Tech Tree Building

[CivOasis]

Ok, so I generally play with one particular mod, More Units (which is not on the forums, just the modbrowser). In short, this mod allows for drastically faster (approx. 4X on marathon) production of everything but settlers, by reducing unit production and maintenance cost. In other words, marathon becomes more fun, because you can march an actual army within a millenia.

However, I noticed an issue with this mod: apparently, the AI has a drastic preference for building units, so their economy takes a massive hit, and thus, so does their science production. Therefore, a human player can gain a 2-3 era lead on the AI, which isn't too much fun (its bad enough to be the runaway civ in Vanilla, because wars become far too easy).

I know that techs can be locked until a certain event occurs (evidence: Spatz's mod).
Is it possible to lock techs until a certain year(turn) is reached? My solution would be to lock the techs for each era until a certain turn, and provide an extra repeatable tech off to the side for players who complete the era early. It's not elegant, but it is slightly better than what I'm dealing with now.

Any ideas on how to do this?

 

[Spatzimaus]

Any ideas on how to do this?

Not play with a mod that makes massive balance changes without going through all of the implications?

However, I noticed an issue with this mod: apparently, the AI has a drastic preference for building units, so their economy takes a massive hit, and thus, so does their science production.

While I've never played that mod, I can guess what's happening. The AI has decision points whenever the build queue empties; it doesn't plan ahead. At those points, it creates a list of potential choices for the next thing to be built; anything that'll take less than 50 turns to complete (on Standard) goes onto that list. It'll pick one, with probabilities based on the Flavor ratings, and build that.

So if you drastically reduce unit production costs, then it'll come to that decision point much more often. It's not that he, at any given point, prefers making a unit (unless that mod changes the Flavors so that it will), but it's just getting the opportunity more often, and so is building far more units.

If unit maintentance is killing you, then the easiest way to fix this is to just change the unit maintenance cost equation. By default it's

Unit maintenance: c(t,n) = ((j/100 + m/1000 t) round(n,2))^(1 + 2/(1000*d) t)

where j = INITIAL_GOLD_PER_UNIT_TIMES_100, m = UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_MULTIPLIER, d = UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_EXPONENT_DIVISOR, n = number of units, t = number of turns

The variables in capital letters are all in the GlobalDefines file. So just divide j and m by a large factor. Note, though, that the exponential part means that you can't just make a constant factor and have the problem disappear; it WILL break eventually.

Alternatively, if you know the problem is that the AI produces far too many units, then you can adjust the city specialization AIs' thresholds, to where it won't WANT to make so many. But that's a bit more work.

I know that techs can be locked until a certain event occurs (evidence: Spatz's mod).

Do NOT use my mod as an example of how to structure something like this. To lock ONE TECH, I had to add a tremendous block of Lua event code. Granted, a lot of that code hinges around what comes after you get it, but that's mostly window dressing for the real problem, which goes as follows:
1> The only way to prevent someone from researching a tech through the normal process is to apply the <Disabled> flag. (Conveniently, this also disables the ability to gain the tech through Research Agreements, Great Scientists, wonders that give free techs, and so on.)
2> Minor Civs and Barbarians can steal the tech once any major civ knows it, without restriction, so once one player gets it they can.
3> The AI will have no clue why his preferred tech is unavailable, and can get stuck in some really screwy loops otherwise.

My solution would be to lock the techs for each era until a certain turn, and provide an extra repeatable tech off to the side for players who complete the era early

It'd take a tremendous amount of work, the AI would freak out (since it can't easily be told NOT to keep researching that repeatable tech once the next era unlocks), the player could easily metagame the situation to take advantage of the AI's many failures, and your tech tree would look horrible.

 

[CivOasis]

Ok, so tech tree deal= bad idea.
As for the AI's economy, my main goal is that, I enjoy the mod (because you can actually fight wars in marathon) and it isn't AS broken/unbalanced as others made for a similar purpose. Frankly, I would like to up the AI's GPT so that they aren't all dependent on my civ for tech advancement.
Is the maintenance cost equation the best way to do this?
I don't think I can tell them to stop building units, because the only other options are the "research" and "wealth" bars, and I suspect the AI doesn't know how to use those.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Ok, so tech tree deal= bad idea.

No, decent idea, just not feasible with the tools we currently have. We just need a Lua Event (or the DLL) that lets us change the Disabled flag on the fly. Do that, and a lot of the issues I mentioned above go away. But until then, it's just not really possible to do well.

