Suggestions for next civ2civ3 version

[bardo]

Please, post here if you have some suggestion for future versions of the civ2civ3 ruleset, that currently is practically equal to LT31.
I'm interested in the balance of the governments, specially Comunism vs Federation in such big maps.

[Dimitril]

I suggest Big land should be able to take over cities. Chariot, tank and mech inf are right now unable to take over a cities and it does not make sense to me.

[det0r]

Or perhaps corruption/waste scale factor that decreases with map size (maybe related to the square root of the map area)? Such a rule would definitely favour aggressive/expansionist tactics though.

[bardo]

Or perhaps corruption/waste scale factor that decreases with map size (maybe related to the square root of the map area)? Such a rule would definitely favour aggressive/expansionist tactics though.

I wish this was possible, but I did not find any way to link the rules to the map size.

I suggest corruption and waste are reduced by half and empire size limits are doubled.

I like it for Long Turn games. It is a good compromise that should work fine for medium and big maps.
Altough I think I prefer the current corruption/waste for the ruleset available in the modpack tool. Reduced corruption/waste by distance would make Federation government surely useless in small maps. And I like to make it hard to conquer the whole world in solo games vs the AI, because it encourages to win the spacial race.

I suggest Big land should be able to take over cities. Chariot, tank and mech inf are right now unable to take over a cities and it does not make sense to me.

The idea was to force people to use infantry to capture the cities. I personally find it realistic, but I agree some people who pointed that Mech Inf should be able to capture cities.

On empire size heres another idea:
Make a building called "Government Administration Center" or something which appears in the first city everyone builds. This building would be impossible to build,sell or destroy and add +2 empire size. So if you capture an enemies capital you get +2 empire size from the admin center to manage the new cities you have captured.

I'm liking this one, but I do not think it is possible to implement.

[Dimitril]

If mech inf can't take cities, may I suggest to give them the ability: Can carry and refuel 1 Land unit.

Also chariot should be land unit again or need a rework I think.

[bardo]

If mech inf can't take cities, may I suggest to give them the ability: Can carry and refuel 1 Land unit.

I like this one, thank you.
Related to this, I'm curious to know if people use carry units online: like helicopters with infantry, carriers with bombers, or submarines with missiles. I'm not sure if it is worth the risk to be destroyed by one single attack.

Now I understand what you point about chariots. I agree they should be normal land units again, else I also find them a bit useless. But I did not like to create this exception to the definition of "wheeled unit" (big land).
What if we keep them big land, and we give them IgZOC like the archers? Maybe too much early IgZOC units??

Other changes planned for next civ2civ3 version:
- Barracks available from start (no tech needed).
- Warriors do not become obsolete until Gunpowder. I agree some people who pointed the importance of such cheap unit.
- Pikemen with Att 2, Def 3, Cost 30
- Armour with flag "badcitydefender". Else they are better to defend cities than any infantry.
- Superhighways require Stock exchange to gain the +50% to lux/taxes. Else, I find Stock exchange underpowered and Superhighways a bit overpowered.
- Doubled the empire size for every governemnt. I see it important for single player games too, even at small/medium maps.

Thank you for the help.

[bardo]

I suggest Big land should be able to take over cities. Chariot, tank and mech inf are right now unable to take over a cities and it does not make sense to me.

Thinking about it, I'm liking the idea to allow those units to take cities again, now that "restricted infrastructure" is available to avoid the use enemy roads.
I remember now, that the main purpose was to avoid that artillery was used as the only attacking unit when the cities are close enough to reach one from another.

Be careful not to fall in the trap of modern games, where the player is relieved of making any hard choices and compromises, and the game becomes flat and plays itself.

I think I see your point. I admit the gameplay with this mod is someway simpler than default rules because there are smaller differences between a good and a bad choice.
I personally like it, and it makes it possible for the AI to play with these rules even if not designed for them. In LT, I guess it makes the games more even, but also longer and hard to finish.

