Hegemon

[Rambuchan]

7ronin - Thanks for the observations.

Good to know Macedonia are there still. If you've conquered hard into Thracian lands you may have to deal with them!

Any further thoughts on AI naval behaviour? I've seen some impressive navies, but these are often used to ship just one or two units. Can't remember what I did in The Rise & Fall of The Mughals to get them wise on this front. Any ideas?

Yes, Thrace seems like a monster. But, as others have found out, they're puppy dogs really.

I think your game is a little peculiar in terms of inter AI warfare. They've dog piled the hind off each other in my games and have been pretty belligerent in my general direction too. I always get an early ultimatum, for example, and I've seen many grand alliances happening.

 

[Virote_Considon]

This post is a pretty comprehensive look into the AI's naval priorities. I think the overall most important parts are 1. Much cheaper naval units and 2. Easier access to veterans.

If you're put off by the former, remember that naval units can't take or defend cities, so are inherently disadvantaged compared to land units in one of the most important aspects of any civ3 game.

 

[Keroro]

Also, notice that the pedia entry for the Corinthians tribal resource says that there four of these on the map. The one you may not have spotted yet is placed to relate to Corinth's historical relationship with Corcyra, which Thucydides cites as one of the key factors in the outbreak of The Peloponnesian War.

You know I noticed that and wondered if it was an error! I shall put together an invasion party and take that island now that I know the reason. Good thinking. It may be worth noting this in the civilopedia for Korinth somewhere, or else players are likely to miss a nice touch.

I am looking forward to my unique unit greatly. Kick ass time approaches.

Korinth seems pretty balanced, not too powerful but nicely placed if you can keep the big boys off you back. I plan to pick fights with Mycenae, Thebes and Athens (in that order) and then try to get ready for a big showdown with Sparta. Makedonia will have to wait for later, though I must admit that I'm itching to pick a fight with them. I want to nerf Thebes and Athens and remove them from the immediate area of my Kingdom before they start getting their powerful unique wonders and units.

Some notes:
I noticed some problems with the defensive bonus improvements, but it looks like King Coltrane has picked up on them all.

The AI doesn't seem to be building palaestra. I've not seen a single one of the skirmishers that spawn from them except my own. I believe that the AI doesn't normally place any import on an improvement that auto-produces units, only those that do something else. You may need to give that building a point of culture to get the AI building them - especially as they are a requirement for a science improvement a bit later in the game.

The tribute victory is looking just about possible, though very tricky. I think 50,000 - 80,000 is a decent target to set - it shouldn't stop anyone from reaching the Hegemon victory if that's what they're going for, but it's certainly enough to be a challenge. I'll feedback further when the game is finished though, obviously it's hard to say right now.

Naval units - make transports dirt cheap (10 shields) and free upkeep. Give them large capacity (6 or 8 units). Then see what happens. The AI can manage a navy reasonably well (as well as the AI can manage anything) but almost needs to be gifted the craft. Giving the big naval powers a wonder that auto-produces a warship should also help I would imagine.

_________________

Update: In which your chronicler reports slow progress.

Our champions have been restless, and we could finally keep them in our cities no longer, for they looted and pillaged as if they were mere barbarians. Mykenai was the chosen target for our wrath, and our champions made short work of their lightly armed, poorly trained militias.

Sparta, once again, crossed swords with us, but they could not make headway against our valiant forces. Their soldiers are powerful, but are sent against us with little thought for tactical nuance, preferring to charge straight into our traps and crossfires laid down by our toxotai. Fools!

Our philosophers are concerned that we no longer have the clear lead in advanced thinking that we once had. Truly the men of the present generation are of a lesser breed than those of antiquity - no doubt since we are generations further from the divine blood that gave our people birth. No matter. Other races are yet weaker.

Korinth shall prevail.

I can't get the screenie to upload for some reason, but it's not that different from the first one - just expanded out a bit on all sides.

 

[Rambuchan]

Virote - Quality linkage there mister. Very handy. Seems pretty straight forward, as summarised by Keroro actually.

I'm inclined to take 10 shields off the cost of pretty much all the ships. A bit more off the most expensive late game ones and dirt cheap for Merchant Galley. Double their transport capacities in every case. And yes, free upkeep sounds very sensible.


