Rules.txt modifications for SP games

[Sore Loser]

I tried posting this in the General/Help thread, hoping to lure people into a succession game. Now I'm actively being chased out of there so I thought I'd try my luck here instead.

What I have assembled is a number of changes to the rules.txt file (and some self-imposed rules) that I believe will offer a different and more balanced game experience. ICS will be impaired as a strategy, as will early rushes to Monarchy or Republic. Wonders are more difficult to get, meaning that you may have to embark on militant quests if you want them. Terrain improvement also provides more decisions to make, as do city improvements and unit selection.

Here is the full list of changes, and the rules.txt file.

COSMIC

1) Road movement multiplier = 2
2) 100% chance coastal ships are lost
3) Citizens eat 1
4) 20 rows in food box
5) 6 rows in shield box
6) Settlers eat 2 if gov <= Monarchy
7) Settlers eat 6 if gov > Monarchy
8) Unrest factor = 8
9) Riot factor = 12
12) Monarchy supports 1 free unit
13) Communism supports 3 free units
14) Fundamentalism supports no free units (except Fanatics)
15) No max science rate in Fundamentalism

CITY

[Just about every building changed, because of 5) above, look at the file]


Only Great Library, Great Wall and Michelangelo's
Workship now expire, the rest are permanent

UNITS

[All units changed, look at the file]
Major changes include:
1) Amphibious for Legion and Musketeers
2) Pathfinding for Archers
3) Ignore ZOC for Paratroopers
4) Bombardment for Catapult, Cannon and Artillery
5) Coastal for all sail ships
6) Settlers now cost 120, Engineers 180, Pioneers 90
7) HP and FP set to 4/2 for all units
8) New units: Rangers are early Alpine Troops, Pioneers are cheaper Settlers with more moves


TERRAIN

1) Desert, Plains, Grassland and Tundra get +1 trade
2) Grassland yields 1/3 food w/without irrigation
3) Irrigation takes 2 turns for Desert; 4 turns for Plains, Tundra and Hills; 10 turns for Grassland
4) Mining takes 4 turns for Desert; 8 turns for Glacier; 16 turns for Hills; 20 turns for Mountains
5) Mining gives +3 shields for Mountains; +2 shields for Glacier
6) Jungle/Swamp get +2 trade
7) 2 moves for Plains and Grassland; 3 moves for Desert and Tundra; 4 moves for Forest; 5 moves for Hills, Swamp and Jungle; 6 moves for Mountain
8) -50% defense for Tundra, Jungle and Swamp; +50% for Glacier
9) Specials receive an overall boost

SELF-IMPOSED RULES

1) You may only establish trade routes with your own cities and only where the commodity is demanded
2) You may not buy any city production ever
3) You may not bribe enemy cities
4) You may not accept or demand tribute of the AI.
5) You may not share maps with the AI.
6) You may not use caravans to help wonder construction along (regular units are okay)
7) You must have both Monarchy and Republic before switching to to Monarchy; you must have both Democracy and Republic before switching to Republic; you must have all government techs before switching to Democracy, Communism or Fundamentalism
8) Airbases not allowed as a production boost

Comments and suggestions of all kinds are most welcome (I try to be a turn-the-other-cheek kind of person, flames will be returned with a smile)

[Paul Hanson]

Most of it seems pretty good, except that making all sail ships coastal is a) unrealistic and b) perhaps overdoing it a little.

As is only allowing trade with your own cities. Perhaps allowing trade with civs that you are allied or at peace with would be a better idea here.

[Sore Loser]

The problem in allowing trade with foreign cities is that you get ridiculous amount of cash that way. That means one of the following occur:

1) Caravans continue to be game-breaking, which I find boring
2) The cost of caravans is raised to ridiculous amounts to keep them balanced

Another idea: You start out with a bad reputation, and you may only trade with allies. This way caravans won't be as unbalanced, as you have to make significant sacrifices in order to use them. It also makes the Eiffel Tower worth something.

The coastal ships were primarily to make the Light House more important, but also to make exploration more difficult. Even with archipelago/small mass/large map you can usually hop from one continent to another if you find the route.

