v36 Crime Patch

[Noriad2]

Personally I don't like anarchy; it slows down the game and the game is already slow enough as it is.
Many people dislike change as a general rule. And with every change there are those who lose something, like a position of privilige. So if it were technically possible to remove anarchy and replace it with a down-ticking unhappiness (same as with whipping in regular BTS) in every city it would be better for the game imo. And in a golden age this penalty should be waived.

 

[tmv]

Sometimes it's more than that. The French Revolution was followed first by an increasingly violent terror regime, and then (after a short respite) a military dictatorship, not to mention two decades of almost constant warfare. The Russian Revolution was followed by several years of civil war, several famines and then an even more violent terror regime, never even settling into what was originally promised.

On the other hand, anarchy should only follow a true change of government, not implementing a different trash policy (although I think that doesn't cause anarchy right now) - the term "civic" is a bit murky in that sense.

 

[JosEPh_II]

<snip>

Someone care to open and elaborate the logic behind this ?

Nope. StrategyOnly made lots of Civic changes recently. I only tweaked a few for start of game to keep some balance.

Apparently current state of Mod is No Anarchy.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Personally I don't like anarchy; it slows down the game and the game is already slow enough as it is.
Many people dislike change as a general rule. And with every change there are those who lose something, like a position of privilige. So if it were technically possible to remove anarchy and replace it with a down-ticking unhappiness (same as with whipping in regular BTS) in every city it would be better for the game imo. And in a golden age this penalty should be waived.

I kinda agree that it doesn't model true anarchy very well, is kinda 'gamey', and could be far more accurately delivered. But it really would need to be a project for a lot further down the road to improve on it imo. It's currently a very powerful game decision factor and I think it would be very important that it stays that way somehow.

Which means we really need to bring anarchy time back to those later civics!

 

[Reiskae]

You replied before I technically finished my post but you seemed to know where I was going with it anyhow.

So you're saying there are 0 anarchy times set on later civics?

Joseph and SO will have to comment on that. I was not aware of that.

Yes, that is exactly what i'm saying. Every single time i switch civics, no matter how much, the anarchy period is 0 turns and the change is instant. With or without golden age being on. Applies to latest two versions of the 'crime patch' edition. Last working version in this regard that i played was the 9016.

Latest also keeps bugging me with 'should the modifiers be recalculated' - question when i load the game and no, i don't mess with the files. No matter if i click yes or no, it sometimes keeps appearing when booting the game and loading a save.

 

[Reiskae]

Nope. StrategyOnly made lots of Civic changes recently. I only tweaked a few for start of game to keep some balance.

Apparently current state of Mod is No Anarchy.

JosEPh

It is and it sucks..Very minor thing yes but sucky still. Now you know and that is good. So i take that this is not an intentional "change" despite the claims to the contrary ?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Latest also keeps bugging me with 'should the modifiers be recalculated' - question when i load the game and no, i don't mess with the files. No matter if i click yes or no, it sometimes keeps appearing when booting the game and loading a save.

Known issue. No idea how to fix it.

 

[stoferb]

Anarchy and civic changes is one area where I think fun and realism clearly clash and I'd rather have fun than realism. In reality when there is a revolution the goal other than trashing the current administration isn't agreed upon and often it is not even very well defined. Nobody in real life history have ever had the foresight and supreme power a civ-player has, and consequently real revolutions are the result of a multitude of conflicting wills and ideals. Also, in the supposed "anarchy" of the french revolution they managed to conscript a huge army, the english took over all of Ireland and won a war against the netherlands during their revolution, the bolsheviks built infrastructure as mad, ancient Athens built the Temple of Artemis and greatly increased their navy while supposedly being in anarchy from going full democracy. In short rather than stopping all production it seems much more realistic to double or triple it for the next few turns of a major civic switch (which ofcourse would tempt you to constantly switch government for the "anarchy bonus" so I'm against that too). So anarchy is both unrealistic and not fun, and I'm all in favor of getting rid of it. At the very least reorganizing my army or closing my borders or starting to use credit cards e.t.c. shouldn't cause anarchy. And it would have the added benefit that you can establish colonies again without having them sit there with a million turns of anarchy before they start to contribute anything.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Anarchy and civic changes is one area where I think fun and realism clearly clash and I'd rather have fun than realism. In reality when there is a revolution the goal other than trashing the current administration isn't agreed upon and often it is not even very well defined. Nobody in real life history have ever had the foresight and supreme power a civ-player has, and consequently real revolutions are the result of a multitude of conflicting wills and ideals. Also, in the supposed "anarchy" of the french revolution they managed to conscript a huge army, the english took over all of Ireland and won a war against the netherlands during their revolution, the bolsheviks built infrastructure as mad, ancient Athens built the Temple of Artemis and greatly increased their navy while supposedly being in anarchy from going full democracy. In short rather than stopping all production it seems much more realistic to double or triple it for the next few turns of a major civic switch (which ofcourse would tempt you to constantly switch government for the "anarchy bonus" so I'm against that too). So anarchy is both unrealistic and not fun, and I'm all in favor of getting rid of it. At the very least reorganizing my army or closing my borders or starting to use credit cards e.t.c. shouldn't cause anarchy. And it would have the added benefit that you can establish colonies again without having them sit there with a million turns of anarchy before they start to contribute anything.

