I have laid out, and stand by, areas where I disagree with your positions in my two most recent posts. Your stance here is akin to a doctor diagnosing a patient whilst sitting in another room with a textbook and confirms my suspicions that you actually lack practical experience of how my combination of settings work. As such, I’m now less inclined to engage with your points in detail as it is bordering on a waste of time. I will however give it a final effort. The surest way to understand my perspective would be to the test the settings in practice.
Debug mode plus small map and you could test the settings many times in the time it has taken you to post inaccurate interpretations of the settings.
False analogy. We're simply talking about a video game where there are certain game mechanics, and where I've done multiple tests, experimentations and calculations on many different scenario's, where I've become perfectly capable in determining the strength and weaknesses of implementing certain changes. Comparing changing game rules on specific game mechanics, where its mostly about applying input and getting output, with diagnosing patients is simply disanalogous.
Even if I've tried many tests on your specific scenario, and I've come to exactly the same conclusions, I get the idea you would probably still call me out for something unrelated. Therefore, if you disagree, like calling me out for making inaccurate interpretations, it is best to debunk my argumentations, based at least on
your experience giving examples.
Also, there is an easy critique of your final suggestion: trying out debug mode on a small map to test out your settings is completely insufficient. You need to check out many different times in the game on many different difficulties to see how the AI does, and you need to at least especially check huge maps since the player is weaker on those for different reasons. Off course, I already have more than sufficient experience myself that I don't even need to try out debug mode. Truly, if this would be your suggestion to check out wherever your scenario is well-balanced or not, that even more-so concludes that your position isn't well thought out.
And you can't say you're now less inclined to engage with my points in detail when you haven't even done this well so far. There has been no good engagement, since rather than providing good refutations of why my position or arguments are wrong, I get vague, abstract statements or opinions which aren't quantifiable in any sort of manner. Nor have I seen you make arguments where you made it clear you considered the consequences of changing game rules upon gameplay, objectively. There are also subjects you don't respond to, probably because you do see you may be wrong on those. And it's completely up to you whether to engage with me or not. I will share that my conclusions on this engagement being a waste of time are about the same as yours. I don't even care about this conversation all that much, since it's your scenario and I merely wanted to offer my two cents, and as a result you sound quite defensive, and my arguments don't seem to land well in the first place.
I’ve little to add to this point from my previous two posts, so apologies if there is a difficulty with comprehension. If you think that the AI engaging in periods of anarchy multiple times to drop out of Democracy during needless wars (with no realistic prospect of military gains) due to an inability to successfully manage war weariness via the luxury slider is “smart” - then yes, you mean something different by the term “smart” to its dictionary definition. This is clearly a failing in the AI that human players can and do routinely exploit. This may even have been a contributory factor in the developers removing War Weariness from multiplayer games.
A deliberate misrepresentation and strawman. The fact that the AI is unable to wage wars effectively and obtaining military gains, and therefore not being smart
in that aspect is not the same as the AI being able to understand the benefits of bonus commerce and unit support in that it correctly switches between governments depending on being in peace or war. The AI can't plan as human players can. So it will simply pick the government with the best output for them
on that specific turn. Due to the bonus commerce, in combination with having no WW and no high amount of units, this pretty much often leads to the AI choosing Democracy or Republic in peace time in the base game (Conquests).
Okay. So your definition of the AI being “smart” includes the AI picking what you consider to be “worse” government options? I would suggest it may beneficial for you to stick to dictionary definitions in future rather than making up your own and expect the rest of the world to read your mind.
No, also a misrepresentation and strawman: what I meant by the AI being smart is that it is
merely able to understand the benefits of bonus commerce and unit support in that it correctly switches between governments depending on being in peace or war. However, it does not take in other variables. Therefore, what it picks is an inaccurate demonstration of what the best government is. So overall, I don't consider the AI being smart as a human player can be in choosing out the best government. Taking a look back at what I mentioned on the 2nd of April, I said: ''
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.'' This is perfectly in harmony in what I kept on mentioning.
So yes, most readers would agree what I initially mentioned by the AI being smart was just in that sense, and is what is in line with dictionary definitions, rather than making up my own I ''
expect the rest of the world to read my mind''. I think you misinterpreted what I said in that I claimed that the AI is smart
overall, which is another claim entirely which I never made...
