Removing Despot Penalty

[Predator145]

Ozzymandias gave me the idea of removing the despotism penalty all together to strengthen the AI's during the expansion phase as it loves to irrigate green. But one of the chief reasons to tech into expensive optional gov techs is to escape the penalty to begin with. Despotism without the penalty is very attractive early game. So if the penalty gets removed Despotism shall have to be nerfed somehow. Maybe less unit support? Maybe no ability to rush build? Pop rushing does confuse the AI when C3X perfumes are used. It would pop rush things like perfumed walls and granaries, shooting itself in the foot and performe worse than stock game.

And what about the overpowered Ag trait? C3X gives us the option to do away with the despot exception and have them suffer the penalty regardless of fresh water. But with the penalty removed Ag will be on absolute steroids during the expansion phase, turning already overpowered trait into an absolutely broken one.

 

[Predator145]

I've played a bit of minimalist modded stock game on debug to see how it work. Here's what I saw:

Both the human player and the AI benefits from having despot penalty removed. I nerfed despotism to having only 2/2/2 unit support. Only the human player feels it. But the added growth and commerce more than makes up for it if all you train is warriors, workers and settlers. Early rushes will be a bit more expensive though. I was able to quickly set up a settler and worker factory with no food bonus resource. You will reach size 12 much faster.

The extra growth means the AI is better off not building any granaries. The perfume for the first few turns should just be for scouts to let exp civs to produce a couple. Then one is better off letting the AI do its thing. Extra growth means the AI spends less turns waiting for settlers to come out.

Overall though, it benefits the human player more. You don't badly depend on food bonuses. All you need is some green to irrigate. Having a cow/wheat/game at your start could mean an entire difficulty difference in stock game.

Agri, as expected, dominated and quickly became production powerhouses. Maybe take away the cheap aqueducts?

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Hey Predator, I have also been using the base government without the penalty. For the unit support, I gave a flat number of free units with no city bonus, so that once you reach a certain point you really need to switch governments or your economy will collapse. You can also mess with citizens consuming 3 food, although that has its own issues like weird starvation problems later on with odd numbers of food. It will be interesting to read more of your findings here.

Along with that, I gave the tile penalty to Interregnum (Anarchy) to soften the blow of changing governments.

 

[Ozymandias]

@Predator145 - It's the bloody AI actually irrigating desert that's the real b*itch.

 

[timerover51]

@Predator145 - It's the bloody AI actually irrigating desert that's the real b*itch.

In Theov's Civ3 Mod, there is the option of irrigating tundra to increase food production to 2 per tile. The AI in my current game is using that option. They are also irrigating desert, plains, and grassland. I have to check on flood plain.

 

[Predator145]

@Predator145 - It's the bloody AI actually irrigating desert that's the real b*itch.

I'm thinking about giving deserts 2 F upon irrigation. But I don't like how again, Ag civs will have it stack to 3F. Tundras IMO need modding as well. I'm thinking about giving 2 F from the start but it's a little silly thematically as the biome without game isn't exactly rich in food. Maybe they could yield 1 F upon being irrigated. Tundra irrigation may or may not be a real thing. Permafrost makes it very much impossible. The most productive tundra were pastoral during warmer periods like those in Greenland by the medieval Norse. "Irrigation" here could represent setting up pastoral agriculture. The AI absolutely needs this. It doesn't know how to use forestry so that way they can still make good use of the tile.

Marsh give 2 F from the start and can be irrigated and mined like grassland and allow cities to be founded. Wetland clearing has been reduced to 8 turns. This helps with reducing map RNG. A jungle/marsh start with no food bonuses is probably 2 difficulties apart from a double food bonus one. Irrigating without fresh water is moved to Pottery. This way the AI isn't doomed with bad land.

The human player still may wanna clear the marshes to avoid disease and add forests/uncover bonus shield later. The AI doesn't know how to clear marshes (but it knows how to clear jungles, tks Firaxis) so having it treat marshes like un-bonused grassland is nice.

