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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by pvzh
At first, I think we need to isolate what exactly the problem is. This was done perfectly by Dominae: you can do anything with republic without much penalty associated and if there are any gain from any switch anarchy will eat any benefit. The reason that you can do anything in Republic is that you have trade bonus, second best corruption and low WW (government cannot collaps by itself). Trade bonus multiplied through markets, banks and stock exchanges can pay in the most cases for large enough millitary to do effective conquest, and second best corruption will help you with that too.
If we want to redisign government, we need to ask ourselves several questions:
1. What kind of government choices should be presented to player?
2. How each goverment is supposed to play, so what features should they have?
3. How many switches supposed to be?
Right now we have Despotism, Monarchy, Republic, Feudalism, Democracy, Fascism and Communism. I do not think we should create any more, we could consider ditching the Fascism.
Let us keep it simple and make any government either war or peace. War Government (no Trade Bonus, no WW, MP, free units) -- Peace Government (Trade Bonus, WW, no MP, no/little free units). Since, we cannot scale Trade Bonus and it is BIG (I mean really big increase in commerce we should work through corruption, and WW to offset its advantages).
War Government is world domination wanna-be, so it should have some kind low corruption to have lots of cities and have high shield production for units in them. Thus, all of them should have communal/minimal/nuisance corruption extra FP and so forth.
Peace government should be geared for relatively small empires whose objective to tech through by their high commerce and FEW highly developed cities. Thus, peace goverment should have HIGH corruption (rampant/problematic), to make conquest fairly unprofitable and developing your small core more important.
Since switching to advanced forms of government is extrimely painful if you are not religious we should consider another Anarchy.
Based on this I propose such changes to goverments
...
Redraw tech tree around Nationalism (since nationalism cost sky high due to attacker/defender assosiated with it and all other goodies) we should keep it optional, so it will not be even more expensive to trade. Government techs should have Espionage as pre-request, since Espionage have Industrialisation as pre-request. Move Police Stations to Espionage and increase its cost to 120 from 90, to lower chance that AI will choose it right after industrialization. Lower cost of both Communism and Fascism to 90 from 120, so AI will not spend too much on them time after Espionage or bulk them in one tech Totalitarism at cost of 120. Another option to get rid of Fascism and not to worry too much about it. |
Good post. 
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Despotism - 790 - 211 - 26.7%
Monarchy - 857 - 187 - 21.8%
Republic - 1333 - 304 - 22.8%
Feudalism - 861 - 173 - 20%
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You really think a 4% increase in Republic's Corruption will solve the problem we're discussing here? Republic would only be 5% more Corrupt than Monarchy; it's still producing ~55% more Commerce!
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:32
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Dominae, the Republic figure is skewed by peculiarities of how the commerce bonus works and/or fits together with the particular scenario I was experimenting with. Republic's actual level of corruption is somewhere in between those of Monarchy and Feudalism. In the absence of quirks caused by the commerce bonus, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 21%, give or take a little depending on whether "Nuisance" is closer to "Minimal" or to "Problematic." The fact that corruption shows up as 22.8% instead reflects a phenomenon that results from the commerce bonus, not from the difference in corruption levels.
That same phenomenon resulting from the commerce bonus would almost certainly affect Republic about the same way with Rampant corruption that it does with Nuisance corruption. So corruption under Republic with Rampant corruption in this scenario would probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of 28.5%, versus probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 21% for Monarchy with Nuisance corruption. (Alexman, do you have anything to contribute regarding whether Nuisance would be closer to Minimal or to Problematic?) That puts the actual advantage for Monarchy at more like a 7.5%, give or take a bit depending on exactly where Nuisance corruption stands between Minimal and Problematic. And remember that that difference would affect production, not just commerce.
But that's still not the whole story. The difference in production would affect how quickly outlying cities can build courthouses, libraries, marketplaces, harbors, aqueducts, and various other improvements that have a direct or indirect impact on commerce. So the corruption change would close the commerce gap more than the difference in percentages alone would indicate.
Then factor in the difference in unit upkeep costs and the potential impact of military police on the luxury slider. Republic loses some of its gold paying for units. Monarchy does not or, in its worst situations, loses a whole lot less. And if military police allow Monarchy to run the luxury slider a notch lower, that's about a 10% advantage for Monarchy right there.
