Suggested EXISTING rule edits to improve realism or gameplay.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Steph
I almost forgot something. The cost. The shield cost should be lower than it is in civ III (4 turns to build a knight? That means 100 years!). My goal is basically to have the units, except settlers, buildable in one turn (for a normally developped city), except for tanks, planes, small ships (they will need 2 turns), and bigger ships (3 turns).
However, every units will cost population:
- For infantry / cavalry : 1 point if the unit has 1 HP, 2 if it has 2 HP, 3 if it has 3 or 4 HP.
- For chariot / armor : usually 2 points
- For planes and ships : 1 point.
The upkeep cost will also be a lot higher.

So this means you will be able to build your army rather fast, but:
- It will take a big toll on your population
- It will be very expensive to maintain.
So, how to solve it?
First, build your army to the limit of free maintenance for protection. When you need to attack, build fast a new army, fight short wars, and when the war is over, go back to the cities, and... join it! Every unit will have the join city command, to represent demobilization.

I also plan to use munits :
- For ancient infantry : 2 figures for 1 HP units, 3-4 figures for 2 HP units, 5-6 figures for 3 or 4 HP units.
- For modern infantry : 2 figures for 1 HP units, 3 figures for 2 or 3 HP units, 4 figures for 3 or 4 HP units.
- For cavalry: 2 figures for 1 HP units, 3 figures for others
- For tanks, planes : 2 figures
- For ship : 1 figure

Great idea, but what happens to factories?

 

[Jaybe]

Variations on this have been mentioned before, but:

Pike: 3/3/1
Musket: 3/4/1
Musketeer: 4/4/1
Rifle: 6/6/1
Infantry: 8/10/1

(various unit upgrade paths changed to accomodate, e.g., Hoplite & Sword to Pike)

Higher off. strengths offset by:
Fortify: 50% Def. bonus
River: 50% Def. bonus

Knights & Cavalry dominate their eras too much and "brittle", so Hit Points: -1

Elite experience: 6 HP instead of 5

(Works well; cavalry is fragile but if Elite it's okay. Infantry types can engage each other decently unless the defender is fortified. (Napoleonic and ACW were mainly infantry affairs))

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by zulu9812


Great idea, but what happens to factories?

The cost of armor / ships / aircraft will be lower than in civ, so you can build them in 2 turns, but it will also be a lot higher than a warrior!

So factories are still necessary if you want te be able to build an army soon.

If I could, I would make them really mandatory (no armor without an armor factory!). But the editor doesn't allow to make building prerequesite of units

 

[zulu9812]

So troops will cost X amount of shields (but lower than current civ cost) + X amount of population points?

 

[Kal-el]

There are a few concerns that I have about that suggestion, Steph.

1) Unless you have improvements at a similar cheep production cost the AI will not build improvements. The AI bases its production decisions on cost, cost and cost. If the units are all cheep enough to build in 1 turn (not possible in the early game unless they have cost 0 shields) and an improvement will take 2 turns the AI will tend to build the unit.

2) Population Costs A: I have a feeling you will see the AI kill itself. It doesn’t really plan long term and will continue to build units until all its cities are at population 1 and it can’t build units anymore.

3) Population Cost B: The AI will not know how to reincorporate its units into its cities when the war is over. I am guessing (though it’s a pretty educated guess) that it needs either the worker or settler AI strategy in order to “join city”. It’s a similar situation to giving units individual worker jobs. It works well for the human player but the AI just doesn’t know what to do with it.

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by zulu9812
So troops will cost X amount of shields (but lower than current civ cost) + X amount of population points?

That's it, except it will X shields + Y population points

 

[Steph]

I'm not sure the computer base everything on cost, or it would never build wonders.

Beside, given the very poor AI with have (not using artillery, aircraft carrier, etc), I have one answer: multiplayer!

My mod is mainly dedicated to hard core player who want more realism, and are ready for long games agaisnt human opponents.

Personnally, I play hotseats game, alone.

 

[Kal-el]

Originally posted by Steph
I'm not sure the computer base everything on cost, or it would never build wonders.

It was a slight exageration, but it does use cost as a major factor when deciding between Units and Improvements. I think it treats Wonders a bit differently.

Personnally, I play hotseats game, alone.

Beautiful!

 

[Kal-el]

I was having a problem in my mod with the AI building units at the expense of building improvements. I took the question to Soren Johnson, the Civ3 AI programmer, and here are his responses. Strait from the horses mouth.

original email from Soren Johnson
Hmmm... I'm not sure what the answer would be off-hand. Certainly you don't mean that the AI has stopped creating buildings entirely, do you? Because the AI does construct buildings in the standard version, so unless you over powered the units, I'm not sure why the AI would stop choosing buildings.