 

[Spoonwood]

And what about the overpowered Ag trait? C3X gives us the option to do away with the despot exception and have them suffer the penalty regardless of fresh water. But with the penalty removed Ag will be on absolute steroids during the expansion phase, turning already overpowered trait into an absolutely broken one.

The Hall of Fame has an abundance of 20k entries with non-agricultural tribes. The fastest 100k game is with Babylon, with an entry 3 turns slower with the Celts. Russia has consistently shown up in lower level spaceship and diplomatic games. Also, there exist spaceship or diplomatic tables with Korea at the top, though I do believe Sumeria would have worked better (though not non-scientific agricultural tribes!). Conquest and domination tables have the Celts or the Iroquois often at the top, however, those tribes also have 3 attack, 2 movement UUs while no one else has such powerful units in the ancient era if I recall correctly.

For a research heavy game, Agricultural tribes still may seem to have stronger power, because of quicker expansion in the early game, and thus have a better economy and research potential earlier. However, scientific tribes likely lie close in ability if not superior in ability to agricultural non-scientific tribes, especially with rich enough AIs where technology gets sold for gold per turn at a significant profit.

If playing Always War or Always Battle defined as war always being the state at the end of a turn, and one has to pick between militaristic and agricultural, I'm not so sure that agricultural is overpowered also. The earlier and greater quantity of elites seems anything but a joke in my limited experience, if not superior, for spawning MGLs early.

If there could be constructed a way to make agricultural tribes have slower horseman, knights and cavalry than other tribes, I'm not so sure you would feel them overpowered. I guess another idea would be to remove horseman, knights, and cavalry entirely. Then agricultural tribes get only 1 movement (for horses or knights or cavalry) or 2 movement horse units (for cavalry), while non-agricultural tribes get horseman1, knight1, and cavalry1 just like classic civ III.

Edit: looking at the editor, for the agricultural tribes, their ability to make horse type units could get removed. Then they get some other unit instead of horses. Since many of the agricultural tribes are Native American, and they didn't have horses, this does seem like it could make for a more historically accurate game.

As another idea one might try buffing workers and/or settlers for non-agricultural tribes using a similar method by removing the ability of agricultural tribes to train these faster settlers and/or workers, and then giving workers and settlers a movement of 2 or quicker work speed. Agricultural tribes get regular class workers and settlers. Non-agricultural AIs with greater movement settlers could then expand horizontally more quickly, while agricultural tribes though still possibly having greater growth vertically would have less potential for growth horizontally. With different worker speeds non-agricultural AIs could make up the food gap also.

Also, instead of nerfing Despotism, what if you buffed Monarchy to produce 2 commerce for roaded tiles and water tiles, while Republic gets 3 commerce? With governments it seems even clearer the that the source of the problem is not that something is overpowered absolutely, but that something feels overpowered relative to other potential things which fall into the same category.

 

[Theov]

In Theov's Civ3 Mod, there is the option of irrigating tundra to increase food production to 2 per tile. The AI in my current game is using that option. They are also irrigating desert, plains, and grassland. I have to check on flood plain.

Bc the AI loves to settle on tundra oil etc. So I turned of settling on tundra, but if it is near, or when you settle on a forest on a tundra, your city can still do something.

 

[Predator145]

In a competitive (dif lv where victory isn't guaranteed) non specific victory goal game, the Ag trait is far ahead of any other trait. They've nerfed Ind but introduces something even more dominant. It's even more so in the hands of the AI. it's almost half a dif difference if you fix the entire AI line up to Ag and Ind civs. Giving them worse settlers or workers make no thematic sense. And of course, handicapping units wise is a no-no for me.

I can always go back to removing the hard coded trait all together and replacing it with an untradeable tech giving cheap granaries and aqueducts. It was C3X allowing the despot penalty fresh water exception to be removed that made me wanna give it another chance. But now I guess with despot penalty off the whole hard coded trait has to go.

 

[Spoonwood]

In a competitive (dif lv where victory isn't guaranteed) non specific victory goal game, the Ag trait is far ahead of any other trait.

