Alternative Rules

[aokces]

I don't know if you're all familiar w/the civhack program (it was included when I downloaded Civilization(DOS, but runs in WIN) i downloaded from xtcabandonware), but it lets you change unit/terrain/cityimprov stats. I was wondering if anyone had good ideas for alternative rules.
Personally I've just made the more modern units stronger to lessen the chances of losing vet.battleships to fortified musktmn or armr to phalanx. I've also given settlers/caravans 2 movement and made some of the more expensive units/improvements 10-40 shields cheaper. My biggest frustration though is the lack of a intermediate between the knight and armour. Recently I've also experimented with 0 movement units for defense, the downside is I can't disband them... anyways i just noticed that the rules editor program isnt avaliable on this site (i'm also not familiar w/the windows ver of this game so i don't know if its already doable there), and wondered if other have tried interesting rules.

 

[trada]

No. No, I haven't tried civhack but I've heard it's pretty good (if not buggy). I do think a unit stats change around would improve the game. See, the thing is, is that when Sid and his team created and playtested this game they might have throught the ADMs were balanced. But after what is now 15 years of gamers playing Civilization 1 it has become apparent that this is not entirely the case.

You quote the lack of a unit between Knights and ARMOR. I assume you mean a unit of the same blood as the chariot, knight, ARMOR line. Something that is quick and offensive. I disagree. The lack of something strong on the attack around that era perfectly reflects history and the way defence ruled over offense around that time. Before ARMORs and Artillery trenches were dug and riflemen ensued that defence was on top. And it's like that in the game. We don't always need a "tank" unit all the time. The lack of one at a certain point in the game makes it more interesting.

But apart from that nitpick, I agree. The modern units need a boost. How about this:

ARMORs: 10 -> 15 / 5 -> 8 / 3 -> 3
Artillery: 12 -> 19 / 2 -> 2 / 2 -> 2
Riflemen: 3 -> 2 / 5 -> 8 / 1 - 1
Mech. Inf.: 6 -> 9 / 6 -> 9 / 3 -> 4
Bomber: 12 -> 25 / 1 -> 1 / 8 ->8
Figher: 4 -> 6 / 4 -> 5 / 10 -> 9

That's off the top of my head.

 

[trada]

Okay. Scrap that.

I've been fiddling with CivHack and decided this is the best:

First.. balancing the air units so they aren't neglected as much. I mean, who uses Bombers?

Bombers:
attack: 12 -> 15 (cause bombing a city from the sky is so much more effective then artillery)
defence: 1 -> 1 (no questions here, 1 reflects their vuribility)
cost: 120 -> 100 (because 120 was just stupid)

Fighters:
attack: 4 -> 5 (so that they have a greater chance of downing Bombers)
defence: 2 -> 4 (so when a fighter is attacked by another it is more even)
cost: 60 -> 50 (to encourage use)

That should do it. Notice how I've lowered the cost of each to make them more attractive.

Now the Settler. This is just me. I do believe settlers are too cheap. Raising their cost will do two things:

1. It will make them more valuable. Now sending an escort to guard your settler isn't a tactic to be waved away. And now everything you do with them counts all the more (e.g. building improvements, founding cities)
2. Slower settler output means less cities. That's right. I'm going to try and curb city sprawl. This will force players to think twice about city-spamming. They will figure that building each city up is a much more wise idea (and that's what the makers of this game wanted).

So yep. Settlers are going up:

Settlers:
cost: 40 -> 60 (for the reasons above)

Caravans:
movement 1 -> 2 (this should encourage trade routes)
cost: 50 -> 40 (this will encourage trade routes rather then using Caravans as WoW food)

And now on to the modern land units:

I'm beefing up the Mech. Inf. and giving Artillery a better bang.

Mech. Inf:
attack: 6 -> 8
defence: 6 -> 7
cost: 50 -> 60
movement: 3 -> 4!

Artillery:
attack: 12 -> 13

And finally, the modern warships:

These guys were really in need of a bit of balancing.

Carrier:
attack: 1 -> 2
defence: 12 -> 11
cost: 160 -> 140

Cruiser:
cost: 80 -> 70

Battleship:
attack: 18 -> 20

Sub:
attack: 9 -> 10


And lastly.. the silly Legion.

Legion:
cost: 20 -> 10

How does that all sound guys? What I've done is balance the air/sea/land units, make the settlers more expensive, change the Caravans to more travels and less Wonder-fodder and lastly: Make Legions cheaper.

 

[aokces]

40 shield caravan means that almost every city will be producing caravans for that 20% production advantage (i mean by building a caravan(s) starting a wonder, feeding it back, and turning the wonder back to a unit/improv w/the 10prod bonus per caravan).

Anyways heres what im doing now, I'm sure there'll be disagreements over most of the late game stuff that have been significantly altered(usually to the AI's disadvantage). Part of this is becaus of the 3X bonus that mountains (or city walls) give... very hard to budge a fortified anything up there short of bribing.