2/2/2 = higher unit support than 1/1/1 but lower unit support cost. For whenever I’ve typed “high unit support” please read “high free unit support” if that is clearer to you.
Okay, but this is still rather confusing because ''free support'' is something that is given by higher difficulties, rather than by governments. I understand it's all rather confusing but there are 4 different variables that are all very much related:
- Unit support per town/city/metro: self-explanatory
- Support cost per unit (per turn): in the base game 1 for all governments, except for Republic and Feudalism
- Free (total) support (for each AI civ): only for higher difficulties, starting at Monarch difficulty
- Free support bonus (per city): only for higher difficulties, starting at Monarch difficulty
To provide more context, think of this. Why do people investigate cities in the game? Several reasons, but one is to identify the intentions of an AI rival by seeing what they are producing. However, if you haven’t investigated cities your ability to identify the intentions of an AI is extremely limited (beyond their basic goals of surviving and out-competing their rivals). However, when you see an AI switch to a high free unit support government type we can infer that their intentions have been (and likely continue to be) to prioritise unit production over city improvements (relative to an AI in a low free unit support government). Therefore, we can improve our knowledge of their potential actions in the next 10-20 turns given that one calculation in them declaring war on someone is the strength of their military relative to a rivals.
Based on my own experience, as well as experimenting with reloading saves, I'm pretty much convinced the AI doesn't really have what you call ''
intentions.'' By my understanding, the AI doesn't quite
plan ahead in the way that you may think it does. I have saves with preserved seed on, where on reloading only just a few turns earlier, the AI consistently at times declared war, but at other times did not. In fact, just by changing one thing in the same turn, a civ consistently declaring war now consistently did not anymore. Personally, I only investigate cities to see what it is producing (before perhaps sabotaging), what city improvs it has, how it uses its luxury/tax/tech slider, or just to take a look at what it's citizens are producing. And in my own new mod that yet has to come out, to see whether it has a courthouse before initiating propaganda (but absolutely useless in the base game). That's about it. I'm pretty sure you can't deduce or extrapolate what the AI 'intends to do'. It just does what it does on a turn-by-turn basis. The AI really just changes governments by the variables that Ozymandias shared in that post.
Also, I somewhat agree, but also disagree with your last sentence: ''
Therefore, we can improve our knowledge of their potential actions in the next 10-20 turns given that one calculation in them declaring war on someone is the strength of their military relative to a rivals.'' So first Im absolutely not convinced the AI plans ahead for the next 10-20 turns as you mentioned. However, the
potential as you mentioned,
may indeed be increased, but that also depends on other factors like the support cost per unit (per turn), or how high the WW of the government in question is, besides other variables.
It would be inelegant to create government options that are better in 100% of scenarios as it would stifle variation in player and AI government selections. I am for government options that are better or worse based on situation considerations at different stages of the game.
YES, this has exactly been my point the entire time!! But as your mod is as it is now, you actually have a situation where some governments are 100% better in all situations than others! I've been trying to help you out with this for the last replies, but you refuse to keep on listening!
I didn’t think I needed to explain that Monasticism having the trade bonus was a strength compared to Feudalism and Despotism that do not (and therefore, in some situations may be the preferable government option for both AI and human). Or that Feudalism having a unit support of 5/2/1, no despotism penalty, higher assimilation rate and higher military police limit will therefore be a preferable to Despotism for the AI and human in a range of situations.
You don't
need to explain anything, just as you don't need to respond to my comments or anything else. However, I'm just waiting for your argument for why I may be wrong in the fact that as of now, Monasticism is
always worse than Republic/Democracy, and Feudalism/Despotism in the early to mid game. The same goes for Feudalism compared to Despotism, and Fascism compared to Monarchy. Once again, I'm simply pointing out that as your balancing is as of now, you do
not have the idealized situation that you wish to achieve where you want to provide ''
government options that are better or worse based on situation considerations at different stages of the game'' as that would ''
stifle variation in player and AI government selections''. Your literal words.
And yes, Feudalism does have higher assimilation rate and military police limit, but due to the way the base game is, these are far less important than the higher WW and higher support cost per unit.