Keroro & Others

Those notes, with some requests for ideas please:

~ City Defence Improvements: I'm definitely looking at this. I'm thinking of the following solution...

- Pallisades > Change to Walls. The walls city graphics seemed weird for wooden palisades anyway. Same tech and cost. But it'd probably make sense to take off the timber requirement, or is it good to keep this in?
- Walls > Change to Acropolis. Same tech and cost. Any resource requirement?
- City Guard > Change to Synedrion and keep as pre-req for League buildings. No defensive bonus though. Still not sure what settings to give it that aren't already fulfilled by other improvements.

~ Long Walls of Athens: Still looking for a suggestion or three on benefits for this please. Shame the defensive bonus wouldn't work. Perhaps producing naval units would be good. But I feel it needs something else. I'm guessing King Coltrane would have some good ones, given his recent game with Athens and knowledge of the period.

~ Palaestra & AI: I'm not quite sure what funky dark magic I have wrought, but the AI do in fact build the Palaestra. I too was worried about this at first. But tests have shown them building quite a few. In the second half of the game there are plenty of AI Gymnitai running around. Perhaps they understand that this building is needed in order to the build the Gymnasium, which would go some way to explaining why they tend to build them later? I'm generally wary of tinkering with both the Palaestra and frequency of the Gymnitos. In human hands this can get really out of control (and I think it's sitting on the cusp of acceptable at the moment). If, in giving them one culture, the AI build lots of these early then it could be a case of opening up Pandora's Box.

~ Tribute Victory: Well, hats off to anyone who manages to get the 60K - not playing as Athens. That's a good region you've suggested Keroro. I was thinking toward the lower end of your range, perhaps 50K. I guess we'll just have to wait for feedback from lots of different people's games to find out what would work best.

~ Unit from Temple of Aphrodite: I'm inclined to follow up Mr Coltrane's advice here. With a twist mind you. I think it's best to have a completely new unit for it, rather than involving this unit with upgrade paths. The good news is I've come up with a name for the unit:

Spoiler :

The Vuldakonista

Vuldacon is pretty much reworking all the graphics here with me. It's unbelievable what a hero this guy is!

Bad news is: I'm still wondering what sort of unit it should be. There aren't any 'tribute to a graphics legend' checkboxes in the editor afaik.


Keroro's Game - Sounds like a solid plan you have there. The tricky bit of course is: Leaving Macedonia till later... Did you check out their late game units? Anyway, I've not played that far with Corinth but I do believe the Polybolos gifts you as good a chance as any civ to take them on in the the final era. And every game I've played has resulted in a seriously tense arms race and troop build up prior to every showdown with the big guns.

 

[Virote_Considon]

For the Long Walls, you can still give it a defensive bonus, just not any defensive bonus against bombardment - that is option linked to can't-build-or-use-in-higher-than-"towns".

 

[7ronin]

When you are finished Vuldacon, send him over to that other mod you're involved with.

Naval units: The AI seems to build only the bare minimum required. Even the island civs haven't done much shipbuilding. Only Athens has built one of the super ships. It is disappointing that there isn't a ship which will load an army - or is there?

I captured a third of the Thrakian cities only to see him go on a gigantic settler splurge. The map is pretty well clogged up with the exception of south east Asia Minor. It can't be much longer before the other civs start gnawing at each other.

Buildings: Aquaducts take forever to build? Any particular reason?

 

[King Coltrane]

Defense improvements: i like the changes. but maybe for the not-city-guard, increase their upkeep cost and make them produce +1/2 happiness? its totally redundant, but barring autoproduction of some sort of low end defensive unit (akontistes/longchoforos), i dont see what else to do with them.

If you wanna REALLY get creative with the long walls, make them auto-produce a "wall" unit which can airdrop within 1 (or 2) spaces. that way you can literally create a wall in front of athens. however, you could simply make it double the defensive bonus of walls i suppose (like the civ3 great wall). or maybe both. or something else haha.

ps, i see the AI build Palaestra A LOT. ive fought against hordes of gymnitos too. i think you're set here. i dont think anything needs to be changed.

tribute victory: as long as the Pangaion Mine isnt buildable everywhere, i think 40,000-50,000 is perfect. when i won my game (hegemon victory) as athens, i had about 28,000 (and i was halfway through the number of game turns, as well as WAY ahead in techs compared to other civs).

