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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:32
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The Problem:
Colosseums cost as much as two full-price Temples to build and maintain, but produce half as much culture and don't allow Cathedrals like Temples do. Their cost is prohibitive for an ancient city build. Even with the luxury scarcity in C3C, Colosseums are one of the least built city improvements along with Coastal Fortresses.
Possible Solutions:
What if Colosseums were the building of choice for border expansion for non-religious, non-scientific civs? What if we made them cost a little less than half-price, with half the effect? Say 50 shields, 1 culture, 1 happy citizen, 1g maintenance (down from 120, 2, 2, 2). Borders would expand after 10 turns after you build one of those, or you could build a slightly more expensive Temple and have borders expand after 5 turns instead.
A more conservative approach could be to simply reduce their cost to 100 shields. They would become more cost effective than two Temples for non religious civilizations (to build, not to maintain), but they would still produce less culture and would not allow Catherdrals.
Yet another approach could be to increase the happy citizens of Colosseums to 3, so that this building becomes an alternative to a Cathedral.
Any other ideas? Comments? Please share your thoughts for the AU mod!
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vulture
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Leeds, UK
Jun 2001
time: 05:32
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The happiness improvements (all three of them) stick to the 1 gold per turn for 1 content citizen rule. The luxury slider is nominally the same, although once you have markets, libraries etc. up and running, the effective cost is more (the luxury slider takes 1 trade before adjustments to make 1 happy face - the buildings take 1 gold after adjustments for the same basic effect). Has anyone ever checked whether luxury resources are priced at 1 gpt per happy face they produce in your empire? Specialists used to do a similar thing (you can get 1 gpt, 1 beaker, or 1 happy face) but now don't. So there doesn't seem to be a strong case from the above for sticking to the 1 gpt for one content face convention.
I think the question here is what benefits the AI without helping the human. Humans don't build colosseums very often, but do use the luxury slider for the most part. The AI doesn't use the slider, and so needs some happiness bonuses that the player doesn't get. So my thinking is that we don't need to make the colsseum more attractive to players by changing it - we need to encourage the AI to build more of them so that it doesn't cripple itself with entertainers instead.
So I suppose one important question is: how often does the AI build colosseums at the moment. If it does it a lot, while the humans don't do it much, then I'm not convinced there is much need for a change here, since a change to make it more human-attractive effectively weakens the AI.
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vulture
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Leeds, UK
Jun 2001
time: 05:32
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
Just Temples and Colosseums. Cathedrals need just 2/3 gold for 1 content citizen.
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Is it? I never actually noticed...
quote:
I'm not sure I follow your logic. Humans don't build Colosseums for a reason: they are not worth it. The AI builds Colosseums. So any boost to happiness improvements will help the AI more than the human, unless the human starts building those improvements more often than the AI. The flexibility and zero shield investment of the luxury slider is a major reason this will not be the case. |
It's the "they are not worth it" bit I disagree with. Humans don't build them because they very rarely need to. We use the luxury slider, and are more aggressive about collecting luxuries than the AI. So either we have enough luxuries, the slider is at zero, and all cities are content, or the slider is at some value to keep everyone happy, producing the same basic effect on happiness as a colosseum but without having to invest 120 shields in building on in each city.
The AI, on the other hand, uses entertainers rather than the luxury slider. Spending time building a colosseum is worth it, because it lets the AI turn two more entertainers into producive labourers (or grow two sizes larger before enterainers stop growth) - the shields and gold per turn from those two labourers offset the cost of building and maintaining the colosseum fairly quickly. It would be better if the AI used the luxury slider, but in the absence of this the colosseum gives the effect of having the luxury slider on, but at the cost of some shields (which will take perhaps 30-60 turns for the extra workers to compensate for).
Executive summary: Colosseums are useless for the human, primarily because of the luxury slider (I built them a lot more before I figured out the benefits of the slider incidentally). Colosseums are good for the AI because it doesn't use the luxury slider.
If the AI already builds the colosseums, when the human doesn't, then good. Changing colosseums to make them more attractive to humans would effectively weaken the AI. If they don't build them then they should be encouraged to, without making it too attractive to the humans.
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ducki
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quote:
Executive summary: Colosseums are useless for the human, primarily because of the luxury slider (I built them a lot more before I figured out the benefits of the slider incidentally). Colosseums are good for the AI because it doesn't use the luxury slider. |
I wonder if there would be any interest in a "Power of Luxury - Now THAT'S Entertainment" AU game - use of the Luxury slider strictly verboten. It would allow testing a new colleseum and might could be coupled with Agricultural so we can see how Agricultural feels to the AI with the extra pop growth and no lux slider.
