[C3C] Civ 3 Conquests - retuned

[Fergei]

Main objectives - overview

- Provide a more consistent challenge throughout the game (rather than the early game difficulty spike and routine late game victory often offered by the default settings).
- Make random maps more viable by reducing having to abandon a game as being unsuitable (e.g. lack of fresh water on your starting island).
- More variation in government types rather than the focus on Republic slingshot and often no further revolutions.
- Increase relevance of chariot, warrior and early game unique units for combat and delayed arrival of Iron Working.
- Create a greater degree of AI unpredictability prior to all land being claimed / settled.
- Mitigate dominance of Agricultural trait by improving power and/or relevance of Expansionist, Religious and Industrious traits.
- Make short term skirmishes potentially profitable rather than total war / conquest being the only obvious military strategy.
- Bolster a couple of the most legendary (but underperforming) Civs via their Unique Units
- Ensure AI utilise changes as intended and that they don’t break the game.
- Make accessible and understandable to a standard Civ3 user.
- To keep changes to the minimum required to provide the playing experience I was looking for.

The above should be sufficient to understand what is going on and have a casual basic game. However, fuller details are below for those with an interest.

Background

I can’t really give this the grand title of a Mod, but this is the only place to save it. There are no custom units, artwork or Civs here, nor any new or modified Civolopedia entries – I don’t have the time or talent for such things. This is simply a customised ruleset for the standard Civ3 Conquest that I find gives me a considerably more enjoyable gaming experience than the default settings whilst remaining recognisably standard Civ3. Obviously, these game preferences are entirely subjective on my part but I extend thanks to the many forum contributors who opened my eyes to what options were available.

I’ve tested these extensively in multiplayer* and AI only games to hone the settings. Most testing has been at Emperor difficulty to ensure it plays well at my difficulty, so that is what the ruleset is optimised for. The quality of the experience at other difficulty levels may vary but shouldn’t be wildly different.

*multiplayer version not attached, but has differences to accommodate the no war weariness bug in MP and to disable bugged defensive bombard. Multiplayer version can be made available if anyone wants it.

*v2.0 - increased focus on singleplayer experience and on Medieval era onwards.

Difficulty settings changes – in detail

- No free starting units for AI at any difficulty level
- Very minor changes to AI unit support bonuses at Emperor+ levels
- Cost factor reduced on the following difficulty levels where the default grants the AI starting units (Monarch (-1), Emperor (-2), Demigod (-2), Deity (-2) , Sid (-2)
- Increased Emperor Free unit support per city to 3 from 2 to try and encourage less militaristic AI governments in the mid to late game.

Reason:
- to prevent AI leaping out to an early game advantage but instead make them slowly pull ahead and provide a greater challenge later in the game.
- unit support bonuses appear to strongly influence government decisions. Therefore, setting tweaked to encourage AI to consider all government types depending on the game situation, irrespective of difficulty settings.
- to increase power of Expansionist trait and scouts (i.e. non-Expansionist civs aren’t flooding the map with warriors from turn 1, thereby undermining the Expansionist advantage).


Government changes – in detail

Anarchy
- Corruption reduced to Rampant (permitting continued teching and building)
- AI now endure a maximum Anarchy duration much closer to the human player
- Tech rate capped at 50% (the minimum selectable)
- Buildings require maintenance.
- Cost per unit 1, free unit support at 4/4/4

Reason:
- to reduce the penalty around Anarchy as a way of increasing consideration of changing government based on game situation (thereby enhancing Religious trait)
- to still leave Anarchy as deeply undesirable relative to any other government.
- to reduce occasions where Republic slingshot and no further changes is an optimum player strategy.
- to reduce AI cheating around Anarchy and increase relative power of AIs with Religious Trait (e.g. only 1x Agricultural Civ is also Religious)
- to ensure AI doesn’t become bankrupt during Anarchy (no building maintenance)


Despotism
- Corruption reduced to Problematic

Reason:
- Despotism already has the Standard Tile penalty, further penalisation is not required to make it less appealing than any other government state (barring Anarchy).
- Makes Despotism a semi viable option until the end of Ancient era for those who wish to shift straight into Republic.


Feudalism
- made available at Code of Laws instead of Feudalism (making it probably the first government option available)
- unit support cost reduced to 2 from 3

Reason:
- so that AI and players actually ever use it!
- a form of feudalism in China dates back to around 1100-700BC, thereby pre-dating the first Republics.
- to give players an additional viable early game government option.
- to make the government type more viable for shorter military campaigns
- to reduce the sudden eye watering unit costs incurred when towns become cities (giving more time for a player and AI to consider their options)
- to ensure the government type remains largely unviable after mid-medieval era.


Monarchy
- unit support reduced to 2/4/6
- draft limit reduced to 1 from 2
- added horseback riding as a pre-requisite

Reason:
- to make Industrial Era military government options financially preferable to Monarchy for AI (i.e. make Monarchy rarer in late game industrial period)
- to extend Despotism / Feudalism era
- to further encourage uptake of ancient era horse based units by AI


Republic
- added various pre-requisites, including Monarchy

Reason:
- to reduce incidence of player or AI automatically switching to Republic from Despotism


Fundamentalism (NEW – available at Chivalry)
- high corruption, low unit cost, mid-game government
- tech rate capped at 50%
- Rampant corruption
- draft limit 2
- military police support of 4
- unit support of 8/4/2
- unit support cost of 1
- xenophobic and forced resettlement
- forced labour and no war weariness
- worker rate of 2

Reason:
- to provide an alternative, military focussed option for consideration (primarily by AI) during the expanse between learning Monarchy and Facism/Communism
- to add variety and unpredictablity in conduct by dominant AI Civs in the medieval era.
- to crudely replicate the Civ2 government of the same name.
- not considered a desirable or successful government type in real life, hence the assorted penalties.

Monasticism – (NEW – available at Theology)

- think religious controlled government with pacifistic and introspective intentions around self-enlightenment that attracts religious tourism
- Trade bonus, communal corruption, mid-game government
- tech rate capped at 80%
- high war weariness
- cannot draft
- unit support 2/1/1
- unit support cost 3gp
- xenophobia
- military police limit of 0.
- hurry production with forced labour.
- worker rate of 2.

Reason:
- Aimed to provide largely pacifist alternative to Republic to increase option for humans to bypass Republic and stick with Monarchy or Feudalism until Theology.
- Aimed to provide isolationist/peaceloving AI a good government option financially with a minimal army
- Monasticism inferior to Democracy and should fade away by industrial age.
- To create a wealth generating government type that cannot hurry production through money and therefore is more likely to use espionage.


Democracy (no change other than increased assimilation rate)


Imperialism (NEW, available at Navigation)
- think Republic but with the ability to have a larger standing army, but limitations on assimilating conquered territory.
- nuisance corruption
- draft limit 2
- military police limit of 1
- unit support of 3/4/5
- unit support cost of 3
- xenophobic (and low assimilation chance)
- standard trade bonus
- paid labour and low war weariness
- worker rate of 3

Reason:
- provides the AI with an option when pivoting between peacetime and wartime (to reduce disruption to their development when switching between those states and the massive differentials in unit support costs).
- to give the player an alternative high commerce military option compared to Republic.
- to give a viable option for players to bypass Republic entirely in certain circumstances.


Communism
- unit support increased to 6/6/7

Reason:
- so AI is largely 50/50 split when choosing between Communism and Fascism

Fascism
- unit support reduced to 3/4/5
- Cost per unit increased from 1 to 2

Reason:
- to help increase variation of government types selected by AI (specifically AI selection of Fascism vs Communism)
- to increase circumstances where a late game AI considers reverting to a government type with war weariness by making a total war option less palatable.


Plutocracy (NEW – available at The Corporation)
- semi-militaristic government option with trade bonus (think pseudo-democracies with lack of independence in judiciary and media and/or end to repeated term limits for Presidents. Or Corporate States where governments obey the highest paying lobbyists and focus on retention and expansion of extreme wealth inequalities on behalf of a small economic/social elite).
- no war weariness
- problematic corruption
- tech rate limited at 80%
- draft limit 1
- military police limit of 3
- unit support of 2/3/5
- unit support cost of 3
- standard trade bonus
- paid labour
- worker rate of 2

Reason:
- to provide a semi-militaristic government option with the standard trade bonus.
- to act as a transitional government to give an option to prevent lurching between total-war governments on one hand and war weariness prone governments on the other.
- to reflect the non-ideological nature of many pseudo-democratic and non-democratic states in the 21st century.


AI Egalitarianism (NEW – available with Robotics)
- High trade, high productivity, low corruption late game government type (think neuro-links, automated workforce, energy super abundance (via renewable energy, nuclear and battery storage))
- Trade bonus, minimal corruption, low war weariness.
- draft limit of 1
- unit support 5/5/5
- unit support cost 4gp
- xenophobia & forced resettlement,
- worker rate x4.

Reason:
- Aimed at late game super-productivity for space race and cultural victories and to encourage late game espionage in space race.
- to reward Civs with a tech lead and give them some resilience if ‘dog-piled’.




All Governments

- Assimilation Chance for all Governments increased (with particular focus on Democracy and Communism as the high assimilation rate options for non-military and military governments given their theoretically ‘egalitarian’ principles)
- Changes to the Civs’ preferred and shunned governments to accommodate new options (and make Republic less likely to be selected).

Reason:
- to make military campaigns that fall short of decisive total destruction viable (i.e. player instigated border skirmishes rather than total war).
- to retain culture flips of conquered cities as a very real danger, but to reduce their prevalence significantly if a city is held for 20+ turns after it is conquered.


Civilisation Advances changes – in detail

- the first two techs in any row in the Ancient Era cannot be traded (i.e up to and including IW, HBR, Writing & Mysticism)
- Iron Working tech time increased by 33%. IW tech also requires Pottery (kilns) & Warrior Code (swordsmen combat) before it can be selected.
- Republic cannot be selected until all previous Ancient Era techs have been discovered.
- development time for The Wheel reduced
- development time for Philosophy more than doubled
- development time for Republic increased by around 40%

Reasons:
- delay arrival of Iron Working until such time as AI has developed land more and hooked resources.
- encourage use of chariots, archers and early game Unique Units rather than a race to Swordsmen and Horsemen.
- Slightly increase viability of horsemen compared to swordsmen
- dissuade humans from only making 1x government switch to Republic for the entire game.
- to increase the investment required to secure free tech at Philosophy to make it a less sure-fire option for human players.
- to make Feudalism and Monarchy the earliest government alternatives to Despotism that can be accessed.
- to add more tactical uncertainty for the player in the early game (both in terms of what techs to prioritise and in terms of what their rivals are prioritising or have discovered in goody huts).


Espionage
- Halved base cost of all espionage except for exposing spy, build embassy and steal world map (kept the same) and Initiate Propoganda (reduced to 30%).
- Made espionage available after Republic (optional tech)
- Reduced cost of Intelligence Agency by a quarter and increased culture to 3.

Reasons
- To encourage uptake of Espionage so there are more tactical options and AI unpredictability from early on in the game.
- To bring into late Ancient era as spies can only safely be planted during wartime (early game) and I can’t see a downside of early usage.

Civilisation (tribe) changes – in detail

- All AIs Civs now prioritise worker production more.
- Aggression rates for some Civs modified for game balance (generally increasing aggression for Civs with early game UUs) and/or historic accuracy.