For the Vuldakonista: 9/6/1, +3 HP, all terrain as roads, stealth attack, and maybe collateral damage? i'd also make it create some sort of "Enemy" -like unit for enslavement. there really wont be that many of these guys, so i wouldnt worry about overpowering it. that said, i assume it should not be as powerful as the Champion or Phalanx type units.

 

[King Coltrane]

also, regarding older thoughts:

Corcyra: yeah, i was just mad about losing out on those wonders haha. i might give them an extra bonus resource or something to help them expand (as i have never seen them do it) but i accept their existence

tribute can move itself if you want it to (see AoI), but i accept what you're saying about using the gymnitos for that purpose. works for me especially if you are about to make naval units cheaper and have free support.

btw, i dont know about the rest of you, but i have seen the AI do very well with their navies in hegemon! western anatolia i scrawling with various triremes, as is the dodecanese. and im talking naval power and amphibious force fleets! granted, the various peloponnesians and euboeans tend to only colonize (though vigorously), the Thrakians have done VERY well at their amphibious operations in the northern Aegean! I have even seen them come as far south as Euboea! I have since made sure to always have around 3-5 imperial triremes off this coast to prevent amphibious landings/attacks. granted, they cant touch my athenian hoplites (or thorakitai), but they have been able to do damage to others!

 

[Rambuchan]

We have our first reported Hegemon!!

Congratulations to King Contrane

Has anyone else managed it?

Maybe a Tribute or Domination Victory?

 

[Keroro]

I think Virote's right about the bombardment thing actually. The Civil Defence in the vanilla game would be the thing to look at, as it's a defensive improvement available to size 2 and 3 cities.

Palaestra - OK, maybe I'm wrong. Yesterday I did see my first Gymnatos coming into my lands, I just expected to see them everywhere. My game is slightly early on, maybe they'll start being produced once the Gymnasia is commonly available (any time now in my game).

Vuldaconista unit. Not a bad idea. I think a bronze plated monster of battle may be waranted for the Aphrodite wonder. Remember that Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus by Zeus, so a heavily armoured monster is fairly appropriate (maybe with the pedia entry suggesting that they are tasked by Hephaestus with protecting Aphrodite from Ares, who was traditionally persuing Aphrodite). I'd go with something with approximately Hero stats but more HP.

Alternatively you know that some of the people who worshipped Aphrodite were, er, let us say, sacred ladies of negotiable honour. Not sure how they could be represented in game...

 

[Rambuchan]

I've now won a Hegemonic Victory too, albeit after King Coltrane did it and on a reduced difficulty level from my usual. I did it with one of the underdogs, Aetolia. It's my first with v1.3. Only fitting that the scenario maker should do it too.

Now, not to take away from King Coltrane's admirable achievement, but in doing this I noticed that I made a bit of a boo-boo with the new Hegemonic Victory. It's not terrible, but if any of you are going for the Hegemonic Victory you should know about it for your game:

Important Note on the Hegemonic Victory:

You'll notice that in v1.3 there are 12 required Oaths of Fealty. Four have been added and this is the final design for this Victory.

Although there are more than the previous version, they are easier to get because (a) they are cheaper to build and (b) there are always three of each of the required Hegemonic Resources, so the AI is more likely to trade you these, albeit at quite exorbitant prices!

Anyway, with the four new Oaths of Fealty that I introduced, I made a mistake (it will be fixed, don't worry). In the General Settings tab of the editor, I added four new Oaths. However, what I did not do was stipulate the 'number of parts' needed for each of these. It should be one, but it remained on zero. So, essentially, you have been gifted the four new Oaths of Fealty. The Gods have been generous!