One of the main objectives of my changes for this mod was to give something unique to each unit so you can not win wars if you only recruit one unit type.
Also, my main fear when you started to play these rules in LT was that someone could find some unit or some strategy that is clearly better to the others, and it would spoil the gameplay. I'm still in doubt about the missiles, the bombers, and such special units that could break the fun if not well balanced.

I remember some players were able to win civ3 games with a rush of warriors, and I tried to adjust the defensive bonuses so this is not possible in this mod.
However, I'm afraid warriors could be the best defensive unit in the ancient times because each attack can only kill one city defender, and warriors are the cheapeast ones. If that is true, I do not like that the solution is to make them obsolete. I prefer to allow them and to adjust the cost of spearmen or pikemen if needed, until they are better to defend. Anyway, I think that the greater chances to survive an attack of spearmen/pikemen make them more efficient right now. While warriors would still be useful if sort of resources or time.
The fun would be to decide when to build warriors and when spearmen, instead of whether you should research bronze or not.

My suggestion to the ruleset itself is that by bumping the city limit for aqueduct from 12 to 16 you basically made Sanitation useless. I think it either needs to me moved up the tech tree or city size reverted to 12.

The idea was that Aqueduct and Sewers are important to counter the plague, more than to bypass the pop limit. Cities without Sewers will surely never reach pop 16 due to the plague, and they will lose valuable population even before they reach pop 12. I find important to research Sanitation and Medicine as soon as possible if your cities grow fast.
I agree the pop limit could be reverted from 16 to 12. I increased it mainly to give more freedom, to let the player decide when the sewer is really needed based on the status of each city. I find it boring when all cities are forced to build the same improvements at same time.

Bardo, would you maybe want to prepare a ruleset and settings for LT32?

It'd be too much responsability for me to setup all the files, when one single mistake could spoil the game. I prefer if you setup the settings, and I can help to modify the rules the way you want. For example, I can send you the files with double empire size, or with halved corruption, what you decide it is better. I guess those changes to the effects file would be easier for me.

[Dimitril]

Can we also suggest new units, cities improvements and wonders?

[bardo]

I prefer not to include new units or buildings because they would need new UI images and texts, and it would be harder to make the ruleset compatible with the different graphic sets.

Now that LT31 is finishing, I wonder if it will be possible to download some savegame, because I'm curious to know how people played it.

Or even better, I'd thank if players could tell me here your favourite governments, the buildings that you found more important, and the units that you liked to use.
I'm specially interested in the balance between Federation-Communism, the power of bombardment (bombers and helicopters), and the usefulness of the "nerfed" cruise missiles.

[wieder]

This is not supposed to be a long rant so just skip it if it feels that way This is more like a list of observations I had while playing the game.

In the early game it was probably too hard to take cities from the enemy and in the late game it's a bit too easy with advanced units.

I ended up building only two wonders, Artemis and Copernicus.

Because marketplaces and banks didn't work like they do in standard ruleset, I found Democracy to be, while not really unplayable, worth using only for a very short period of time. That's why I played only in Monarchy and Communism. Players who had Democracy seemed to have lots of problems with it. Actually I know only one player who managed to play well with Democracy but then again, he didn't make war as much as those who failed with it.

I would like to see banks and marketplaces to work like they used to do, but this may be my personal preference.

Bare bones cities work reasonably well with just barracks, temple and amphitheatre. Factories and stuff like that are useful, but when you are just conquering everyone, probably not worth it once you can take lots of cities. You just don't have time for that.

Cruise missiles sure do their job but it's reasonably easy to protect against those in cities. Just stack huge amount of units in a city and the attacked probably can't afford to use enough missiles.

Air units seem to be too weak. they also give unreasonable advantage when protecting a stack of land units. I was about to propose some changes to enable some blitz with air units, but it's true that it could lead to other issues.

Using enemy roads was apparently enable while it was supposed not to be. It would be interesting to play continents with this feature disabled. Now in LT31 this made possible to conquer entire continents in a single turn.

