SCENARIO: Age of Imperialism; 1895-1924, Deluxe Version

[Bogatyr]

Last night I had a dream that El Justo had uploaded the new version. No joke. Is this a sign that madness is setting in?

 

[Elephantium]

I think if I were modifying this scenario, I'd enable trade and change all the Industrial units to be autoproduced by buildings that could only be built "with resource x in city radius".

OTOH, autoproduction has its own problems. I'm not sure I could get the balance on that right.

 

[Bengal Tiger]

I don't think that would work because of
A. Autoproduction means that players cannot control the way they allocate production. Part of the challenge is finding an equilibrium between building units and improvements.

B. What would cities build once all the improvements are built?

C. There wouldn't be much point in increasing the production of a city, as improvements generally are not urgently needed like units can be.

D. It's a lot of hassle to rework, and the benefits of autoproducing certainly don't merit completely changing the wole mechanics of a scenario this developed.

 

[creamcheese]

You could do auto production just for large and powerful units, like armies, battleships, carriers, tanks, or whatever. That way you, and the AI, can't just build 500 battleships and bombard everything to bits. The AI might have a slightly more balanced and realistic naval spread. If you timed it correctly by obsoleting the battleship buildings you could make exactly (or close to) the correct number of each class be built for each civ. You could do this for other types like tanks and whatever as well, but you should probably leave the basic infantry unit producible.

 

[Ranger54]

I'll weigh in on the auto production debate.

The idea of using it to balance the AI, particularly on the naval side, is intriguing. While El Justo has done a fantastic job with ensuring that the AI make somewhat realistic build choices, there seems to be a point in each game were the AI abandons building his navy. Auto producing some of these units would force the player to continue to face an AI naval threat which I think would be a good thing.

To a lesser degree this happens on the air side too. There seems to be a point where the AI no longer builds air units.

One unit type I haven't seen mentioned as a candidate to be auto produced is arty. We all know the value of the massive stack of guns and, while I recognize that once into the Great War, the number of guns employed became huge in reality, in game it almost totally favours the human player. By auto producing these, this advantage could be limited. As well, it might give the AI more Arty to use, though I grant you the AI doesn't know how to use it very well.

I agree that switching totally to auto producing industrial units would not be a good idea, but being selective about it could put a governor on the human player and further address some of the AI's poor build choices.

 

[West 36]

The biggest problems about turning on trade and auto-producing all units is A) the positives of trade are negated as new units can't be created with new resources, save by building more auto-producing buildings and B) the turn times get ridiculously long. Unplayable. This mod has not only gotten around this but excelled into something far better, the lack of trade has set up zones that force the players to plan their empires strategically, and makes the game far more interesting and enjoyable, and so truly one of a kind. This is to the point that trade, which in many other games would be essential for a good experience, here simply would destroy it.

That said, auto-producing ships-fleets even (from more than one building obviously), armies, planes, artillery could actually make the game hugely more interesting and competitive- for the AI. If such buildings weren't capable of being built by the human player, the playing field could leveled a bit in late games. That is if the AI still utilizes the units, which would have to be tested, and surely as it's now August the next version is soon to be out One problem with this is when to allow these buildings to start being built. At the beginning the player would be contained, but if they are allowed to build them then it takes away the trouble of finding a unit building: improvement building balance and would by the middle of the game probably have the player dominating. It's an intriguing thought though, as these could be rather easily worked into the game, it's just a matter of how to use them to the best degree.

 

[Teh Hobo]

I've actually found that if you give all arty(except mountain guns for balance reasons) blitz the AI will actually build and use arty. I my games all the big boys build about 70 field guns and about 10-20 howitzers by the start to the middle of the second era(except the germans who, like the human player, realize that their howitzers are much better than their field guns for not much more) they also use them offensively, albeit in limited fashion, but seeing an AI stack of doom supported by 2-4 guns is pretty neat,especially in the colonial theater, where everyone is pretty much equal a few guns make a big difference. They like building rail guns and use them extensively when you invade, especially the UK they blast enemy ships threatening the home islands with their two or three rail guns. the french usually build 5 or 6. Even the minors will build a few making invading them trickier.
The problem with getting the AI to use guns seems to be that it is programmed to first use it defensively and only once it's defensive needs are met will it use them offensively. But the computer views arty as next to useless with its 0 att and def values, but absolutely loves anything with blitz. So, with its second favorite attribute(the first being hidden nationality), the computer builds enough to fulfill its defensive needs and then starts using it on you. It's actually a little scary when you first see it.
As the the problem of blitz making it easier for the human? Play at a higher level. Admiral or higher, the stacks the computer builds and the hate filled RNG certainly make up for it.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

The idea of using it to balance the AI, particularly on the naval side, is intriguing. While El Justo has done a fantastic job with ensuring that the AI make somewhat realistic build choices, there seems to be a point in each game were the AI abandons building his navy. Auto producing some of these units would force the player to continue to face an AI naval threat which I think would be a good thing.