Reason:
- Games often rendered too straightforward by the AI having not hooked resources that are readily available in their territory.
- AI Civs with 5/5 aggression rarely seemed competitive over the full length of the game and had a tendency to self-destruct


Unit changes – in detail

- Scout – given defence of 1 (to increase power of Expansionist Trait)
- Curragh – Changed from Naval Power to Naval Transport flag to make AI use it. Only available to Seafaring Civs. Cannot cross oceans. (to enhance power of Seafaring trait and reduce issue of isolated AI Civs being uncontacted and effectively eliminated from the game due to poor tech rate)
- Jaguar Warrior - enslaves (for flavour, add feasibility as a unit in mid-Ancient Era)
- Enkidu Warrior – increased cost from 10 to 15 shields (to reduce competitiveness of Sumeria)
- Numidean Mercenary – removed AI offensive unit strategy and reduced cost to 25 from 30, compared to 20 for a Hoplite (to improve competitiveness of Carthaginians and appropriate AI selection of cheaper offensive units)
- Legionary - +1HP (legendary military unit for a truly legendary Civilisation)
- Ancient Cavalry – available to all at Monotheism, requires horses. Unit cost increased to 60 from 40 gold. (to provide variety of mobile attacking units between horsemen and knights. To provide an early medieval age counter to the power of some early UUs. To give a medieval military option to Civs lacking iron and/or saltpeter)
- Keshik – increase attack from 4 to 5 (legendary military unit for a truly legendary Civilisation)
- Explorer – available at Map Making (to increase appearance rate before maps are shared)
- Galley / Caravel / Galleon / Carrack / Transport– carry capacity increased (to increase threat posed by AI attacks on other islands / continents and reduce player admin)
- Crusader – available to all at Chemistry, requires Iron (to provide variety of non-mounted attacking units between Medieval Infantry and Marine. To give a military option to Civs lacking horses and/or saltpeter or based in mountaneous terrain)
- Cavalry – wheeled unit, cannot pass mountains, movement reduced to 2 (consider was overpowered).
- Sipahi - wheeled unit, cannot pass mountains, movement reduced to 2 (consider was overpowered).
- Cossack - wheeled unit, cannot pass mountains (consider was overpowered)
- Guerilla – prerequisite is Communism (to bring it earlier into the game where it may be selected more)
- Infantry – defence reduced from 10 to 9 (to increase attack viability of cavalry and marines to prevent a period of extended defensive dominance)
- Paratrooper – attack increased to 6 from 4 (to try and increase usage)
- Modern Paratrooper – attack increased to 10 from 6 (to try and increase usage), made amphibious. Marines can upgrade. Available at Advanced Flight Called Special Forces.
- Bomber rate of fire reduced from 3 to 2 and removed lethal land bombard (to reduce power)
- Flak air defence increased from 2 to 3 (to counter Bomber strength)
- Tank, wheeled unit and cannot pass mountains (considered overpowered).
- Modern Armour defence reduced to 10, cost raised to 140 from 120, wheeled and cannot pass mountains (considered overpowered).
- Weakened army to 1 unit at 4HP (to overcome issue with AI not attacking player armies and building armies incorrectly)

Please note, changes to Curragh, medieval horse units, army unit and Modern Paratrooper were taken from suggestions elsewhere in the forum

World Map settings changes

- Optimum City Number increased for all map sizes (scaling from +1 for Tiny to +5 for Huge)
- Irrigation without freshwater becomes available at Engineering
- Railroads take 4x longer for a worker.

Reason:
- cliff-face drop off for corruption is neither realistic nor fun at such an early stage in games.
- slightly reduces power of Commercial trait (considered second most powerful trait by many)
- resolves issue with land masses with no fresh water long before the industrial era
- increases value of Industrial trait in early industrial era.


Victory Condition changes

- Domination achievable at 30% of land area and 30% of population (settings intended for Standard size map, 10x Civs, Archipelago, 60% water. Suggest increasing by 3% for each of following; large map, continents and reducing by 6% for each of the following: huge map, pangea. Suggest reducing by 3% for each of the following: small map, 70% water and reducing by 6% for each of the following: tiny map, 80% water. May also need increased if you reduce the number of AIs - not recommended with the overall settings)
- Space Race – made Satellites and Superconductor require many more techs.
- Culture Victory
- Overall Culture Victory figure reduced by 50% to 50,000.
- Research Lab Culture increased from 2 to 8
- University Culture increased from 4 to 6
- Culture of a Medieval era onwards Wonders doubled

Reason:
- shortens time spent in domination victories where you have to grind even though it is obvious you will win.
- means player has to keep a closer eye on any dominant AI Civs and consider options if the AI appears to be within reach of a domination victory.
- to give AI and human more time to intervene military if losing the Space Race.
- to increase exposure to modern era tech and units
- to increase potential for AI culture victory if they get a runaway tech lead


Miscellaneous
- Palace cost reduced to 70% (to encourage tactical relocation for corruption and culture flipping possibilities before Forbidden Palace is built)
- Colosseum maintenance reduced to 1GP and cost reduced to 110 shields (to encourage uptake and alternative to Temple/Cathedral.
- Raised chance of successful propaganda by 50% (to increase the power of espionage and give more weighting to the impact of Culture in the game)



Instructions for use

Access your generated maps via ‘Civ Content’ in the starting menu. If playing on a non-standard sized map, I'd suggest increasing the number of AI against the default settings when using 60% water (e.g. Large = 17 compared to 12 in default, Standard 9 compared to). Reduce Civ numbers if playing 70% or 80%.

 

[tjs282]

Downloaded! Looks interesting, since you seem to be aiming for something similar to what I've been toying with over the past couple of years...

To play this, you will have to generate a map in the Editor then:

File / Import / Rules – and select the attached file to upload the ruleset.

OR

Open the attached ruleset scenario in the Editor, save as a new filename so you don’t overwrite it and then generate a map a you see fit.

This appears to be a .biq-only mod, which should mean that there is no need to use the Editor for map-generation.

Instead, by simply selecting the .biq in the 'Civ-Content' menu, the mod should be playable on a new randomly generated map (with the map-size and -parameters set by the player), as for any unmodded epic game.

Ideally, though, Civilopedia entries should be written for the new govs, so that potential players don't need to keep their browsers open to this page while playing...

(Add a folder in ../Conquests/Scenarios called e.g. "Re-tuned", copy the Text folder from the base-game into the "Re-tuned" folder, then go into that copied Text-folder and open the civilopedia.txt file. Scroll down to the "Governments" section, copy-paste the last entry in that section, once for each new gov, and edit the new entries accordingly)

 

[Spoonwood]

A lot of interesting ideas in the mod. I applaud your ambition Fergei and you trying to reason about this. As perhaps the strongest point of your changes, scouts having a defense of 1 makes a lot more sense, since then expansionist with barbarians on roaming or raging seems more viable.

However, I would still feel that I'd want a Republic rather soon for most of my games.

Some issues:

1. For 20k games I want to do almost all, or much more than most, of my own research. Democracy comes too late to come as worth considering, and requires a 2nd revolution. Only to avoid the despotic golden age would I revolt to Feudalism once I learned Code of Laws. Based on my experience at Sid level with Carthage of first revolting to Monarchy, and then revolting to Republic, I might just revolt to Feudalism and then have a second revolution to Republic. That's better than just swapping to Republic. But, I'd still go to Repbulic and not consider the others once I become a Republic.

2. For Space or Diplomatic games, I'll probably want to do my own research also. I don't see how any of these changes would make something other than Republic attractive.

3. For builder types like myself who sometimes go to aggressive war, it's more like first build up one's infrastructure and/or research potential. Learn technology and then sell that technology for gold and gpt, luxuries, etc. Then use that gold and gpt to upgrade horseman to knights/cavalry combined with pillaging out one's iron/saltpeter, swapping builds to horseman, and then re-hooking it with upgrades. Or buying armies/wormies (with short rushing workers first usually). Republic has more attractiveness for the increased gold coming from one's empire and the gold coming from friend's empires.

4. There's still not enough motivation to become a Democracy or Fascist government. Democracy maybe becomes more worthy of consideration if worker speed got slowed more for other tasks (maybe roads take 6 turns to build on flatland and mining takes 12 turns instead of 6?), though that's a tricky issue I think. Also, since Feudalism has communal corruption, it sounds like Communism wouldn't have enough benefit to think another revolution worth it.

Also, I think there's a better way to go about balancing the agricultural trait. Well, first let's review why the agricultural trait is so powerful:

1. The irrigated desert bonus. I have no idea how that might get balanced. It's probably a big balance issue on arid maps, which I tend to avoid.

2. The extra food available bonus for river tiles and lakes in despotism and out of despotism also for all towns and cities.

That means earlier shields and commerce and earlier possibility for settlers. The extra food available bonus means that in despotism a grassland town on a river or lake will grow in 7 turns instead of 10 turns, and 4 turns instead of 5 with a granary. That's 8 turns instead of 10 for settler production. For a plains start with one cow that can mean 5 turn growth instead of 7 turn growth, so 3 turn growth instead of 4, for 6 turn settlers instead of 8 turn settlers. For a grassland cow start that can mean 4 turn growth instead of 5 turn growth, so 2 turn growth instead of 3 turn growth, for 4 turn settlers instead of 6 turn settlers.

So, even with these improvements to other traits, I'd still pick agricultural, unless I was "playing for the challenge" or maybe a 20k game. Those ideas aren't bad, they just don't go far enough in my opinion.

Now, I do think there's two ways to make agricultural more balanced with other traits.

1. Take away the despotism 'standard tile' penalty. The agricultural trait still has its advantages, but other non-agricultural can now make up the food deficit in despotism with intelligent use of workers. Despotism could still have other deficiencies that make it unattractive to stay in. The agricultural tribe with it's capital on a river can still make it to 4 or 5 extra food per turn quicker than a non-agricultural tribe, but the non-agricultural tribe can still make it to that 4 or 5 extra food per turn while still in despotism.

2. Increase the amount of food given by irrigation. Yes, that will make cities grow more quickly. But, if no tiles get swapped, what's the difference between 5 food per turn and 6 food per turn? The answer is nothing. They are exactly the same for growth. The agricultural trait has no additional bonus for town growth once that much food is achieved, unless one pursues 7 food per turn. But 7 food per turn has no more use for a town with a granary than 5 food per turn.

Really, I'd think it best to do both 1. and 2. I didn't come up with these ideas. I played some of the Quick Civ mod in single player mode which is freely available with Conquests in Civ-Content after watching a YouTube video where Suede mentioned it. If you load up Civ3ConquestsEdit, one can find Quick Civ in the Scenarios folder to load up. Checking that I see that under 'terrain', terraform bonuses have gotten changed from '1' to '2'.

Agricultural still might end up better on a lake or river start, due to earlier growth. However, the power of the other traits might make up that advantage over time. Also, the agricultural trait is useful for more production later game by one more mining (or forestry or hill usage) in a city. I don't think it would be useful in as many cases for production later with more powerful irrigation.

 

[Ozymandias]

I'm sorry I missed this! It looks mighty fine & well-thought-out.

 

[Fergei]

A lot of interesting ideas in the mod. I applaud your ambition Fergei and you trying to reason about this. As perhaps the strongest point of your changes, scouts having a defense of 1 makes a lot more sense, since then expansionist with barbarians on roaming or raging seems more viable.

However, I would still feel that I'd want a Republic rather soon for most of my games.

Some issues:

1. For 20k games I want to do almost all, or much more than most, of my own research. Democracy comes too late to come as worth considering, and requires a 2nd revolution. Only to avoid the despotic golden age would I revolt to Feudalism once I learned Code of Laws. Based on my experience at Sid level with Carthage of first revolting to Monarchy, and then revolting to Republic, I might just revolt to Feudalism and then have a second revolution to Republic. That's better than just swapping to Republic. But, I'd still go to Repbulic and not consider the others once I become a Republic.

2. For Space or Diplomatic games, I'll probably want to do my own research also. I don't see how any of these changes would make something other than Republic attractive.

3. For builder types like myself who sometimes go to aggressive war, it's more like first build up one's infrastructure and/or research potential. Learn technology and then sell that technology for gold and gpt, luxuries, etc. Then use that gold and gpt to upgrade horseman to knights/cavalry combined with pillaging out one's iron/saltpeter, swapping builds to horseman, and then re-hooking it with upgrades. Or buying armies/wormies (with short rushing workers first usually). Republic has more attractiveness for the increased gold coming from one's empire and the gold coming from friend's empires.

4. There's still not enough motivation to become a Democracy or Fascist government. Democracy maybe becomes more worthy of consideration if worker speed got slowed more for other tasks (maybe roads take 6 turns to build on flatland and mining takes 12 turns instead of 6?), though that's a tricky issue I think. Also, since Feudalism has communal corruption, it sounds like Communism wouldn't have enough benefit to think another revolution worth it.

Also, I think there's a better way to go about balancing the agricultural trait. Well, first let's review why the agricultural trait is so powerful:

1. The irrigated desert bonus. I have no idea how that might get balanced. It's probably a big balance issue on arid maps, which I tend to avoid.

2. The extra food available bonus for river tiles and lakes in despotism and out of despotism also for all towns and cities.

That means earlier shields and commerce and earlier possibility for settlers. The extra food available bonus means that in despotism a grassland town on a river or lake will grow in 7 turns instead of 10 turns, and 4 turns instead of 5 with a granary. That's 8 turns instead of 10 for settler production. For a plains start with one cow that can mean 5 turn growth instead of 7 turn growth, so 3 turn growth instead of 4, for 6 turn settlers instead of 8 turn settlers. For a grassland cow start that can mean 4 turn growth instead of 5 turn growth, so 2 turn growth instead of 3 turn growth, for 4 turn settlers instead of 6 turn settlers.

So, even with these improvements to other traits, I'd still pick agricultural, unless I was "playing for the challenge" or maybe a 20k game. Those ideas aren't bad, they just don't go far enough in my opinion.

Now, I do think there's two ways to make agricultural more balanced with other traits.