Population cost of 2 was really slowing down the early game and lots of people seemed to be frustrated about that. I was one of them, but it was not a critical issue for me.

It was LT31 specific, but stealing was maybe too powerful weapon in this game.

One oddity, maybe not related to ruleset but to something else, happened when Japan was split when their capital was not conquered. The reason for this seemed to be a unit in the capital, when that unit had it's home city being conquered. Maybe it triggered the civil war. No one seems to really know. But it's probably not because of the ruleset.

In conclusion the early game seemed to be more balanced than the late game. I can post more once I remember more of that stuff.

[bardo]

Thank you wieder, this is very usefull feedback.

Some things are specific to LT31, as you say: mainly the wonders, the option to protect land units with air units, and the use of enemy roads.

Because marketplaces and banks didn't work like they do in standard ruleset, I found Democracy to be, while not really unplayable, worth using only for a very short period of time. That's why I played only in Monarchy and Communism. Players who had Democracy seemed to have lots of problems with it. Actually I know only one player who managed to play well with Democracy but then again, he didn't make war as much as those who failed with it.
I would like to see banks and marketplaces to work like they used to do, but this may be my personal preference.

If they half the corruption by distance, as planned for LT32, maybe democracy will be easier to handle. But I agree that maybe I nerfed this government too much.
Federation is supposed to be like a Democracy for large empires, I hope people found it usefull in LT31.

Markets and banks give the same bonuses than default rules (also the same than commercial civ III), but I guess they are less useful because there is no trade routes, and because republic/democracy do not give trade bonuses at oceanic tiles in this ruleset.

A solution for both issues could be to restore the bonus to trade in ocean by republic/democracy.

Population cost of 2 was really slowing down the early game and lots of people seemed to be frustrated about that. I was one of them, but it was not a critical issue for me.

I really suggest to keep the pop cots of 2 for settlers. This way you will be using practically the same pop system than commercial civ III where expansion was pretty well balanced in my opinion, even when a bit slower (I used to play online those days .
When you build a new city it appears with 2 worked tiles, and it makes sense that the construction of the settler also reduces by 2 the worked tiles in the original city. Else you are encouraging too much the smallpox, that is already powerfull because the first pop in the new city will not need food upkeep.

In conclusion the early game seemed to be more balanced than the late game. I can post more once I remember more of that stuff.

Other people commented the same, but I'm not sure why it happens. The defensive bonuses in this ruleset are the same (or greater) than default rules, while the offensive attack is lower in most advanced units (for example, the naval units and the missiles have reduced firepower, while the howitzer do not bypass the walls).
The only mayor change that could make the conquering easier late in game could be the use of bombardment ability to weaken the defenders.
Please, tell me if someone guess the reason of this unbalance in the late game.

One oddity, maybe not related to ruleset but to something else, happened when Japan was split when their capital was not conquered. The reason for this seemed to be a unit in the capital, when that unit had it's home city being conquered. Maybe it triggered the civil war. No one seems to really know. But it's probably not because of the ruleset.

Sounds like a bug in freeciv engine, but maybe it is related to the special unit upkeep used in this ruleset. We should report it gna.org if you have a savegame.

[mrsynical]

I used monarchy until I reached communism. Most people around me did the same (note this game was unusal due to size and people had 100s of cities). I think it would be good to balance the govts more.

I don't know if this was correct strategy, but I just built temples, marketplaces, libraries and police stations everywhere (it seemed like they were necessary improvements) . I thought a number of the wonders were "no-brainers" (i.e., you just had to build them), so I am surprised wieder only build 2 wonders.

The lack of movement of caravans annoyed me (more so, as I was trying to find an exploit on trade routes). I don't see a reason for severely reducing the movement of caravans/freight, esp. if there are no trade routes.

I think the difficulty in capturing cities earlier in the game was exaggerated by the islands map (might not be as bad in a continent game).

