem keeping the farmer at 30 in order to allow mountain areas to grow.

Matter of fact, I'm OK with the game as it now stands since I know at least I can win LOL

But seriously, I hope my observations have helped.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Two potential fixes.

Slaves and adding them to your cities. Is there anyway that you can prevent the add to cities that don't yet have the appropriate Apoth/physician/etc.?

If so slave adding/revolting/specializing gambit is reduced significantly. As it then requires a person to have bath houses to get unlimited pop points via enslavement. Specializing the excess pop then is limited to only the 12 pop points pre-apoth's.

Second fix is there anyway to move back inthe tech tree the popresticition lifting facilities?

This then means short of capturing a city with a huge population you won't have a mega city in the ancient eras.

Og

[Immortal Wombat]

Is there anyway that you can prevent the add to cities that don't yet have the appropriate Apoth/physician/etc.?

No. Only by killing off a population point in the city after the act. And this may well kill the citizens rather than the slaves.

We can't control the slaving process very much at all

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat

No. Only by killing off a population point in the city after the act. And this may well kill the citizens rather than the slaves.

We can't control the slaving process very much at all

How about the selection of cities to which the slaves are applied?

Something that looks for smallest cities first.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Howza about this as an option. Allow a philosopher/merchant specialist at 10/10 and then keep the scientist around but only available in the late game (upon advent of one of the something like Age of Reason or later)?

Age of Reason would be a good slot for it too.

I'm assuming that you also favor dropping the Scientist benefit down to 15 or 20. I would tend to lean towards reducing it from 30, based on you reports - and since you implemented this in the middle of the game, simply moving it will not cut out the exploit.

The slave fix is something that can only possibly be done via SLIC, and I'm at the mercy of the SLICers, (since I do not write SLIC).

There are ways to reduce the city cap sizes without moving the tech tree around - simply reduce the benefit of the Bath House/Apothecary.

[Immortal Wombat]

not automatically. Very little control, really...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Age of Reason would be a good slot for it too.

I'm assuming that you also favor dropping the Scientist benefit down to 15 or 20. I would tend to lean towards reducing it from 30, based on you reports - and since you implemented this in the middle of the game, simply moving it will not cut out the exploit.

The slave fix is something that can only possibly be done via SLIC, and I'm at the mercy of the SLICers, (since I do not write SLIC).

There are ways to reduce the city cap sizes without moving the tech tree around - simply reduce the benefit of the Bath House/Apothecary.

If moving it back in the game worked I'ld prolly be in favor of 20 ish. The farther back in the game you move it the less I would shave off of 30. So perhaps if it comes around inthe industrial age it would be 25. Philosopher/merchant at the age of reason for 10/10 would prolly be a good fit. But as I am a complete newby to this game I would defer to others.

We'ld simply have to try it and see.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

As I indicated before I was "liberally testing the game limits", but the exploit I used could be even more severely exploited than even what I did.

Assume for a second that you intentionally attempted to take advantage of the enslave/revolt/specialize gambit.

Say you purposely built cities with the intention of allowing them to grow to a nice ripe size. Allow one of them to revolt. Then take the city and enslave it adding a number of citizens to a city you already have set up with latest and greatest science facs.

Matter of fact, I could see once your up against government city limits to continually plunk a city down revolt it/enslave it and then do the revolt/retake/specialize routine for the recieving city periodically.

Uggg.

[J Bytheway]

How about just having a certain probability of a citizen dyingeach turn in any overpopulated city (as in, having too many people for it's improvements) - that would dissuade players from using the tactic without being too harsh, and would give a chance to rebuild the appropriate buildings in cities which you've just conquered 'legitimately'.

Or, use the mod_happiness function to add severe happiness penalties to overpopulated cities so you need to use all the excess pop as entertainers.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by hexagonian
(at 20) Merchant - approx 10 gold/10 science at optimum

Uhmmm, doesn't a Merchant just add gold, not commerce? I'm not sure about this one (the manual gives conflicting info on this), but I always assumed it did. Gameplay-wise that makes the most sense...

[hexagonian]

Currently, that's what pollution does in Cradle - it acts as an severe unhappiness modifier (to a much greater extent than in the default game). The trick is to make sure that the AI is not hamstrung though. If you think it is hard for the human player to handle a crisis situation, its a nightmare to get the AI to handle it.

The current Merchant specialist already takes into account a bonus in science because the gold it produces is also translated into science (I'm assuming here Locutus).

So are you suggesting putting off the Merchant to Age of Reason? Actually, a better slot would be at Trade Guilds from the point that Merchants are more economically-based units. And Trade Guilds are roughly contemporary to Age of Reason. It's more a question of aesthetics...and I do not mind pushing elements of the game until later. (although you are looking at approx 600 turns until you get Merchants and even more until you get Scientists)

btw, Trade caravans do not add to science - that gold goes directly into Rush Buy gold. So your main boost to science gold will come thru TI, specialists, and buildings

So here is a proposed slotting for Specialists. This will allow for early growth.