But I still think you're going at this a bit backwards, in that you're trying to force the player to move at the AI's research speed, instead of figuring out ways to make the AI do better and keep up with the player.

Frankly, I would like to up the AI's GPT so that they aren't all dependent on my civ for tech advancement.
Is the maintenance cost equation the best way to do this?

It's one solution, but there are others. The real question is, why aren't YOU going bankrupt? Do you just not build units, do you prioritize financial buildings, do you settle your Great Merchants to make Customs Houses, do you take financial Policies?

Once you know what's different between you and them, THEN you can fix the problem. Maybe you'll have to raise the flavor ratings on the financial buildings, so that the AI is more likely to build those ASAP (like you would). Maybe you need to change a couple policies so that trees the AIs often go for first but you wouldn't take until later (Patronage, Honor) add a bit of gold. Maybe you need to change the tile yield of the Customs House. Maybe you need to change how combat works so that that massive army the AI builds actually is good enough to roll over your tiny-but-cheap army.

But yes, I'd start with the unit maintenance costs. If he's building that many units, then the costs will be killing him.

I don't think I can tell them to stop building units, because the only other options are the "research" and "wealth" bars, and I suspect the AI doesn't know how to use those.

There are more options than that. If he's building a huge number of units, then chances are he hasn't fully developed his city's infrastructures. If he HAS done that, then it means you could have done the same and YOU'VE been sitting on the Research and Wealth options. But even so, that's not necessarily a bad thing; using Wealth in some cities to offset crippling unit costs has a long and glorious history in Civ games.

 

[CivOasis]

Ok, so, now that I am getting this a little better, I'll explain what I've been doing:
First off, as soon as I see currency available, I go for that, so that I have the "currency" option (and can stop building armies).
I generally found all of my cities very early in the game, so I can fully develop them, and, if there is a resource I don't have, I'll buy cities from the AI and puppet them before I found a new one.
I think that one of the biggest differences is that I spam wonders instantly, so, while I might miss 3-4 early wonders, the ones I do build end up giving me a massive boost, in GP, culture, and the bonuses those wonders provide. They can stack pretty high..
Unless I have an important wonder first, I completely develop my cities. I think that I focus on a developed, wide empire, with little military, gives me a massive economic and research boost.
I don't declare or jump into wars unless one of two conditions is satisfied: Either its ancient era, and they share a continent with me, or its very late game, when I have an advantage no one can overcome.
I'll trade my resources (even strategic), and lump sums of gold, but never gpt.
Sometimes, I play isolationist, so that no one gets ticked at me early game.
And so on, and so forth.

I think the major differences are:
A) I get all the wonders (and thus, more policies)
B) You're correct- both my civ and the AI's are completely infrastructred, but I sit on GPT and research instead of building more units. So, I can end up with net 1000+ gold, but the AI can end up -30 to -100 per turn.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Honestly, it sounds like you really need to be playing on a higher difficulty level, because the strategy you describe should be failing miserably. Things like:

First off, as soon as I see currency available, I go for that, so that I have the "currency" option (and can stop building armies).
I'll buy cities from the AI and puppet them before I found a new one.
I don't declare or jump into wars unless one of two conditions is satisfied:

On higher difficulty levels, the AIs will declare on YOU if your army is too weak. If you've been building Wonders ASAP, then your army is definitely too weak, so you should be getting declared on constantly. Being isolationist isn't an option, and so you can never truly stop building/upgrading armies.
Also, on higher difficulty levels, the AI won't generally sell you cities at all.
Also, on higher difficulty levels the AIs get extra starting techs, require fewer beakers to reach a new tech, and require fewer hammers to build buildings and Wonders. The combination of these factors mean that you won't be winning many Wonder races; in most cases, you'll be lucky to even unlock a tech before an AI completes the wonder at that tech.

So unless you're seeing this happen on Immortal or higher, then you need to jack up the difficulty a couple notches. And if this IS happening even on Immortal, then something (like that unit maintenance issue) has horribly crippled the AI and needs to be fixed directly.

 

[CivOasis]

Ok, I'd been playing at King.

 

[Spatzimaus]

King shouldn't be THAT nice to the player, so it really sounds like the money issue is crippling the AI, causing science penalties and an inability to rush buildings. Just for one game, try dropping the maintenance costs by a factor of 10 or so, and see if you can still win Wonder races and such. If you're still getting all the Wonders, then yes, go to a higher difficulty. But if they're now wiping the floor with you, then you know the gold issue is the problem.

 

[CivOasis]

I just pulled it up to Emperor. It appears to have fixed their economy and wonder production, at the least.