1. Take away the despotism 'standard tile' penalty. The agricultural trait still has its advantages, but other non-agricultural can now make up the food deficit in despotism with intelligent use of workers. Despotism could still have other deficiencies that make it unattractive to stay in. The agricultural tribe with it's capital on a river can still make it to 4 or 5 extra food per turn quicker than a non-agricultural tribe, but the non-agricultural tribe can still make it to that 4 or 5 extra food per turn while still in despotism.

2. Increase the amount of food given by irrigation. Yes, that will make cities grow more quickly. But, if no tiles get swapped, what's the difference between 5 food per turn and 6 food per turn? The answer is nothing. They are exactly the same for growth. The agricultural trait has no additional bonus for town growth once that much food is achieved, unless one pursues 7 food per turn. But 7 food per turn has no more use for a town with a granary than 5 food per turn.

Really, I'd think it best to do both 1. and 2. I didn't come up with these ideas. I played some of the Quick Civ mod in single player mode which is freely available with Conquests in Civ-Content after watching a YouTube video where Suede mentioned it. If you load up Civ3ConquestsEdit, one can find Quick Civ in the Scenarios folder to load up. Checking that I see that under 'terrain', terraform bonuses have gotten changed from '1' to '2'.

Agricultural still might end up better on a lake or river start, due to earlier growth. However, the power of the other traits might make up that advantage over time. Also, the agricultural trait is useful for more production later game by one more mining (or forestry or hill usage) in a city. I don't think it would be useful in as many cases for production later with more powerful irrigation.

In terms of Republic there will be many situations where it can see you through to the end of the game. The factors that might influence matters compared to vanilla are:

- you get it later
- it probably won't your first government choice outside of despotism
- anarchy is less painful, so you may be more open to a post-Republic revolution
- Imperialism is superior to Republic for defensive play / territorial consolidation / isolationism and tech focus.
- Monarchy and Feudalism can be viable bridges to Imperialism (bypassing Republic)
- the mid to late game is considerably harder due to cost factor, so war weariness /may/ become more of a factor and make a player consider a non-war weariness government option.

In terms of Feudalism vs Communism, I have used unit support levels in cities to coax the AI (and player) over to the upgraded / newer 'equivalent'.

In terms of the Agricultural trait, yes it remains overpowered, but Expansionist gains value due to a significantly greater chance to get out to a head start (due to reduced AI starting units) or the Religious trait gaining value (in games with lots of revolutions, which generally my govenrment changes/additions encourage even if Fundamentalism and Plutocracy are primarily done with AI in mind rather than the player). The fact that border skirmishes are a more feasible tactic (rather than all out conquest) raises the value of culture and therefore the value of the Religious and Scientific traits to be a bit closer to Agricultural than in vanilla.

Definitely there are many things beyond my technical ability and knowledge that can be done. Come the winter I'll look at those suggestions you have for Agricultural though. It is overpowered and even more so in the early turns. Nothing sinks the heart quite like being stuck on a continent with the Iroquois.

 

[Ozymandias]

I almost forgot! - From the Spoiler on THIS PAGE (of course, I'd recommend the entire thread ) -

“Important Observations About The Aztec Jaguar - "The only UU I would give serious consideration to building in the modern era. For the money, you just can't by a better terror-unit. Fast, able to slip deep into enemy territory and disrupt things, capture workers, tear up improvements and roads....generally make a grand nuisance of themselves, and in the Ancient Era, I'd argue that they're very nearly broken. No per-requisite techs, cheap to mass produce, retreats when wounded against almost everything, capable of bringing down much more expensive horses and chariots, overrunning towns en mass.... perhaps TOO powerful a UU." - source unknown.

 

[Takhisis]

I'm sorry I missed this last year. Thanks for the bump, oz!

Now I need to point out the weakness of the Jaguar warrior, which is its often triggering a golden age when you're still in despotism (and the Aztecs aren't religious anymore, so cannot switch readily to monarchy or republic).

For me, it should be like a swordsman but requiring no iron (obsidian FTW) and with less armour to compensate.

 

[Theov]

Good ideas!
I've also changed the Governments, but mostly by adding new ones instead of changing the old ones.
Now I REALLY start thinking about moving Feudalism to COL...

The original Anarchy already didn't require building maintenance?
I like reducing the corruption though...

My brain hurts now.

 

[Fergei]

Good ideas!
I've also changed the Governments, but mostly by adding new ones instead of changing the old ones.
Now I REALLY start thinking about moving Feudalism to COL...

The original Anarchy already didn't require building maintenance?
I like reducing the corruption though...

My brain hurts now.

I'm tweaking the settings a bit more and was close to posting an update, but I'm still not sure of a few of my changes - you change one thing and it can have adverse effects on lots of other things. I have since added building maintenance to Anarchy as I'm confident it won't bankrupt anyone. That one was me being extremely conservative from a position of ignorance about the AI's financial situation with far larger unit numbers with such a low cost factor - so no wonder you were confused.

Feudalism at COL is a bit of a no-brainer in my opinion but I'm struggling to make the AI ever stick with it for more than a turn after they learn Monarchy. Ideally, I'd like it to be a viable AI option all the way to mid to late Medieval but the AI seems to hate the idea of shifting into low war weariness during wartime and also hates communal corruption. It's a combination that means I'd have to make Feudalism unit support truly ridiculous for cities of pop 1-5 in order for the AI to consider it against Republic or Monarchy (even when I revert Monarchy to its default corruption levels). I don't really want to make Feudalism a superpower government type!

Excluding that generally I'm extremely happy with my rules at the ancient era (I find it so much more varied and enjoyable than vanilla) but the rest is a work in progress. Medieval is almost there and when I'm happy with that I will post it. Then move on to Industrial.

 

[Fergei]

v2.0 uploaded. Changes to original post marked in blue. Espionage (still a lack of uptake by AI) and Space Race (weird bugs if I make it require more than 1x number of each spaceship component) are not optimum to my preferences but I still prefer these to the default. Apologies for the lack of knowledge/time to create a proper mod with Civ-o-pedia entries etc.

 

[Fergei]

v3.0 uploaded. I'll update the original post in time, but for now, here are the listed changes. I anticipate this being my last version as I'm pretty much satisifed with the challenge and experience I am getting with these settings.


Main Objectives Update

- Provide a more consistent challenge throughout the game (rather than the early game difficulty spike and routine late game victory often offered by the default settings). The intention is to make a bad human decision potentially fatal at any of the point of the game and maintain stress levels throughout the game.
- Create a greater degree of AI tactical unpredictability prior to all land being claimed / settled.
- Increase potential for human and AI to partially colonise a rival continent.
- Increase potential for successful amphibious engagements by the AI.
- Reduce frequency of ancient and medieval era runaway AIs.
- Make for more compact empires, with consistent empire sizes of 6-8 cities across all map sizes to increase time spent thinking on strategy, tactics and diplomacy relative to your increased number of opponents and rather than a consistent focus on expansion and building (which I would argue can vary little from game to game).
- Reduce duration of late game End of Turns to make play on larger maps more viable.


Government changes – in detail

- Reduce Fascism support by 1/1/1 to 2/3/4 to increase uptake of governments with war weariness in Industrial era onwards.
- Reduce Communism unit support by 1/1/1 to 5/5/5 to increase uptake of governments with war weariness in Industrial era onwards.
- Reduce Monarchy to 2/4/4 from 2/4/6 to reduce late game usage
- Reduce Plutocracy from 1/3/5 to 1/2/4 so AI still prefers Fascism & Communism
- Create auto-spawning Fanatics every three turns with a cheap Small Wonder (Indoctrination) exclusive to Fundamentalism. At 3/2 with +1 HP (for flavour)


Civilisation Advances changes – in detail

- Replace Military Alliances with Trade Embargoes and Mutual Protection Pacts at Writing - to maintain options for aggression without causing eternal war on Continents & Pangea maps.
- Create small wonder, ‘Trade Embassy’ at Map Making that permits air trade and adds 1x culture per turn. Also Add air trade to Harbors – to speed up CPU trade/gold calculations to significantly reduce the duration of end of turn.
- Make Literature essential for era progression (to prevent easy route to Great Library for player).
- Make sea travel appear with Engineering and ocean travel with Astronomy – to slightly bring forward interaction with other Continents (and to further make Engineering an appealing tech compared to Feudalism, Monotheism & Republic options that appear at the same time).
- Make Industrialisation a prerequisite for Communism & Fascism – historical accuracy, delay appearance of hyper aggressive governments that the AI can get trapped in.
- Introduce Military Alliances at Space Flight – to make the Modern Era feel distinct from Industrial Era and create potential for dog-piles against Space Race leaders.


Civilisation (tribe) changes – in detail

- Swap Traits. Iroquoan traits become Chinese, Chinese traits become Mayan, Mayan traits become Egyptian, Egyptian traits become Iroquois (personal interpretation of historical accuracy for China & Egypt whilst ensuring I don't change the various trait combinations in the game).
- Give Industrious and Scientific to Romans as additional traits (legendary trait combination for a legendary Civ - note, they are still not the most consistently powerful AI Civ so this is not considered game-breaking).
(I appreciate the vast majority of players would not agree with the above changes, these are the only really indulgent changes rather than changes made for game experience / balance)


Unit changes – in detail

- Give non-seafaring Civs a Raft (movement of 2) instead of a Curragh (movement of 3 + 1 for Seafaring)
- Flag Artillery units as ‘build often’ to slightly increase their uptake by the AI.
- Keshik – increased from 4/2/2 to 5/3/3 (legendary military unit for a truly legendary Civilisation)


World Map settings changes

- Change luxury appearance ratio to 60 from random – small figure because I am including additional Civs in each map size.
- Make Luxuries appear in line with ancient era techs again – to reduce human ability to identify optimum city placement on turn 1.
- Return resource appearance ratios to their higher PTW levels – to reduce the frequency with which Civs with a tech deficit become unviable at certain points in the game because their ability to develop their empire or wage war is severely restricted by chance, hours into the game.
- Make Civ to Land mass ratio same for small & standard maps in terms of number of Civs (roughly 280 land tiles per Civ regardless of map size compared to around 500 land tiles per Civ in default settings), biq Civ numbers optimised file optimised for 60% water Small & Standard, 70% water Large, 80% water Huge & Max. If using less land, then reduce number of Civs manually on game start by changing box to ‘none’.
- Make Tech Rate same for Large, Huge & Max map sizes as for Standard due to same Civ-to-land tile ratio across all map sizes.
- Make Optimum City number 10-20% higher for Large, Huge & Max compared to Standard – to factor in later game empire sprawl


Miscellaneous

- Autoproduction of settlers every 20x turns until Mapmaking (using Palace, which becomes obsolete at Mapmaking (losing culture), but retains role as 'centre of empire')
- Increase settler shield cost from 30 to 180 from Mapmaking and cost 4x population (defunct at Invention) – renamed to ‘Mass Migrants’
- No settlers after Invention until Navigation
- Increase settler shield cost from 30 to 100 from Navigation and cost 6x population – renamed to ‘Colonists’
(settler changes are intended to slow down the expansion phase, create more variety in AI & human tactics, increase colonisation opportunities on other continents (for AI & human) and apply a significant price to expanding territory beyond Mapmaking that keeps Granaries highly relevant. Racing for pure expansion may be punished as AI sees your population plummet and may consider a military response).


Proposed tweaks for map size variations

- Suggest 30% domination victory conditions for Small and 25% for Standard and 20% for Large and above. Easily modified by make different versions of biq file.
- Consider removing one or two Civs if you are selecting less landmass on a given map size, by selecting 'None'
- If playing Archipelago, returning to default Military Alliance, MPP, Trade Emargo settings will still work pretty well without creating global 'endless war' type situations.

 

[Ozymandias]

I liked the first iteration

Comments / Questions:

1. The "Coracle" was a 17th C. Curragh, and might be a better name than "Raft."
2. I still think that the Tile Penalty should be eliminated from Despotism, as the AI doesn't "understand" it, and will make gazillions of suboptimal Worker jobs, accordingly.
3. Unless you choose to limit Gov choices by precursor Techs, the AI will choose a Gov by a variety of calculations ... which I've lost the link to wallbash although I have PM-ed who I think is the original author (@alexman).
   • Otherwise, the basic choice is by decreasing Corruption Level, with Communism generally being a wartime choice ... Which means that you might be able to build it in, somehow.

 

[Fergei]

1. Good shout, I've never heard of it (and I should have having grown up on an island in one of the named places). Honestly I wanted to make the raft have a movement of 1, but it would create gridlock on the low seas. Non-seafaring Civs sadly needs something incase they are stuck alone on an island.

