A Question About Mods, The Slider, & Specialists

[Ozymandias]

In designing Terra Fantasia, I'm doing my best to not hobble the AI. The diplomacy arrangements are bad enough, but the AI really doesn't use the Slider or Specialists (and don't even get me started on ROPs!) So, a question: Shouldn't a human player, in solo games, and in good faith, ignore using these? (MP is, of course, a different matter entirely.)

- z

 

[Predator145]

In designing Terra Fantasia, I'm doing my best to not hobble the AI. The diplomacy arrangements are bad enough, but the AI really doesn't use the Slider or Specialists (and don't even get me started on ROPs!) So, a question: Shouldn't a human player, in solo games, and in good faith, ignore using these? (MP is, of course, a different matter entirely.)

- z

You can mod the specialists down to 0 and buff entertainers since it's the only one they can use. The slider is impossible for now. The AI can't grow tall during the REX phase unlike the human. My imperfect solution is an "AI only" happiness improvement costing 1 shield, giving 2 happy faces and needing 2 maintenance (heavily perfumed of course so that the AI involuntarily builds it first, mimicking the empire wide effects of a slider). The "AI only" feature is done by having an SW generating "AI Flag"s in every city. This SW requires the Palace so it will only take up space in my capital, limiting the amount of "house rule" work I have to follow. The "AI Flag" is required to build this "AI Luxury" improvement along with the many other unit autoproducing SWs.

ROP abuse, esp to grab the Great Lib is well documented. So are resource pillaging tech trade scams. Combat settlers are another thing.

One thing I'm on the fence about is the "GTFO of my land" before tech trade deal. The AI constantly disrespects the player's borders and march their armies through it in their wars, making it us feel like Belgium every time Germany and France went at it. Should ROP not be given their movements shall be very slow, leaving fast offensive units and slow def+artillery separated while the air force stays home. I'd provoke them to max 100 anger by demanding free stuff and then tell them to get out or declare war after making a max per turn trade deal. Since the AI is on paper far superior to me, it would stupidly declare war despite having just made the deal. This is not a 100% free since I still have to fight a war vs a numerically superior AI. But their forces are sitting ducks trapped in my territory while my rail mobile artillery cut them into ribbons. It does reward the player for having sunk shields into military. But that also means that I won't be having the multipliers instead. The AI could also just march through your lands and suddenly sneak attack your empty cities. Happened to me several times. So for now, I'd say it's not exploitative.

 

[Ozymandias]

(In response to @Predator145 - )

 

[timerover51]

Using the Science Slider is the only way I can keep up with the AI tech trading. The AI does use a lot of the buildings that I have modified to reduce corruption and increase terrain yields, so I am not sure how much the AI is hobbled by those. As for ROP, I never use that.

 

[Chalito]

I never use specialists, probably the reason Regent level was my ceiling in the Epic Game.

 

[tjs282]

My understanding is that while the AI always tries to keep its Science-slider at max. (i.e. 100% in unmodded C3C) and won't adjust its Lux-slider, it is still bound by the slider-limits.

So if you want to level the playing field (/ limit the human advantage) at least a little bit, one possibility might be to lower the slider "rate-caps" for each of the governments in your mod. As I understand it, these caps apply to both the Science and Lux-sliders, and to all Civs in the game (including the human player). What I'm not sure about is what the minimum rate-cap is, nor whether the "virtual Tax-slider" is also subject to the cap. That is, if the minimum cap were e.g. 40%, and the Tax-slider is also affected by the cap, then after paying for Science and Tax at 40% each, the AI would essentially be "forced" to convert the remaining 20% of its commerce into Lux-Happies. But if the minimum rate-cap is 50%, then the AI will still not use the Lux-slider (but should at least have more money available for rushes/ upgrades/ trade).

Regarding Specialists, the AI will also use the Scientist and/or Taxman specialists (depending on Slider-settings), but AFAICT, only in addition to Clowns, after the town has been made content, and the town has insufficient tiles available for its population to work but still has excess food to support Specialists (given the AI's tendency to plant at CxxxxC, this usually doesn't happen before Metropolis-size). But if you had Clowns give 2 Happyfaces instead of only 1 Happyface, then the AI wouldn't 'need' to assign so many of them to maintain order, so might then be more likely to use the other Specialists.

There has to be at least one Specialist available from the start, to allow (manual) tile-reassignments, but is there any reason why that should be the Clown rather than one of the others? If not, why not make the Geek the default option (i.e. not requiring a tech), and have the Clown unlocked with Literature (or even FreeArtistry), and the Taxman unlocked with Currency (or even Banking)? That way, you could maybe force the AI to choose the "better" Specialist(s) during the early game, when it makes the most difference (and as the human would do).

Conversely, (AFAIK) the AI won't use Policemen or Civil Engineers at all, so a different approach is needed. Since these Specialists are essentially "human-use-only", I have made them require "payment" (i.e. they 'add' –1 GPT to the town; can be done even in the FxsEditor), so that there is a small per-capita economic penalty associated with using them.

 

[Ozymandias]

So - Is there anything actually lost in eliminating it altogether?

 

[tjs282]

Not sure I follow? Eliminating what? You can't eliminate all Specialists (the game won't let you), nor can you eliminate the slider as such.

