Removing Despot Penalty

[Ozymandias]

I have generally had my settlers found cities on hills, especially in spaceship games. I don't see how that makes any difference to the claims I made above. I don't know what part you disagree with, but you quoted two paragraphs, the first of which had something about 20k games. What advantages lie in founding a 20k prospect city on a hill in a 20k game? Hills produce 3 shields when mined for 1 food. Forested grassland produces 2 shields for 1 food. A city with 10 grassland squares and 2 hills has more production potential than a city with 11 or 12 grassland squares. Thus, planting on a hill can mean less production potential. If you have a food bonus or multiple food bonuses planting on a hill even more clearly seems like the weaker choice.

One's economy isn't the tech pace. Nor is it culture. I didn't leave a comment on Suede's video previously. The empires in Suede's videos barely have any gpt, if any gpt, from the AIs. I don't recall any information about what victory condition those players want to play for. I would guess it's domination or conquest. From what I recall, I do agree with most of Suede's tips in that video. But what relevance do they have here?

I think we simply disagree on the importance of City growth as it applies to how later parts of the game play out;' the difference might simply be in my style of play (although I do agree with you re: some of Suede's analyses - but his comments were about others' Save Games.)

 

[timerover51]

Given the differences in style of play, I am not sure if it is possible to make general statements as to how to play the game. Then there are people like me who prefer playing a modded game.

 

[SayHayKid]

@Predator145 have you done any more testing on this? I have considered removing the despotism penalty in conjunction with reducing the worker rate and increasing settler from 2 pop to 3 pop. The idea being that the AI doesn't do the best in understanding the despo penalty, but if removed cities will grow too fast. So increasing settler pop and reducing speed of improvements should help to limit the faster growth?

 

[Predator145]

@Predator145 have you done any more testing on this? I have considered removing the despotism penalty in conjunction with reducing the worker rate and increasing settler from 2 pop to 3 pop. The idea being that the AI doesn't do the best in understanding the despo penalty, but if removed cities will grow too fast. So increasing settler pop and reducing speed of improvements should help to limit the faster growth?

I've been playing with the new despotism for a while now and have no doubt that it's the way to go. The 2/2/2 unit support nerf is not a bad place to start. It's something that only hurts the player on higher difficulties. Also, ancient UUs don't get disadvantaged as much by the early GA should you want to use them for a rush. Maps become much more consistent. No longer is having bonus food start a difficulty difference.

The AI actually performs better expanding if I don't perfume granaries and barracks. I still perfume walls though. They still have enough waiting time between settlers to get that cheap 50% def bonus.

And while both humans and AIs grow slightly faster, I don't think it's detrimental. The tech pace is quickened. And I find myself playing competitive games (not just mopping up) well into the modern age. Having 3 more 50% science multipliers helps with that too. You can tech your way out of the hole even if your reputation is trashed (which often happens without you being able to do anything about it except not trading with those at war).

The biggest difference in ancient game play is that you can irrigate and create multiple settler and worker pumps should you have a lot of land to settle. Fighting can then wait till the next age. But with ancient UUs or the Mil trait, you still wanna be fighting to take advantage of the power spike to ambush settler pairs. The great un-roaded distance can help nullify the AI's huge stack out hunting barbs. Do keep an eye on where they are though, you don't wanna be caught with them approaching you when they don't wanna make peace.

Adding settler pop costs and reducing worker rate would likely just slow the game pace down and hurt the AI more than you. While your well irrigated, granaried settler factories don't mind too much, their regular, badly irrigated cities (just because they don't have the penalty doesn't mean they irrigate sufficiently) would often spend time waiting at full settler shield for sufficient pop. Maybe try it with perfumed granaries?

Spoonwood's idea to balance the Ag trait turns out to be a good one game play and thematically as well. Agrarian peoples are very tied to their lands and are reluctant to leave it to settle somewhere else. 40 shield settlers seems to be a good balance. Since their cities grow faster you will get that extra shield per turn anyway, making 35 shield settlers not even noticeable. Agri right now for me is in a good place with everyone not having the penalty.

I'm still on the fence with Expansionist settlers costing 1 pop. I've been told it's insanely overpowered. The AI makes ok use of the trait but it doesn't make them instant top dog like stock game Agri. Even these 2 combined together doesn't make the AI super OP since they have no concept of constant settler production. Their settler production is always interrupted with units or improvements. But it's freakishly good in human hands. I need more games on Pangaea to tell.

 

[Spoonwood]

@Predator145 have you done any more testing on this? I have considered removing the despotism penalty in conjunction with reducing the worker rate and increasing settler from 2 pop to 3 pop. The idea being that the AI doesn't do the best in understanding the despo penalty, but if removed cities will grow too fast. So increasing settler pop and reducing speed of improvements should help to limit the faster growth?

I reread the thread and see predator saying this:

Giving them worse settlers or workers make no thematic sense.

I see he responded to me saying:

As another idea one might try buffing workers and/or settlers for non-agricultural tribes using a similar method by removing the ability of agricultural tribes to train these faster settlers and/or workers, and then giving workers and settlers a movement of 2 or quicker work speed. Agricultural tribes get regular class workers and settlers.