I would however say that my aim is to make the later government options that came with C3C, on average, more palatable for the AI than the nearest equivalent earlier government option that came with C3C (e.g. the AI is more likely to pick Fascism over Monarchy). In this objective the AI's government choices show that I have incontrovertibly succeeded contrary to your perceptions that, for example, Despotism is better than Feudalism (even though I tweaked Feudalism to bring it forward into the early Ancient Era and reduce its unit support costs).
I've addressed this multiple times by now and will only address for a last time that what the AI chooses does
not give an indication to what governments are better than others...
My focus for players was primarily to reduce the percentage of scenarios in which Republic was the first and only government change. All my other government modifications were primarily geared towards the AI. You can make all the changes you want to a government type, but if it results in the AI not picking it then I consider that to be a really, really bad use of someone’s time when customising settings.
Fine, it's your mod, but as addressed earlier, as it is as of now, Republic/Communism/Plutocracy are generally the best ones, with Imperialism/Democracy as close runner-ups. As a result, you may now have AI picking and choosing different governments more equally, but those may also be far inferior governments, which goes against your other objective in providing ''
government options that are better or worse based on situation considerations at different stages of the game'' as that would ''
stifle variation in player and AI government selections''.
I addressed this in my previous post when I said.
“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).”
How can a Monasticism be completely useless compared to Republic and Democracy in instances when the human player doesn’t have either Republic or Democracy and the human player is 20+ turns away from learning these alternatives? The abundantly clear answer is, it isn’t "completely useless".
What, this literally is your argument? So you admit it's an inferior choice, and think it is well-balanced due to possible cheap cathedrals (only when having Religious as a trait, which the AI is far too unintelligent for to consider)
before Theology is gotten, and because it is
possibly gotten earlier (which doesn't have to be since it would be Monarchy, then Republic, rather than Monasticism, then Theology),
only if being Scientific as well?!
Cathedrals are quite bad in the base game. Building marketplaces and trading/conquering luxuries with/from the AI is a far better strategy than building cathedrals. Also, it is weird you claim it may be better than Republic or Democracy since you may have to wait 20+ turns, since in your primary post, you mention the following: ''
Makes Despotism a semi viable option until the end of Ancient era for those who wish to shift straight into Republic.'' You don't seem to care much about sticking with Despotism for Republic, rather than the other governments in between, but you are somehow with sticking with Despotism for Republic when it comes to Monasticism?!
And even then, why would you not instantly change the government to Republic when obtaining Monasticism, or simply wait the few extra turns for the superior Republic, even IF, and only IF it takes longer to wait for it?
But most of all: why do you care about defending your game balancing here? It is because you actually do also care about game balancing, not just about making the chances equally between governments of the AI choosing them.
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.
Following on from your previous
Taking this into account, Republic and Monarchy by this point in the game are always better [compared to Imperialism] for ''building up your army in preperation for war'', at least on those difficulties
I would suggest you re-read my previous post. Building a large number of military units can be for defensive purposes just as much as for offensive purposes. So if you think Republic’s unit support of 1/3/4 and Monarchy’s 2/4/4 is "always better" to build a large number of military units compared to Imperialism’s 3/4/5 then you are fully entitled to that position. Personally, I’m happy to have arithmetic on my side.
In an earlier post, you all of a sudden claimed the following: ''
I've never said there aren't multiple options for building up an army prior to a war.'' Based on that response, I indeed responded: ''
Nor did I ever claim you said there aren't such options.'' Which is correct. I never claimed you did.
Then, building a large number of military units for defensive purposes is a suitable strategy on lower difficulties where the AI does not enjoy a lower cost factor and higher free support bonus per city, but on higher difficulties this becomes a large problem,
which is exactly what I literally claimed word for word. Unless perhaps when being on a remote island where you could achieve victory going for a diplomatic or culture victory, this strategy would be unsuitable when going for domination/conquest victories on higher difficulties.
However, I will admit that
on lower difficulties, Imperialism is still a rather decent government compared to the other best I mentioned. However, since I mostly play on Deity+, this becomes less of a factor.
Also, strange how you end up with mentioning that arithmetic is on your side, when you criticized me for basing my reasoning partly on math with it being analogous for a doctor diagnosing a patient when being in the other room...