2. Yes, there are various things in the default and modified settings that disadvantage the AI. That is partly the reason why I reduce the AI cost factor by 2 on various difficulty levels to help compensate them. I guess a very high corruption, no trade bonus Despotism is as good an option as any. But you would have to change the unit support from 4/4/4(?) or you would get some AIs getting puzzled and possibly sticking with Despotism for the free unit support in some circumstances.

3. The Govts unit support is critical in my testing. As is whether they are at war (generally not changing into a war weariness Govt during a war). I am very happy with the AI government selection in my mod. There is a real mixture throughout each era (which varies from game to game) and you can draw inferences about a government's future intensions by what government they select (like you can by what Civs select a MPP when MA is removed from the game). Whereas in vanilla the last two eras are filled with aggressive and peaceful alike opting for Fascism or Communism because of the endless war caused by MPP plus MA (which I defer until mid-modern). Particularly if players wish to cheese this strategy for a diplomatic or space race victory.

 

[Fergei]

v3.1 - reverted Fascism unit support to 3/4/5 and Communism to 6/6/6 following unexpected consequences.

 

[C0rTeZ48]

Hi there Fergei, I'm working on a huge Civ 3 rebalancing project I've been working on for many, many years now. It's a complete revision, where just as you I focused merely upon customizing the ruleset found in the Civ 3 Editor. After knowing this game for about 20 years, and tried out many different mods, I always found balancing by authors to be a large problem. As of now I have a 80.000 Word document, about 170 pages long which I hope to release later this year, where I focused on the rules as they are in Conquest v1.22. I will release it in 7 parts, simply because it will be too large otherwise. It's this long since I had to provide a lot of evidence for every single change I made (since I not only wanted to make it balanced, but also historically accurate). I easily have many, many hundreds of hours working on it, if not many thousands. Since Civ 3 offers some bad game balancing aspects (worst offenders being bombers, mounted warriors, gallic swordsmans, artillery, musketman (and also some units barely ever being picked), marketplaces, the Great Library, Republic and Feudalism, the agricultural trait, historically inaccurate tech trees, bad time scaling, initiate propaganda being useless, unrealistic resistors percentages, useless islands (no coast/sea shield production until Offshore Platforms), unbalanced & unrealistic terrain/resource/worker action numbers, and entertainer specialists being useless), at a certain point I found Civ 3 to be unplayable. I even revised some fundamental general settings after lots of considerations, as well as reading hundreds of CivFanatics pages. However, unlike you I will add a few new units and wonders in my project, but that's about all I add.

On this post however, I will offer some critique, where I only focus on balancing, not whether it's historically accurate (since my critique would be far too long otherwise):
- On govs in general: you haven't added assimilation rates and quell resistor & resist propaganda numbers, so I can't criticize them on those, but I will do my best to offer critique to the rest:

- You haven't made Anarchy too undesirable. The cost unit of 1 still makes it a very strong government compared to some other governments, even though some are still better (see below). Yes, it's tech rate is capped at 50%, but there are many playing strategies where you act as a tech broker between civs where this is not much enough of a nerf. The same goes for Rampant corruption, since the 1 cost per unit is too much of a buff compared to other govs.

- Feudalism: it's likely still not strong enough, but it depends on how much time there is in between Feudalism on one hand, and Monarchy/Republic & aquaducts on the other one. Monarchy is still quite a bit stronger as of now since the unit support is 1, rather than 2, with the same corruption, and no war weariness. Yes, town support of feudalism is somewhat higher (as well as assimiliation rate), but monarchy can simply break this even by building extra units (7.5 units break even), or simply growing to city size using rivers or aquaducts. And then feudalism still has to worry about war weariness, without police stations. And off course, feudalism really has to be worth it since it loses it effectiveness quickly when aquaducts become available. You actually did solve part of it by moving it from the early medieval era to the ancient era (whether by accident or not), but it really depends how much time there is between feudalism and monarchy & aquaducts.

- Republic: I can't critize it since you only stated you've ''added various pre-requisites, including Monarchy'', so it's too unclear to me.

- Fundamentalism: basically a Monarchy with rampant corruption, far higher town support, +1 military support, 50% tech rate limit, xenophobia and resettlement. Interesting choice. And not too bad, and may offer some strengths in some instances (like when combining it with settling towns close together, on an island f.e.). However, first of all, this gov is definitely stronger than Feudalism, thereby negating feudalism if you truly wish it to keep it viable for a while (but that depends on when exactly Fundamentalism comes into play, the later, the less relevant this critique is). The next thing is that at this point in the game, many cities are already to city size, thereby likely decreasing the strength of this government.
Lets demonstrate this with an example: a Monarchy with a 7+ city size has 4 unit support, whereas Fundamentalism has 8 with a 1-6 town size. A Monarchy will get x1.5 with marketplace (and even x2 when banks are researched), for every extra roaded land tile above 6 (not even adding commerce resources, or coast tiles which are 2), whereas Fundamentalism towns won't get this marketplace/bank boost because of their flat extra town unit support. When Fundamentalism and Monarchies have the same amount of cities, with the equal quality in land, Monarchy will therefore always be a lot stronger than Fundamentalism. And then I'm not even taking the rampant corruption, 50% tech rate limit, xenophobia and resettlement into account.

- Monasticism: a far worse Republic. 3 unit support cost rather than 2 with the same bonus commerce, communal corruption, 80% tech rate limit, lower city/metro support, high war weariness and xenophobia. So it only gets the communal corruption as a bonus, with 5 other additional negatives. Unless you already have a vast empire by this point, where corruption becomes too big of a deal despite having the Forbidden Palace, and courthouses and WLTKD in pretty much every city in the game to begin with, I can't imagine this gov even being worth it to look at.

- Imperialism: also a worse Republic, but less so than Monasticism: 3 unit support cost rather than 2 with the same bonus commerce, slightly increased town/city/metro support, xenophobia, and slightly increased worker rate. The slightly increased draft and military police limit are too insignificant to mention. The 3 unit support cost is far too much of a negative than the slight positives you get compared to Republic. I don't think you consider how drastic enough of a change this is. Combined with the significant bonus commerce, the very tiny town/city/metro support doesn't even makes up for it in the slightest. With the drastic 3 unit support cost, the +50% increased worker rate also doesn't matter. And also has xenophobia as a negative, even though that also pales in comparison to the 3 unit support cost.

- Fascism: I don't understand why you've given it 2 unit support cost, and lowered the city/metro unit support significantly. Fascism was rather decently balanced in the base game, and deserved to be buffed a bit, rather than nerfed significantly. It has become very much useless now.

- Democracy/Communism: since so many governments have been nerfed so far, these now really stand out as the best ones.

- Plutocracy: interesting choice and rather decently balanced, but could be improved on. Basically a Republic with bonus commerce and higher unit support cost, but also no war weariness as a large bonus. Beyond that Problematic corruption, 80% tech rate limit, 3 military police limit (rather than 0), and about the same town/city/metro support. Can't say it's too bad, or too powerful compared to Republic, Democracy and Communism. All the other govs are definitely worse however. No war weariness makes up for it's +50% increased unit support beyond the town/city/metro support. The problematic corruption, 80% tech rate and 3 military police limit are also interesting additions. However, since war weariness under Republic can be managed rather decently late-game (just have marketplaces in all your cities, combined with all luxuries, police stations and perhaps some additional improvs and entertainment), I still doubt it's enough to be truly as good as Republic is. Also, even though it's a bit stronger compared to Monarchy when having sufficient marketplaces/banks/stock exchanges, I think it's too strong in the late game with metropolises, but too weak when only having towns. However, since Plutocracy is acquired in the industrial era, it is generally stronger than Monarchy.

Let me demonstrate this with an example: with a 10 pop city size, you get a 10+1=11 bonus commerce in total. Given that on average, marketplaces and banks (but not yet stock exchanges) are build in most cities, combined with a 0-science/0-entertainment/100% treasury rate, this gives a x1.75 boost = 19.75. However, corruption also comes into account for bonus commerce, and a fair 25% corruption rate brings it back to a ~14.5 total commerce bonus. However, since unit support cost is 3, and for Monarchy 1, combined with a 3 and 4 city support respectively, a break-even is around 9.5 units.

- Egalitarianism: I would say this is about yet another spin-off of the vanilla Republic government (low war weariness with bonus commerce and higher support cost), but I think it's too weak, especially for the late game. The low war weariness, combined with the much higher unit support cost makes it far too weak. The minimal corruption and 200% worker rate are nice, but don't make up for it compared to Republic, Communism, Democracy and Plutocracy. With minimal corruption you can't make your empire too large without suffering higher corruption. That's why Communism is still a decent late-game government. The unit support cost per town/city/metro aren't too special, and it also suffers from forced resettlement and xenophobia. And by this point in the game, even the increased worker rate is worth barely anything.

Final on govs, I think raising the assimilation rates for all governments is a very bad balancing choice, where I'm not even talking about realism. I doubt you really mean what that does to taking over foreign cities and preventing culture flips. Rates in between 0 and 4% are sufficient, and makes the game more balanced. I can demonstrate this using math in a new post if you really want me to.

If you want to know how I solved the problems you addressed, as well as making govs more balanced, you'll have to wait for me to share my large rebalancing project.

On espionage:
I agree with halving many base costs, even though I have somewhat different base costs than you do after careful considerations.

On units:
I think it's kind of weird you focused on those units, rather than mounted warriors, gallic swordsman, musketman and artillery. Good you nerfed bombers though. I think buffing Legionaries makes them too strong. But I've heavily edited all units anyway, if you want to know how I did it you have to wait. Starting at musketman, offense and defense of all units thereafter increase dramatically, making it impossible for weak units to beat stronger ones. A spearman or swordsman defeating a rifleman or infantry becomes pretty much impossible.

On the rest:
- Good you raised propaganda chances, but I wonder how you did it, since calculating propaganda success chance accurately is somewhat hard to do.
- I have also implemented my own ideas how to make the agricultural trait less strong.
- ''Also Add air trade to Harbors – to speed up CPU trade/gold calculations to significantly reduce the duration of end of turn.'' -> This is a great addition.
- ''Make Industrialisation a prerequisite for Communism & Fascism – historical accuracy'' -> This is something I've implemented as well. But I've changed the tech trees here and there to quite a degree, so I've made many more changes.
- ''Return resource appearance ratios to their higher PTW levels'' -> This is something I've done as well. In fact, some resources I've even given higher ratios, both for realism reasons, as well as balancing (since resources aren't evenly spread across all territory).

I know I've mostly focused on governments here, but I've changed so many aspects of the game that your units edits aren't just worth it to comment on. It would take too much time. I think it's best for you to just wait until I drop my 7-part complete revision project.

 

[Fergei]

Thanks for the feedback. I would point out that of my listed objectives of the changes "balancing the game" isn't really one of them. I'm not one of those people that thinks it is essential for every option to be equally valuable, more that I think changes are required when an option isn't viable. There is also little point in balancing things from a human perspective if it means the AI is going to misuse the options (e.g. creating boats that have a carry capacity of 1) in a way that messes up the challenge. I am also pretty relaxed about some Civs being a bit stronger than others and some UUs being stronger than others. Part of my enjoyment of Civ 1 was that there were identifiably stronger AI Civs sprinkled amongst more average ones.

In terms of governments, in the Ancient era my prioirty was player choice (e.g. you cannot get Republic until all other ancient era techs are acquired, so Republic is unlikely to be your first post-despotism choice. So a human will have to choose between the inferior Feudalism or holding on in Despotism longer and striving for Monarchy). My priority in all other eras with governments was primarily the AI. I wanted to create government options that, in most situations, would be sub-optimum compared to the existing options, but that the AI would pick maybe 5-10% of the time. It freshens up the game to me to have the AI choose options such as a pacifistic, low unit support government like Monasticism or a high unit support, wildly corrupt government like Fundamentalism. It helps create the feeling that different AI have different goals and strategies in the game as they compete with the player for victory. I will constantly be reviewing my neighbour's government choices as they may provide a hint of how likely they are to be a reliable ally or a double-crossing backstabber! As opposed to 100% of the world pick Republic when it is available and they are not at war and it all seeming a bit random when an AI decides to be passive or homicidal.

I'll pick up on a few of your specific points.

- You haven't made Anarchy too undesirable. The cost unit of 1 still makes it a very strong government compared to some other governments, even though some are still better (see below). Yes, it's tech rate is capped at 50%, but there are many playing strategies where you act as a tech broker between civs where this is not much enough of a nerf. The same goes for Rampant corruption, since the 1 cost per unit is too much of a buff compared to other govs.