Republic would still have a commerce advantage over Monarchy, but it would be both significantly smaller and counterbalanced by a disadvantage in production. I think that could make for a much more interesting choice than we have now - if the AIs could cope with the change without making worse choices as a result. But if, as Alexman suspects, such a change would cause AIs to make worse choices of what government to use, this whole discussion is probably academic.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:32
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The idea of punishing players for growing cities into metros seems a bit perverse to me. A number of highly experiecned players, myself included, already use strategies that build our cores in ways that leave little room for cities to grow past size 12. (The goal of that approach is that we don't want to have to wait for hospitals before we can use virtually all the available tiles). Hospitals already have a relatively low value for players who pursue such a strategy, and having them cost free unit support would undercut their value even more.
I don't agree that giving Communism a small wonder that provides free police stations would make it a no-brainer even for peaceful games. Even with free police stations, it would take a bigger civ than players can get with REXing alone for Communism's lower corruption to offset Democracy's trade bonus.
The real danger to making Communism more powerful is that if we make it viable for small civs, we make it ridiculously overpowered for big ones. Under the stock rules, a communist warmonger can have it all: massive production, massive free unit support, no war weariness, and about as much commerce as Democracy could provide - probably even more in some situations. That's why we took the SPHQ away from Communism.
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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:32
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After some thought, here is a new attempt to balance the governments, inspired by some of the posts above.
In order to encourage more frequent government choices without seriously weakening the Religious trait, the corruption of Anarchy is changed to be Rampant, like Despotism. Since it now gets an income, Anarchy’s free unit and building support is also removed. This is a major change, but very much worth it, if we are going to see a variety of governments in the game.
Despotism is unchanged.
Monarchy is unchanged. It is the wartime government of the ancient age.
The Republic needs to be seriously changed, as it is the major reason for the imbalance of governments in C3C. This new Republic is intended for specific situations: high-commerce, peaceful empires with very light military. No more general purpose good-for-everything governments! Therefore, all free unit support is removed. This change by itself would overly penalize empires with too many Workers. Therefore, the Worker rate for Republic is increased to the level of Democracy. That way Republics can cut down on Worker production to deal with the high support costs, without falling behind in tile improvement. Note that the AI will be able to deal quite nicely with the reduction in free unit support, as this is a factor (unlike corruption) that gets evaluated correctly by the AI when selecting a government. (On a side-note, this change will probably slow down the tech rate in the late ancient and early medieval periods, which are exactly the times of most interesting warfare, and most interesting Wonder choices, in my opinion).
Feudalism is unchanged from stock, and remains an alternative government to Monarchy. UnOrthOdOx’s campaign for Feudalism awareness has convinced me that the reduced corruption of the current version of the AU mod is not necessary, especially in this current proposal, where the Republic has been weakened.
Democracy is also unchanged from stock, but its strength relative to the Republic is greatly improved compared to stock. Peaceful players that still need an army to defend themselves now have a great incentive to research Democracy as soon as possible. That in turn makes the unpopular Printing Press and Free Artistry technologies more likely to get researched. I do not believe that the changes to Anarchy will motivate players to warmonger in Democracy. The penalties for a government getting overthrown may be reduced, but the war weariness penalties in happiness are still significant.
Communism loses the SPHQ just as in the current version of the mod.
Fascism keeps the SPHQ and the increased corruption, as in the current version of the mod. We also keep the adjustment so that the AI rarely chooses this government. Since the AI does not know how to choose the better wartime government based on empire size, it’s better to just choose the wartime government that’s better most of the time, which is Communism. Fascism remains a human-only toy, good only for very specific and rare situations.
So in summary, compared to the current version of the mod, I propose:
- Anarchy: Reduce corruption to Rampant. Remove free unit and building support.
- Republic: Remove all free unit support. Increase worker rate to 3. Restore AI favored government choices as in stock (they no longer all favor the Republic).
- Feudalism: Revert back to stock (problematic corruption).
- Democracy: Revert back to stock (no free unit support).
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:32
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Am I the only one who would seriously consider no longer using the AU Mod if Republic were nerfed that horribly? I wish Republic weren't as unambiguously superior under as wide a range of conditions as it is, but creating a situation in which a Republic has to give up its economic advantage to maintain even a halfway decent defensive military - especially in the early stages, before city improvements start multiplying commerce - is not my idea of fun.
Even though Republic as it now exists in the AU Mod is pretty much a no-brainer under many conditions, the AU Mod makes choices of how to use Republic interesting to me. I have to seriously consider whether it's worth keeping outdated military units around and paying upkeep on them, and I have to weigh the advantages of conquest against the upkeep cost of a military capable of conquest. I don't view the advantages of making the choice of governments more interesting as worth making Republic no longer fun.