Unit support of 3/4/5, with 20 settlements, can result in 60 to 100 free units for a human player (compared to 20 to 80 for Republic at 1/3/4). Experienced players typically advise that as little as 25-30 offensive military units is all that is required to wage a successful offensive against pretty much any AI opponent, but for argument's sake, lets double that to 50-60 in this example. Even doing that I think your claim that we are “supposed to go over and beyond the… support limit” is not in line with what experienced players would say is a requirement. Obviously, going over the limit is absolutely a viable approach if you are in a low free unit support government like Democracy. But to suggest that we should always do this regardless of what government type we are in and whether or not we are planning an offensive military campaign? No.
For less experienced players there will be sub-optimum loss of units during wartime. So you may lose units at a similar rate to the rate at which you produce them, further reducing the requirement or likelihood to go massively over the free unit support level for Imperialism, especially if adopting a defensive stance of deterrence.
In the above example of 20 settlements, if you think you need more than 100 units I would suggest you are not going to be building city improvements at a rate to maintain pace with the AI (particularly with the lower cost factor settings I have chosen). So in that scenario, if that is how you would play the game, Imperialism will give you a number of free units far above that available in Republic without removing a single gold coin from your economy or a single shield from your city improvement production. Then, if you wish to go on the offensive, the reduce Anarchy penalties make switching into a war mongering government like Monarchy, Fascism or Communism a viable option. Therefore, Imperialism is a preferable government type, even for the human player, in some situations such as those I've laid out in this thread.
Finally, the AI sometimes picks Imperialism over Republic and Monarchy and given you think the AI is smart you can take it up with them!
This is only true for the non-highest difficulties, when making use of alliances of war between AI to get them to fight together, not being on a remote island, and/or being in the the pre-Industrial age. Starting at the Industrial Age, the AI becomes far more suitable in making use of its free bonus support per city, due to the availability of factories, power plants and railroads, and it already having build rather useless city improvs like temples/cathedrals/colosseums/coastal fortresses. So it isn't as distracted as before, and is able to produce units at a far faster pace than ever before. As a result, they can field far larger armies than the human player ever can. That's why on higher difficulties, lower support cost per unit in governments becomes very important, if you wish to take it up with AI offensively. So on higher difficulties, you would need a far larger amount of offensive units. Also, if a human player is going on mass offense
before the Industrial Age, it would never come to this in the first place, which is what experienced players make use of. But personally, I consider this all bad game balancing, that Civ 3 has to be played like this on higher difficulties.
However, due to bad game balancing (building bombers and artillery en masse), bad AI, and the possible use of game exploits like trade sabotaging, the human player is able to overcome this even on Sid difficulty in the Industrial+ Era. In my new mod, I try to ban this as much as possible, and increase AI strength as much as reasonably possible as well.
Your last sentence is a huge misrepresentation of my stance of what I have ever claimed, which I addressed multiple times by now. I would like you to not make that claim anymore.
Again, I apologise if English isn’t your first language but your reading comprehension is sometimes barely at Chieftain level. I have never said that unit support “solely” determines how “good” a government is. My argument has been and always will be, that there are almost countless variables in a Civ3 game and that therefore any decision by the human player (and to a lesser extent the AI) about what government type to pick is situational. So there is no point in me engaging with this point as it is based on a foundation of misapprehension on your part.
Err no, I'm perfectly capable of comprehending what you're claiming. And it would be on your part if some things aren't clear enough to me yet. I'm merely going by what you claim, and I try to do show in my replies what you claim by quoting. First off, you ironically immediately miscomprehend me in claiming that I said that ''
unit support solely determines how good a government is'', since I claimed that ''
unit support does not solely determine how good a government is in building up an army, and maintaining its costs cheaply''', which is something different entirely. You left out that part deliberately. The one is it as a whole, the other merely as a part of it. Taking a look at the town/city/metro unit support is simply not sufficient to determine how good a government is in offensive/defensive capabilities, at least not on higher difficulties.
And besides that, you also made another mistake in the previous post in mentioning it being ''
free unit support'', which it is not, since that is something else which I mentioned above. Also, unit support per town/city/metro, support cost per unit, bonus commerce and WW are still the most important variables by far in determining the strength of a government.