I only got to flight era. I think fighters could have slightly greater attack? Howitzers are always problematic (even more so in a continental map). I think they should have equal (or slightly higher) attack to the defence of a mech inf.

Turning off using enemy roads would be a very nice addition.

I prefer not to include new units or buildings because they would need new UI images and texts, and it would be harder to make the ruleset compatible with the different graphic sets.

Now that LT31 is finishing, I wonder if it will be possible to download some savegame, because I'm curious to know how people played it.

Or even better, I'd thank if players could tell me here your favourite governments, the buildings that you found more important, and the units that you liked to use.
I'm specially interested in the balance between Federation-Communism, the power of bombardment (bombers and helicopters), and the usefulness of the "nerfed" cruise missiles.

[wieder]

About wonders.

A. Smith was left out because communism covered that one for me.
Cure for cancer - no tech for that
Darwin, I may have built that but once I got Steam Engine it was more practical to steal. Not building this may have been an error
Hanging gardens - considered too expensive in the early game and then artemis + temples covered that for Bach's - It was said that it didn't really work so I didn't risk building it
King Rickhard's - I wasn't attacking too much in the early game and then under communism there was no unhappiness from military units even without this one
Mausoleum - I didn't have too much problems with unhappiness so I didn't build this
Shakespeare - Same as mausoleum

It's very probable that I would have built more wonders if there wouldn't have been pop cost 2 for settlers or the rapture effect was enabled. This may be hard to explain, but it seemed more reasonable to build size 8 cities with some improvements than trying to build big ones and lots of wonders. I fully understand the reasons why pop cost should be 2 but it's one reason why Kryon's strategy was clearly a superior one in LT31. At least until very late game. My guess is that it would have been superior to the end if it was adjusted just a little after T120 or something like that.

For those who don't know Kryon's strategy, it seemed to be focused on 2 key objectives. Build troops and only the most important improvements and grow by conquering players who develop their countries and do build those wonders and all the nice improvements.

[mrsynical]

Various cavalry units get obsoleted by tanks, and thus there are no long range units to take far away cities in the end game. (tanks cannot take cities)

I think this is fine - it slows down a big sweeping attack, and balance of power should be given to the defending team. I think loosing a whole island in one turn is a bit disappointing (it should take at least 2-3 turns!). Although if enemy roads were disallowed it would slow it down even more (but alpines can still traverse a number of squares).

PS - I used a horseman for my "long range" unit to capture cities I had emptied out

[bardo]

Now I'm starting to have an idea of the gameplay in LT31, thank you all.

Various cavalry units get obsoleted by tanks, and thus there are no long range units to take far away cities in the end game. (tanks cannot take cities)

Good point. In the version of the ruleset that I sent to you some time ago I tried to fix some of those problems, did you reveive it (named civ2civ3_v2.3-4lt) ?

My main changes until now were:
- Doubled the empire size for all governments.
- Wheeled units (Big land) can conquer cities again. Given BadCityDefender to Armor. Mech inf can carry 1 Land unit.
- Warriors become obsolete by Musketeers instead of Pikemen. Barracks available without any techs again.

I plan to release this new version at same time that they release the incoming freeciv v2.4, but first I'm trying to adjust it with the latest coments from LT31.

The lack of movement of caravans annoyed me (more so, as I was trying to find an exploit on trade routes). I don't see a reason for severely reducing the movement of caravans/freight, esp. if there are no trade routes.

You are right, the reason is that trade routes with foreign cities are enabled in original ruleset, but those movement restrictions could be removed for LT games.

For those who don't know Kryon's strategy, it seemed to be focused on 2 key objectives. Build troops and only the most important improvements and grow by conquering players who develop their countries and do build those wonders and all the nice improvements.

One of the objectives of this ruleset was to try to encourage the construction of buildings and wonders in the cities, I'm sad to hear that it seems a better strategy to build the minimum. I'd thank suggestions to encourge the development of cities a bit more.

An idea would be to give the extra defensive bonus (and extra free upkeep) to cities with pop > 8 (aqueduct needed), instead of the current pop=8 where you do not even need aqueduct.