[Sore Loser]

Here's an idea on unit balance. All land combat units are divided into five categories: Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry and Artillery. Archetypes are as follows:

Name;move;off;def;cost;abilities
Lt Infantry;4/3;8;3;2;treat all as road
Hv Infantry;2;11;5;3;amphibious
Lt Cavalry;5;10;4;4;ignore ZOC
Heavy Cavalry;3;13;4;6
Artillery;1;16;1;8;ignore city walls

Terrain values are as follows
Name;move;def bonus
Plains;2;none
Grassland;2;none
Forest;3;50%
Hills;4;100%
Mountains;5;200%
Swamp;4;-50%
Jungle;4;-50%
Tundra;3;-50%
Glacier;4;-50%

This is just a rough sketch with which to construct other units. Ideally, the units should come in sets with 1 of each type at about the same tech level various places in the tech tree. With each level, the units would then be upgraded accordingly in stats and cost, possibly adding some abilities.

[SlowThinker]

A couple weeks ago I started to think about similar things. But I didn't concentrace to SP but to MP (both online and PBEM). SP is much more complicated because you must take into consideration also the AI: AI may behave very peculiarly with modified rules.

I will comment your ideas step by step:

3) Citizens eat 1

Let us see the standard rules: you can convert rules to an equal but better understadable way:
citizens eat 0 (in place of 2), but non-irrigated grassland produces 0 food, forest produces -1, mountains -2 etc. Additionaly a city produces extra +2 food (in other words the square of the 0th citizen produces +2 food: for example forest produces 1 in place of -1) .

Those +2 food of 0th citizen are the element that causes ICS to be so effective.Therefore I agree with your idea to lower
Citizens eat 2
to
Citizens eat 1.
You lose the possibility of -2 food squares, but this is not so important (moreover there is a chance there may be negative values - see Favourite (and innovative) scenario concepts and try to get Kobayashi to talk )
But why don't you lower values of food output of all terrains by 1 simultaneously? Now you have a big amount of food surplus that is neutralized by doubling the food box to 20. But it is very inconvenient to manage such large numbers and to count numerous pictures of food on the screen!

Also if you want to stop ICS then you should lower the ratio
food surplus / size of the foodbox
(so that city grow is more effective).

Edited: the link

[:) Smiley]

Or, up the cost of settlers.

[SlowThinker]

7) HP and FP set to 4/2 for all units

Good idea but...
Then you lose the effect of the pikemen flag.
Also you may want some 'stable' (predictable) units and some 'berserk' (unpredictable) ones.

2) 100% chance coastal ships are lost

The effect is very similar to 50%: a player never dare in open sea.
What about 20%?

Trade may be balanced by another trick - you can give a gold to civ that sacks (kills) the caravan (using scenario means). It is a nice feature, that makes sending caravans very dangerous (at least in MP).

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Paul Hanson
Most of it seems pretty good, except that making all sail ships coastal is a) unrealistic and b) perhaps overdoing it a little.

BTW, don't Sea Faring, Navigation, and Magnetism each halve the probability of a ship being lost? In that case, why not make all ships coastal?

[Sore Loser]

It also annoys me to lose the pikeman flag. However, it is lost by increasing the movement costs anyway. The reason for the 4/2 HP/FP ratings is that I don't really understand the deeper significance of these stats. How does a 2/2-6/2 unit differ from a 3/3-4/2 unit (off/def-HP/FP?

After 10 minutes of toying around with your examples on food production I realized that you were simply explaining the standard rules differently

ICS shouldn't just be made less useful, but it should be made less useful under most circumstances. For example, lots of grassland and hills makes ICS next to useless as those terrain types take too much time to improve and are of little use without improvement. With plenty plains and forest squares you can still expand fairly rapidly, but the city will have a lower potential.

