Scenario: 1860 on GEM

[Genghis_Kai]

Originally Posted by Ace of Spades

A quick suggestion: I am currently trying to play as the CSA, and once again Britain liberated Australia (almost right away) and Canada (~1865 AD) - but this time creating Hungary (Australia) and the Sovient Union (Canada).

I find this slightly annoying - would it be possible to install Australia and Canada as British Vassals right away? There was the Canadian Confederation in 1867 AD at least (so not that much later than the scenario start).

Maybe they should be vassal states of Britain right away - even if it's not entirely accurate.

Best Regards,
Martin

I've checked and I can only preset the first vassal civ.

[Ace of Spades]

Too bad :-(

By the way, my CSA game is going well, better suited to me difficulty-wise than playing Prussia earlier, because the CSA are not that powerful. I am in 1875 now, and still only 6th in score, despite having vassalized the Sioux and the US and happily conquering canada.

Best Regards,
Martin

[Ace of Spades]

Some more feedback from my CSA game.

I am currently in 1887 AD, and once again, tech speed seems to be slightly too fast - if not as bad as with Prussia. I need about 15 turns to research a new technology at 80%, however, due to tech trading, I get a new technology about every 10 turns in average, en par with most nations in the game.

The CSA seems to be well-balanced, difficulty-wise. I am currently sixth in score, and about to climb slightly with my ongoing war with Mexico, who decided to declare war upon me a few turns back. In addition to my native territories, I conquered the eastern portion of the USA and eastern Canada, while having Sioux and the western part of the USA as my vassals.

As to the other regions, sadly they seem to be static, mostly. Despite Better AI 6.0, the AI seems incapable of conquering its neighbours on a larger scale.

Britain still leads the score, despite having lost most of its canadian territories, with its two vassals Australia and Canada.

Russia is second in score, having Prussia, Turkestan and Chile as their vassals. Sadly, this already demonstrates the somewhat stupid tendency of the AI to meddle in Regions where it effectively has no influence, as with Russia and Chile.

China (Quing) is a close third, their vassals being India, Persia, Korea (Joseon) and Italy (!)

The Ottoman are fourth (with Egypt and Abyssinia) and France (with Taiping and Morocco) behind.

However, despite having vassalized the other nations, there has not been much conquest. Most of the nations still control their native territory, and capitulations mostly come from long wars with static frontlines where one side loses too many units to keep fighting, or from peaceful vassalization.

Best Regards,
Martin

[armand453]

Yes it's clearly true the only way I find to reduce a litlle this problem is to forbid vassal states because the accept vassal to easely and in the long run its a clear disadvantage against an human player; and to increase a lot the culture points city has to have to change their culture level. But the problem when you forbid vassal state you loose a great part of roleplay .

Armand.

[Ace of Spades]

Even without Vassal states there would be a stupid amount of declarations of war on enemies that it makes simply no sense to get involved with.

I think the main problem is that the AI always tries to think on a global level. This works fine for small maps, where it's actually good if the AI launches invasions on other continents and tries to achieve global domination.

However, on a very large map like GEM, the cost of waging intercontinental wars is very high, since transportation is difficult - overseas colonies are hard to defend. The AI seems to lack a desire to conquer a territory with convex borders. It would make much more sense if e.g. China did not involve itself at all in Africa or America, and instead tried to foucs all its efforts on conquering bordering cities in regions like Manchuria, Central Asia or Indochina.

Well, however this is nothing Kai can influence... and nothing the Better AI team will likely change, since it's trying to develop a general AI, and not one specifically tuned to large maps.

Best Regards,
Martin

By the way, I am in 1892 now, and finally it seems that some serios conquest is being done. Britain conquered South Africa and Zululand destroying both civilizations, while China, now second in score, is starting to conquer russian cities along its borders.

Best Regards,
Martin

[Ace of Spades]

More feedback on how it plays out:

I'm in 1904 AD now, and tech level is such that quite a number of nations already have apollo program, and the game will most likely be decided by spaceship.

The major power blocs that remain are:

Britain (Australia) followed by CSA (Sioux, USA, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Sweden), China (Japan, Korea, Siam, India, Persia, Italy, Portugal), Russia (France, Prussia, Turkestan, Chile) and Turkey (Egypt, Arabia, Austria, Abyssinia).

Spain, Taiping, Netherlands, Denmark, Sokoto and Morocco remain unaligned as of now. I am trying to get a diplomatic victory, which will however probably be impossible, even with me controlling all of the Americas.

Best Regards,
Martin

[Genghis_Kai]

Sounds like if the turns are yearly would better reflect the technology advancement.

[Adhesive86]

Originally Posted by Genghis_Kai

Sounds like if the turns are yearly would better reflect the technology advancement.

Maybe, but as the Boers (now with 9 cities), it's still taking over 100 turns for a tech.

[Ace of Spades]

Well, there is no way to balance science for small nations on this map, Adhesive.

In regular civ (and GEM basically uses the regular civ rules) technological advances are more easily achieved by larger nations, as research time linearly decreases with the amount of science (bulbs) that your nation can produce. This difference on the GEM maps can be very high, since there is a huge variety of civilization sizes in terms of territory, population and economy. Especially on maps with pre-set cities, like this scenario.

Therefore, technological proliferation on these maps is often ensured by the vassal system - otherwise, there would be severe disparities after, say, one hundred turns of play. If you play a larger nation yourself, then the small nations will eventually become vassals to one of the larger nations and get their technology from their masters. The bad thing is - as a human player, you cannot become a larger nation's vassal, since AI players never accept human players for vassals.

I don't really see a solution to the general problem you hint at without changing the way research speed is calculated in the code, which would probably have to be done in the DLL, since it's a rather basic feature of the game. In this case, it really does not matter if the timeframe of the scenario is set in months or years - the general disparity of technological advancement remains.

What would have to be done to achieve greater balance here is that research speed is calculated by applying a logarithm function to the science output somewhere along the way. This would lead to large empires still having a slight edge technologically, but smaller nations still being able to keep up. Then, tech costs would have to be balanced accordingly.

However, this involves quite some work within the code and the xml files, and I doubt that Kai wants to put that much work into this, especially since he wrote that he will move on from developing for civilization in the near future.

Best Regards,
Martin

[pesgores]

Where can I download it? I can't find the link here in this thread

EDIT: Nevermind, I realized it comes with the Mod.

[ceaser1345]

Originally Posted by Genghis_Kai

thanks! did you try out the scenario yet? I haven't got any feedback on this new scenario yet.

Can you attach the link?

[cheesemijit]

1860 scenario is part of the GEM mod, just choose Play a Scenario after loading the GEM mod