Ode to Soren Johnson

[DrJambo]

I agree with a lot of points here, and from both sides.

As they stand, catapults and cannons are relatively poor compared to their more mobile non-artillery units of the same period.

Furthermore i think the movement of 3 for Cavalry is completely absurd and totally unbalancing. The first change i made was to reduce this to 2 and this makes for a much more enjoyable game. A movement of 3 just allows them to do too much on their go... i.e. reach a far flung enemy city, move-pillage-move to safety, faster than tanks! Once this is implemented the game plays fairer

I have tried many adjustments to try and reach a happy medium between the 2 following the reduction to cavalry movement:

1. First i tried catapults and cannons with a rate of fire of 2. THis was a good addition but i found it to be a little on the powerful side, especially considering that the AI doesn't use them as much as humans or in as big stacks. You see, artillery really becomes useful when they are used in large stacks, where 10 cannons can reduce an attacking army to rubble before it has even launched one single assault. THe AI, since 1.17 always seeems to use one artillery supported by a defending unit (not so effective).

2. Then i hit the jackpot. Instead i made all artillery have a range of 2. This means that catapults and cannons can be used more effectively as with their poor movement they now only need to get to within 2 squares of a city. They can also have more assaults on approaching enemy with the increased range.

In terms of getting the AI to build more artillery, just flag that option under the Civilisations tab in the editor. There you can chose what types of units the AI will prefer to build such as navy, airforce and artillery... you'll notice that currently no AI have the artillery option flagged and little have either navy or airforce. Most of them have only offensive units flagged. I have artillery ticked for the majority of AI civs and they now build as many as me

Another interesting feature is if you give archers/longbowmen/bowmen a zero range bombard ability similar in value to their offensive stat. This means they get a free shot at an attacker similar to the way artillery do as long as they are stacked with others, but without being able to use bombard offensively. It works very well and makes the archer set worthwhile to build..

One advantage you forgot to mention with artillery is that when you build artiillery they are there to stay as they cannot be destroyed unless sunk.. Therefore, if you lose them, you can always regain them later, thus not losing money. When cavalry lose...they die

Cavalry to movement of 2 is essential tho...

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by BillChin
Since the topic of this thread is an Ode to Soren Johnson, let me say that I think Mr. Johnson is doing a good job overall, especially with the AI.

Yes!

In my opinion, the faults with 1.17f that are high priority:
1) The huge remaining loophole for pop rushing by joining workers to junk cities for the purpose of making units. This is very powerful when using captured workers or having worker farms feed these processing cities. I believe this is an exploit that the programmers did not see and is 90% as good as pop rushing on version 1.16.

You know, I only do limited pop-rushing, never have used the original exploit, playing Civ3 as a role-playing game as much as anything else. But wouldn't converting captured people into cheap infantry have some justification?

2) Navies. Navies are still basically irrelevant. A player can have a dominant navy, but it does not translate into much except some fun. A few escort ships to protect transports is usually all a player needs.

Naval could definitely use some work. Without overseas trade, there is little purpose though. Columbus went to "India" for spices. The entire colonial period was about controlling sea trade. Once a purpose for sea travel is implemented, minor things like air bombardment, sub attacks, etc. can be addressed.

Catapults are important units in almost every game that I play.

I am just discovering the value of catapults. I learned my lesson when I lost a stack of about 15 swordsmen to a couple of "killer spearmen" (fortified in a city).

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
So, you have four defenders are you telling me that you would rather have two pikemen and two cannons than four pikemen????

As always, it depends.

If your countryside is being raked by foot soldiers, then bombard and mounted are the solution. If a large stack of mounted are attacking, then pikemen and mounted for counterattack may work better. It depends on terrain as well. If they are moving over mountains, then bombard. If flat terrain, then mounted. There are many considerations, and each strategy has a place, and a counter.

 

[Mapache]

Originally posted by =DOCTOR=
One advantage you forgot to mention with artillery is that when you build artiillery they are there to stay as they cannot be destroyed unless sunk.. Therefore, if you lose them, you can always regain them later, thus not losing money. When cavalry lose...they die

The A.I. disbands Cannons and Catapults on the battlefield(v. 1.17). I disband them in the next city, though. The A.I. has still to learn.