You have no meaningful metric by which you can measure how far ahead OR BEHIND the agricultural trait is other traits without any specific victory goals. Your claim about the agricultural trait boils down to your feeling about such, because you have no criteria for judging objectively how well the agricultural trait compares to other traits without game goals. Population or territory? But those can be irrelevant if one finally decides on a game goal that one wants a 20k victory, but it's too late to actually reach 20,000 culture in a city. Or for a mass cultural victory.

Also, a non-specific victory goal game is a game without strategy. Strategy requires a goal.

An AI only match with 7 scientific (an agricultural) tribes on Sid is likely to out-research an AI only match with 7 agricultural (and non-scientific) tribes on Sid. Thus, the agricultural trait is not ahead of other traits for researching the tech tree.

Giving them worse settlers or workers make no thematic sense.

Agricultural tribes have more food. Their settlers and workers end up spending more time preparing food and eating it. Their workers won't do as much work, since they believe that they are good on food since they agricultural. Their settlers are less willing to branch out from home, because they believe that they have more food at home, again, since they have an agricultural practice among them. That sounds like more thematic sense to me, not less.

 

[Spoonwood]

Like you said agricultural tribes are ahead Predator. But, now since I haven't a clue about game goals, how are agricultural ahead? In what respect? With respect to what are agricultural tribes ahead? And how is that being ahead relevant without knowing what matters in the end? And how do we know what matters in the end without goals?

 

[Predator145]

I'm not into balancing my mods for niche goals at a difficulty/set conditions where you're sure you're gonna win. When you're surviving, you try to win with whatever is mostly likely. If you're small and weak, it's likely to be diplo or space. If you're big, Con/Dom may be a choice. But that's up to the flow of the game and your map RNG. Set niche enough goals and fixed conditions and even stock game Portugal looks good. Cultural victory the way the game is designed is not really feasible in a competitive difficulty. It was something Firaxis threw in there as an afterthought.

Ag are ahead in expansion phase and reaching size 12. That's basically the phases where games are clinched. Heck, the whole Exp trait is only helpful during the expansion phase. Food is everything. Food is pop. Pop is shields and commerce. Esp in the hands of the AI. Ag civs stomp the others in inter AI wars so hard from what I've seen recently with the despot penalty off. It's always the Ag civs that are left standing.

I'd say with the despot penalty on and the exception turn off they're pretty balanced with the other traits for general gameplay. You'd need to get out of despotism for the growth bonus to kick in.

I'll play 1 more epic game with the trait and despot penalty off just to see how broken it is in human hands. But based on past experiences playing stock game Ag feeling like I've moved down 1 difficulty I'd say this is a foregone conclusion.

 

[Spoonwood]

If you're small and weak, it's likely to be diplo or space.

??? High quality spaceship games have expansion via conquering for quicker research.

If you're small and weak, it's 20k or diplo.

But that only concerns which victory type feels suitable for a game. I do not expect that your mod will change anything about trade route mechanics, and so far as I can tell, getting all of the AIs techs, gold, and gpt is possible using them. So, with the right sort of strategy and an open mind, all victory conditions are possible no matter the map, unless the AIs decide to declare war on you early before trade routes are setup and have an abundance of free units. The game also got designed so that every game was winnable or the human player could understand why they lost.

Cultural victory the way the game is designed is not really feasible in a competitive difficulty.

There do exist 20k and 100k victories in the HoF on Sid. I left some notes about a 60% pangea Sid game I was playing a while back, where I had a suggestion that 20k would be possible. You may check the save in the comment below the linked one if you wish. A weaker start would make things trickier, but likely even with a weaker start, it's possible to attain a cultural victory on Sid.

The game is designed so that every game is winnable or the human player can understand why they lost, and that includes for cultural victories in Conquests.

Food is everything.

Food is not commerce. The AIs can have so much gold that having food for the human player can be less relevant than food. Food doesn't give you the ability to prebuild (which can be very helpful for 20k games).

 

[Ozymandias]

I think that, in general, the Ag Trait is the most consistently underrated one - Do recall that one of the "4-Xs" is "Expand," which Ag can help with, considerably.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think that, in general, the Ag Trait is the most consistently underrated one - Do recall that one of the "4-Xs" is "Expand," which Ag can help with, considerably.