The question is, am I alone (or at least nearly alone) in feeling that way, or are there others who would also view such a change to Republic as seriously damaging their fun? If there are others, the harm done to those of us who like Republic's versitility would vastly outweigh whatever minor advantages making the choice of governments more challenging might offer.
I'm also concerned about what eliminating all free unit support for Republic would do to the AIs, especially on difficulty levels where AIs don't get massive bonus free unit support. Would AIs still use Republic, and would it be a good idea if they do? What happens if an AI switches to Republic at a time when it's relatively low on units (for example, right after fighting a major war) and then builds up a significantly higher number of units? I'm not convinced that the proposed change to Republic is something we could count on having work properly without some significant play-testing on a variety of different difficulty levels.
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Modo44
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in western Poland
Jul 2004
time: 06:32
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Personally, I would appreciate Republic to be downgraded as a warmongering government, especially in the early stages of a game. I have succesfully wiped out neighbours as a very early Republic (a straight beeline), which does not count as just being able to react to threats. For this reason, I find a reduced free upkeep for this government more than welcome.
But, not having tested this radical change, I worry about the defensive abilities of this new Republic. The AI is difficult to keep calm with diplomacy alone, so a force is very much needed for almost any type of game. This might not be possible, if the unit support would be a flat zero. I would opt for a smaller change, namely 0 flat support, and 0/1/1 support from cities. This would still greatly reduce the military of a Republic, while allowing a decent defensive force.
As to the change of Workers, this is simply a misconception, in my opinion. It will not make the numbers substantially smaller, because the most important period (late Ancient Age, early Medieval Age) often sees a constant Worker deficit, which is sometimes experienced even by Industrious civs. In addition, it takes away one very important reason to go for Democracy, namely the powerful Workers it provides.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Modo44
I favor a per-city support for one simple reason: it has a similar impact for all map sizes. Contrary to that, 18 units mean much less on a huge map, and mean quite a lot on a small one. |
You're looking at only part of the puzzle. Bigger maps are normally played with more civs. A 160x160 huge map with 16 civs has only 28% more tiles per civ than a 100x100 map with eight civs. So while technically, free unit support might more properly scale to 23 units instead of 18 on the huge map, the difference between 18 and 23 is no big deal. Further, since corruption is lower on the larger map, the additional advantage in commerce due to lower corruption can easily make up the dfference.
Granted, with flat support, players who claim significantly more than their share of land couldn't leverage that into a free unit support advantage. But the rewards of claiming additional territory are generally ample without needing to include additional free unit support. A unit support model that helps the rich get richer just makes it that much easier for players to run away with the game.
To be fair, I should note that the difference in usable tiles per civ between a maximum-water standard map and a maximum-land huge map would be significantly larger than 28%. But since tech costs vary only with map size, not with water percentage, the fact that flat-rate unit support favors high water percentages would tend to mitigate against the fact that larger amounts of land make it possible to control more territory and thus collect more commerce for research. I do not view evening out the tech pace just a tiny bit between land-heavy and water-heavy maps as a bad thing.
So I don't see the scaling issue for flat support as being anywhere near as serious as you make it sound.
Nathan
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
That is patently untrue...
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Actually, I have it on good authority that I'm correct in this matter. While all the governments were meant to be able to engage in warfare to some extent (i.e. in order to defend themselves), Republic and Democracy were meant to be peacecul and for peace-time. Republic's lower War Weariness was to avoid being too easily crippled by aggressive neighbors in the Ancient and early-Medieval eras. At least, that's what I was told when the discussion arose in the C3C beta.
Why is this important anyway? The AU mod is supposed to improve on the developers' choices. I just throught I would mention that tidbit regarding Republic because I thought it was a clear mistake. But obviously some disagree.
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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:32
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
I'm also concerned about what eliminating all free unit support for Republic would do to the AIs, especially on difficulty levels where AIs don't get massive bonus free unit support. Would AIs still use Republic, and would it be a good idea if they do?
