TETurkhan Test of Time (Map & Mod)

[spork]

Tet's list of proposed changes looks great - those are very ambitious but important improvements.

About the question of declining cultures: I like the idea of disease/plague, as mentioned on the list. Half-jokingly, I suggested the possibility of a dark age, as a mirror-image of the golden age. One way to implement it would be with a civ-specific dark-age government which stifles commerce, production and happiness for 20 turns or so. The onset conditions for the dark age might be very specific, so for example, Spain's dark age might come with England's discovery of Astronomy, and Rome's dark age might come with Monotheism, provided that they control at least 8 cities at this point (no reason to knock them down if they're not a proper empire). Of course, I bet the editor won't allow complex onset conditions like this one. If something like this is possible, I think it's worth taking a half-serious look at it.

PS: Sorry about my MIA - I got very busy... Might not be able to play-test until a 2.0RC comes out.

 

[yoan]

Ey these are a good Idea! Disease, plagues, Dark Ages... But I'll prefer not to relate a Dark Age with the discoveries of other civilizations. I prefer start a Dark Age after loosing many power in only a few turns... Really, Spanish Dark Age comes with loosing la "Gran Armada" against England, not because they discovered astronomy! )
What do you think?

 

[Taurendil]

Originally posted by Keith Larson
If these solutions to the China/India problem do not work I suggest that you drop or lower the free support of units for additional cities and raise the support cost of units. By raising the support cost of units large standing armies become a drain on research and happiness. The effect of this would be that the larger an empire got, the more expensive to becomes to defend. This might also simulate the boom and bust pattern we see throughout history.

This suggestion from Keith seems to have passed almost unnoticed, but i believe it is a brilliant idea. This might effectively solve the problem with civs getting too big when they get their Unique/Religious Unit. Suppose, for example, that the first 20 units require no upkeep. Having town, cities and metros gives no free units, or very little. Every surplus unit costs quite severe upkeep, maybe 2 in monarchy/communism and 4-5 in republic/democracy. Very large empires would suddenly find it hard to defend their territory, let alone fight a war abroad. This would probably cost large AI empires vast amounts of money, slowing their tech rate. No longer would every tech be discovered first by China or India. Another step forwards for realism. This technique would ofcourse require every unit to cost upkeep. Having free upkeep unique units would really mess this system up big time.

 

[Moulton]

Are you suggesting that we try to keep the AI (and the human) from running a world conquering campaign? IE, make it too difficult to win by conquest or domination?
As Rome, I have pretty much the Roman Empire of 44 BC -- Carthage, Egypt, Levant, Asia Minor, Greece and all Gaul. My army is reaally too large, and costs too much to maintain. But it grew largely in response to constant AI threat on all sides.With this much territory, I have to maintain troops at all borders -- it takes too long to cross (5 or 6 turns). The Ai has stayed at war with each other the whole game, and usually someone plus their allies are at war with me. No country has grown large enough to maintain a large standing army (but me), and I have done nothing to impede civs outside my territory. Russia is a nothing power. Turks have invaded 3 times, and I just turn them back.
No AI has a large army, they just keep attacking in 2's and 3's -- and losing them. Unless someone does finally grow, no civ has the possibility of conquering this world. Several have tech equal to mine, so the space race is possible. the UN is possible. Since the AI spends all its income on tech and armies, I will probably win by culture, by default--not my goal.
In this game no civ has enough units to fear additional maintenance. There is no unsettled territory except Australia.

 

[Taurendil]

Many people have reported different observations Moulton. In almost every game some nation seems to conquer most of the world, sometimes it's China, sometimes the Turks and as it was in my last game, the Indians. I'm sure you remember Spork's posts where he tells the story of conquering most of the world in no time as the Romans, largely due to his legions being cheap to build and costing no upkeep.

 

[anarres]

I would hate to see the AI 'free unit' costs decreased.

Already the mod playes like a vanilla Monarch game on Deity. Please don't do anything to make it even easier for the human.

 

[Moulton]

I did not mean to make it easier for the human.... far from that. I have to large an army, and it costs me too much for upkeep -- not because the cost is too high, but because I built too many. Looks like I am being charged maintenance for legions as well as other units... and I should be. I have read the reports of AI civs overrunning the world, especially China and India, but in 3 games (yes, 3 is not many, but it takes weeks per game) it has not happened to me. Maybe I let my empire grow too large, and unduly restrict the free flow of the AI. After all, my goal is not to win, but to test gameplay.
The difficulties I see at this point, is that infrastructure costs too much in relation to military units, and the AI has no place to plant its settlers, which it is required to build.
Since I have never played at this level before -- was just beginning to master Monarch when I came to this -- maybe continuous war is common at diety. But it looks to me like the AI spends far too much of its resouerces on war, and their infrastructure and research suffers. I took tech lead with Engineering -- with research at 0, one citizen scientist. Maybe if a civ gets a lucky break and expands its territory so as to have a large economic base, it gets ahead of the curve, and takes the rest of the world.

I would not want maintenance costs decreased, but would be leary of making them too high. if we make them high enough to PREVENT a large empire, then we eliminate a possible goal.

Mind, I have limited myself to the empire size as it is-- 41 cities--and this may be too large. I do have cathedrals in all Cities, and coloseums in most. But the AI is just now building cathedrals and universities, and only a few of them. I think maybe if the building cost were less in comparison to unit cost, AI would build up more, and fight less.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Some input-

If you were to make goverments for the "fall" of civs, then it wouldn't be completely balanced. The player of course wouldn't choose these goverments because he or she knows that they are bad. The idea of a Dark Age is a good one IMO, perhaps someone could contact Firaxis(Atari?) about it. Or it might be implemented with the so-called "improved editor" Conquests boasts about.