This might be a bit confusing for players. I'm sorry. It was an oversight and I've already fixed this. The four new Oaths of Fealty, which you have been gifted via my oversight are:

~ Fealty of Aetolia
~ Fealty of The Islands
~ Fealty of The Isthmus
~ Fealty of Argolis

So don't sweat yourself trying to get them. You don't need to build them and, indeed, you cannot build them. The other eight are still required however and it's still a challenge getting them.

Yours sheepishly,

Ram

 

[Rambuchan]

The Vuldakonista: Yes, I'm sold on this new unit and its stats. Though I might have to twist some of its abilities. Amazing info on this by the way, Keroro. Thank you. If there are any suggestions for the actual unit art, do please share. I've DLed a tonne of units for making this scenario and very few are armoured to the teeth. I'll be having another look but any suggestions would be most welcome.

And I'm quite open to female units of negotiable honour being used, even though women didn't get much of a look in at most walks of life in Ancient Greece. In fact, now that I post, how about this one recently released by Hikaro Takayama? It might not be appropriate and it's moving a bit into fantasy land, which I swore myself out of. But, in coming from an Olympian Temple wonder, at least it would be appearing in the one 'concession to romance' category I've allowed.


Civil Defence: Yup, I'm going to follow that up.


AI Gymnitos production: You're only going to see more, buddy! Illyria tried to rape me with a horde of these just before I got my Hegemonic Victory. I'm actually quite chuffed with these skirmishers. They (and all the other units with similar stats) perfectly perform the skirmisher function of Ancient Greek warfare that I wanted to bring in. They're good into the later game too. I've managed to take down Champions with my own Gymnitai.

 

[Rambuchan]

Naval units: The AI seems to build only the bare minimum required. Even the island civs haven't done much shipbuilding. Only Athens has built one of the super ships. It is disappointing that there isn't a ship which will load an army - or is there?

Are you playing on an easy level? My most recent game was on an easier level and I noticed that: (a) the AI don't get up to as much naval activity, (b) they don't settle as vigorously or quickly and (c) they're generally quite lame on the warfare front, though Sparta kicked off in a big way with me and most others and Argos put up stubborn resistance.

I'm guessing this is why you're not seeing as much naval activity and also why you managed to conquer Asia Minor so effortlessly. That's a tougher nut to crack than it seems.

I captured a third of the Thrakian cities only to see him go on a gigantic settler splurge. The map is pretty well clogged up with the exception of south east Asia Minor. It can't be much longer before the other civs start gnawing at each other.

Yes, they're supposed to be like that. If you read Thrake's Tribe entry in the Civilopedia it makes more sense.

Buildings: Aquaducts take forever to build? Any particular reason?

Because they're large scale civil projects for ancient people to pull off? They're equally balanced cost-wise with other such buildings like the Bath House, Amphitheatre, Stadium and so on.

 

[Keroro]

For the Vuldaconista unit, some suggestions:
Though the shield design is probably a bit too distinctive?
One of these. Probably third line down second from left, of fourth line fifth from left. Both have a substantial amount of bronze.

I'm not sure what you've already used in the scenario so I may suggest one you've already got in somewhere.

What we really want is a Talos unit of course. I'm sure Virote would agree?

 

[Rambuchan]

Oh yes, I forgot about the Long Walls solutions...

If you wanna REALLY get creative with the long walls, make them auto-produce a "wall" unit which can airdrop within 1 (or 2) spaces. that way you can literally create a wall in front of athens. however, you could simply make it double the defensive bonus of walls i suppose (like the civ3 great wall). or maybe both. or something else haha.

I'm all for creativity...within context. Airdropping is a cool feature but I think it asks people to suspend their disbelief a little too much. I did remember that I had another idea here. It seems like such a shame to go for the easy 'just like the Great Wall' settings, given that the Long Walls were such a significant factor in this period. So I was looking into using this.

Only thing is I've never used LM terrain and don't really know how to implement such a thing. But it could well be the answer!

tribute victory: as long as the Pangaion Mine isnt buildable everywhere, i think 40,000-50,000 is perfect. when i won my game (hegemon victory) as athens, i had about 28,000 (and i was halfway through the number of game turns, as well as WAY ahead in techs compared to other civs).

Yes, I'm now thinking that perhaps 40-50k would be the right mark. Though I think some more reports from other games are still needed before this is decided.