Comparison:

Size 2 city, utilizing Plains x2 + Forest/Hills, 5 food produced under both rules sets
Normal rules: 1 surplus food, 30 food to grow, 30 turns to grow
My rules: 3 food, 50 to grow, 17 turns

Size 4 city, utilizing Grassland + Forest/Hills x4, 7 food produced
Normal rules: -1 surplus, 50 to grow, negative growth
My rules: 3 surplus, 90 to grow, 30 turns

Size 8 city, utilizing Grassland x6 + Forest/Hills x3, 21 food produced
Normal rules: 5 surplus, 90 to grow, 18 turns
My rules: 13 surplus, 170 to grow, 15 turns

This doesn't account for the fact that settlers eat more, nor does it account for the extra time needed to irrigate grassland.

If food output is lowered by 1 and the food box is halved then the growth rates will be different. Was that your intention? With this, I hope to create a more marked distinction between terrain types. Grassland and Hills will be more important for perfectionists, Plains and Forests will be more important for expansionists.

As for MP, I'd much prefer working on that, tweaking gameplay balance for MP is more interesting than trying to give the AI a big enough advantage without compromising the gameplay in SP. However, time and equipment keeps me from this.

As for ships, I really don't like the all-or-nothing approach to shipwrecks. The ideal solution would be to make coastal ships helicopter-like, ie. they risk some (possibly affected by a random factor) of their health if they venture in open seas. Certain ship types should be better at this than others instead of just having techs upgrade the odds for all types. This could even work for land units, representing the unit's ability to survive in hostile conditions. It would also add a limited supply element to the game.

I'm going off on a tangent here, since none of this is feasible within the given frame. Any ideas on how to make any of it work?

[SlowThinker]

Sore Loser,
I would prefer some more thoroughgoing approach. First of all we should know what we want from Civ2 from a general point of view. Then we can speak about concrete rules.txt settings with a more clear conception. Please see Scenarios from strategic point of view .

I will answer your posts here later, probably tomorrow

[SlowThinker]

It also annoys me to lose the pikeman flag. However, it is lost by increasing the movement costs anyway. The reason for the 4/2 HP/FP ratings is that I don't really understand the deeper significance of these stats. How does a 2/2-6/2 unit differ from a 3/3-4/2 unit (off/def-HP/FP?

See
Modifiers for Attack/Defense (start reading the debate between me and DaveV)
and this post in Info:Combat : http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...65#post2337865

Ask if any explanation is needed.

[Sore Loser]

Uh oh, that's way too much math for my small head. While I can follow the argument some of the way, I'm lost when it comes to practical application. Please give me some examples on how HP/FP can be used to create further distinction between units.

[SlowThinker]

I prepared a summary here: Info: Combat (GL)

[SlowThinker]

After 10 minutes of toying around with your examples on food production I realized that you were simply explaining the standard rules differently

But in a more clear way. You see that the ICS is caused (also) by that +2 food bonus that every city gets.

ICS shouldn't just be made less useful, but it should be made less useful under most circumstances.

I would like settings where both 4-city strategy and 20-city strategy are approximately equal. You would have to adopt your strategy - to choose correct wonders etc.

[SlowThinker]

There is many ways how to make ICS less valuable. I will try to summarize them:

to increase Settler cost
to force Settlers to work in place of found a city (to lower cost of Irrigation/Mining)
to make city grow easy (smaller food box, more food surplus)
to reduce that +2 food bonus for each city (see last post)
to lower cost of improvements (! they are really useless with standard settings)
to increase cost of wonders that affects all cities
to change both happiness constants of rules.txt

But you must be cautious:
For example you must not make specialists too strong,
you must not make celebration too easy (you can't limit the food surplus, but you should be restrained with giving trade to squares - common squares with 2 trade (Ocean) makes celebration too easy. Better to make some infrequent squares with +5 trade output that will force people to build cities that are supposed to celebrate nearby those +5 squares.)

[MikeLynch]

Trade may be balanced by another trick - you can give a gold to civ that sacks (kills) the caravan (using scenario means). It is a nice feature, that makes sending caravans very dangerous (at least in MP).

Nice! I never thought of that, but now that I'm learning how to use events.txt, I think I just might implement that. Whaddya think, 100 for caravans and 125 for freight?

Even the AI has been known to destroy my caravans from time to time, though it will not of course recognize this new incentive.

