Multiplayer Strategy Mod?

[alexman]

From what I have seen so far from the multiplayer Civ3 community, especially for PBEM, it seems that AI civilizations are generally avoided. It also seems that there are a few aspects of Civ3 where strategic depth has been compromised because of the inability of the AI to deal effectively with complex situations. This creates a great opportunity for a mod that is free of the strategic limitations introduced to help the AI.

The main objective of this mod would be to provide a set of rules that challenge the player with a need for deeper strategy, while changing as little as possible to preserve the stock Civ3 flavor. To accomplish this goal, the mod would try to balance the existing elements of the game so that there is no one strategy that always works, nor one that never works. Ideally, the Civ3 multiplayer community would adopt this set of rules as a standard for games without AI-controlled civilizations.

I opened this thread because I would like to see if there is interest in such a mod, and also to solicit your input on what the changes of this mod should be. I already have some ideas of my own. Here are a few:

• Double the free unit support for Wartime governments. The lack of war weariness in multiplayer has decreased the value of Monarchy and Communism. On the other hand, players often (but not always) have to build more units than in single-player when facing a human threat. Overall, doubling the free unit support for Communism and Monarchy (4/town, 8/city, 16/metro) should nicely balance the lack of war weariness. Democracy, which in single player mode has the most war weariness, should not be changed in this mod because players choosing to research two optional technologies should be rewarded now that there is no AI to research them.
• Industrious workers cost 20 shields. The Industrious trait is the hands-down-favorite trait in multiplayer. The extra worker cost would reduce the overpowering early-game advantage of Industrious civilizations, thus giving players more choice when choosing their civilizations. The initial worker and the single population cost are still enough to give Industrious civilizations a head-start in terrain improvement.
• Reduce defensive strength of citizens and improvements against bombardment, from 16 to 8. This change would be unfair to the AI in a single-player mod, but would go a long way towards making ground bombard units, ships, air units, coastal fortresses, and walls viable components in a combined-arms strategy in multiplayer Civ3. For example, after they have destroyed any walls (a 33% chance), subsequent Catapult attacks have a 33% chance of success (up from 20%) against citizens and improvements. Cannons have a 50% success rate (up from 33%), and artillery has a 60% chance (up from 42%). This change encourages the use of catapults and cannons against cities, not only against units in the open. Using bombard units, it becomes easier to reduce the size of cities to towns, thus lowering their defensive bonus.
• Coliseums increase the effect of luxury spending by 50%. Coliseums are less cost-effective than temples and Cathedrals, even for non-religious civilizations. Players can afford not to build coliseums, as happiness is rarely a problem that cannot be resolved with luxuries, marketplaces, temples, and Cathedrals. This change would make coliseums more valuable and sometimes worth building even before temples (when a civilization is forced into high luxury spending). This is something that would not be handled well by the AI, since it doesn’t use the luxury slider.
• Mechanized units are “wheeled”. Tanks, Mechanized Infantry, Panzers, Modern Armor, Artillery, and Radar Artillery would not be able to enter mountains and jungles without using roads. This would make Paratroopers more useful as special mountain and jungle troops after Infantry gets replaced by Mechanized Infantry. The AI would not handle these new natural barriers well, as evidenced by its incompetence in intercontinental invasions.
• All Submarines and the AEGIS cruiser can transport and launch one cruise missile. This is a step towards making these three naval units (and the cruise missile) more powerful. It also enhances realism and gives another dimension in the strategy of naval warfare.
• Hwach’a has lethal land bombard. Korea is the only civilization that cannot get a Golden Age militarily under stock rules. The lethal bombard ability would be indeed lethal against the AI, but not against other human players that know what to expect.
• Power Plants replace walls. This would be a temporary fix until Firaxis resolves the “eternal wall” bug. (The defensive bonus of walls does not really expire after the city grows to size 7). Walls would still affect cities and metropolises with this change, but at least they would vanish when you build a Coal, Hydro, or Solar plant.

In addition to the above, I would favor some (but not all) other changes that are already incorporated in the AU mod.