Another idea would be to force all governments to upkeep less units in a city than its population size. Currently this rule only affects to upkeep by gold (like Democracy), but not when upkeep is by shields (like Communism).

In communism corruption is small and there is no production waste but due to food waste it was impossible to maintain far cities

As I said when you started LT31, I think you should disable completely the waste of food by distance. I like it to make it hard to conquer the whole world against the AI, but it is not needed in LT where the only possible victory is to conquer the world.

- when bombarding units (bombers and stealth bombers) attack a stack that has spies, only spies get slightly injured. I'd expect the best defender to be injured and it's odd that spies are only slightly injured. it seems the spies somehow get the defense of the best defender in the stack.
- fighters and bombers have very weak attack. I understand fighters are useful against catching bombers/submarines but bombers need better attack to be useful.

This is how bombardment is supposed to work: when the bombarder attacks to a stack of units, every unit in the stack has a chance to receive damage (the chance is calculated same than any other attack, comparing attack and defense). helicopters cause a max of 1 damage per unit, bombers 2, and stealth bombers 3.
Bombarders are very weak (almost useless) against single enemy units, but they seem very powerful against cities or fortress where there are lots of units stacked, because one single attack can damage lots of units.
I was afraid that a stack of bombers could be overpowered because it allows to conquer cities without casualties, and maybe I reduced their attack too much. It could be increased if people agree, but first I want to be sure that you took advantage of the full power of current bombers.

- when a city's food storage reduces to 0 a supported unit dies even though the city has not lost population.

I didn't know it, I'll update the readme.

- I like that wheeled units can't climb mountains but it is annoying that they also can't attack mountains. Without wheeled units, it is very hard to kill rifleman landing on a coastal mountain especially after a fortress is built.

Good point. I'd also like to make possible the attack of wheeled units against mountains, and I think it will be possible to implement with the new "road" system of freeciv v2.5, but not for v2.4 yet.

[mrsynical]

Now I'm starting to have an idea of the gameplay in LT31, thank you all.
- Wheeled units (Big land) can conquer cities again. Given BadCityDefender to Armor. Mech inf can carry 1 Land unit.

Maybe, just some of them like mech inf? makes no sense for howitzers and canons to capture cities ...

For those who don't know Kryon's strategy, it seemed to be focused on 2 key objectives. Build troops and only the most important improvements and grow by conquering players who develop their countries and do build those wonders and all the nice improvements.

One of the objectives of this ruleset was to try to encourage the construction of buildings and wonders in the cities, I'm sad to hear that it seems a better strategy to build the minimum. I'd thank suggestions to encourge the development of cities a bit more.

I think kryon might have gotten a bit lucky with neighbours? He got to a large number of cities very quickly and by that point it was pointless to make big cites/improvements. I actually built quite a lot of improvements. I think the cost difference between aquaduct near river and the normal acquaduct was too high.

I do not think the increased defense from a city > 8 changed which city to attack significantly. We typically just had to go for the city we could reach on the coast, or inspected with a spy and found the weakest city. This setting could be tweaked a bit.

Bombarders are very weak (almost useless) against single enemy units, but they seem very powerful against cities or fortress where there are lots of units stacked, because one single attack can damage lots of units.
I was afraid that a stack of bombers could be overpowered because it allows to conquer cities without casualties, and maybe I reduced their attack too much. It could be increased if people agree, but first I want to be sure that you took advantage of the full power of current bombers.

I presume you will inspect the saved games... I didn't have bombers myself, but I saw lots of bomber stacks surrounding cities... I was surprised one of my cities withstood a big pounding by 10+ bombers. My gut feel they were to weak....


PS - thank you for your rule sets!

[det0r]

One of the objectives of this ruleset was to try to encourage the construction of buildings and wonders in the cities, I'm sad to hear that it seems a better strategy to build the minimum. I'd thank suggestions to encourge the development of cities a bit more.