Settlers 0/2/2 I do i agree w/ur idea of increasing its cost though. The defense compensates for it

Caravans 0/0/2

Militia 1/1/1

I personally dont use militia at all, unless i unleash early barbarians so ive considered making them a 1/4/0 unit. They cant fortify, move, or be disbanded (grr...), but i find that it has two upsides. First, its a better def unit than the phalanx, so i can change it into a 3/1/1 unit (replacing the legions as cheap infantry). Secondly, if playing on EARTH, it prevents the european civilizations from wiping each other out (or by the mongols) in very few turns.

I assume you all remember the orignal stats

Phalanx 2/3/1
Legion 4/2/1 costs 20
Chariot 4/1/1
Cavalry 2/1/3* costs 30, the extra movement is kinda insane, but the fact that they dont become obsolete until rifleman makes them good scouts or "light cav" (personally i still rush to writing and scout w/diplomats)
Musketr 3/5/1
Knight 6/3/2
Rifleman 5/8/2* Rifles are lighter to carry... cost 40 shields
Catapult 6/1/1 cost 30 not 40
Cannon 8/1/1
Armour 18/8/3
MechInf 12/12/3 Cost reduced by 10

Fighter 8/3/10 Cost reduced by 10
Bomber 24/2/8 Cost reduced by a lot
Artillery 26/2/2

Trieme 2/1/3 Cost reduced to 30
Sail 4/2/4 I always felt that ships moved too slow
Frigte 6/3/4
Ironclad 10/8/4
Crusier 16/12/6 Cost reduced by 10 Counter to subs
Battleshp 36/20/5 Cost reduced by 30
Submre 18/2/4 Counter to the Battleships/Carriers
Carrier def inc. to 20 Cost reduced by a lot

In my honest opinion, artillery, battleships (and to a lesser extent bombers) SHOULD be able to win 99.9% of the time on the offensive. This is not the case of course.



Nuke 99/0/99 Infinite Range is reasonable at 160 shields
I haven't tried this, but does giving the nuke under 99 attack affect its effect? It would be nice to just have "cruise missles"

It seems a bit extreme, but keep in mind that the orignial fortifiedd rifleman has 7.5 def, giving it a nearly a 40% chance of beating off artillery and even 30% ag a battship while costing very little. Here the chances are a bit better, and seems fair to me with the inc. cost of the rifle and dec. of other units.

I haven't tweaked with the terrain (though one could double all trade/production for a faster game), and with the improvements i just made the barracks cost 1 maint instead of 0.

 

[trada]

Awesome work Aokces! And, BTW, welcome to the civ1 forums

If you don't mind, may I disect your work? I'm not trying to poke holes and kill what you have done but I just wanna have a look around.

40 shield caravan means that almost every city will be producing caravans for that 20% production advantage (i mean by building a caravan(s) starting a wonder, feeding it back, and turning the wonder back to a unit/improv w/the 10prod bonus per caravan).

Opps. I should have gone up not down. 60 shields for a caravan works better.

Anyways heres what im doing now, I'm sure there'll be disagreements over most of the late game stuff that have been significantly altered(usually to the AI's disadvantage). Part of this is becaus of the 3X bonus that mountains (or city walls) give... very hard to budge a fortified anything up there short of bribing.

Yeah. I disagree with doing stuff that disadvatages the AI. I love my game fair and square (as much as possible anyway, this is civ1).

Settlers 0/2/2 I do i agree w/ur idea of increasing its cost though. The defense compensates for it

Giving the settler 2 defence only puts us back in square one. One of the reasons of the production cost increase is to make the settler into a more important, expensive yet fragile unit.

Caravans 0/0/2

Militia 1/1/1

I personally dont use militia at all, unless i unleash early barbarians so ive considered making them a 1/4/0 unit. They cant fortify, move, or be disbanded (grr...), but i find that it has two upsides. First, its a better def unit than the phalanx, so i can change it into a 3/1/1 unit (replacing the legions as cheap infantry). Secondly, if playing on EARTH, it prevents the european civilizations from wiping each other out (or by the mongols) in very few turns.

Mm. 1/3/0 sounds funky. It sucks how you can't disband, fortify or move then but.

Fighter 8/3/10 Cost reduced by 10
Bomber 24/2/8 Cost reduced by a lot
Artillery 26/2/2

What's the bomber cost reduced by? I assume, as you say, 'a lot' because at 24 attack it needs to be to be worth it.

Trieme 2/1/3 Cost reduced to 30
Sail 4/2/4 I always felt that ships moved too slow
Frigte 6/3/4
Ironclad 10/8/4
Crusier 16/12/6 Cost reduced by 10 Counter to subs
Battleshp 36/20/5 Cost reduced by 30
Submre 18/2/4 Counter to the Battleships/Carriers
Carrier def inc. to 20 Cost reduced by a lot

Nice balancing.

In my honest opinion, artillery, battleships (and to a lesser extent bombers) SHOULD be able to win 99.9% of the time on the offensive. This is not the case of course.

Of course. But, I'm guessing here, the reason Sid made it otherwise is to ensure that just because a civ is behind in techs.. doesn't mean they will lose a war. Which is good because it's works well fun-wise.