I had just short of 33k Tribute when I got my Hegemonic Victory. The next nearest was Sparta with 18k and that's from their early wonder building and war mongering, as well as their tribute to the Gods.

I'm thinking of tweaking a couple of the values here though. I built most of the wonders, trounced everyone in techs and I was also giving a lot of Tribute to the Gods (Libation Wine, Temple Offerings etc). The breakdown of my Tribute Points is like this:

45% from Advances, which doesn't seem balanced right.
12.5% from Wonders, which is alright, they should be important but not so much for tribute.
15.8% from actually giving Tribute to the Gods. And I was working my Aetolian butt off for those Olympians.

So I'm thinking of (a) doubling the value of Tribute Points received from the likes of Libation Wine and Temple Offerings - they are supposed to be more significant than anything else and (b) chopping the points from Advances to 60% of their current value. If I had played the same game with those settings I'd still have ended up with pretty much the same Tribute Score, but at least the greater emphasis would have been on running Tribute to the Gods.

---

Some other questions on your game if you don't mind...

1) Hegemonic Victory:

- Did you find it too easy getting all the Oaths done? (Bearing in mind you got four for free!)
- Did you conquer for them mostly or trade?

2) Leagues Features: Very curious about these. I was so far ahead in techs, crushed Thebes anyway and didn't play as one of the 'big four' so didn't get to see any of this...

- Did you make good use of The Delian League stuff and did they work ok? (Aside from Pangaion Mine of course)
- Did the other three build any of their League buildings?

3) Turns, Tech Tree and Timings:

- I think the new settings for the tech costs, dates and turns is about right. I was getting all my Classical Era units from about 500BC and all the really major wars kicked off around 450BC. Did these timings feel right for you?

- I finished both the game and nearly the whole tech tree on turn 316. I think you said you won quite early too. So I think there are two options here:

a) Simply shorten the amount of turns in the game, to something like 400-450 turns.
b) Up the tech costs far more dramatically than I did already and keep it at 550 turns.

I suspect that when the game is played at people's standard difficulty level it would go much further towards the full amount of turns. This too will likely have to wait for more game reports to come in and testing by me, but do you have any thoughts on the matter?

 

[Rambuchan]

For the Vuldaconista unit, some suggestions:
Though the shield design is probably a bit too distinctive?

The shield is the only problem with it really. Good suggestion. I wonder how others feel about the shield?

One of these. Probably third line down second from left, of fourth line fifth from left.

Both of those are already in. Third line down second from left is in as the Thureophoros. Fourth line fifith from left is the Athenian Hoplite. I gorged on those packs from Sandris, making as much use of each of them as I could. They are simply awesome and very much made the making of Hegemon possible.

Thanks muchly for the suggestions. I'm sure we'll crack it soon enough. I suppose the one I linked to is a bit too fantasy eh?

 

[Virote_Considon]

Perhaps one of these two could be placed in already-filled slots to free up a desired unit for the Vuldaconista?

(Alternatively, I could try to force myself to get back to work on Agamemnon, though I dunno if I'd have the time to finish it before I go home for a month for Christmas...)

 

[7ronin]

"Let us draw a black ship down unto the fair salt sea." AI naval activity is way up - lots of ships running back and forth doing nothing. Just about everyone except me is at war with Sparta. So far, lots of talk and not much action. I could probably just rest on my laurels and coast to the finish. I'm a long, long way from having 66% of the map. I have a comfortably large army so I guess I could shift production entirely to settlers and improvements. Lots of room left in south east Asia minor (mostly mountains).

May I suggest adding terrain labels for the major islands and some of the named mountains (e.g. Pelias).

Nix on any fantasy female units (however charming they may be).

I hope you don't shorten the game in any way.

Congratulations to King Coltrane on his victory.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Mid-game cities started appearing as black oblongs. Seemed random until I noticed that it happened as they built palisades.

Made it near certain it was a palette problem with the walled cities pcx. Sure enough, the Amer file was in rgb mode. Applied the palette from the Amer (unwalled) & here's the corrected version.

 

[King Coltrane]

Thanks for posting that pic BM. Thats what i encountered with Sparta and others too.