Please post your comments and ideas, but keep in mind that we would probably want to avoid starting with something too radical.

[jshelr]

I have some super-secret, alleged empirical results of important consequence for this mod proposal, but I will only reveal them if Alexman promises not to use them on me in Strat 4.

[alexman]

OK, I'll use them on you in Strat 3 then...

[jshelr]

OK, I have to say that we believe we have found a bona fide case of war weariness inducing anarchy in PBEM. Moreover, there also appear to be happiness effects due to extended war under democracy. This goes against what others have reported, and I only think I know what I believe I'm seeing.

[badams52]

I like your thinking alexman, making a mod for the MP players, but I'm certain that this mod with take much, much longer to play test. I agree that the industrious workers are a great advantage, but I don't think a 20 shield worker will have a great detriment to the overpowering advantage one gets with workers who are twice as fast. Also, it will create an unfair advantage to non-industrial civs who want to rush a building and use the rush worker first tactic. I would like to hear other ways to balance out a industrial worker before adopting a 20 shield change.

Also, I wonder if you also might let those in the other MP forums know about your attempt as I believe not all of them frequent the strategy forum.

[Panzer32]

Mechanized units are “wheeled”. Tanks, Mechanized Infantry, Panzers, Modern Armor, Artillery, and Radar Artillery would not be able to enter mountains and jungles without using roads. This would make Paratroopers more useful as special mountain and jungle troops after Infantry gets replaced by Mechanized Infantry. The AI would not handle these new natural barriers well, as evidenced by its incompetence in intercontinental invasions.

The rest of the proposal is OK, but this I don't find appealing. Especially as treaded vehicles are essentially all terrain vehicles. I would say keep artillery and radar artillery wheeled, but not the other ones.

[Jaybe]

Re the Industrious worker dilemma, have you considered just removing the trait altogether?

The wheeled mech units change works quite well, even in SP. Even when the AI messes up their attack routes through bombardment, it also messes with the player's capabilities. SAVE a few infantry from being upgraded!

ONE cruise missile capability seems awfully low. How about 3-6? When you run out of CMs, you have to go back home to reload unless you have a transport of them standing by. Another (off-the-wall) option would be to make it zero, and just give them the bombard equivalent of the CM.

[alexman]

badams, I agree that this mod would take a while to get it right. Hopefully with small changes, common sense and some friendly games between us, we can get it done.

As for the 20-shield industrious worker, I'm not sure I agree that the removal of a 10-shield unit for the rush-buying trick is a big deal. But I would like to hear alternatives as well. One way would be to slightly reduce the cost of terrain improvement so that the speed of industrious workers is not quite double, because of rounding. For example, if you reduce the cost of irrigation from 8 to 6 (for a non-ind slave), then the time required for a non-industrious worker to irrigate would be reduced from 4 turns to 3, but it would still be 2 turns for an industrious worker. Similarly, reducing the slave mining (on flatlands) time from 12 to 9 would reduce the non-industrious time from 6 to 5 turns without affecting the time for industrious workers.

panzer, the wheeled change you don't like was not proposed for the sake of realism (but rather to give special forces a new role and to encourage other strategies besides the ol' MA romp), but how often do you see tanks operating in jungles or in terrain mountains steep enough to be prohibitive for cities to be built?

Jaybe, I think ships carrying even one cruise missile would be very powerful. The ship could first bombard, reducing the HP of the enemy, and then use the CM to get the kill with no risk to the AEGIS or sub. Very powerful.

By the way, this thread could belong in the Multiplayer, PBEM, Creation, or Strategy forums. I chose the Strat forum because it is the one where I thought the subject would get the most discussion. Perhaps I will start a thread in the other forums too.

[Jaybe]

Jaybe, I think ships carrying even one cruise missile would be very powerful. The ship could first bombard, reducing the HP of the enemy, and then use the CM to get the kill with no risk to the AEGIS or sub. Very powerful.

Very good point, I hadn't considered that. Of course, you could combine the CM capability with REMOVING bombardment.