I can't say I understand his comment about thematic sense. The Quick-Civ mod *that comes with the game* has settlers cost three population instead of two (production and growth is faster than AC AND worker speed is faster also). Also, I think Double Your Pleasure has 40 shield settlers? I thought some of the Conquests change something about workers or settlers? So...

I've been playing with the new despotism for a while now and have no doubt that it's the way to go.

Oh. Nice!

 

[SayHayKid]

Thanks, @Predator145. It sounds like removing the despo penalty combined with the ability to nerf the AG trait with flintlock is the way to go. Maybe instead of pop cost I'll increase the shield cost of settlers a bit. I may experiment with Xeno enabled and see how that plays out.

I am working on two versions of a mod, both with the aim of balancing gameplay and impeding/slowing ICS. I was thinking of a lite version that plays a lot closer to standard civ and an epic version where I implement @Civinator technique of auto-produced settlers and workers and more drastic changes to the gameplay.

 

[Spoonwood]

I was thinking of a lite version that plays a lot closer to standard civ and an epic version where I implement @Civinator technique of auto-produced settlers and workers and more drastic changes to the gameplay.

From what I've seen of his mod, he only advocates a "soft version" where eventually you can produce settlers after learning some technology, correct? I think the mods I've seen that he liked or made had it late in the tech tree. If it comes early in the tech tree, it seems like a softer version I think.

 

[Civinator]

I was thinking of a lite version that plays a lot closer to standard civ

Here is an era 1 screenshot of my personal mod "CCM-Light". So the techs are in German language, I think all is self-explaining, as it is very close to the standard Civ 3 techtree (but in my eyes is looking much better). There are only two additional techs (The Sail and Religion). The only additional buildings are buildings that are needed for autoproducing the special CCM units like workers, caravans, enslavers and holy men and in later eras some additional buildings for cummulative reducing corruption and for some WW2 warfare (heavy bombers and nuclear bombers).

Please note the renamed tech "City states" (Stadtstaaten). It is holding the government Feudalism, renamed to government City States. That government has no tile penalty. This early choke point in the Civ 3 techtree in my eyes is ideal to allow irrigation in the game and to soften the AI problems of early irrigation when having tile penalties.

 

[SayHayKid]

Here is an era 1 screenshot of my personal mod "CCM-Light". So the techs are in German language, I think all is self-explaining, as it is very close to the standard Civ 3 techtree (but in my eyes is looking much better). There are only two additional techs (The Sail and Religion). The only additional buildings are buildings that are needed for autoproducing the special CCM units like workers, caravans, enslavers and holy men and in later eras some additional buildings for cummulative reducing corruption and for some WW2 warfare (heavy bombers and nuclear bombers).

Please note the renamed tech "City states" (Stadtstaaten). It is holding the government Feudalism, renamed to government City States. That government has no tile penalty. This early choke point in the Civ 3 techtree in my eyes is ideal to allow irrigation in the game and to soften the AI problems of early irrigation when having tile penalties.

View attachment 688668

I also added The Sail (or Sailing) and removed the Alphabet on my current version of the Era1 Tech Tree. I think the Naval aspects of Civ3 are one of the most underwhelming aspects, but one of my favorites. I am also a huge fan of Sid Meir's Pirates. So, one of my goals besides balance and slowing early expansion, is to expand what little I can of the naval aspects. One thing that never made much sense is what sailing had to do with the alphabet and why the alphabet came BEFORE writing. I really like how you expanded the naval aspects and represented the Age of Sail in CCM.

On the Global Hegemony mod I have been working on I went too big right off the bat. I have most of the tweaks done in the biq and added the new graphics, but the damn Civilopedia is a major pain. So, I decided to first complete a smaller "tweaks" mod like the many that exist, just to have a sense of accomplishment. In doing so I am reworking some of the ideas from the bigger mod including the tech tree and governments. I'll use the "lite" version as the base for the expanded version. The problem, like many modder has encountered I am sure, is trying to keep the "lite" version small and not do too much. Once you get started it is hard not to get carried away.

 

[Spoonwood]

I'm not into balancing my mods for niche goals at a difficulty/set conditions where you're sure you're gonna win.

I've seen this sort of comment more than once about HoF games over the years.

Except it doesn't hold as true.

A few weeks ago I started up a Demigod map. I built warriors as scouts and had them out exploring. A Byzantine spearmen walked near my capital, which was my people's only city. And in 3000 BC it walked into that city and we were finished. Perhaps if I had poprushed a warrior (or spearmen if I had traded for Bronze Working, I don't recall), we could have survived.

A few weeks ago, I accidently held elections playing in a Warlord game. And lost elections.

Also, there have been an abundance of times where I've started up and I'm not even sure that I will finish the game. Or I lose interest. Or get distracted and not come back to the save. Or I believe that I decided to test something about the save instead of keeping previous saves intact by not moving units around.

And then there's the whole matter that I need to have had the settings correct, which didn't hold for someone else recently, or wouldn't have even if they had used an official version.

There doesn't exist any such certainty about the future like that.

Cultural victory the way the game is designed is not really feasible in a competitive difficulty. It was something Firaxis threw in there as an afterthought.

The Conquest of the Month compeittion had a 100k loss somewhat recently by Stalintag. Milr had one in a previous event (154). I find a record of two 100k losses here for the fourth Game of the Month. So, on the contrary, in reality, cultural victory can be feasible for AIs when playing the human player.