 

[Nder]

I think the idea is to make a government that is better than the contemporary governments, and the rising civ is the only one that gets that, but then when its time for that civ to fall all the other civs get a government that's even better. So, it is in the players best interest to get into the good government as soon as they can, but then they have to ride out the storm while everyone else gets access to a government that's even better.

Its sort of like the ruling party holding on too long while everybody else is moving into more progressive forms of government.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Sorry, I thought the idea was to (example) give Rome a government in about the 400 AD era where it would be worse than everyone else.

 

[Bobisback]

Good idea but for 31 civs thats alot of governments, and alot of work to.

 

[Nder]

I assume that some civs would double up on the governments.

So, for example we have Civs A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J

and we have governments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10

game starts:
B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J are in government 1
A is in government 2
several turns pass:
B and C get access to government 2
several turns pass:
D, E, F, G, H, I, and J
get access to government 3
several turns pass:
D gets access to government 4
A gets access to government 3
several turns pass:
C gets access to government 3
A, B, E, F, G, H, I, and J get access to government 5
several turns pass:
E gets access to government 6
several turns pass:
F gets access to government 6
C gets access to government 5
several turns pass:
A, B, C, D, G, H, I, and J get access to government 7
several turns pass:
G gets access to government 8
several turns pass:
A, B, C, D, E, F, H, I, and J get access to government 9
several turns pass:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J all get access to government 10


Something like that.

 

[Bobisback]

Well I guess that makes sense.

 

[TETurkhan]

The variance in benefits provided by each government has to be substantial enough from one another otherwise it will not make an impact. If the aim here was merely to add 10 governments each with a slight benefit over the previous then no problem, but what we are aiming to do here is create such a difference that it results in a dramatic decline for a particular Civ. Consider if there were 10 levels/types of government – each level/type would have to be considerably advanced than the preceding one. Let’s say double in order to ensure it will make a dent in the game. 10 levels/types of government, meaning that the level 10 government would be 512 times better than the level 1 government. That’s insane.

One way to get around it is to have a “fall” government specific to that Civ. While everyone else has the government of the times – the Civ that we want to push into decline has to make due with a different less efficient version of the same type of government. Then we can add in units in the mix – Units can be used as they are now to bring on the rise of certain Civs. This rise with units and fall with governments could work but there are a few key concerns.

• The AI seldom grasps such intricate concepts.
• The government types will play an insanely huge factor in how the game turns out – with the ladder types of government being over 500 times better than earlier ones.
• In the chart below, a Unique Unit (UU) indicates the rise of a certain Civ. It is when a Civ enters into its golden age. The stats for unique units are adjusted according to the historical impact of that particular Civ. As with all units UU will also become obsolete with the discovery of a certain tech and thus upgraded or disbanded. Problem is AI does this without hesitation where the human player holds off – prolonging the units function. The way to get around this would be to follow the government concept but that kind of variance based on game play rather than realism will result in extremely exaggerated unit stats. The chart below could also be used to demonstrate how high unit stats could get.

Chart is below - under Moulton's post...

 

[Moulton]

Thinking out loud. What causes governments to decline? It is not so much that a better government comes along... although that might work as a game tool to simulate change. If could make corruprtion grow over time, and provide something in the way of improvement ... So if they do not build courhouses, corruption goes up exponentially. or perhaps only doubles once. or doubles every 200 turns or so. After courthouses and police stations, then add GeriatricHospitals or something. If they don't keep up on social engineering, the empire will collaps eventually. As they did.

 

[TETurkhan]

(I edited my previous post - highlighting some additional points)

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Question- How are you going to work this, so that Rome can't get Feudalism, or Babylon can't get monarchy/republic? I mean, if you do something like create an Era:NONE tech and put it as a starting tech, can't civs trade it around with each other? Am I making any sense at all?

 

[Taurendil]

You might not be able to force civs into an inferior governement to ensure their fall, but you can deny them a powerful army. Take the classic example of Rome: in their ruling age they will build hundreds of legionaries, and hopefully if it's an AI, will conquer quite a bit of land. A while later, around when we want the Roman empire to crumble, better units are discovered: pikemen, longbows, all forms of knights. Now if we don't allow Rome to build any of these units, things could get interesting. Perhaps we could even deny them musketmen, to ensure that their 'Dark age' lasts long enough for other AI's to take much of their territory.
Ofcourse we don't want Rome to be totally obliterated during this period, but that is where my last suggestion comes in. Using that system of many free units + high upkeep should make small territories heavilly defended, and attacking forces relatively small.
I don't exactly know how these changes would affect the AI's playing styles, but i don't see how they would make it easier on the human player. He is usually the one with the largest empire anyway.

 

[mungman]

How about this for decline of empires?

To bring about the decline give each Civ a UU that more or less sucks. Have it be a diseased soldier or low moral, whatever, just give it high cost and lower stats. To keep the civ from making other units make all the older ones obsolete at this point. Then at a certain point they can get better units and upgrade them all.

 

[reedtwostep]

what if this more or less "sucky" UU the upgrade of the original UU.

for instance... legionaries upgrade to a "degraded" legionary unit once X tech is discovered. the same with war chariots and kazers... whatever. maybe the AI would fall for it, and definately not the human, but isnt the decline of the AI empire what we are looking for? the human is there to change history, so isnt engineering the fall of the roman AI more important?

food for thought at least