One thing to note is that the Culture and Production flags only apply to buildings with either positive culture or a shield bonus. Other important buildings (such as a Marketplace) would be excluded. I should also add that I noticed you had the "Build Offensive Unit" flag checked for a number of civs. You might want to turn that off.

Cool mod, btw...

Soren

...

Ah, that must be the problem... the Ai is not building buildings because they cost too many shields... there is a heavy weight against buildings/units according to how many turns it takes to build them. Presumably, these Theocracy cities have only a handful of shields, and the buildings would just take too long.

The favored/disliked government setting is really a minor factor... sort of a "all other things being equal..."

 

[Kal-el]

originally posted by hr_oskar
In a stack containing various types of bombard units, how does the game select which unit will give bombard support, considering that only one can bombard per combat?

That is a really good question and should be tested.

 

[pdescobar]

Well, in my experience, the best defender at the time always defends; "Best defender" being a combination of defense strength and hitpoints and possibly movement (to prevent retreat.) As for who bombards defensively, my guess is that the "best bombarder" of the other units in the stack bombards although I'm not sure how the firepower or AI strategty factor in as I haven't tested this rigorously. Note that while a given unit can defend multiple times in a turn, a unit can only defensively bombard once so with each successive attack the number of potential bombarders drops regardless of how effective the attack is.

 

[Kal-el]

Originally posted by Kryten
Boring Barbarian Boats
----------------------
Are you like me?
Do you ignore Barbarian Galleys?
Do you just watch them sailing helplessly up and down your coast while you colonise inland?
Well, we can change that.
Download Lab Monkey’s “Barbarian Galley”, only allow the barbarians to use it, give it the same stats as a normal Galley, but in addition give it a bombardment of 1 or 2 with a range of 1.
Now you will find those useless, impotent, harmless barbarians bombarding your coastal irrigation and roads….just as if pirates had landed, plundered, and then retreated back to their ships!
You now have three choices:-
* Don’t build terrain improvements on the coast....
* Put up with their raids and keep rebuilding the damage....
* Or build a fleet and sweep them from the sea.
(That should give you something else to worry about! )

This is a great idea, so simple, yet such a beautiful change that could have a huge impact on player strategy.

 

[pdescobar]

Originally posted by Kryten
Impassable Terrain And Its Effects On the Game
---------------------------------------------------
I have found that making mountains impassable has a wonderful effect on the game, making it far more realistic, challenging and visually appealing.
If anyone is interested, then a full discussion of the effects can be found here….
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49121
....and there is a small downloadable mod on page 9 of this thread if you want to give it a try.

A user posed an interesting question about this in the GD forum and, since I consider this a more appropriate place to discuss it than the settler wagon thread, I'm using it as an excuse to bump this thread. Basicly, his question was, if mountains (or another terrain) are completely impassable, will they still be hit by pollution and, if so, is there anything you can do about it? I would guess that the answers are yes and no respectively but I'd like to hear from someone who has actually tried this modification.

 

[Mithadan]

I still play Vanilla Civ (will get PTW eventually, maybe for my ber-day), so I can't make seas and oceans "impassable to wheeled," make Galleys wheeled, and then keep 'em all jammed up in coastal waters.

Accidentally, I found another way around. Make the Galley carry only Foot Units, and don't flag the Settler a foot unit (apparently, they aren't flagged as such normally).

So AI Galleys can go wherever they like, but no Settlers get carried on them (neither wheeled nor mounted units either, which was my original intention anyway). All those little choice Islands out there don't get settled until AI discovers Caravels etc.

Course I got choked when I tried to settle one of those little Islands with my Galley daring the high seas, cuz I couldn't load my Settler onto the ship! Hence my discovery...

...course somebody might have already thought of this already.

 

[Hunter]

Originally posted by Kal-el

3) Population Cost B: The AI will not know how to reincorporate its units into its cities when the war is over. I am guessing (though it’s a pretty educated guess) that it needs either the worker or settler AI strategy in order to “join city”. It’s a similar situation to giving units individual worker jobs. It works well for the human player but the AI just doesn’t know what to do with it.

One thing I have found is that the AI often just disbands its workers without rejoining the cities so I think you are very right about this however the idea is great.

@Kryten
I love your “Barbarian Galley” idea thanks.

@anyone
I also was wondering (even though I already know what the ancer will be) if you can increase the maintenance cost of just ONE unit?

 

[Kal-el]

on that maintenance thing, no and yes. No in general, but you could if you made all the other units maintenance free and only that unit cost maintenance. I am sure you don't want to do that, but it is possible that way.