I don't consider Anarchy needs such an extreme penalty as in default settings and it massively dissuades revolutions (to the extent most high level players say it isn't worth leaving Republic to become Democracy). The default Anarchy harshness is completely open to abuse by human players who generate world wars to try and force revolutions on to the AI. But by tweaking it I had to make sure the AI could never bankrupt itself. Whilst it may seem generous, it is still the worst government option. The Religious trait is catered for on the understanding there will likely be far more revolutions in the game for the player compared to the Republic slingshot being the only one.

- Feudalism: it's likely still not strong enough, but it depends on how much time there is in between Feudalism on one hand, and Monarchy/Republic & aquaducts on the other one. Monarchy is still quite a bit stronger as of now since the unit support is 1, rather than 2, with the same corruption, and no war weariness. Yes, town support of feudalism is somewhat higher (as well as assimiliation rate), but monarchy can simply break this even by building extra units (7.5 units break even), or simply growing to city size using rivers or aquaducts. And then feudalism still has to worry about war weariness, without police stations. And off course, feudalism really has to be worth it since it loses it effectiveness quickly when aquaducts become available. You actually did solve part of it by moving it from the early medieval era to the ancient era (whether by accident or not), but it really depends how much time there is between feudalism and monarchy & aquaducts.

So this is all about variety of options. With the lack of tech trading for the first two columns in the ancient era the early ancient era is massivelyextended - building a chariot or archer doomstack becomes a feasible option. Feudalism can be picked up with just Alphabet, Writing and Code of Laws whereas Monarchy has a longer list of pre-requisite techs. So most times the human and AI will probably opt to go for Feudalism, but this may depend on factors such as whether they have the Religious Trait and whether they intend waging war early on. I am happy for Feudalism to be non-viable in the medieval era because it has such a long potential value in the extended ancient era and its going to be selected by the majority of AI and human Civs as the quickest route out of Despotism.

Fundamentalism - as I say this is primarily for flavour. Despite it, from a human perspective, being inferior to Monarchy, the AI, especially if in the lead, will pick this an unusual amount of times in order to generate an enormous army. It helps slow down the AI's runaway tendencies if this pick this but leaves them as somewhat terrifying if they are your neighbour.

- Monasticism: a far worse Republic. 3 unit support cost rather than 2 with the same bonus commerce, communal corruption, 80% tech rate limit, lower city/metro support, high war weariness and xenophobia. So it only gets the communal corruption as a bonus, with 5 other additional negatives. Unless you already have a vast empire by this point, where corruption becomes too big of a deal despite having the Forbidden Palace, and courthouses and WLTKD in pretty much every city in the game to begin with, I can't imagine this gov even being worth it to look at.

Again, primarily for flavour. Although I did personally use this in a recent game (https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...tings-india-emperor-31-civ-continents.688317/). By making Republic available only when all other Ancient Era techs are gained it is essentially available at the same time as the first column of techs in the Medieval era. So if I'm Scientific I might get access to Monasticism before Republic and be tempted by the inferior option as a way to quickly gain the trade bonus. If I am Religious, I may select Monotheism as a priority to get cheap Cathedrals, which makes Monasticism an appealing alternative to Republic (which doesn't come with any new buildings).

- Fascism: I don't understand why you've given it 2 unit support cost, and lowered the city/metro unit support significantly. Fascism was rather decently balanced in the base game, and deserved to be buffed a bit, rather than nerfed significantly. It has become very much useless now.

Fascism is nerfed because, in default settings my experience was that the AI favours it over Communism in pretty much all instances where the AI does not have a humungous empire. Given all my custom settings are geared towards preventing humungous runaway AIs (and humans) this further skewed AI government selection away from Communism and towards Fascism. My Fascism remains preferable to the AI than Monarchy or Fundamentalism, and equal to Communism. I flirted with even lower Fascism unit support to encourage slightly greater adoption of Plutocracy, but reverted to 3/4/5 due to unintended consequences.

- Democracy/Communism: since so many governments have been nerfed so far, these now really stand out as the best ones.

Republic is not nerfed other than needing all other ancient era techs as pre-requisites. Democracy is also unchange Republic is commonly considered the best government type and may remain so in my settings for some non-religious human players. Communism's power is somewhat constrained in my settings with the 20-30% Domination victory settings compared to 60% (on the understanding there will be a much lower level of extinct Civs by the Industrial and Modern eras than in vanilla settings - again see my 'Stories & Tales' link above), so the AI is just as likely to pick Fascism as Communism.

Imperialism - I'm happy with my explanation of why such a government option is good for the AI (even though it is inferior to Democracy for peacetime and Communism/Fascism for war time). For the human player this government primarily only has value if you pick Monasticism over Republic OR if you are Religious and you want to use Imperialism for 30-40 turns while you build up your army in preperation for war OR if you want to have a larger defensive standing army to dissuade neighbouring aggression well into the Industrial era.

Plutocracy - this is the one I am least happy with. Successful and aggressive AIs don't want to pick it and will much prefer Fascism. It is only popular for AIs that have lost or are losing a war and are frantically trying to remain alive. I will confess I don't understand why the AI is only really interested in Plutocracy when they have a bloodied nose. Like Imperialism I think it is a better option for the AI than veering between the default no war weariness options and Republic/Democracy. They probably waste lots of resources creating militaries and disbanding them in default settings as they veer between different government types.

Final on govs, I think raising the assimilation rates for all governments is a very bad balancing choice, where I'm not even talking about realism. I doubt you really mean what that does to taking over foreign cities and preventing culture flips. Rates in between 0 and 4% are sufficient, and makes the game more balanced. I can demonstrate this using math in a new post if you really want me to.

I think conquering a city then losing it to a culture flip is historically the exception rather than the rule (in real life). I think it should be so in the game. You still have to deploy a lot of your army on guard duty for ~20-60 turns in conquered cities depending on culture flip variables, so its not like you breeze through a territory with your army and can take 99% of your doomstack on to the next city.

The default game is so focussed on rewarding 100% conquest of rivals by the human and runaway AI, but I find that quite dull when a 'fight to the death' is the best option 9 times out of 10. My settings are based on smaller, backward Civs still being relevant and able to punch above their weight if they are lucky enough to time things well (again, see my link to 'Stories & Tales'). This creates longer, more attritional wars and makes war weariness more of a factor when picking on a weaker neighbour. In order to accomodate more resilient smaller/backward Civs I needed to make assimilation rates greater. Otherwise a high proportion of gains made in these (on average) longer, less successful military campaigns would risk being overturned. This doesn't apply in default settings where such a high proportion of military campaigns result in a steamroll towards inevitable victory (for the AI or human when they are launching the war at a time of their choosing).

On units:
I think it's kind of weird you focused on those units, rather than mounted warriors, gallic swordsman, musketman and artillery. Good you nerfed bombers though. I think buffing Legionaries makes them too strong. But I've heavily edited all units anyway, if you want to know how I did it you have to wait. Starting at musketman, offense and defense of all units thereafter increase dramatically, making it impossible for weak units to beat stronger ones. A spearman or swordsman defeating a rifleman or infantry becomes pretty much impossible.

My focus on unit amendments are primarily to reduce the prevelance of runaway AIs (and players) and to help facilitate AI actions outside of their own landmass. Again, my recent example game showed a well timed AI doomstack of ancient era units can, in some situations, prove completely devastating against even a late medieval AI (or human) foe. I am very hesitant to increase the attack score of primarily defensive units because the Carthiginians Numidean Mercenaries show that the AI is absolutely hopeless with primarily defensive units with an okay attack power. As I say, I'm comfortable with some UUs being stronger than others. The Celts, Greek and Iroqious ones are grotesquely powerful, but do you see these AIs winning a disproportionate number of games? I don't.

- ''Return resource appearance ratios to their higher PTW levels'' -> This is something I've done as well. In fact, some resources I've even given higher ratios, both for realism reasons, as well as balancing (since resources aren't evenly spread across all territory).

I remain torn on this. Generally, I much prefer the PTW appearance ratios in smaller games (small or standard maps) but kind of prefer the scarcity of Conquest's ratios on larger maps. I think this is because on a small map with just one or two neighbours you are completely screwed if you don't have a key resource. Whereas on larger maps, on average, you will have a larger number of neighbours. So a missing resource is less likely to prove fatal against all of your neighbours. There are a lot of settings (e.g. victory conditions) that in an ideal world I'd modify for different map sizes, but that just becomes a bit of a hassle.

 

[C0rTeZ48]

Sure, it's your mod, not mine, so the changes are up to you. I personally focus very heavily on both gameplay and historic accuracy, so that's why my project will be based on. But do note that if you balance out the game perfectly, the AI automatically benefits from it as well. In fact, in peace-time the AI is smart enough to flock to Republic and Democracy, and in war-time they will switch towards war govs. In my government balancing, this now has been implemented perfectly, since this is what I even encourage the player to do (as well for multiplayer). Off course, players can be a bit smarter than AI, and can plan in advance and such, but even that is something I thought a lot about in my changes. In your case though, I don't see much enough of a reason for the player to switch to governments other than Monarchy, Republic, Democracy, Plutocracy and Communism, but do that with what you will.

Whilst it may seem generous, it [Anarchy] is still the worst government option.

Well as of now, Fascism, Feudalism and Monasticism are actually the worst governments. To start with Fascism: the support per town/city/metro is about the same, but it's support cost per unit is twice as high. Yes, Anarchy has +50% distance corruption, but that can very much be limited by building many courthouses (and police stations), as well as connecting cities to your capital with roads/harbor/airport, and having a WLTKD in your cities. Yes, Anarchy also has half the worker rate, but that's also too little of a negative compared to the benefit of having twice amount the support cost per unit. Monasticism is also definitely worse than Anarchy in the early to mid game, which can be proven by some basic calculations if you want me to. And since that's exactly the time when it comes available, the player/AI has pretty much no reason ever to take it. And the 50% tech rate isn't a problem either since tech brokering between Ais is a very much encouraged tactic on higher difficulties, especially in the early to mid game. In fact, the Great Library also completely negates this in the Ancient Era. Sure, if you want to nerf the AI in by having it take these governments, then go ahead. But I'd say that definitely brings the fun out of the game. Personally, I like a real balanced challenge.

So this is all about variety of options. With the lack of tech trading for the first two columns in the ancient era the early ancient era is massivelyextended - building a chariot or archer doomstack becomes a feasible option. Feudalism can be picked up with just Alphabet, Writing and Code of Laws whereas Monarchy has a longer list of pre-requisite techs. So most times the human and AI will probably opt to go for Feudalism, but this may depend on factors such as whether they have the Religious Trait and whether they intend waging war early on. I am happy for Feudalism to be non-viable in the medieval era because it has such a long potential value in the extended ancient era and its going to be selected by the majority of AI and human Civs as the quickest route out of Despotism.

And after taking a closer look to comparing Feudalism with Despotism, I also see no reason to go through Anarchy to take Feudalism. The unit support cost for towns are pretty much equal (4 versus 5), and Despotism has a massive benefit in having twice as low unit support cost and no war weariness! Yes, Despotism does still have the tile penalty, but I hardly see Feudalism as step up compared to Despotism due to the large downgrades Feudalism has. On lower difficulties, you may get away with this, but on higher difficulties, especially when playing pangaea maps, you'd get smoked if you take this gov compared to Anarchy.

Fundamentalism - as I say this is primarily for flavour. Despite it, from a human perspective, being inferior to Monarchy, the AI, especially if in the lead, will pick this an unusual amount of times in order to generate an enormous army. It helps slow down the AI's runaway tendencies if this pick this but leaves them as somewhat terrifying if they are your neighbour.

and

Again, primarily for flavour. Although I did personally use this in a recent game (https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...tings-india-emperor-31-civ-continents.688317/). By making Republic available only when all other Ancient Era techs are gained it is essentially available at the same time as the first column of techs in the Medieval era. So if I'm Scientific I might get access to Monasticism before Republic and be tempted by the inferior option as a way to quickly gain the trade bonus. If I am Religious, I may select Monotheism as a priority to get cheap Cathedrals, which makes Monasticism an appealing alternative to Republic (which doesn't come with any new buildings).

Sure, if you want to lay out a trap for AIs to fall in to make the game easier to pick them off, then go ahead. And also take note this nerfs non-Religious AIs especially, since you lead them through a long Anarchy every time first before they get what they want. Personally I want to improve the AI by strengthening them.

Fascism is nerfed because, in default settings my experience was that the AI favours it over Communism in pretty much all instances where the AI does not have a humungous empire. Given all my custom settings are geared towards preventing humungous runaway AIs (and humans) this further skewed AI government selection away from Communism and towards Fascism. My Fascism remains preferable to the AI than Monarchy or Fundamentalism, and equal to Communism. I flirted with even lower Fascism unit support to encourage slightly greater adoption of Plutocracy, but reverted to 3/4/5 due to unintended consequences.