Just a thought. A lot seems to hang on the use of the slider, so what would happen if it was not available? How much more like the AI would our gameplay, our build queues become? Would we be more warmongering or more likely to go into builder mode to keep those guys happy? Would we have monstrous, corrupt empires from endlessly popping out settlers to lower pop? Would we have so many workers that we couldn't support a sufficient military?
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Nor Me
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I dug up an old test on the AI build order and tried it with conquests. The good news for this topic is that the AI in conquests now builds temples ahead of colosseums unlike in PTW. With the AI's liking for culture, that means it will build cathedrals first as well. This takes away one of the main reasons for this change.
The first proposal would lead to the AI not build colosseums for much longer. In the test, they built many units first and up to manufacturing plants when before they only built aqueducts, hospitals and culture-producing buildings first. If the AI needs to buld colosseums then this is a bad idea. Of course, that's deabatable.
Either reducing the cost of the colosseum or increasing the number of happy faces might help a non-religious human player more than the equivalent AI since the AI would build expensive cathedrals first while the human knows that the colosseum is better value. At least the latter might help the AI overall if they have worse unhappiness problems than the human.
quote:
Originally posted by vulture
Has anyone ever checked whether luxury resources are priced at 1 gpt per happy face they produce in your empire? |
Yes, I have. It's only half that in an ideal situation.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
What if Colosseums were the building of choice for border expansion for non-religious, non-scientific civs? What if we made them cost a little less than half-price, with half the effect? Say 50 shields, 1 culture, 1 happy citizen, 1g maintenance (down from 120, 2, 2, 2). |
As a package deal, this would completely replace Temples for non-Religious civs. In those instances when 10-turns for border expansion is not a major issue, you would always build Colosseums, right?
I would much prefer if Colosseums were in the same cost category (~100 Shields), and were rivals to Cathedrals for non-Religious civs. We would need to arrange its properties (Culture, upkeep, etc.) so as to create a valid alternative to Cathedrals, depending on what your looking to accomplish.
Without going into details right now, I'm thinking Cathedrals should produce slightly more Culture and have lower upkeep, while Colosseums should create more Happy Faces but require more upkeep. Colosseums would also be more expensive. Thus you would have the option for more Happy Faces but at a steeper cost, or a "quick fix" at lower cost, but with bonus of a bit more Culture.
Dominae
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Buckets
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Here's a bit of an oblique idea that has worked well for my own modding: have cathedrals produce 2 HF's instead of 3. The effect is that non religious civs will get more happy faces for their shields with colosseums, but less culture. Also i believe this makes the Sistine Chappel more balanced as it will produce +2 HF's in cathedral cities instead of a whopping +3.
Now you may ask, what about losing that one HF? personally, i don't think it's needed. However, if it should go anywhere it's hospitals. But, that's another thread.
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Zevico
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Melbourne
Apr 2002
time: 15:32
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I am inclined to agree that Colloseums are quite weak in comparison Cathedrals--however, perhaps this weakness is lessened during the later difficulty stages, where technology is much harder to come by. At that point, a Colloseum is quite useful, because it will be a good 60 or so turns before you hit Monotheism, and if you ever wish to have cities in the early game, Colly's seem to be a must, especially if you would prefer to have a bit more culture in your civilisation, for example when you have them darn Scientific/Religious types next to you.
As Alexman has mentioned, it costs 120 shield normally, and Cathedrals cost about 1 and a third more than that--certainly not enough to make the two balance each other out. Therefore his suggestion to make Colly's cost 100 shields to build is a good one. 
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
As a package deal, this would completely replace Temples for non-Religious civs. In those instances when 10-turns for border expansion is not a major issue, you would always build Colosseums, right?
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I don't quite agree with you here Dom, since one will have the ability to build Temples far in advance of Collossea in most games. Also, for non-religious civs, it's only an extra 10 shields to Temples then, which is jsut a few short turns for cities with more than 1spt anyway.
quote:
I would much prefer if Colosseums were in the same cost category (~100 Shields), and were rivals to Cathedrals for non-Religious civs. We would need to arrange its properties (Culture, upkeep, etc.) so as to create a valid alternative to Cathedrals, depending on what your looking to accomplish.
Dominae |
OOOh! Now we're talking! Since Collossea come so much later in the tech tree than Temples, I agree they should be like an expensive Cathedral before you get the ability to build Cathedrals. Expensive as in happy faces + culture per shield as compared to Cathedrals, not necessarily in terms of costing more overall than Cathedrals.
If we set Collossea to give 3 happy faces (otherwise the same), this makes them like Cathedrals except with 1 less culture. Would this be overpowering and degrade Cathedrals where you aren't going for Sistine's? OTOH perhaps Cathedrals need to be reduced in impact a little... Since these improvements' benefits are additive it would still be worth building Cathedrals in large cities, so such a chanbge seems OK to me.