 

[eyrei]

Alright. I have dreams about artillery when I sleep at night, so I have to get in my two cents. One reason that catipults and cannon are weak in the game is because they were. They were terribly inaccurate, and it often took months to reduce the walls of a fortified city. Now, the artillery unit, in my opinion, is one fo the most effective units in the game. I think I would get a good laugh out of watching those of you who do not use them charge 10 cavalry units to their deaths just to have a chance of killing one enemy infantry fortified in a large city. Artillery are essential to taking cities for a good part of the industrial age. You can also do significant damage to an enemies improvements by sending an infantry unit with a couple of artillery to a mountain near a city. Fortify the infantry and bombard away. All terrain improvements, as well as city improvements within two squares will eventually be leveled with little risk.


I do agree about the rampant tech trading causing some gameplay problems. I was noticing in my last couple of games that I easily made the industrial age by about 1000AD, as did all the other civs. This is on monarch level, and I am just trying to imagine how this would go on emperor or deity. If I recall correctly, the reason for this is to keep the human from getting a slight tech lead, and then selling a tech to cripple the AI civs economies. A simple solution to this seems to be not to increase the AI's tech trading, but decrease it by making them not buy techs unless they can actually afford it. Now, the human does not cripple the AI's economy, but the other AI's do the job quite nicely. Eventually, the human takes the lead, because all of the AI civs are broke. Being behind a coupe techs is sometimes preferable to not having any money. The AI needs to 'know' this.

 

[loki]

Originally posted by eyrei
A simple solution to this seems to be not to increase the AI's tech trading, but decrease it by making them not buy techs unless they can actually afford it.

Actually, this has been done too (to some extent). The AI will not go broke to get a tech in 1.17f. However, the cumulative decreased cost will eventually make this tech so cheap after a few turns of intensive AI-AI trading that even the poorest civs will be able to buy it. They just won't get it as fast.

loki

 

[eyrei]

During the ancient age at least, every civ is always absolutely broke, and through no action of mine. It improves marginally in the middle ages, where they may have 100 gold. It balances out in the industrial age, and it is normally during this period that I take the tech lead. I guess the techs in the industrial age are not worth as much compared to the amount of income each civ is bringing in, so they don't have to go broke to buy them. They sometimes will not sell them to me even for 100+ gold/turn.

 

[Marzipan]

I wouldn't say I've seen the AI use artillery 'extensively' or in great numbers, but they have been using it offensively repeatedly in my game. I haven't seen them attack with more than one, maybe two. As far as forts go, as I sweep across the continent in my campaign to punish America, I'm seeing a number of forts. I can't think of an example of one that's built somewhere other than on a resource, but there are plenty on resources. They seem to put a fort on a resource colony, then when the colony disappears, the fort is left.

As far as using artillery, I think it is worth having some around. Knocking a defender down one hit point can make all the difference between it taking one or two attackers or three or four to take a city.

It seems to me that to really get into the naval aspect in the game, it needs to represent sea trade in a way that you can disrupt. Maybe the game could just draw a route on the map between ports showing the trade route, and your ships could 'pillage' the route as if it were a road. It would be cool if the game moved little cargo ships from one port to another that you could sink.

 

[loki]

Originally posted by eyrei
During the ancient age at least, every civ is always absolutely broke, and through no action of mine. It improves marginally in the middle ages, where they may have 100 gold. It balances out in the industrial age, and it is normally during this period that I take the tech lead. I guess the techs in the industrial age are not worth as much compared to the amount of income each civ is bringing in, so they don't have to go broke to buy them. They sometimes will not sell them to me even for 100+ gold/turn.

What I meant by "broke" was what happened pre 1.17 : AI selling improvments, moving the slider to 100% ...to buy techs. I have read soren johnson's comment on this issue : "They aren't allowed to sign per-turn deals they can't pay."

loki

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by loki

What I meant by "broke" was what happened pre 1.17 : AI selling improvments, moving the slider to 100% ...to buy techs. I have read soren johnson's comment on this issue : "They aren't allowed to sign per-turn deals they can't pay."

loki

Right. But they seem to sign deals sapping all of their available cash-flow without moving the slider or selling improvemens (they really sold improvements?). I can still get 400+ gold/turn by selling atomic theory to 4 different civs on the same turn.

 

[cephyn]

Originally posted by Marzipan
I wouldn't say I've seen the AI use artillery 'extensively' or in great numbers, but they have been using it offensively repeatedly in my game. I haven't seen them attack with more than one, maybe two. As far as forts go, as I sweep across the continent in my campaign to punish America, I'm seeing a number of forts. I can't think of an example of one that's built somewhere other than on a resource, but there are plenty on resources. They seem to put a fort on a resource colony, then when the colony disappears, the fort is left.