[MikeLynch]

Hey Sore Loser, what are the stats and unit graphics for your Rangers and Pioneers?

[Sore Loser]

Pioneers are about 20% cheaper than settlers and can move a bit farther, Rangers are early Alpine Troops. The stats are up in the air, as I keep modifying the global parametres.

[MikeLynch]

Can we get a look at 'em? I'm contemplating using these cribbed graphics:

[Varwnos]

hi

cool topic, unit strenghs are one of the most important factors in the game i am almost in the beta-testing phase of my own scenario, and would like to ask if its a good idea to have all units of the same sector (land/sea)have the same firepower and hitpoints, thus altering strenghts more easily by the other two levels (attack/defence). also i would like to ask if a unit that has firepower 2 is twice as strong as another with firepower 1 (assuming every other level is identical) and if the same goes for hp

here is a pic from my scenario & units & cities

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by varwnos
also i would like to ask if a unit that has firepower 2 is twice as strong as another with firepower 1 (assuming every other level is identical) and if the same goes for hp

Yes it is twice as strong in both attack and defense.
Another example: a unit with FP=2 and HP=3 is 2*3=6 times stronger than a FP=1, HP=1 unit.

and would like to ask if its a good idea to have all units of the same sector (land/sea)have the same firepower and hitpoints

There are several pros and cons.
It is a good idea, because you minimize problems with AI choosing weaker defender from a stack.
It is a bad idea if you want to differentiate "stable" and "unreliable" units. But a good compromise is to keep HP*FP constant - then you can have "stable" and "unreliable" units, with a minimum impact on problems with weaker defender (only problem is that properly you should choose a less stable unit against a stronger attacker and a more stable against a weaker one - but the AI will ignore this).

Read last posts of Info:Combat thread (link in the GL) for details.

[Sore Loser]

Sorry for not responding to this, I've been busy in school (I've just started studying to become a teacher).

I've gone back to using 3 movement points on roads, meaning that I can give units movement allowances in increments of 1/3. Rangers gets 4/3 movement points, meaning that they can always move one square and then attack, a major offensive advantage in rough terrain. Their OFF and DEF ratings are just below that of musketeers. Same thing with Riflemen and Alpine Troops. Alpine Troops are slightly weaker but can attack more readily and are a little cheaper.

Pioneers cost 20% less than Settlers and can move on open terrain and then do something (movement allowance of 7/3, open terrain costs 6/3).

I also prefer identical FP/HP ratings. Both because it's easier to gauge unit strengths and because it seems to make the AI a little smarter.

One problem I have at the moment is that archers are too good at exploration when they get the pathfinding ability, which is not the point. There is little sense in going for explorers if archers can do the job just as good with mighty off/def ratings at the same time.

[Sore Loser]

I have done another revision, and this is what I have now:

1) Grassland and plains give zero shields
2) Deserts give 1(3) shields, Hills give 0(4) shields, mountains give 1(6) shields
3) Ocean gives 2 food and ZERO trade
4) Citizens eat 1 food each
5) Ships require "supplies" when going on long trips. Supply units cost 4 shields, no maintenance (trade units). When a ship starts a turn away form port, one supply unit must be disbanded or the ship must be disbanded. Makes exploration more difficult, and puts emphasis on establishing outposts.

This makes specialists fairly powerful, and it also makes caravans less powerful. There are far more decisions to make and differing strategies to make. I'll upload it tomorrow, if anybody is interested.

[MikeLynch]

Color me interested! I gotta see your Rules.txt, dude.

[Sore Loser]

The way it plays right now is that you have several approaches to choose from when growing towns. A town with plenty of forest squares can be highly productive in a hurry, which is good for further expansion. If it has a few plains squares as well then it will also be able to support the settlers for some terrain improvement. Towns near grassland, hills and mountains will take quite a bit of terrain improvement to get started, and will likely be a burden early in the game. Deserts are somewhat useful now. They give more shields than forests (and a little trade), but they take a little to develop and they give no food. Ocean squares give NO trade but 2 food. Since citizens eat 1 each, that means they act like irrigated grassland, letting you keep a rapid growth rate. It also makes it less useful to maximize trade just before delivering a caravan.