In what way is Republic not being available until after every other Ancient Era tech has been acquired not a “nerf” compared to it being potentially available after learning just Alphabet, Code of Laws and Philisophy? Or is your definition of “nerf” also out of alignment with what the rest of the educated world understands it to be?
"With all respect", the last person on earth I would take guidance on in what the best thing to do in customising settings is a person who hasn’t even played it or tested it AND doesn’t understand that by making a government type available much later in a game it is in effect nerfed.
My point is that you made many governments worse, without having
properly nerfed Republic, Democracy and Communism of the base game. On higher difficulties, being able to tech for Republic only after discovering every other tech is insufficient since other AIs tech at a very fast pace. In the Ancient Era, unlike later eras, many different techs are available at about the same time, that AI civs tech for many different ones, resulting in all of them being discovered at the same time anyway. And the human player is teching at a far slower pace compared to the AI, in that it is unable to get Republic before the AI anyway, thereby resulting it in you actually
not having properly nerfed Republic. That so much for being educated. Also, no need to be a d*ck about it.
If I capture a size 20 city and my government type has a low assimilation rate then 40-60 turns is by no way “completely unrealistic” a timeframe to expect 100% of those 20 citizens to assimilate into my tribe’s ethnicity/nationality. Therefore, for 40-60 turns an increased military presence may reduce the potential for a culture flip.
It is true that I could simply liquidate every citizen of the nationality/ethnicity of another Civ every time I conquered a city. OR, if I didn’t think that this was a sensible game mechanic or (mercifully) a remotely historically accurate approach to military campaigns, I could tweak the assimilation rate to make conquest of territory more engaging and realistic and less one dimensional. This contributes to my stated aim to “Make short term skirmishes potentially profitable rather than total war / conquest being the only obvious military strategy.”
I was referring to the amount of units, rather than the timeframe. But look, I admit that the developers of civ 3 made the amount of land units needed in order to prevent a city from flipping too high. If it would be about twice as low, it would have been more fair, balanced and 'perfect'. The AI is too dumb to try to starve every citizen. However, on the other hand, on higher difficulties the AI naturally doesn't have to worry too much about cities flipping towards the human player, since its culture is generally far higher, and because it will have a larger amount of units in general.
I’ll definitely choose to not believe it. I doubt you could think of a single historical example where an occupying force has maintained a strong military presence in a city it has conquered and subjugated (against opposing military units + opposing military civilian population), but where civilians have shortly thereafter risen up to:
- defeat the full strength occupying military units in combat without any aid from any military units/soldiers
- magically generated 1x military unit/brigade to defend their liberated city
Even if you can name one, that is very much the exception and absolutely not the rule in human history, yet this happens routinely under Civ3 default settings. Its why advancing armies in real life can confidently subjugate a town or city and then reduce the amount of military commitment in holding that town/city once it has been conquered to free up troops for the front line.
I'd say those are not fair requirements/conditions to what is supposed to happened/be simulated in-game. I disagree that they
subjugated the civilians (conquering is fine however), that it happened
shortly therafter, but most importantly, that they
defeated the full strength of the occupying force
without aid. In civ 3, it is impossible for other civilizations to send in military aid. And there is also no attrition and logistics to be simulated, besides no war weariness from occupying cities. So if we were to be completely fair we would have to implement those aspects as well. It has always at least been my impression that culture flips seem to simulate that, at least partly. Also, I think guerilla units opposing the occupiers is completely fair. That does not necessarily have to be only inside the city, since in Civ 3 the cities also consist of the far and wide hundreds of kilometers surrounding the city. The same goes for civilians wielding arms.
Then, when it comes to historic examples. I think of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, Spain during the French occupation, Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, and Algeria during the French occupation f.e. Besides that, I think of things like the Finnish independence from Russia I mentioned in the previous post. Anarchy has no influence on city flips, which would be realistic if going by the Finnish independence. Yes, I think this is poor simulation on part of the developers, but since there is nothing we can change about that as of now (at least not to my own knowledge, even though it could be possible be changing some game written codes/scripts), this is what we would have to stick by as of now.
Yes, I would also have this part of the game else like you'd have, but this is the best I could make of it. Final, I wonder why you prefer enabling MPPs to military alliances.