It seems to me that to really get into the naval aspect in the game, it needs to represent sea trade in a way that you can disrupt. Maybe the game could just draw a route on the map between ports showing the trade route, and your ships could 'pillage' the route as if it were a road. It would be cool if the game moved little cargo ships from one port to another that you could sink.

This thread seems to be weighing in quite well on these points here, and I'm going to throw in my 2 cents.

1)Artillery units
I rarely use them. I've found that they work MUCH better now that we have a 'sentry' command. I use them mainly for defense in cities. Put them on 'sentry' and they wake up when the AI comes a knockin'. Pop pop pop, suddenly the AI invasion force isn't so scary. I also like to put them in coastal cities, since they work better than coastal fortresses because i can manually shoot at passing ships.

2)Navy
Worthless in a pangaea game, clearly. With RR's, they become a joke. Age of Sail certainly lasts too short, no matter what. Because of the value of RRs, of COURSE i'm going to research Steam Power in the Industrial Age first -- no ifs ands or buts. It's THE priority tech in the game, never to be skipped or put off. I can't think of any other tech I snap up as fast. The only ones that come close are Literature and Replaceable Parts. But I digress.

To get a feel for the true power of navies, however, i URGE you to play some archipeligo games -- the more water the better. I've found these maps to be very challenging, even on Regent where I can cream the AI on a pangaea or continental map. Navies are absolutely CRUCIAL -- and the AI will build them like mad for HUGE invasion forces. They declare war on you in the late Industrial Age and 4 turns later you're staring at 8 Battleship/Transport pairs that drop off stacks upon stacks of infantry, cavalry and tanks. Quite daunting and surprised me a couple times, taking cities i thought i had defended enough. I build massive navies in this type of game for 3 reasons:
1)general control of the seas. I like to know whats going on where at all times, and thank the Firaxis gods for putting in a sentry command. It is essential.
2)defending the coasts. Picking off even 50% (which is pretty sorry) of invading transports is a HUGE advantage. Plus, take out the battleship guarding a transport far enough away from shore (thank you submarine wolf packs) and the transport turns around. Effective invasion management.
3)blockading -- though not economic. I build huge flotillas of ironclads and use them to make corridors between continents I control, as well as between a continent and the polar cap. This way i can create huge 'lakes' that no AI unit can enter, forcing it to sail around the world the long way to get to a city it wants to invade or an island it wants to colonize. When the AI finally decides to break through the flotilla, it has to do so at ENORMOUS cost.

3)Fortifications
Ill conceived, I agree. However, I have used them and have seen the AI use them in a couple of cases. The first is to guard an important resource -- I never do this, but the AI seems to get a kick out of it. Second, and this is the best reason for fortifications, is to control choke points. I don't do it too often, as I sometimes forget i even have the option, but the AI does do it quite well. I saw them, recently, put a fortification on either side of a choke point city/canal. Only way to take a city like that is to land an invasion force and bombard a fort like crazy before attacking or launch huge marine wave attacks on the city itself -- either way, its a pain. Not even tanks can dislodge fortified infantry easily, and god forbid they be on a hill or mountain. Better just to wait for modern armor, and hope they havent upgraded them to mech inf.

 

[Magnus]

Originally posted by jimmytrick

Point two is well taken. I feel that one of the main purposes of a navy is to protect shipping and shipping lanes but Firaxis has not implemented this. Therefore why build naval units? Now, I am aware that there is supposed to be a way to blockade harbors, but…

I am unsure as to how to do this. Perhaps by blocking all connecting coast squares at every harbor of the applicable civ. I have not tried to do this; almost certainly the AI is not programmed to do it so it would be kind of exploitative.

The AI does this - I have seen the ai (vs another ai civ) put a ship in every accessible harbor square of a city they are attacking and then cut the roads and then just sit there and bombard (firgates or ironclads) the city until the land troops make it there and mop up. The city is doomed if it has no navy to destroy those ships!

I personally have been victimized by AI blockades, I once made war with a civ in ancient times that was half the world away - hey what did i care, well all he did was send endless galleys and blockade my ports! I was forced to build a navy just to stop the scourge!

And regarding the whole 'bombardment units are worthless' debate, remember that catapults can be built from scratch and if your civ finds itself early on without horses and iron, then you better believe those archers and spearman will come to depend heavily on the 'friendly fire' when you are fighting civs WITH iron and horses. Value of a unit is very much circumstantial.