I agree that it is not historicaly accurate. But disagree that it doesnt add to the game a necessary factor. Without it you have no reason to have to weigh the benefits vs the cost of a civic change. Its a foe in its own right and there are numerous ways to address it. It gives a game factor that traits and buildings can modify that gives meaning to a particular purpose. Example: if you want to say that a building or trait makes the restructuring of government easier or harder then you would give it an anarchy time modifier. Losing this you lose the ability to add this meaning to a game element.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Having No Anarchy breaks a number of wonders and traits whose whole purpose is to reduce the anarchy interval.

 

[Reiskae]

Known issue. No idea how to fix it.

Thanks, wasn't in 9016 so something in between it is. Cheers and good luck.

 

[Reiskae]

I agree that it is not historicaly accurate. But disagree that it doesnt add to the game a necessary factor. Without it you have no reason to have to weigh the benefits vs the cost of a civic change. Its a foe in its own right and there are numerous ways to address it. It gives a game factor that traits and buildings can modify that gives meaning to a particular purpose. Example: if you want to say that a building or trait makes the restructuring of government easier or harder then you would give it an anarchy time modifier. Losing this you lose the ability to add this meaning to a game element.

Having No Anarchy breaks a number of wonders and traits whose whole purpose is to reduce the anarchy interval.

Heartly agree with both of these. There is absolutely no reason not to have this nice little modifier in the game. Also, if player is struggling to lose or a gain city in cultural battle, anarchy period can play a vital role in such case so it really is a nice element of depth.


Oh and there is still too much money in latest crime patch version (playing with immortal). Not bothering to post that in bugs because it is an opinion. Option named as 'even more expensive units and buildings', working so that it reduces the money on all players, not just to human one. This would be nice but not mandatory. It feels that the excessive money issue is a bit better now but still there is too much of it, enough to buy wonders at will.

 

[tmv]

working so that it reduces the money on all players, not just to human one

That breaks the AI completely.

 

[Taxman66]

I suspect that one of the AI's biggest issues with money is the crime problem they have in their cities. Every city I take from them has at least a handful of criminals in it. The bigger cities have a dozen or more. I also don't recall seeing many dedicated police units among the defenders, and if they're there I wonder if they have police promos. I also know the AI doesn't actively hunt yhe criminals.

On a side note if I raze a city those criminals hang out in the ruins and never attempt to go to another city. They become easy targets.

 

[Acularius]

My current issue is that discovery of enemy criminal units tend to happen at the end of the turn, directly at the end, so I'll see a bunch of notifications that I've 'discovered a criminal', but by the time of my turn... they'll not exist because I discovered them at the end of the previous turn.

So, I'll wait for a while on a current turn and mouse over cities just to be sure, but it inevitably happens that I'll get a notification about criminals and I can't react.
I wouldn't mind an 'automatic arrest' feature for Law Keeping units so that they will automatically arrest upon a discovery of a unit in their tile.

So what tends to happen is that criminal elements tend to stack up in a few cities because I can't capture them, even upon their discovery given the current ruleset.
So, maybe do the 'discovery of criminal elements' at the beginning of a turn or allow the automation of arrests. As it is, I need to mouse over all of my cities (currently 14 and growing) every turn, just to make sure I don't potentially miss a criminal, which inevitably happens.

That being said, I like the feature and it has a lot of potential for increasing 'fun' with the underbelly criminal element of the game.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

I suspect that one of the AI's biggest issues with money is the crime problem they have in their cities. Every city I take from them has at least a handful of criminals in it. The bigger cities have a dozen or more. I also don't recall seeing many dedicated police units among the defenders, and if they're there I wonder if they have police promos. I also know the AI doesn't actively hunt yhe criminals.

On a side note if I raze a city those criminals hang out in the ruins and never attempt to go to another city. They become easy targets.