Nuke 99/0/99 Infinite Range is reasonable at 160 shields
I haven't tried this, but does giving the nuke under 99 attack affect its effect? It would be nice to just have "cruise missles"

Infinite range? Dude. That's pretty cool. Nukes are extremely powerful then and 160 shields almost seems to cheap

It seems a bit extreme, but keep in mind that the orignial fortifiedd rifleman has 7.5 def, giving it a nearly a 40% chance of beating off artillery and even 30% ag a battship while costing very little. Here the chances are a bit better, and seems fair to me with the inc. cost of the rifle and dec. of other units.

It's a great re-balancing. Your new stats focuses on higher-tech units beating lower-tech units more consistantly while mine aims to merely balance the useage of units already there.

I haven't tweaked with the terrain (though one could double all trade/production for a faster game), and with the improvements i just made the barracks cost 1 maint instead of 0.

I messed around with the terrian a bit. Desert's now have a movement cost of 2 (because deserts are meant to be hard to traverse) and Oil now gives 6 shields instead of 4.

I also dabbed with the buildings. Courthouses are now half price (40 instead of 80) and SDI defence is 150 instead of 200.

This is fun

 

[trada]

One thingy more:

Legion 4/2/1 costs 20
Chariot 4/1/1

What exactly is the point of building Chariots in your mod? I mean, they are slow, fragile and you might as well build a Legion who has thicker skin and is cheaper..

 

[aokces]

Sorry that was a typo
Chariots remain 4/1/2 not 4/1/1
They should prob. be only 30 shields too since phlx has 3 def now.
I was kinda thinking that early game it would be rock/paper/scissors
Legion > Horseman > Chariot > Legion

I also agree with making some of the imporvements cheaper. I always wanted desert to give a -50% def bonus, just to make things interesting. But i guess thats not possible for the original.Thanks a lot for the feedback trada!

 

[aokces]

Hey I just dled the windows ver of this (love the graphics), do you know any program/util that can edit the rules?

 

[trada]

Not a clue.

You will have to hunt around the net a bit. Good luck.

 

[GoldBerg]

... ...
who uses Bombers?

Bombers:
attack: 12 -> 15 (cause bombing a city from the sky is so much more effective then artillery)
defence: 1 -> 1 (no questions here, 1 reflects their vuribility)
cost: 120 -> 100 (because 120 was just stupid)

...


Battleship:
attack: 18 -> 20
...

first (blah-blah-blah) -
in my view of the game an armor stands for 'some armors'
a battleship for a little fleet
a bomber for some bombers
not just 'one unit'...

well...
o.k. with the bombers,
but with this change i see problems with battleships.
the defense of a battleship should be able to resist a bomber attack (better or even (50:50)).
a battleship should be able to hit a bomber if the bomber is a field beside the battleship or the battleship can reach this field and has one move left to hit the bomber (a 50:50 chance for both of them)

modern battleships are satelite driven fortresses (as well as modern bombers) who are able to detect bombers hundreds/thousands of miles before
and fire their rockets/other stuff at them in defense.

next point.
in CiV DOS there must be a land unit
('in real life' rockets or modern artillery in 'defensive attacking')
able
to defend the city (together with city walls)
maybe it's in need to strenght the defense of the
MechInf together with fortress/city walls
to a value that can resist battleship attacks?
in the normal balance of the game this is given...

that's the problem with new rulesets in wellbalanced games.

if you change ONE rule you need to change (nearly) all.

Sid & Team thought and did test the game a very long time to balance the game well until release in 1991
and i think
the game is perfectly balanced as it is.

 

[trada]

The thing is, is that I don't have think the present ruleset is balanced. Why are so many players not even building bombers? Where is the air/sea/land balance? How can we stop settler-spamming?

I admit. I'm not using original ideas. In civ4 the settlers cost more and make cities much more important. This works very well in civ1 too.

After a 15 years of thousands of players playing civ1.. Well, this is better testing then what Sid and his team could ever do. But if you think the present units are balanced then.. go ahead

 

[Tenochtitlan]

I mean, who uses Bombers?

Oh man, bombers are so effective when defending your own continent\island

 

[Volcanon]

Why dont you pump up the Knight? Between the medeival ages and trench warfare there was a rather large era where offensive >= defensive, like the cavalry in civ3.

It also makes getting knights worth it, as why would anybody get 2 techs just to get something that has one point more defense than a chariot?

 

[trada]

How does 4 attack, 4 defence and 4 movement sound? And maybe up the cost to 70.. that would be worth two techs.

 

[Tenochtitlan]

How does 4 attack, 4 defence and 4 movement sound? And maybe up the cost to 70.. that would be worth two techs.

It would be like a middle ages type Mech. Inf, can be very useful but will imbalance the game(ie it would slow down conquest).. I would use them for defensive purposes only and work on advancing my science

 

[Volcanon]

4 is probably too fast for middle ages.
What about 6/3/2? Knights werent known for their speed (compared to somethign like the mongol horsemen).

 

[trada]

5/5/2 or 6/3/2 yeah.

My knights are 4/4/4 at 70 shields. Testing it out for any unbalances.