 

[BillChin]

Wow, a lot of things to reply to:
First, on the original post, I think a stack of 10% catapults, 20% defensive units, 40% offensive units, 20% mobile units, 10% settlers is a good mix for attacking. Far better than 100% offensive, or 50% offensive and 50% mobile units.

Take a stack of 20 that is typical for launching an early war:
4 spearmen
2 catapults
8 swordsmen
4 horsemen
2 settlers
If the enemy has hoplites, legionaires or pikemen, up the catapults to 20% and make do with one less settler and one less horseman.

I prefer this mix to 18 swordsmen or 18 horsemen or 9 and 9 (spearmen and catapults are 20 shields vs. 30 for the others). The fire power is about the same in terms of the targets that each can take out. However, the mix is better vs. counter attacks, losing cheap spearmen instead of expensive swordsmen. The mix has garrison units for captured cities and can build cities if razing. The mix can soften up targets without risking casualties when in enemy territory, lowering the casualties for taking each city. After taking two defended cities each force will have about the same number of attacking units left after subtracting casualties and garrisons.

In certain situations, such as attacking a pop 7+ city, getting it to pop 6 to eliminate the 50% defense bonus, often means the difference between victory and defeat. A pop 7+ city defended by pikemen takes a ton of swordsmen or a lot of luck to take out. This last point alone makes it worthwhile to build catapults.

Besides, anyone who uses red text has got to be wrong

As for pop rushing captured workers, it is clear to me that Firaxis wanted to do away with this exploit with the harsh penalties they put in. The current patch 1.17f, does not accomplish this goal. Worker farms, and using captured workers are almost as powerful as pop rushing under 1.16. Some easy to implement solutions are to have a one turn wait after joining workers before allowing rushing, or forbid the joining of workers to negative happiness cities. A hard to implement solution is empire wide effects for excessive pop rushing.

As for fixes for artillery, I like the idea of 2 range for early bombard units, and maybe 3 range for later bombard units. This makes the computer bombard units more useful. I do not like the idea of increasing their attack values because it makes the game much easier for a human player.

As for usefulness of navies, the Feb game of the month, is an archipelago map, as English. If there was ever a place for navies to be useful it is here. In my game, the Persians had clear naval superiority for most of the game, but could not use it to do anything useful because their army was mediocre. My philosphyis to have a few ships for protecting the transports, and for guarding the coast against bombard. Acheiving naval superiority is not worth the effort and the costs. It is useful to have a concentration of ships in one area for an invasion, but global naval superiority is worth nothing. It is far better to concentrate on ground forces to take cities than having a huge fleet sailing around to bombard and harass.

As for solutions, maybe up the movement of destroyers, battleships, cruisers and nuclear subs by one or two, increase their effectiveness against ground units, and lessen their ability to destroy improvements. Other ideas are to give naval units the ability to pirate gold (maybe add a button like the pillage command). This would also make the Privateer a semi-useful unit as they could pirate gold without triggering war. Blocking movement (more than one square) would require a big chunk of code, as would disrupting fishing (more than one square).

 

[Zouave]

A better solution is a patch that uses submarines and privateers in their correct and historical manner - to attack merchant shipping on trade routes, NOT to attack warships. Otherwise, there is very little use for subs and privateers. Civ III has no idea how real navies work; they do not spend all their time attacking improvements, and only battleships had the firepower to destroy them.

About catapults, cannon, etc. I would think in the Editor you could not only increase their strength, but ALSO tell the AI to build more of them. That option exists in the Civilization part of the Editor.

 

[Marzipan]

Ok I just consulted my spy in America, and it turns out they have 14 artillery pieces left. This is after several nuke strikes and several turns of a punishing ground war against me (Romans), Germany, Russia, England, and what's left of the Aztecs. I have 28 artillery, and 132 mech infantry, and 125 modern armor. About 6 of those artillery were captured from the Americans. I would say from this that the Americans prolly had about the same or more artillery than me before the war started.

 

[brody]

Originally posted by Zouave
A better solution is a patch that uses submarines and privateers in their correct and historical manner - to attack merchant shipping on trade routes, NOT to attack warships.

Did you hear a different story of WWII then I did? I recall hearing that the Germans were quite effective at sinking many military ships with subs... and in fact before the British cracked Enigma, the allied forces were suffering around 50 lost ships a MONTH. Is that not a historical example of subs attacking warships?