Farmers - 25 Food (from 30) - Agriculture
Laborers - 25 Production (from 30) - Architecture
Merchants - 20 Gold - Trade Guilds (from Bureaucracy)
Scientists - 20 Science (from 30) - Industrial Revolution (from Philosophy). This is still powerful when you add in building effects, but I can make a case for going with Merchants too, in light of the fact that city improvements will also boost that base commerce number to higher than 20 (minus crime, of course...) and a player will have to decide to go with all science or a combo of science/gold.

(It does appear that I can have multiple abilities for a specialists too: for instance, a food/production specialist, but there isn't any reason to do this, and it appears that I am limited to a total of 5 specialists)

Pushing Scientists past Age of Reason will help minimize the exploit because most likely, someone will be building Emancipation at that time. Even though Emancipation does not get rid of the ability to Enslave, the bulk of your slaves will be wiped out beforehand. Its a given that you are better off slaving in Cradle, and there is no real reason not to enslave as much as possible.

But this should reduce the exploit to some degree.

A small point is that the revolt/specialist cycle will (should) destroy many of your buildings. This does waste production, but that is a minor problem to deal with.

The other options is to get rid of Slaving altogether, or as Vel said, cut all the Specialist abilities in half and keep them where they are in the game...

And as I said, if it is a known exploit, players could choose not to do it either. Nevertheless, if there is a way to fix it, I'm all ears.

RE: Mega cities
The concepts in CTP2 are somewhat different from the SMAC/civ2 and 3 setup because a CTP2 city has an expanding city radius. Large cities are probably more the norm in CTP2. What changes the dynamics is the whole slaving concept too.

But on the flipside, at least in Cradle, large AI cities are the norm. The main issue is to make sure that the AI is able to grow it's own cities and even outgrow the human player in this regard.

[J Bytheway]

If you're worried about the long delay before scientists you could add a lesser scientist (providing 10, for example) at the beginning of the game. At least, I assume you can have more than one type of each specialist (it works in CTP1 fine).

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
If you're worried about the long delay before scientists you could add a lesser scientist (providing 10, for example) at the beginning of the game. At least, I assume you can have more than one type of each specialist (it works in CTP1 fine).

It might be possible to have more then one specialist in CTP2, unfortunatly there are less possibilities in CTP2 for specialists they are all advance depending instaed of building depending. But unfortunatly I never saw the first pop here in action, ok it has no effect but it isn't there.

Locutus: In the case of doubt just consult the text files here is the CRA_pop.txt, so you see they add commerce, but actual I think commerce and gold are here equivalent.

-Martin

## Mayors ignore the first pop record, this fixes the problem 
## with low happiness not being handled correctly by mayors. 
## (REM031501) 

POP_ZERO_IGNORED {
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_CLASSICAL_EDUCATION
Food 0
}

POP_ENTERTAINER {
   EnableAdvance ADVANCE_RELIGION
   Happiness 2
}

############################################################

POP_FARMER {
   EnableAdvance ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE
   Food 30
}

############################################################

POP_LABORER {
   EnableAdvance ADVANCE_ARCHITECTURE
   Production 30
}

############################################################

POP_MERCHANT {
   EnableAdvance ADVANCE_BUREAUCRACY
   Commerce 20
}

############################################################

POP_SCIENTIST {
   EnableAdvance ADVANCE_PHILOSOPHY
   Science 30
}

############################################################

[Velociryx]

Here's a simple example of how that breaks down:

A size 8 town working 100% of all squares could reasonably expect to generate something in the neighborhood of 200 commerce. Less 20 for crime (assuming a 10% crime rate for simplicity) leaves you with 180. 60% of THAT total--early game, Dynasty period--is 108 science (multiplied by whatever science enhancers you have in place).

That same size 8 town, with nothing but farms surrounding it can be set up to have two people working the land to continue growing the city, and set the other six to scientists: 6 * 20 = 120 science (multiplied by your science enhancers).

That's pretty close.

-=Vel=-

[hexagonian]

It is pretty close, so the question becomes, what is the advantage to either choice. Each choice should have a benefit and a downside.

So are we in agreement that the numbers I finalized for the Specialists are good to go, or are there any suggestions to tweak them further? I do think that the numbers will help balance them and weaken their effectiveness in the later game.

The main concern is the midgame/late game issue that makes them overpowering, because I cannot really contol what the AI does with them as much as I would like. At this time the most effective fix seems to be what the enable advances will be for each Specialist, and a weakening of the numbers?

There are 5 slotted Specialists - it may be possible to add more, but I'm not sure it can be done

The way to test whether Merchant's gold affects science is to set up a test - if the use of a merchant generated more gold AND your science output also goes up, then that Merchant is helping science too.

[Velociryx]

I think the numbers are good as per your sugesstion above.

As to the benefits and downsides, to me, they are this:

The first city will have eight workers working. That's 100% of the first tier land and terraforming, which would include a not-inconsiderable amount of production power. That equates to faster troop builds or PW (since...and this is one of the coolio things about Cradle), you can set cities to investing in infrastructure pretty early on....I like that!.

So....in the first case, you'd have an advantage in production capacity, and in the second, you'd see an increase in science outputs (and this can truly be taken to extremes via the enslavement gambit, because you can set ALL citizens to scientists, let them starve (which won't happen right away in any case, and when it does, you'll only lose one point of pop per turn), and really rack up a significant science gain.

I'm diggin' it!

-=Vel=-