By new players that may indeed hold. But it is not the most powerful trait in all circumstances or for all victory conditions and there exist a good percentage of exceptions as being the most powerful trait. Greece and Korea can outresearch the Celts in human hands, and for 20k games it's even more clear that agricultural is not the most powerful trait for 20k games.

Horizontal expansion also isn't necessary to win for all levels, as limited city challenges have proved over the years. Civ III does not force such expansion to win. I'm seeing that Civilization gets considered as important example by Wikipedia writers, but even the original Civilization game had a spaceship victory condition, and thus horizontal expansion was not necessary. So much for the "expand" part of 4X. It's not entirely accurate with respect to the game design, even if players usually go about expanding horizontally as much as they can.

 

[timerover51]

I prefer the Seafaring Trait, as I prefer playing on maps with lots of water. Horizontal expansion is not that easy on water maps, depending on the size of the island or small continent that you start on. Then there is locating resources.

 

[Spoonwood]

I prefer the Seafaring Trait, as I prefer playing on maps with lots of water. Horizontal expansion is not that easy on water maps, depending on the size of the island or small continent that you start on. Then there is locating resources.

Yea, that's an interesting point. An agricultural AI with the smallest homeland, can have trouble expanding more than other AIs who have more territory. Do I recall correctly that you have a slower tech pace than classic civ III in your modded games timerover?

 

[Ozymandias]

By new players that may indeed hold. But it is not the most powerful trait in all circumstances or for all victory conditions and there exist a good percentage of exceptions as being the most powerful trait. Greece and Korea can outresearch the Celts in human hands, and for 20k games it's even more clear that agricultural is not the most powerful trait for 20k games.

Horizontal expansion also isn't necessary to win for all levels, as limited city challenges have proved over the years. Civ III does not force such expansion to win. I'm seeing that Civilization gets considered as important example by Wikipedia writers, but even the original Civilization game had a spaceship victory condition, and thus horizontal expansion was not necessary. So much for the "expand" part of 4X. It's not entirely accurate with respect to the game design, even if players usually go about expanding horizontally as much as they can.

If you allow Cities to be built on Hills, I'd beg to disagree. Also, a chap called "Suede" has a YouTube channel worth looking at. His most recent video analyzes a set of Save Games he's been sent: "Ranking your midgame economy on a scale from 1 to 10 | Civ 3." Have a look

 

[timerover51]

Yea, that's an interesting point. An agricultural AI with the smallest homeland, can have trouble expanding more than other AIs who have more territory. Do I recall correctly that you have a slower tech pace than classic civ III in your modded games timerover?

I actually try to speed the tech pace up, but the very large maps that I normally play on slows the tech pace down a bit. I do have several Great and Small Wonders that give two tech advances when built, which does compensate for the very large maps. I have the tech setting set to 4 turns for the fastest tech advance, and generally achieve that as the game progresses. Even with that, with tech trading I normally have two or three of the computer players close behind me. I find that getting through the Industrial Period seems to take forever.

 

[Spoonwood]

If you allow Cities to be built on Hills, I'd beg to disagree.

I have generally had my settlers found cities on hills, especially in spaceship games. I don't see how that makes any difference to the claims I made above. I don't know what part you disagree with, but you quoted two paragraphs, the first of which had something about 20k games. What advantages lie in founding a 20k prospect city on a hill in a 20k game? Hills produce 3 shields when mined for 1 food. Forested grassland produces 2 shields for 1 food. A city with 10 grassland squares and 2 hills has more production potential than a city with 11 or 12 grassland squares. Thus, planting on a hill can mean less production potential. If you have a food bonus or multiple food bonuses planting on a hill even more clearly seems like the weaker choice.

One's economy isn't the tech pace. Nor is it culture. I didn't leave a comment on Suede's video previously. The empires in Suede's videos barely have any gpt, if any gpt, from the AIs. I don't recall any information about what victory condition those players want to play for. I would guess it's domination or conquest. From what I recall, I do agree with most of Suede's tips in that video. But what relevance do they have here?