[alexman]

True, and submarines don't even have bombard (AEGIS have a ridiculous 4 strength), but you could still bombard with other ships. I think we should try it with just one CM capacity first, and perhaps strengthen the CM (to 4 ROF like in the AU mod) instead.

[Frank Johnson]

Well if you're gonna address the Korean special unit, what about the americans? Since fighters can only kill units in a defensive stand, it puts the ability to trigger the golden age in the hands of the enemy instead of your own.

I don't know about doubling the support for the war time govs. Think about the advantage that gives religous civs. Plus, someone just said they saw war weariness. So.....double check that one since its your most drastic change.

The rounding solution sounds to be the best answer for industrious workers. Remember, even Civ2 multiplayer had much faster improvement production on any setting other than single player.

A resolution of cruise missiles and late naval bombardment might be nice, but its something that would have to be play balanced. I find the cruise missile to be pretty useless as it is, given its limited range. Its only helpful if in a first strike, since your mobile forces will usually out run a 1 move missile. I guess the best option would be to remove the bombardment feature of ships....and add the missile carry option. The ships would still have attack and defense values to represent the limited naval guns and torpedos they still carry.

However..... <- I've never even played a game where I got to aegis cruisers. There's quite a bit of room for more naval units.....but again that requires more play testing. The game needs a "modern destroyer" that comes in around rocketry....to challenge battleships for control of the seas with the cruise missiles.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Frank Johnson
Well if you're gonna address the Korean special unit, what about the americans?

Good point, although the Americans have one of the best (*the* best IMO) trait combos for MP. Still, I was thinking of giving all fighters lethal sea bombard as well, like in the AU mod. This would make aircraft carriers loaded with fighters a real naval threat.

[Kuciwalker]

I'd be interested in making a multiplayer mod, though not necessarily as you described it. It would be VERY nice to be free of concerns over whether the AI can handle it.

[DaveMcW]

Wild suggestion: what do you think of adding the changes from my Balanced Accelerated Production Mod?

Playing with AP will greatly speed up testing and gameplay, maybe someone will actually get to try out the modern era changes.

[Kuciwalker]

or my mod here

[alexman]

Originally posted by DaveMcW
Wild suggestion: what do you think of adding the changes from my Balanced Accelerated Production Mod?

Dave, I cannot imagine playing with AP without the changes that you suggest in your mod. We should definitely make an AP version of this mod in addition to a standard version.

I have never actually played with accelerated production on, mostly because I would imagine that slow-movers on anything but a tiny map would become obsolete before they have a chance to move to their first target. Kind of like Deity used to be in the patch with the crazy tech whoring AI (1.16f, I think). Is it that bad?

Skywalker, your mod has many cool ideas, but in general I think they are way too drastic for the purpose of this mod.

[alva]

I think this thread deserves another chance

[Dominae]

I'm not sure how I missed this thread the first time...

I would very much like to test the 20 Shield Industrious Worker tweak sometime. alexman, have you ever had the chance to try it out?


Dominae

[alexman]

Yes, I have tried it out and it seems to work well enough. With this change, industrious civs are not nearly as powerful in the beginning of the game. Without help testing the change, I'm not sure if it makes the trait too weak though.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it changes the shields/food ratio you need for worker factories. For non-industrious civs, you could turn a high food, low production city into a worker factory, but with the change you need even more shields/turn than you do for a settler factory. Some players get annoyed with such changes to micromanagement issues that have become second nature (although I'm not one of them).

[Arrian]

Doubling the cost of industrious workers is pretty draconian, don't you think? Granted, I don't play much MP (demogames only right now), so you know more about it than I do, but it seems to me that your backup changes to speed up non-industrious workers are better.

Or just remove the industrious trait altogether.

-Arrian

[alexman]

You may be right.

On the other hand, even with the change, one industrious worker is equivalent to two non-industrious workers (ignoring movement and support), but industrious civs still save one population point. I think that the reduced population cost is more improtant than the reduced shield cost of industrious workers.

[GodKing]

Instead of increasing the cost of teh worker, why don't you look at perhaps giving two workers to non indust civs at the beginning...... not sure if it is possible however, been a while since I played with the editor. Just an idea.