On a Monarch game, a city in Monarchy with a Temple and a Collosseum then would keep 6 citizens happy - as much as 9 with MP. With a Cathedral and no lux, this would mean you could get size 12 cities. This doesn't sound too bad to me, as especially with the rarer resoures in C3C it is not inconceivable you could miss all lux until you can trade for them.
Thus I'd suggest simply upping Collossea to give 3 happy faces. No change in cost, unless someone has a reason to suggest one...?
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:32
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While a number of the ideas mentioned sound interesting, the AU Mod is supposed to be relatively minimalist in nature. Changing the cost of colosseums to 100 and leaving everything else the same would make colosseums more worthwhile without complicating the mod with a whole bunch of differences to keep track of. Anything more than that would create significant additional confusion keeping track of what's different between the regular game and the AU Mod version, and I don't think the benefits would be worth the confusion.
The one caveat is that reducing the cost of colosseums only makes sense if, with the change, the AI tends to build significantly more and earlier colosseums than humans do. Further, the AI would have to get a meaningful advantage out of doing so; if it builds a colosseum and not a cathedral instead of a cathedral and not a colosseum, the AI isn't really benefitting significantly from the change. If the AI doesn't benefit, I don't see changing colosseums as worthwhile at all. One or another of the culture buildings has to be "low man on the totem pole," and I see no reason why it is bad to have colosseums in that role.
Personally, I often build colosseums in my core cities at some point in the game, for the culture if nothing else. The most likely time is in the industrial era after I've finished my cavalry warfare and before tanks become available. So the question is, would the AI build more and earlier colosseums than I do?
Nathan
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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:32
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To add a strategic choice, building Colosseums before Temples and Cathedrals should sometimes (but not always) make more sense for a non-religious civ.
Current stats per happy face:
Colosseum: 60 shields, 1 maint, 1 culture
Temple: 60 shields, 1 maint, 2 culture
Cathedral: 53.3 shields, 0.67 maint, 1 culture
Temple+Cathedral: 55 shields, 0.75 maint, 1.25 culture
You can see that building a Colosseum when you can build a Temple and/or Cathedral is usually a silly decision.
What if we decrease the maintenance cost to 1gpt?
Colosseum: 60 shields, 0.5 maint, 1 culture
Then, in the Ancient age, you build a Colosseum before a Temple if the city has the production capacity for a 120 shield improvement, and if you don't think you're going to need a Cathedral to deal with happiness. You build a Temple if you want culture, or if you just need a border expansion, or if you think you're going to need a cathedral in that city.
In the middle Ages, you build a Colosseum before a Cathedral if you don't need the three happy faces. Otherwise, if you already have a Temple, or if you need the culture, you build a Cathedral.
According to Nor Me, the AI builds Colosseums after religious buildings, and that's still the correct thing for it to do. It needs the extra happiness to compensate for the luxury slider, and it often needs the extra culture.
Last edited by alexman on 05-12-2003 at 05:46
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donZappo
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Of all the options I prefer Dominae's the best. It is a pretty extensive change, but I think it would balance things quite well for religious/non-religious civs. If you're trying to stick to a more minimalistic approach that would be more in the "spirit" of AU, I think reducing their GPT upkeep by 1 would be the way to go.
Aeson, you raise an interesting idea with the luxuries that I hadn't thought of before. Would this make the coloseum a bit too powerful? A city that would need a coloseum would also need the extra luxury happiness as well. This might move this building into a necessary building for every culture and actually end up reducing the strategic decisions for the human player.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
What if we decrease the maintenance cost to 1gpt?
Colosseum: 60 shields, 0.5 maint, 1 culture
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This is my favorite suggestion thus far, mostly because it departs the least from the standard game. It still may fall below the mark of playable power level, because Luxury scarcity in C3C means that Temples+Cathedrals will be preferable to Temples+Colosseusm. But the new Colosseum might still have its uses. Maybe a token reduction of 10 Shields is in order?
All the other suggestions are interesting; Aeson's Marketplace/Colosseum swap is really cool, and I wish they had implemented something like that for the epic game. However, almost all of them are too drastic for the AU mod.
Dominae
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Strollen
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A simple change to reducing cost to 100 seems fine with me.
However, I think helping increasing the number of happy face to 3 and also increasing maintaince cost to 3, may help the AI out more. My experience is that without using the Luxury slider the AI often has a lot of entertainers, so giving them a more happy faces seems like a good idea.
For the human player
Colosseum 120 shields 3HF, 3 maintaince 2 culture vs
Cathedral 160 shields 3HF, 2 maintaince 3 culture possible chance of getting Sistine chapel. This is an interesting tradeoff
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02-12-2003 20:35
I just had never considered a market - colosseum swap of attributes and it conjured up all sorts of interesting hypotheticals.
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