 

[_Impreza_]

ok ok i say, Minimum tech cost should be 10, and maximum 40.
This is so thatya can have some very intreresting tech siuation, this is so thatya dont get jet fighters in 1900 1600.
Maintenence costs, cough i hate this it depends how ya translate the unit, eg, 1 inf=10,000 then i mean ya can raise maintence to high but if it was say 1inf=5000 then this would logically be lower.
Money: Every Reource or luxury should have commerce, this increases the realism of it and makes more money available therefore in the game.
Barbarians, i think that barbarians should be raised to the most destructive level it can therefore thenya dont get too many units for the computer as they will be destroyed by barbarians.
ok ok, if you play the game in years then i think ya should eb thinking of updating unit costs, on a world map this means it takes me a year to move one cannon 1 square, this should be thought of aswell. Butya know playablity needs to be there but realism should be the priority and i am pleased firaxis are rethinking civ.

 

[Kal-el]

I really like the idea of some units being able to fortify and other not, but I am concerned with how the AI will react. What does the AI do with all its units that can't foritfy? Do they "hit the space bar" too when they don't want to move that tank? Or do they end up moving it simply because they can't fortify it?

Another concern is the added length of each turn.

 

[Kal-el]

Regardless, I just emailed Mike B. and let him know about this idea and the problems involved. Hopefully he will get back to me with a positive response.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by pdescobar
A user posed an interesting question about this in the GD forum and, since I consider this a more appropriate place to discuss it than the settler wagon thread, I'm using it as an excuse to bump this thread. Basicly, his question was, if mountains (or another terrain) are completely impassable, will they still be hit by pollution and, if so, is there anything you can do about it? I would guess that the answers are yes and no respectively but I'd like to hear from someone who has actually tried this modification.

Well, unlike Civ2, pollution tiles do NOT add to ‘Global Warming’; their only function is to make tiles unusable.
And if mountains are impassable to ALL units, then of course workers will not be able to enter them in order to clean it up.
But is this a bad thing?

After all, in the real world mines do become depleted, and gold veins do eventually run out.
But in Civ3, bonus resources are never depleted, and mountain tiles are eternally viable.
Couldn’t pollution that cannot be cleared in mountain tiles represent old non-profitable workings that have ceased to be useful?
And if you are unlucky enough to have pollution on a gold resource, then just assume that the vein has run out!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but personally I HATE the look of that bright orange stuff....it looks like the creeping red weed that the Martians spread in H.G. Well’s ‘War of the Worlds’ novel!
So I have changed it’s colour by exporting and importing the ruins palette, and then changed all references of ‘Pollution’ in the Civ3 text tiles to ‘Debris & Waste’.
(There would be a lot of ‘Debris’ and rubble after a nuclear attack, and ‘Waste’ can mean industrial waste, or human waste, or just about ANY kind of waste that you can think of)
Later Edit: That clever old turnip....I mean Swede! .....mrtn has already made some very nice 'wasteland' alternative pollution graphics, based on the ToT version.
It can be found here:-
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41745

Hmmm....I’ve just had another cunning plan.......

Rebellions, Revolts And Natural Disasters
--------------------------------------
Many people have said in the past that they wished that cities could suffer from rebellions.
Sadly, this is not possible in Civ3 (shame!)....or is it?
There MAY be a way of simulating a city revolt.

* Change all references of ‘Pollution’ to ‘Debris & Waste’….
* Change the colour from bright orange to something more brownish....
* Change the wording of the ‘Nuclear Meltdown’ message in the script text file....
* Lastly (and here is the clever bit), tick the ‘can explode or meltdown’ flag for EVERY building in the game....even the Palace!

The result is realistic, historical, and looks like this….

Now the effects of a ‘revolt’ are quite limited: units are unaffected, building are also unaffected, so all that happens is the population is halved and the surrounding tiles become unusable (until they are cleared up that is).
Also, it is fairly easy to avoid if you micro-manage each city so that it never goes into disorder.
(But imagine what could happen during periods of anarchy following a change of government....lots of city rebellions like this could simulate a civil war )

“But won’t these rebellions affect Global Warming” I hear you ask.
Yes, they would. But is that a bad thing? Here’s where the ‘Natural Disaster’ part comes in.
Many ancient civilisations, especially in Meso-America, declined and fell due to climate change.
In fact, there is evidence that many of the great barbarian migrations throughout history were due to climate change.
And Egypt & North Africa had a far milder climate in the past than they have now days (Rome used to get the bulk of her wheat from these areas).
The Sahara Desert for example has been growing for thousands of years....and is still growing today.
So just assume that it is due to unpredictable random climate change.

(All this would give you even more things to worry about during a game! )