But all you've managed to do now is making Fascism so atrocious, you don't even want AIs to take them in the first place if you actually want a decent challenge! And in fact, Communism is a government that's developed specifically for large empires! It's supposed to be a bit weaker compared to other governments when the AI/player has a smaller empire.
I understand that you want some variety and 'flavour' in the AI taking different governments, but I think this is not quite the right way to go about it. Personally, I think the best you can do is changing military police limit and shunned/favorite governments for civs, since the AI does take those into account when switching governments. But it's your game and all up to you.

Imperialism - I'm happy with my explanation of why such a government option is good for the AI (even though it is inferior to Democracy for peacetime and Communism/Fascism for war time). For the human player this government primarily only has value if you pick Monasticism over Republic OR if you are Religious and you want to use Imperialism for 30-40 turns while you build up your army in preperation for war OR if you want to have a larger defensive standing army to dissuade neighbouring aggression well into the Industrial era.

On higher difficulties, you're actually supposed to go over and beyond the town/city/metro support limit in order to keep up with the AIs higher free unit support bonuses per city. In fact, as a result of the higher free unit support the AI gets per city, all governments with higher unit support costs get significantly worse for the human player! Taking this into account, Republic and Monarchy by this point in the game are always better for ''building up your army in preperation for war'', at least on those difficulties. Since then, depending by many units you build, those are always better to take. Off course, if you do not play the game on higher difficulties, this doesn't matter as much since you may be able to defeat the AI with smaller armies.

Plutocracy - this is the one I am least happy with. Successful and aggressive AIs don't want to pick it and will much prefer Fascism. It is only popular for AIs that have lost or are losing a war and are frantically trying to remain alive. I will confess I don't understand why the AI is only really interested in Plutocracy when they have a bloodied nose. Like Imperialism I think it is a better option for the AI than veering between the default no war weariness options and Republic/Democracy. They probably waste lots of resources creating militaries and disbanding them in default settings as they veer between different government types.

The first reason the AI picks it because it is because values Nuisance govs higher than Problematic. Second, in wartime bonus commerce isn't valued as highly if I'm correct. Third, the AI actually makes a calculation based on the number of units and settlements owned to determine the best option for every government. Seeing what the numbers are as of now, I completely understand why the AI picks Fascism over Plutocracy. You probably haven't increased commerce for terrain and resources either, which leads the AI (and the player as well) to deficits far earlier. That's yet another reason why all governments with higher unit support costs (2-3) are significantly worse in your game. So all definitely silly since Monarchy as of now is objectively significantly better than Fascism, so ironically the AI would fare better taking that one in wartime. I can already tell you that I took notice of all these factors and balanced my governments around them.

I think conquering a city then losing it to a culture flip is historically the exception rather than the rule (in real life). I think it should be so in the game. You still have to deploy a lot of your army on guard duty for ~20-60 turns in conquered cities depending on culture flip variables, so its not like you breeze through a territory with your army and can take 99% of your doomstack on to the next city.

Culture flips in civilization 3 are first and foremost a consequence of buffing culture as a relevant factor. The devs implemented it since culture is far too unimportant in the game otherwise. You could make the argument that culture as a whole is implemented poorly, or may be implemented historically inaccurate, and that's fine, but doing away with culture flips to a significant degree basically makes it rather useless to focus on culture improvs/wonders.
Also, assimiliation of foreign citizens isn't only about culture per se. It's also simply about citizens staying as foreign nationals in your cities. If we take that into account, giving very low assimilation chances to governments turn out to be rather historically accurate. For example, after a significant 110 years of Russia occupation over Finland, Finns definitely still regarded themselves as Finns, rather than Russians. If we take that into acount, you could argue that even 1% is still too high.
And also keep in mind that the chances of your cities flipping per non-resisting foreigners are extremely minor (an average about 0.05% per citizen per turn not sufficiently garrisoned by a land unit), that you don't even really have to mind it as a problem if you actually do have a few foreigners in a city. Even if you have a very low 1% assimiliation rate, that's still 20x times as high per citizen on average! And even then, foreigners can be done away by many means: forced labor, producing workers, starving a city by specialists (which also give you some benefits), increasing culture or making a WLTKD in the city. So a city flipping is also the exception gameplay-wise, which also then goes with historic accuracy.
Also, keep in mind that assimilation rates have no impact on resistors being quelled, in which a far higher amount of troops are needed to prevent city flips. In fact, resistors are twice as important than non-resisting foreigners are in your cities when it comes to culture flips. So if you actually want to lower culture flips, you should also focus on changing the initial and continuing resistance rates, which, by what I've read, you haven't changed at all. And even more, culture flips are also determined by the amount of tiles in your BFC a foreign powers has 'occupied' by culture, which you have no influence on lowering by changing assimilation rates.

The default game is so focussed on rewarding 100% conquest of rivals by the human and runaway AI, but I find that quite dull when a 'fight to the death' is the best option 9 times out of 10. My settings are based on smaller, backward Civs still being relevant and able to punch above their weight if they are lucky enough to time things well (again, see my link to 'Stories & Tales'). This creates longer, more attritional wars and makes war weariness more of a factor when picking on a weaker neighbour. In order to accomodate more resilient smaller/backward Civs I needed to make assimilation rates greater. Otherwise a high proportion of gains made in these (on average) longer, less successful military campaigns would risk being overturned. This doesn't apply in default settings where such a high proportion of military campaigns result in a steamroll towards inevitable victory (for the AI or human when they are launching the war at a time of their choosing).

But by lowering assimilation rates and lowering culture flips, you've actually created the opposite of attritional wars since you reward larger empires by taking over smaller empires quicker! In fact, I think assimiliation rates and initial & continuing resistance rates are pretty much the only things I can think of in buffing weaker AIs by the human player and runaway AI. In peace, it increases the chances of the cities flipping back to the AI. I'm afraid there is not much you can do by changing other rule edits like units, improvements and the like. But by changing governments, you don't seem to solve a lot since you weaken both the strong and weak AI civs. Besides assimiliation rates and initial & continuing resistance rates, I think the only thing that you can do is lowering agression by AI and in the settings before starting the game, as well as making tactful alliances by keeping runaway civs in check.

My focus on unit amendments are primarily to reduce the prevelance of runaway AIs (and players) and to help facilitate AI actions outside of their own landmass. Again, my recent example game showed a well timed AI doomstack of ancient era units can, in some situations, prove completely devastating against even a late medieval AI (or human) foe. I am very hesitant to increase the attack score of primarily defensive units because the Carthiginians Numidean Mercenaries show that the AI is absolutely hopeless with primarily defensive units with an okay attack power. As I say, I'm comfortable with some UUs being stronger than others. The Celts, Greek and Iroqious ones are grotesquely powerful, but do you see these AIs winning a disproportionate number of games? I don't.

It's not only about increasing or decreasing attack/defense scores of units. I would say shields are what should be mostly focused on. But then again, I wonder why you did change the bomber stats, but not those of f.e. musketman and artillery. And the final part is merely anecdotal evidence, I personally can definitely tell the Celts and Iroquois win a large amount of games. But so all things being equal, they are definitely stronger civs, that can be proven objectively by calculations. The hoplites of the Greeks I wouldnt consider an overpowered unit imo.

Final, it's really all up to you. I don't wish to convince you of anything, I'm just giving my two cents in recommendations.

 

[Spoonwood]

And after taking a closer look to comparing Feudalism with Despotism, I also see no reason to go through Anarchy to take Feudalism. The unit support cost for towns are pretty much equal (4 versus 5), and Despotism has a massive benefit in having twice as low unit support cost and no war weariness! Yes, Despotism does still have the tile penalty, but I hardly see Feudalism as step up compared to Despotism due to the large downgrades Feudalism has. On lower difficulties, you may get away with this, but on higher difficulties, especially when playing pangaea maps, you'd get smoked if you take this gov compared to Anarchy.

Feudalism gets used by some people in mass cultural games. It has no food penalty, and enables pop rushing. So, it can work out well for 100k type games. That includes high level games. Moonsinger's Tiny 60k Sid game uses it. Tone's 100k Deity uses it also. Probably most of the other mass cultural victories over there use it.

 

[Fergei]

Apologies if I'm wrong C0rTeZ48 but it seems extremely likely you haven't played my modified settings and are therefore not basing conclusions on actual played experience. Tweaking Civ is in part so difficult because what looks certain on paper to be a positive change can have unexpected consequences. A lot of your points are valid in isolation when looking through the prism of the experience offered by default settings (such as difficulty and map settings). But that isn't applicable with customised settings.

"In fact, in peace-time the AI is smart enough to flock to Republic and Democracy, and in war-time they will switch towards war govs"

As per my previous post, the AI building a huge army under a high unit support government then disbanding a portion of it when moving to a low unit support government, then building up their military from this lower base for military aggression is not my definition of the AI "being smart". That is part of the reason why high level players abuse the AI by trying to force it out of Republic/Democracy via military alliances. It creates situations where an AI in Republic or Democracy enters a war they are not prepared for militarily (compared to their rivals) and then returns to Republic/Democracy after a war with an economy-crippling unit support bill (whereas humans can obviously manage this much better). Rinse and repeat (which is easy given diplomatic options) and you can easily close the gap on an AI you have targetted.

By offering new government types that combine high unit support, but with situational penalties, it can provide the AI with more elegant tactical 'jack of all trade' government options based on its bank balance on any given turn rather than have it veering between 'total war' and 'total teching'. This, combined with the far later appearance of military alliances makes it harder for the AI to abuse diplomacy to hold back the AI (which was always my number 1 tactic). It can also give the human player possible hints about the AI's intentions/priorities over the next 10-20 turns when they switch government and give you a suggestion of how to deal with them diplomatically (e.g. appeasement to prevent them attacking if you perceive the government change as hostile, favoured trading status if you think they are going to be a reliable, non-aggressive rival or set up trade embargoes if you think you need to try and clip their wings whilst attempting to avoid direct conflict). However, in the majority of instances the AI will stick to the tried and true original government options (as one of the goals of my changes was to make the game very similar in appearance to the Civ3 we all know and love).

Well as of now, Fascism, Feudalism and Monasticism are actually the worst governments.

This is definitely not my perception or that of the AI which will 99 times out of 100 pick Feudalism over Despotism, Fascism over Monarchy and Monasticism over Feudalism and Despotism (plus as you seem to agree elsewhere in your post, the AI picks nerfed Fascism over Plutocracy). The AI also never repeatedly forces a revolution to enjoy the wonders of living in Anarchy!

By removing early game tech trading, Despotism is elevated as a viable medium term option - this is intentional. For example, with no tech trading you will have to prioritise either Feudalism (Code of Laws) OR Horseback Riding OR Ironworking OR Monarchy. If you pick escaping Despotism as your priority you risk a neighbouring Civ having prioritised Ironworking/Horseback Riding instead and getting the jump on your militarily. The intention is that a player (and AI's) early game choices all have downsides that can be capitalised on by rivals. Compared to the default settings of rapid expansion (by both AI and player), trading of any and all techs and Republic slingshot (by the player) - a combination that very rarely has a significant downside.

As I say though, I'm happy for government options to not be "perfectly balanced" (if such a thing were possible). The important thing is that each option is situationally viable for either the AI OR the player (and preferably for both).

Sure, if you want to nerf the AI in by having it take these governments, then go ahead. But I'd say that definitely brings the fun out of the game. Personally, I like a real balanced challenge.

The biggest single change to the settings is decreasing the cost factor on every difficulty by 2. For example, on Emperor difficulty you will face an AI with a Deity level cost factor (two difficulty levels higher). This is arguably the single biggest option available in the editor to influence AI competitiveness from the late medieval era onwards (i.e. the majority of the game. The biggest change to Ancient era difficulty is number of starting settlers). I would wager I enjoy games where the AI makes me sweat and ultimately beats me far more than most players, so I'm not looking for an easy ride. But I prefer a game where I don't know if the AI is going to defeat me in the Ancient, Medieval, Industrial or Modern era. Whereas in default settings, if you can get to Education with a reasonable empire, you will almost always have a great chance of accessing a victory condition).