If you mean, specifically removing [stuff] from the game that only the human can exploit/ use/ understand, like RoPs, and the CE and Cop Specialists, then sure, why not? Your mod, your rules!

 

[Ozymandias]

Not sure I follow? Eliminating what? You can't eliminate all Specialists (the game won't let you), nor can you eliminate the slider as such.

If you mean, specifically removing [stuff] from the game that only the human can exploit/ use/ understand, like RoPs, and the CE and Cop Specialists, then sure, why not? Your mod, your rules!

You can't eliminate the Slider, but I'll specify that it should be a Player .

I'm also limiting ROPs (if I use them at all) to late game, as some others have, to (1) get rid of the Player "cheat" of using an ROP to get into another Civs territory - and then declare war; and (2) if (somehow) there isn't enough "action" going on, to (again, following in others' footsteps) introduce it in Era 4, to make the game more lively.

I've always found the standard 4th Era to be a travesty. Terra Fantasia ends with about the equivalent of our mid-20th Century, with lots of @Delta_Strife's 1930s AFVs & those gorgeous Dieselpunk aircraft which he so generously made at my request. I intend for Era 4 to still be exceptionally important for Victory - no UN, no Starship.

 

[timerover51]

But I love to see the Starship launched!!!!!!!

However, in my mods, I never allow for a Diplomatic Victory, making the UN essentially a useless Wonder.

 

[Predator145]

But I love to see the Starship launched!!!!!!!

However, in my mods, I never allow for a Diplomatic Victory, making the UN essentially a useless Wonder.

How about having the UN doubling your city defenses?

 

[Ozymandias]

How about having the UN doubling your city defenses?

"Doubles City Defenses" is for Bombardment Defense only (although it is one of the Cumulative ones.)

As it's meant to represent The Place For Civs To Gather, I might go with "Doubles Research Output" (think, "Chinese Intellectual Property Theft") and go with "Doubles Research Output," which is also Cumulative .

 

[Predator145]

"Doubles City Defenses" is for Bombardment Defense only (although it is one of the Cumulative ones.)

As it's meant to represent The Place For Civs To Gather, I might go with "Doubles Research Output" (think, "Chinese Intellectual Property Theft") and go with "Doubles Research Output," which is also Cumulative .

What's "bombardment defense"? Does it mean that the units, population and improvements will have their defenses doubled only vs bombardment and not direct attacks?

And it's also cumulative? If that's the case, we could scale city defenses with increasing bombardment. The gripes with PTW style artillery targeting is that in the early periods, artillery misses mostly because both pop and improvements have fixed defenses in the game rule. Lower them and they shall be far weaker to late game bombardment, making late game artillery and bombers overpowered. But if we can have SWs doubling the pop and improvement defenses every age they will be able to keep up with modern firepower. The only issue though would be the units enjoy that too.

 

[Ozymandias]

What's "bombardment defense"? Does it mean that the units, population and improvements will have their defenses doubled only vs bombardment and not direct attacks?

Yup.

And it's also cumulative?

If that's the case, we could scale city defenses with increasing bombardment. The gripes with PTW style artillery targeting is that in the early periods, artillery misses mostly because both pop and improvements have fixed defenses in the game rule. Lower them and they shall be far weaker to late game bombardment, making late game artillery and bombers overpowered. But if we can have SWs doubling the pop and improvement defenses every age they will be able to keep up with modern firepower.

The only issue though would be the units enjoy that too.

 

[Predator145]

But do the effects of "double city defenses" only apply to improvements? Do Town, City and Metropolis bonuses get doubled as well?

 

[Ozymandias]

The Editor Help states, "Doubles City Defenses."

I tend to rely more on what we members have found through testing; THIS POST runs down the cumulative & non-cumulative flags, and this one states, "Doubles City Defenses (Bombardment defense only)."

Bizarrely, Bluemofia missed this one in his "Da Rules - Explained" thread.

So, I'm going to Magically Invoke the help of @Civinator @AnthonyBoscia @Quintillus to properly straighten this out.

 

[Civinator]

This flag is not used by any building in the original C3C main biq. It was used in Civ 3 Vanilla and PtW only by the great wonder "The Great Wall". In C3C that wonder lost this flag.

When looking into the description of the flag "Doubles City Defenses" in the Civ3ConquestsEdit and in the PtW civilopedia entry of the Great Wall, it seems, that Firaxis gives "neboulous" informations about that flag:

According to the Civ3ConquestsEdit this flag doubles the cities defense ratings:

Does this mean only the cities defensive bonuses in the general settings against normal attacks or is the defense against bombardment also included in that doubling of the values?

When looking into the PtW civilopedia of the Great Wall (the only wonder that holds this flag up to PtW) one can find the following:

When trusting that entry, this flag doubles the effects of city walls - and city walls have an effect against normal attacks and bombardment (even in PtW).

There was a discussion about that flag here:

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I never tested that flag myself as I considered it overpowered when taking into account that the AI is not a friend of city walls and together with the spoiled AI routine of land artillery by Firaxis this flag seems to be another big handicap for the AI in the gameplay. Now with the Flintlock mod this view can be different, but at present I don´t have the time for tests of that flag.

 

[Predator145]

The flag is also a bit awkward as it makes towns with walls have higher def than cities because walls stop working then. Unless you mod the walls to even at x2 have less def bonus than the city bonus.