After it's built 9,001 Battleships and they all sit in Gibraltar? Auto-produced Battleships would be nice, as that way you wouldn't get so many of them stuck doing Convoy duty ... (Seriously, France. We know you like to protect your ships during the 3-turn run from Tunis to Marseille. You don't need 30 obsolete BBs and 10 modern Battleships to do it!).

That said, auto-producing ships-fleets even (from more than one building obviously), armies, planes, artillery could actually make the game hugely more interesting and competitive- for the AI. If such buildings weren't capable of being built by the human player, the playing field could leveled a bit in late games. That is if the AI still utilizes the units, which would have to be tested, and surely as it's now August the next version is soon to be out One problem with this is when to allow these buildings to start being built. At the beginning the player would be contained, but if they are allowed to build them then it takes away the trouble of finding a unit building: improvement building balance and would by the middle of the game probably have the player dominating. It's an intriguing thought though, as these could be rather easily worked into the game, it's just a matter of how to use them to the best degree.

Perhaps a Small Wonder that does the Auto-production? That way the human can't spam the buildings, civs that are landlocked can build them later, civs can't capture multiple buildings to auto-produce more than one ship/whatever at a time, and the construction location can be moved if desired. For example, something for Battleships might be ...
No BBs can be built, at all.
With the first BB tech of the Age, a Small Wonder is available that Auto-produces the *first* BB available in that Age. As the civ gets BB advances, the BBs can be upgraded, but the SW only produces the basic BB.
With the second BB tech of the Age, the SW from the *previous* Age is obsoleted, so for a time, a civ can have two SWs auto-producing ships, although one will still be producing obsolete ships.
Only the Auto-Produced BBs can upgrade, but the cost for Upgrading is 0 - this is to (hopefully) induce the AI to upgrade its basic vessels (as it will upgrade the King BB units if it gets the chance) and to prevent the Human from upgrading all its BBs continuously, forcing them to decide how obsolete they want their BB fleet.

I'm not sure how workable that actually is (it seems simple enough to me, albeit long and boring to get done), but something like that ought to work.

Not that I expect anything to be made of it officially.

I've actually found that if you give all arty(except mountain guns for balance reasons) blitz the AI will actually build and use arty.

It's been brought up before, tested, and rejected by El Justo.

I my games all the big boys build about 70 field guns and about 10-20 howitzers by the start to the middle of the second era(except the germans who, like the human player, realize that their howitzers are much better than their field guns for not much more) they also use them offensively, albeit in limited fashion, but seeing an AI stack of doom supported by 2-4 guns is pretty neat,especially in the colonial theater, where everyone is pretty much equal a few guns make a big difference.

Stack of Doom with only 4 guns? And I haven't found "a few guns" to make much of a difference at all, unless you're Germany and get excellent Howitzers to blow up everything. Ten is the minimum I've found to achive anything like a reasonable difference in time to conquer, as anything less than that and you fail to consistently ping enough defenders to prevent most of them from healing enough damage to make a difference, especially if you're stuck with piddling 1-RoF guns.

The problem with getting the AI to use guns seems to be that it is programmed to first use it defensively and only once it's defensive needs are met will it use them offensively. But the computer views arty as next to useless with its 0 att and def values, but absolutely loves anything with blitz.

Strangely, I've seen France, Germany, and the Boers build and use artillery offensively in Africa, although not terribly well. They'll send a stack of 3-4 units along with an Artillery Unit and randomly ping units or cities. I did once see the Boers park a Howitzer and two Field Guns outside a German city and consistently Bombard the city, though. (This on Lieutenant Difficulty, IIRC)

 

[eazyhasaids]

The biggest problem with autoproduction is that all of the building slots are used up. el justo already had to remove a few dummy wonders to add in some new buildings for the update so it might be a challenge to find more replaceable buildings.