All of this also serves to limit the use of caravans. Ordinary cities won't have much trade for a long time, unless they're near good specials.

ICS is pretty much eliminated as a killer-strategy. It is still viable at certain stages in the game, but there will be significant payofffs. You will need to get Monarchy (renamed to Imperialism) fast, and it is far down the tech tree now (requires Con + PT, I think). If you beeline for that, you'll have to pass up on Currency, Writing, Mysticism, Bridge Building (gives Pioneers) who all serve to enchance your growth in different ways.

Additionally, ICS means less time for terrain improvement, meaning that you cannot adequately take advantage of the availability of irrigated grassland and mines hills/mountains. You'll have to strike a balance somewhere in between.

I'm also trying to balance the city improvements. Right now, specialists are good enough to use even while you have more terrain to utilize and without xinning. This means you can tune some cities towards research and others towards money and growth (due to better entertainers). To compensate, marketplaces and libraries are more expensive to build and maintain and should not be built as a common occurance.

Another major change is that pioneers now cost half as much as settlers, but cannot be used to found cities (you can still join with an existing city). This means terrain improvement is quite a bit more expensive until you get Bridge Building, presenting you with yet another dilemma to deal with.

The supply system for ships works very well. With triremes able to move 6 squares you can do a lot of exploration near your cities, but you will have a hard time exploring nearby continents without establishing outposts or mounting a major expedition. Supplies cost 4 shields each, which seems to be just right. It also make distant caravans more expensive to establish, and requires you to setup distant bases if you want to be able to haul units around the map efficiently. I really like the concept of outposts, it gives you yet another use for cities. I wish something similar could be extended to units, but it would be very cumbersome.

One major problem is that the AI doesn't really know how to take advantage of the different terrain settings. It still values grasslands too highly, meaning that it can get stuck with utterly unproductive cities early on. If you create a map and place the starting cities then it manages to expand in a reasonable manner. I have often been unable to keep up with its expansion, because of its 100% production and growth bonuses.

There are some other minor imbalances, but I'll let you figure them out for yourself. I'll upload a new version tomorrow, I only have net access at college.

[Sore Loser]

Here's the file. I can't quite make up my mind whether to go with a low or high number of shields and corresponding production costs. Despotism is definitely helped by 0-shield grassland/plains, 1-shield forests and 2-shield hills, but the AI doesn't seem to cope with this very well. The other version is 1 shield for grassland and plains, 4 for forests, 5 for mined deserts, 6 for mined hills and 8 for mined mountains. This one hurts Despotism a lot, both because of the reduced shield production and because of the higher waste levels.

[SlowThinker]

I would like to debate about details with you, but I am short of time and this thing requires a lot of time
Later, I hope.

[MikeLynch]

WHOAH! Transports can cary 60 units?!?! wtf?

[Sore Loser]

There are number of self-imposed rules to be used with the file, listed at the beginning of it. One of them states that units take up more than one slot, depending on the type of transport. Units on transports take up 4 slots each, meaning that it can only carry 15 units. If it also needs supplies then the number goes further down. That said, 60 is probably too much. It was a sudden idea that I quickly pencilled in, I didn't make much of an effort to balance it. I'll set it to 40 instead, letting it carry 10 units minus supplies. I'm also letting warships of all kinds carry units, but they are very ineffective at doing so, requiring 9 slots per unit for a battleship, for example.

I'm not sure if this is too much of a hassle for the player. Gameplay-wise it provides the player with some uncertainty and restrictions regarding exploration, which is intended. Later on it might require too much time to make sure you stay within the required limits and figuring out what is the best choice in the given situation.

Another concern is that players might be able to nullify the supply aspect too easily by setting up outposts everywhere.

[MikeLynch]

Yes, but setting up outposts everywhere IS historically accurate.

Inspired by this file, I am now toying around with fractional unit moves (i.e. 172 instead of 1 or 2). Do you know if it's possible for a unit to have a starting move of *less than 1*? 1/3rd or 2/3rds? If so, that might be a great way to limit the power of caravans.........