The intention of the changes I made is not to nerf the AI, but to have settings that limit the frequency with which we get a runaway AI (aka 'killer AI') that whittles down the number of rival Civs and makes the game experience somewhat repetitive in my experience (i.e. 2-3 AI rivals run out to a lead, destroy their neighbours and race ahead of the human player until mid-Medieval (pikemen and Universities), by which time player starts catching the AI (either in territory, productivity or tech), pulls ahead and victory becomes a near formality in, somewhat repetitive Industrial & Modern era experiences). By providing very situational government types like Monasticism and Fundamentalism I see the AI tech leaders (that might access Monasticism and Fundamentalism before Republic) about 10% of the time pick an overly pacifistic or overly aggressive government type that might be a good choice for teching in splendid isolation or for maniacal conquest, but has a very strong chance of being sub-optimum and a little inflexible in the face of world events. AIs that are not the tech leader are less likely to pick these 'flavour' government choices because by the time they reach Monotheism (Monasticism) and Chivalry (Fundamentalism) tech trading will be in full swing for Republic (so they'll probably have it and if they do, they'll probably pick it unless they are warmongering in Monarchy). Similarly, by the time an AI playing catch-up can access Plutocracy they'll likely have Fascism and Communism available via tech trading and so may pass on Plutocracy (as I say, sadly the AI just likes to pass on Plutocracy generally unless licking their wounds following a poor military showing).

On higher difficulties, you're actually supposed to go over and beyond the town/city/metro support limit in order to keep up with the AIs higher free unit support bonuses per city. In fact, as a result of the higher free unit support the AI gets per city, all governments with higher unit support costs get significantly worse for the human player! Taking this into account, Republic and Monarchy by this point in the game are always better for ''building up your army in preperation for war'', at least on those difficulties. Since then, depending by many units you build, those are always better to take. Off course, if you do not play the game on higher difficulties, this doesn't matter as much since you may be able to defeat the AI with smaller armies.

I made the settings as an Emperor level player at both default settings and my custom settings (although all difficulties are customised). I've never said there aren't multiple options for building up an army prior to a war. I gave examples of where Imperialism is a viable option for human players and one of those is most certainly if you want to take advantage of its 3/4/5 free unit support compared to Republic's 1/3/4 (either as a would be aggressor or for defensive purposes to dissuade aggression from neighbours). If being aggressive, you can build a larger military under Imperialism before you reach a point where you need to compromise your tech rate. Or perhaps, like me, you are indecisive in the face of a stronger AI and don't know whether you'll go for a domination or peaceful victory condition. So hedge your bets in Imperialism with a large (and free) standing army. There will be numerous variables in each game that dictate which choice I'd make. Surely this is preferable to the default where you'd take Republic slingshot and stay in that government type for the rest of the game without even having to really think about government choices at all?

Culture flips in civilization 3 are first and foremost a consequence of buffing culture as a relevant factor. The devs implemented it since culture is far too unimportant in the game otherwise. You could make the argument that culture as a whole is implemented poorly, or may be implemented historically inaccurate, and that's fine, but doing away with culture flips to a significant degree basically makes it rather useless to focus on culture improvs/wonders.

Again, whilst that may be a valid point in default settings, it isn't with these re-tuned settings. In default settings many borders are between two Civs only (i.e. human and 1x AI) as early game expansion is consistent and rapid (it is unquestionably everyone's priority). The proportion of borders that are between only 2 Civs increases rapidly in many cases as runaway AIs crush their rivals (aided by military alliance dogpiles) and the field of competitors is rapidly reduced. When a player's frontier borders only a single Civ it is foolhardy for the human to place a new city near the border as it will routinely share 'big fat cross' tiles with two of the AI Civ's cities and thereby massively risk flipping to the AI. So no seasoned player would do this (unless they somehow have a huge cultural lead or planned imminent aggression) and therefore, instead of considering a cultural option for border expansion, they'll revert to the only viable option of military force (sadly propoganda isn't viable and I can't amend it sufficiently just through the editor). Again, tactical options are limited in default settings and I would argue even if someone minutely balances the game in terms of units and government types, if you are retaining runaway AI as a standard feature of the game they are going to limit opportunities for territory to be gained through cultural dominance (unless you can do funky things with a full blown mod rather than merely tweaking settings in the editor).

In contrast, in my custom map settings we have far higher ratio of starting Civs per available land tile AND these Civs are eliminated, on average, at a much slower rate due to a combination of unit changes, slower and less consistent expansion rate, unit availabilty changes and the absence of military alliances until the Modern Era. These factors combine to result in many multi-Civ border areas, both in the Ancient era and throughout the entire game. Placing your new Greek city with a Persian city to your NW and a Korean city to your East has a far lower chance of flipping than if both neighbouring AI cities were owned by the same Civ and surrounded 50% of your new settlement's territory.

The settings also increases potential for successful culture flips by the player (see my linked game above or other recent posts I've made in screenshot threads and others, about the enjoyment I get from territorial expansion through culture). As my custom settings encourage bold city placement in multi-Civ border areas as a viable player tactic there is arguably more culture flipping in games with these custom settings (both successfully by the player or when a bold placement backfires). Yes, the AI cannot/will not make such bold city placements, so that is not ideal. But as I say I am ramping up their productivity through the cost factor change (and I buff their amphibiuos activities), so they have nothing to complain about.

Your point in Finns is valid in terms of a lack of assimilation / Russification. My point is that culture flip in Civ3, in a game sense, represents a military overthrow of an oppressor to regain territory. That is an unfortunate historical rarity. Plus, when a city flips on a human in default settings it is often just a minor annoyance as the human has achieved local military dominance by that time and can easily reclaim the city. Its not like in Civ 1(?) when you'd get situations where the AI Civ could split into two as part of a civil war and you got a simulation of truly consequential culture flip. In my settings myself and AI do often miscalculate and find our ill gotten gains switch back to their neighbouring force, but the occurence rate of that is reduced, especially if the human player takes culture flip variables into account when eyeing up a potential section of neighbouring territory to annex (whereas in default, lets face it, you are almost always thinking of total annihilation when you start a war). Its not like increasing assimilation rate removes the culture flip element of the game entirely, it just shortens the period it takes for a conquered city to become considerably less suspectible to magically flipping back to a rival.

Also, keep in mind that assimilation rates have no impact on resistors being quelled, in which a far higher amount of troops are needed to prevent city flips. In fact, resistors are twice as important than non-resisting foreigners are in your cities when it comes to culture flips. So if you actually want to lower culture flips, you should also focus on changing the initial and continuing resistance rates, which, by what I've read, you haven't changed at all. And even more, culture flips are also determined by the amount of tiles in your BFC a foreign powers has 'occupied' by culture, which you have no influence on lowering by changing assimilation rates.

I think resistors in default settings work well, so I think I only modified these for my custom government types and I didn't want to go into that level of detail in my posts when anyone who was that interested can look at the file. I want a very high military presence to be required to crush opposition following the taking of a city (this gives the opponent time to build defences and slows down the military snowball) - but after that I want players and the AI to have the city under control and quickly decide what their plans are for the city. I do not so much want a high military presence to be required for 40 to 60 turns (about 10% of the turns) because of low assimilation rates leading to an unrealistic counter-revolution that regains territory. I don't think that makes sense game wise or in terms of historical accuracy.

Once territory is gained and opposition is broken by overwhelming military force it invariably remains broken. I suppose a way to explain my position is that whilst assimilation in Civ 3 is presented as cultural conversion (go to bed Persian and wake up as a Korean), as a gameplay function it actually represents the indigenous population's ability to militarily overthrow an occupying force, defeat their military units and recapture territory (so in a sense, unassimilated citizens can be thought of as being resistors too since culture flips are possible when there are no resistors). I think it makes more sense to adjust my settings to reflect what actually happens in a game sense rather than to the artistic intentions of the designers to represent ethnic assimilation.

But by lowering assimilation rates and lowering culture flips, you've actually created the opposite of attritional wars since you reward larger empires by taking over smaller empires quicker! In fact, I think assimiliation rates and initial & continuing resistance rates are pretty much the only things I can think of in buffing weaker AIs by the human player and runaway AI.

I thought of other ways to buff weaker AIs or introduce a degree of 'rubber-banding'. See the linked game above for example, which is a totally typical example of how my custom settings increase the potential for less powerful AI Civs to be relevant throughout the game (at least until Space Age when I introduce military alliances and the world goes to default Civ3 eternal war) and pack a punch even when they are technology backwards and/or lacking a key military resource. Replacing military alliances with MPPs (and having MAs not appear until the Modern Era) is probably the single biggest way to avoid dogpiles against weaker foes (and give them a chance), but as I mention above, there are others.

But all you've managed to do now is making Fascism so atrocious, you don't even want AIs to take them in the first place if you actually want a decent challenge! And in fact, Communism is a government that's developed specifically for large empires! It's supposed to be a bit weaker compared to other governments when the AI/player has a smaller empire.
I understand that you want some variety and 'flavour' in the AI taking different governments, but I think this is not quite the right way to go about it. Personally, I think the best you can do is changing military police limit and shunned/favorite governments for civs, since the AI does take those into account when switching governments. But it's your game and all up to you.

As I say, challenge is primarily found in the Industrial era by the more generous cost factor for the AI rather than to their government choice. So on Emperor, an AI with Deity cost factor and my nerfed Fascism will likely present a far stiffer challenge to a player than an identical Civ with an Emperor cost factor and the default Fascism (as per default settings).

Yes, Communism is designed for sprawling empires. My custom settings are not. They discourage sprawling empires. Barring great (and difficult to achieve) military conquest you'll spend the first couple of eras with everyone on 4-10 cities and late game domination is gained via only 20-30% of territory / population (varies manually with map size) rather than 60/60. So if the balance between Fascism and Communism was not altered, in my settings Communism would almost never be selected because the AI and player would be increasing corruption in their core before distance and optimum city number related corruption even kicked in. This is unlikely to make sense as a tactic.

My adjustments make Monarchy, Communism, Fascism, Plutocracy and Republic viable offensive government options for the human, with Fascism being far from the best in all scenarios but possibly the best if you have modest sized empire and are expecting a prolonged military campaign on multiple fronts where you will try to extract techs through threats (or have a tech lead), want to build city improvements and railroads with your worker rate of 4 compared to just 2 for the four other options mentioned above (important given I massively extend the number of worker turns to build rail and manage pollution). If the human doesn't think my nerfed Fascism is going to be the best choice in their situation, they still have four options for an offensive campaign (maybe even Democracy if they are swimming in luxuries). The AI will still pick Fascism a high proportion of the time (especially when military alliances kick in at the Space Race).

It's not only about increasing or decreasing attack/defense scores of units. I would say shields are what should be mostly focused on. But then again, I wonder why you did change the bomber stats, but not those of f.e. musketman and artillery. And the final part is merely anecdotal evidence, I personally can definitely tell the Celts and Iroquois win a large amount of games. But so all things being equal, they are definitely stronger civs, that can be proven objectively by calculations. The hoplites of the Greeks I wouldnt consider an overpowered unit imo.

This is fair as my point was not clear (I was speaking from the experience of my last 50+ games not being using default settings). Of course Agricultural Civs are disproportionately successful in default Civ 3, particularly those with an early and strong UU. Celts and Iroquois are particularly good in default Civ 3 because of the snowballing nature of the default settings (i.e. an AI is doing well after 30 turns is highly likely to remain ahead of an AI that is behind it and that gap is likely to grow exponentially as the game goes on without human intervention).

Artillery is an area I am torn about. I want it to be useful in the late game (to reduce the grind of late game conquest and help overcome TOW Infantry and Mechanised Inf), but I don't want it to be overpowering and it is fundamentally broken in a game balance sense because the AI will either not use it at all, or use it stupidly. So I play with a rule of having 3x max artillery units used offensively in any military campaign (I can steal a rivals) but have no such limits on bombers or naval bombarding units. There are doubtless more elegant solutions than this, but I wasn't really motivated to go into detail about Bombard Range, Bombard Strength and Rate of Fire and testing that out to be balanced (partly with the added difficulty of the testing due to AI's reluctance to build and effectively use artillery units. If they inconsistently use them, how can I test the impact on gamebalance when they do elect to use them?). I find modifying shield requirements really messes up the AI. So if I made artillery more expensive for the human player then the AI would pick it even less than they do in my current settings (where offensive AI artillery usage typically occurs only a couple of times per game, which is a couple of times more than default settings!).

 

[C0rTeZ48]

Apologies if I'm wrong C0rTeZ48 but it seems extremely likely you haven't played my modified settings and are therefore not basing conclusions on actual played experience. Tweaking Civ is in part so difficult because what looks certain on paper to be a positive change can have unexpected consequences. A lot of your points are valid in isolation when looking through the prism of the experience offered by default settings (such as difficulty and map settings). But that isn't applicable with customised settings.

I haven't played your particular modified settings, but I do have a lot of experience myself in playing with customized settings by modifying the civ editor rule settings, just like you did. But even then, what I all mentioned about governments doesn't even have to be based on gameplay. Every new game I would restart would introduce so many new variables that it would be impossible to draw conclusions from that. I know a lot of the game mechanics behind Civ 3, and it's a rather simple equation we have to run from that. Support cost per unit, bonus commerce, support per town/city/metro and war weariness are major variables in determining the strength of different governments. If you disagree with what I claimed, then please give arguments contrary to it.