I built most buildings and wonders, they all had their uses.. although I didn't do particularly well in this game. I think one of the reasons people struggled with happiness is that they failed to take advantage of the trade bonus that is available with celebrating cities outside of democracy - when combined with marketplaces and banks you can significantly increase your total trade by running at 10% lux (the increased trade pays for the cost of the luxury plus more).

An idea would be to give the extra defensive bonus (and extra free upkeep) to cities with pop > 8 (aqueduct needed), instead of the current pop=8 where you do not even need aqueduct.

I think this is a good idea.

[Marduk]

happiness:

I had to change my usual strategy for keeping my cities happy (no michelangelo and bach in their old form anymore), but in the end it was easier than I expected. I built Artemis+temple, then amphitheater and church in all cities, then Shakespeare. After that there was a bit of a difficult period as cities grew fast and became more and more unhappy. I had to switch tax rates to 40% luxury at some point. But then banks, stock exchanges and finally super highways kicked in and allowed me to switch the tax rate for luxury to a low level again. I've had 23 cities throughout the game, so didn't encounter massive empire problems. My governments were straight to Republic, then to Democracy till the end of the game.

Super highways:

I agree that it's a bit overpowered. My income really shot up when I built these, and I even didn't know what to do with all the gold anymore.

[bardo]

Maybe, just some of them like mech inf? makes no sense for howitzers and canons to capture cities ...

This would require to create a new unit type for them, and I think it is not worth just for artillery units. After all, they already have low defense and low movement.
I agree some people that pointed that chariots are useless if they can't conquer cities, and I agree that it is weird to lose the capability to conquer cities with cavalry when they get obsolete by tanks.
I'd vote to return to default behavior in this case.

I think kryon might have gotten a bit lucky with neighbours? He got to a large number of cities very quickly and by that point it was pointless to make big cites/improvements. I actually built quite a lot of improvements. I think the cost difference between aquaduct near river and the normal acquaduct was too high.

I'm glad to hear that some people managed to create large empires with lots of improvements and republic/democracy governments.

Aqueducts near rivers/lakes were for free in Civ III, but this was not possible in Freeciv. The idea is to give them some advantage to compensate that cities near rivers are more vulnerable to attacks (due to movement bonus).

I presume you will inspect the saved games... I didn't have bombers myself, but I saw lots of bomber stacks surrounding cities... I was surprised one of my cities withstood a big pounding by 10+ bombers. My gut feel they were to weak....

I'll try to increase a bit his attack.
Note that bombarder units can't destroy enemy units, only damage them. You need other unit types to end the job.

I think one of the reasons people struggled with happiness is that they failed to take advantage of the trade bonus that is available with celebrating cities outside of democracy - when combined with marketplaces and banks you can significantly increase your total trade by running at 10% lux (the increased trade pays for the cost of the luxury plus more).

If you are able to build many happiness wonders, I agree this could be a powerful strategy. It was similar in Civ III where I found it fun to guess whether it was worth to celebrate or not.

However, I admit I like more the ruleset with the empire sizes doubled, even at medium maps.

Super highways:
I agree that it's a bit overpowered. My income really shot up when I built these, and I even didn't know what to do with all the gold anymore.

I adjusted them a bit for next version so they need Stock Exchange to get full effect:
Super Highways double the effect of Stock Exchange (+50% to Gold/Luxuries), and they produce extra trade at tiles with roads but without farmlands


Thank you all for the comments.

[bardo]

Some people point that democracy is underpowered, but I personally think it is Communism that is overpowered.
The AI rarely use any government other than Democracy, and I do not like the idea to improve it even more. But I'm testing some minor changes that could make them a bit more even:

- Increase the number of free units to 1\2 per town\city for Democracy (was 0), and 2\4 for Federation (was 1\2).
- Reduce the effect of martial law under comunism to 1 per unit (was 2).

If you think this is not enough for longturn games, I'd suggest to try to worsen Communism, better than to improve Democracy.