 

[creamcheese]

The biggest problem with autoproduction is that all of the building slots are used up. el justo already had to remove a few dummy wonders to add in some new buildings for the update so it might be a challenge to find more replaceable buildings.

You could just remove most/all of the dummy wonders. With the no raze patch you do not need them. Although they are all individually done and add some character, I could stomach their loss.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

That would weaken quite a few cities, though, as some of the Dummies give nice bonuses (Double City Defense and Production Increase in particular).

 

[Bogatyr]

El Justo: Hope your summer is going well. Just curious to know how your game is going (if you've had time to play it much!). Is Spain doing any better than usual with the two troublesome mini-civs removed from its best colonies? Or are the new insurgents just as tough to deal with? How is Central Asia unfolding now that the Tsar no longer has direct access? Any major differences in the Far East with Japanese-occupied Korea cut off from eastern Russia but with access to the Middle Kingdom?

Bengal Tiger: Just noticed you live in Toronto. Me too! (Broadview/Danforth area.)

 

[creamcheese]

That would weaken quite a few cities, though, as some of the Dummies give nice bonuses (Double City Defense and Production Increase in particular).

You can work on that in other ways if necessary. Put cities on hills, give more bonus production terrain, etc. You could also leave in a few key ones if you had space after Autoprod wonders.

Am I correct in assuming that you can make an auto production small wonder with multiple units for different civs and that the civ will spawn only their own unit type? You could have like "Early predreadnought shipyard", and "predread shipyard", and "late predread", etc. That would limit your ability to do civ-specific build times, but you could have unique ones for a few civs with exceptionally large (or small) production of BBs in that time period.

on the topic of city-specific buildings, I seem to remember losing a lot of troops to a bunch of redlined russian infantry at warsaw, then I looked at it's wonder, and realized it was across a river and a size 2. :[ ... I brought more troops next time.

 

[El Justo]

hi all. been keeping up with all the cool posts. thanks for sharing everyone. i've been kinda busy with my summer jobs (i help run a catering co. in the summer for some family friends). the good news is that i just got a new pc tower for my home office. it is a beast. i've been setting it up and installing software over the last 24 hours or so. no data loss or anything on the old pc. it was just that, real old. 2002 to be exact. so this will be a nice upgrade and it should run civ3 real well.

re altering the autoproduction - it would have a ripple effect that would be hard to curb imo. i'm currently maxed out on buildings. there are a handful of dummy wonders and those city wonders left over. but it was getting difficult to pick existing buildings to nick off when i put in those new wonders earlier in the summer. anyhow, i'm still shooting for an end of august/early sept e=release despite there being a few things to still do. can't guarantee that it will all be fully polished since the man hours for testing was so limited this time around. i'll try to get done as much as possible and certainly the game related items and release it most likely in an 'as is' mode. it won't be so bad though. i did manage to get pretty deep with that belgium game. debug mode coupled with all the alliances in the second era really bogged it down for me though. i will start over with someone else and this will probably be the final test, knock on wood

 

[El Justo]

update: just fired up what i hope is the last test run before release my new quad core processor is, in a word , a beast. i flipped off debug and it absolutely hummed. not sure what types of processors you folks have in your PCs...but what they're making in 2011 is just insane for the civ3 game engine

 

[Bengal Tiger]

Is the ETA before August? This will keep me occupied until CoD Modern Warfare 3 comes out, for sure.

 

[El Justo]

my goal all summer has been by Labor Day. don't hold me to it though just thinking 'out loud'

 

[El Justo]

quick update: more test runs in the new game with Portugal tonight. DEBUG has been shut off. IBT times in 1900: average of 27 seconds this is so super appealing to me also, Tsar Nikolai was kind enough to volunteer his time and efforts to finish off the remaining civp entries that needed to be drafted. i just need to paste it all into place. quad processors rule btw

 

[creamcheese]

my new quad core processor is, in a word , a beast. i flipped off debug and it absolutely hummed. not sure what types of processors you folks have in your PCs...but what they're making in 2011 is just insane for the civ3 game engine

I really think I need a new computer now, I am running a 1.2GHz with 1gig of RAM... Maybe the new version of AoI will get me off my ass and down to Fry's.

 

[Timelord]

quad processors rule btw

Go ahead and rub it in those of us who have less will just have to muddle along