As per my previous post, the AI building a huge army under a high unit support government then disbanding a portion of it when moving to a low unit support government, then building up their military from this lower base for military aggression is not my definition of the AI "being smart".

Deducing from your previous post, you seem to be referring to Fundamentalism (the high unit support cost), and Monasticism (the low unit support government). Fundamentalism is a war government with 8/4/2 town/city/metro support, 1 unit support cost, no WW, no bonus commerce and rampant corruption. Monasticism is a peace government with 2/1/1 town/city/metro support, 3 unit support cost, high WW, bonus commerce and communal corruption. You haven't mentioned why the AI disbanded their army, so I have to do some guesswork. I can't imagine the AI just disbanding units for no reason at all, so it's likely at a treasury shortage. What likely happens is that the AI grew a lot of it's cities from town to city size, thereby increasing the army cost significantly. In the base game, the AI can't handle commerce to well, since when wishing to trade you often see AI civs having their treasuries empty. Then, likely in combination with the bonus commerce from Monasticism freeing up it's low treasury, it likely increased the taxes to obtain more money. Since I don't have a save file for some evidence, it's nearly impossible for me to take a look at what you're describing happened.

However, this isn't what I meant by the AI being 'smart'. I was referring to the AI understanding the negatives of WW, and the benefits of bonus commerce and unit support, that it correctly switches between governments depending on being in peace or war in the base game. However, if anyone switches these things up, it will only cause the AI to make weird choices.

It creates situations where an AI in Republic or Democracy enters a war they are not prepared for militarily (compared to their rivals) and then returns to Republic/Democracy after a war with an economy-crippling unit support bill (whereas humans can obviously manage this much better).

In general in Democracy (and to a lesser extent in Republic), unit support cost isn't what humans/AI should be bothered by. It's war weariness that's the problem. Democracies can field the largest armies by far of any government. Combined with larger city/metro sizes with marketplaces/banks/stock exchanges, Democracies are an absolute powerhouse of a government. Let me demonstrate this by a simple equation: Fascism has 10 flat unit support for metropolises. A democracy metro with 20 tiles filled with a citizen, has 21 (the city center counts as well) x 2.5 (marketplace/bank/stock exchange all +50% commerce) = 52 (52.5, but rounded down) extra commerce. Counting in 25% corruption, gives 39. So it's weird you mention that Republic/Democracies have this problem, when it's the least thing they should be worried about. For Republic it's the same but half (because unit support is 2, rather than 1), so 26 highest at best.

By offering new government types that combine high unit support, but with situational penalties, it can provide the AI with more elegant tactical 'jack of all trade' government options based on its bank balance on any given turn rather than have it veering between 'total war' and 'total teching'.

Possibly, but as I've shown, the governments you introduced, and the changes you've made to old ones, has made many governments simply superfluous. Also, you mentioned before that AI can't deal with high unit support governments (since it disbands all its units), so your idea has been proven false by your own words.

This, combined with the far later appearance of military alliances makes it harder for the AI to abuse diplomacy to hold back the AI (which was always my number 1 tactic).

How exactly does the AI abuse diplomacy to hold back the AI, which was always your number 1 tactic? You mean the human player holding back the AI by making military alliances?

It can also give the human player possible hints about the AI's intentions/priorities over the next 10-20 turns when they switch government and give you a suggestion of how to deal with them diplomatically (e.g. appeasement to prevent them attacking if you perceive the government change as hostile, favoured trading status if you think they are going to be a reliable, non-aggressive rival or set up trade embargoes if you think you need to try and clip their wings whilst attempting to avoid direct conflict).

As Ozymandias mentioned in a post you made a year and a half ago (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/modding-late-game-government-options.680544/#post-16519148), the AI chooses the government based on specific variables. It doesn't seem to base its choice of thinking ahead in 20 turns like human players can.

This is definitely not my perception or that of the AI which will 99 times out of 100 pick Feudalism over Despotism, Fascism over Monarchy and Monasticism over Feudalism and Despotism (plus as you seem to agree elsewhere in your post, the AI picks nerfed Fascism over Plutocracy). The AI also never repeatedly forces a revolution to enjoy the wonders of living in Anarchy!

I think you missed my point here. What the AI picks (like Fascism over Plutocracy) isn't an accurate representation of which government is better. See the post of Ozymandias in that link to understand how the AI picks and chooses. There are some variables it takes a look at, but others which it does not. Therefore, what it picks is an inaccurate demonstration of wat the best government is.
And this also isn't a refutation of my argument. Let me ask you in return: why would feudalism be better than despotism, fascism over monarchy, and monasticism over feudalism and despotism? I haven't heard a single argument yet.

Here are mine: Despotism is better than Feudalism since early in the game there are very few tiles that have more than 2 food/shield/commerce to suffer the tile penalty, where you get 2x times unit support cost and war weariness in return, which are disastrous for players on higher difficulties.

Monarchy is better than Fascism since by the time of the industrial age, thanks to factories and power plants, units are incredibly quick to produce. Combined with a significant lower city and metro unit support for both governments compared to the vanilla game, these sizes are quickly and easily surpassed. For Fascism, this means it quickly ranks up twice the amount of costs compared to Monarchy, only just in return for a small +10% Nopt/OCN for every city (slightly lower rank corruption), +10% spy success chance, and 2x worker speed at a time where you already build all railroads anyway. Why would it even be worth it to transition into Anarchy for that?

Monasticism worse than Feudalism/Despotism: in the early game it has a very low 2/1/1 town/city/metro unit support, combined with 3 unit support cost, high war weariness, 80% tech limit and xenophobia, while only getting communal corruption and bonus commerce in return. No rational person would choose this government pretty much ever over feudalism/despotism. In the early to mid game, the bonus commerce isn't too staggering yet until you have larger cities with some marketplaces and banks, so especially with the high war weariness and 3 unit support cost, these are far too much of certain negatives to make this government worth it. But my main assessment of Monasticism is that it's always simply a lot weaker compared to Republic and Democracy. How these two govs are compared to Monasticism, is what makes Monasticism completely useless.

I've never said there aren't multiple options for building up an army prior to a war.

Nor did I ever claim you said there aren't such options. My point was that on higher difficulties, you're supposed to go over and beyond the town/city/metro support limit in order to keep up with the AIs higher free unit support bonuses per city. Starting at Monarch, the AI gets additional unit support bonuses per city, regardless of the government they currently have.

I gave examples of where Imperialism is a viable option for human players and one of those is most certainly if you want to take advantage of its 3/4/5 free unit support compared to Republic's 1/3/4 (either as a would be aggressor or for defensive purposes to dissuade aggression from neighbours).

With all respect, I think this most of all shows that you don't quite understand how unit support works, why bonus commerce comes into play here and why it matters, nor how you determine the true value of a government based on these. I also understand the confusion now, so Ill try to illuminate: taking a look at the town/city/metro unit support does not solely determine how good a government is in building up an army, and maintaining its costs cheaply. First of, it's not a good predictor because you also need to take a look at cost per unit and whether a government has bonus commerce or not. Only based on these together you can get a more accurate picture.

You mentioned Imperialism and Republic, so let me take these as an example. Both have bonus commerce, so this means the amount of extra commerce they get from civilians would be equal. However, Imperialism has a 3/4/5 town/city/metro unit support (not free unit support), combined with a unit support cost of 3, whereas Republic has a 1/3/4 town/city/metro unit support with a unit support cost of 2. If both would have 10 units per city, this means that an Imperialist government would pay 6x3=18 commerce, whereas a Republic would pay 7x2=14. If were talking about 15 units, this becomes 33 versus 24. This is why solely looking at town/city/metro unit support says nothing about how good a government is for maintaining armies. For Democracy, the discrepancies would even be far larger: a mere 10 cost for 10 units (compared to 18 for Monasticism and 14 for Republic), and a mere 15 for 15 units (compared to 33 for Imperialism and 24 for Republic).

If being aggressive, you can build a larger military under Imperialism before you reach a point where you need to compromise your tech rate. Or perhaps, like me, you are indecisive in the face of a stronger AI and don't know whether you'll go for a domination or peaceful victory condition. So hedge your bets in Imperialism with a large (and free) standing army.

No, having only 4 or 5 units per city or metro isn't a large military. It would be low, in fact a reasonable minimum for an expansion phase, not a late-game position. And in fact, the opposite of what you claim here is true: Republic would be better than Imperialism in building up large armies as I demonstrated above.

There will be numerous variables in each game that dictate which choice I'd make. Surely this is preferable to the default where you'd take Republic slingshot and stay in that government type for the rest of the game without even having to really think about government choices at all?

''More variation in government types rather than the focus on Republic slingshot and often no further revolutions.'' This is what one of your main objectives was for this mod. But this mod literally results in the opposite of this because of what I've been trying to say for the last comments. Because you literally have made many governments worse than how they were, without actually having nerfed Republic and Democracy, these two are currently the top dogs of this mod, with Communism perhaps as a third runner-up. In this mod literally the best thing to do is to wait in Despotism until Republic, and then perhaps switch again at Democracy or Communism when the situation might be better.

I do not so much want a high military presence to be required for 40 to 60 turns (about 10% of the turns) because of low assimilation rates leading to an unrealistic counter-revolution that regains territory.

That's completely unrealistic, I do not know where you got that figure from. Usually a city only resists for a few turns at most. And that's only if your culture is low to begin with (with disdainful/dismissive ratings = 1:3 or 1:2 ratio), combined with the city in question having a large population (10+). Usually, for non-resisting civilians, the amount of units needed is x+1. If you have WLTKD, this is halved. But most importantly: once resistors are completely quelled, you don't even have to worry about cities flipping anymore, since you can simply starve them one by one by turning all of them into specialists or workers. So simply get all (or most) of your units from the city, and then drain the size one by one. And that's only if you do not wish to keep any units on the city for whatever reason. You can also force labor (whipping) if you have the correct government, and you can always simply raze the city, and then have a new settler build on top of the old location.

as a gameplay function it actually represents the indigenous population's ability to militarily overthrow an occupying force, defeat their military units and recapture territory (so in a sense, unassimilated citizens can be thought of as being resistors too since culture flips are possible when there are no resistors). I think it makes more sense to adjust my settings to reflect what actually happens in a game sense rather than to the artistic intentions of the designers to represent ethnic assimilation.

Believe it or not, but this is very much historically accurate as well. Think about the dozens of examples where guerilla units opposed an invading army. Civilians wielding arms are still a force to be reckoned with. The problem lies with modern societies that forbid the use of weapons, where historically, pretty much everyone had a weapon at home.

I thought of other ways to buff weaker AIs or introduce a degree of 'rubber-banding'. See the linked game above for example, which is a totally typical example of how my custom settings increase the potential for less powerful AI Civs to be relevant throughout the game (at least until Space Age when I introduce military alliances and the world goes to default Civ3 eternal war) and pack a punch even when they are technology backwards and/or lacking a key military resource. Replacing military alliances with MPPs (and having MAs not appear until the Modern Era) is probably the single biggest way to avoid dogpiles against weaker foes (and give them a chance), but as I mention above, there are others.

I totally forget to mention that customizing the OCN (Optimal City Number) is probably the best thing you can do to lower the amount of runaway civs. It can be found under 'World Sizes' in the editor. It determines the amount of cities a civ can build before their rank corruption increases by 2 per city above that threshold. Also, interesting you prefer MPPs to military alliances, since I absolutely do not like MPPs making an absolute mess in declaring war between every civ possible. Military alliances are much cleaner in that regard by my experience.

Artillery is an area I am torn about. I want it to be useful in the late game (to reduce the grind of late game conquest and help overcome TOW Infantry and Mechanised Inf), but I don't want it to be overpowering and it is fundamentally broken in a game balance sense because the AI will either not use it at all, or use it stupidly. So I play with a rule of having 3x max artillery units used offensively in any military campaign (I can steal a rivals) but have no such limits on bombers or naval bombarding units. There are doubtless more elegant solutions than this, but I wasn't really motivated to go into detail about Bombard Range, Bombard Strength and Rate of Fire and testing that out to be balanced (partly with the added difficulty of the testing due to AI's reluctance to build and effectively use artillery units. If they inconsistently use them, how can I test the impact on gamebalance when they do elect to use them?). I find modifying shield requirements really messes up the AI. So if I made artillery more expensive for the human player then the AI would pick it even less than they do in my current settings (where offensive AI artillery usage typically occurs only a couple of times per game, which is a couple of times more than default settings!).

I haven't checked it yet, but I believe Flintlock's C3X patch does increase artificial intelligence somewhat (for example, it uses precision bombing correctly now). I think I've read it also corrects the AI in making more and better use of artillery.