Bear in mind that I play at Deity difficulty, and usually Nightmare as well, so the AI gets tremendous bonuses in my games. I don't think I've ever seen the AI actually running short of money, except in the very early game or in situations where a lack of money is entirely expected. I'm basing this mostly on consistently receiving 20 gold per kill (capped value) from the promotion that steals a percentage of gold on combat victory, and I've never gotten less than 20 from any even remotely healthy AI civ. Naturally, I've plundered their treasuries down to single-digit yields during prolonged wars, but that's a different situation.

That said, there's usually 3-4 criminals in every city I take from the AI as well. I haven't paid close attention to AI city crime levels, but the presence of multiple criminals usually indicates crime's pretty far out of control. It shouldn't be possible to have more than 10 criminals spawn in any given city in the more recent SVN versions, mind. One thing to bear in mind though is that AIs in a position to lose cities to you are likely on the losing side of a power imbalance, so their priorities may be altered by attempts to address that rather than dealing with crime itself. I haven't looked at the AI for criminal arresting either.

My current issue is that discovery of enemy criminal units tend to happen at the end of the turn, directly at the end, so I'll see a bunch of notifications that I've 'discovered a criminal', but by the time of my turn... they'll not exist because I discovered them at the end of the previous turn.

So, I'll wait for a while on a current turn and mouse over cities just to be sure, but it inevitably happens that I'll get a notification about criminals and I can't react.
I wouldn't mind an 'automatic arrest' feature for Law Keeping units so that they will automatically arrest upon a discovery of a unit in their tile.

So what tends to happen is that criminal elements tend to stack up in a few cities because I can't capture them, even upon their discovery given the current ruleset.
So, maybe do the 'discovery of criminal elements' at the beginning of a turn or allow the automation of arrests. As it is, I need to mouse over all of my cities (currently 14 and growing) every turn, just to make sure I don't potentially miss a criminal, which inevitably happens.

That being said, I like the feature and it has a lot of potential for increasing 'fun' with the underbelly criminal element of the game.

Something to point out, the discovery of wanted criminals in a city does not happen at the end of the turn. The announcement, however, occurs very late in the list compared to others, often last, so there's a very good chance you don't see it come up in the scroll in the center-top of the screen until you end turn (and thereby cause the scroll box to instantly list all announcements). Also, the Wanted promotion applied to criminals that makes them arrestable isn't one-turn-only. I haven't done any experiments or looked at the code for it, but it can persist for several turns, so it's not strictly necessary to arrest criminals the same turn they're discovered. I'm not sure of the criteria for removal of the Wanted status/promotion either.

It may help to check the event log manually at the start of the turn, as the investigation message will be at the top of that window, as well as standing out due to its bright cyan color. That's what I usually do if I know or suspect there are criminals hanging out in any of my cities. Some kind of auto-wake on discovery of a criminal, or auto-arrest option/button, would be nice though.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Having No Anarchy breaks a number of wonders and traits whose whole purpose is to reduce the anarchy interval.

Then get SO to "Fix" what ever he did to the Civics!

JosEPh

 

[JosEPh_II]

<snip>

Oh and there is still too much money in latest crime patch version (playing with immortal). Not bothering to post that in bugs because it is an opinion. Option named as 'even more expensive units and buildings', working so that it reduces the money on all players, not just to human one. This would be nice but not mandatory. It feels that the excessive money issue is a bit better now but still there is too much of it, enough to buy wonders at will.

The Option (Upscaled Costs) is Only for the player. Not for the AI. Understand that before using it. Cut off the money for the AI and you make the AI weaker. The AI is always on Noble level for any Difficulty level above Noble that the player selects. Understand that too.

And if Immortal is too weak for you go to Deity.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Upscaled Costs

Isn't about gold. I mean it IS when it comes to upgrading units perhaps but it's more about the build and training production costs being increased.

Then get SO to "Fix" what ever he did to the Civics!

Well... @SO! Please fix the anarchy on civics! Maybe one of us can PM him on this? I'm running a little short on time here now.

I'm not sure of the criteria for removal of the Wanted status/promotion either.

They have to get out of the borders of and out of sight of any the units of the player that successfully investigated them. This gives them the opportunity to recreate their identity without that recreation being tracked.

I'm not sure why the AI is not controlling it's crime levels better than that. They will be quite accurate about it as long as they are on top of other tasks so that's got to be the reason they aren't... other tasks are taking too much priority. So that's something to review at some point soon. It's not good that they are letting it get the better of them.

On a side note if I raze a city those criminals hang out in the ruins and never attempt to go to another city. They become easy targets.

A symptom of admittedly rushed and poorly designed AI. Known improvements are certainly needed.

 

[Reiskae]

That breaks the AI completely.

Ok, thanks for the info.