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As I said above, the AI will be able to deal quite nicely with the change because unit support gets evaluated correctly by the AI when choosing governments. I have tested this extensively. It even takes into consideration the free unit support from difficulty level, so a Deity AI will choose Republic more often than a Regent AI.
quote:
What happens if an AI switches to Republic at a time when it's relatively low on units (for example, right after fighting a major war) and then builds up a significantly higher number of units? |
The AI evaluates its government choice every turn. Every turn where the AI is in the 'wrong' governent, it has a chance of switching to the 'right' government. I have tested this too.
quote:
Originally posted by Modo44
As to the change of Workers, this is simply a misconception, in my opinion. It will not make the numbers substantially smaller, because the most important period (late Ancient Age, early Medieval Age) often sees a constant Worker deficit, which is sometimes experienced even by Industrious civs.
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I guess it's a matter of play style. I always try to build enough workers to keep up with the number of tiles worked by my population. At the very least though, if you build the same number of workers, you will make up some of the income lost to unit support by having more roads.
quote:
In addition, it takes away one very important reason to go for Democracy, namely the powerful Workers it provides.
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Actually, switching from Republic to Democracy is much more tempting under this proposal, since unit support costs are always halved, and the penalty for Anarchy us so much less costly. Compared to these things, the faster workers are not a significant factor in the late middle ages.
quote:
Originally posted by joncnunn
Favored Govt / Shunned Govt has no bearing on the AIs decisions on what govts to pick.
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Yes, it does. See earlier posts in this thread.
Last edited by alexman on 12-02-2005 at 01:58
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
Why is this important anyway? The AU mod is supposed to improve on the developers' choices. |
But there is major disagreement regarding how the concept of "improvement" should be defined. What one person views as improvement, another can view as making the game worse.
In joncnunn's view, a disincentive for players to change to Republic "too early" is a good thing. In my view, deliberately sabotaging a more advanced form of government in order to make it harder to change early goes completely against how things ought to work; civilizations should want to move to a more advanced form of government at the earliest practical opportunity. In your view, Republic should be a government that more or less forces players into a peaceful strategy. In my view, it should be a more flexible government that makes a certain amount of warfare - including at least some offensive warfare - practical.
The way I look at it, what we are dealing with here is essentially a matter of taste. You place a higher value on the strategic choice of what government to use at a given time, while I place a higher value on the flexibility to make different choices while within a particular government. The issue is not one in which a proposed change would add new interesting strategic choices while leaving existing interesting strategic choices more or less alone, but rather is one in which you deliberately seek to demolish existing strategic choices that I find interesting and replace them with a different set of choices that you regard as more interesting.
To me, making major changes over such matters of taste is completely outside the proper scope of the Apolyton University Mod. The risk of seriously harming players' fun or of driving them away from using the Mod at all is completely out of proportion to whatever benefits the proposed change offers.
Or, if we want to get in the business of making such radical changes over what are essentially matters of taste, I would strongly recommend that we start putting out two versions of the AU Mod instead of one. Then we can make the more controversial proposed changes available to players that want them without forcing players who do not to either accept them or reject the entire AU Mod package. Frankly, I'm skeptical regarding how such a path would work in the long term because players who like one radical change may strongly dislike another. But I'd much rather at least give that path a try than force the entire AU Mod community to accept drastic changes over what are essentially matters of taste. And if the alternative path fails, the result will be to prove that our traditional conservative philosophy was the right one.
I'm willing to consider the possibility that something like 0/0/0 + 18 free unit support could make Republic less powerful while still keeping its fundamental nature acceptably intact. But I strongly oppose any change aimed at changing the nature of Republic in a deeper and more fundamental way.
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joncnunn
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Maryland Heights, MO
Sep 2002
time: 23:32
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I think the detalied analysis of what causes WW under govts subject to them does show that Firaxis intended defending yourself to be not a problem.
(Doesn't hurt WW to kill enemy units in your OWN territory; while WW will sky rocket [up to max allowed under Low WW / colapsing the govt under High WW] if your units are killed outside your cultural boundary.)
The problem is that the game counts newly conquered territory as your own. Being within your cultural boundary when it's 100% foreign leads to this exploitation. Can't be fixed by any mod; Would require a change in code to only count for WW purpo;es within the cultural boundary of a city at least half your own population are nationals.
quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
Actually, I have it on good authority that I'm correct in this matter. While all the governments were meant to be able to engage in warfare to some extent (i.e. in order to defend themselves), Republic and Democracy were meant to be peacecul and for peace-time. Republic's lower War Weariness was to avoid being too easily crippled by aggressive neighbors in the Ancient and early-Medieval eras. At least, that's what I was told when the discussion arose in the C3C beta.
Why is this important anyway? The AU mod is supposed to improve on the developers' choices. I just throught I would mention that tidbit regarding Republic because I thought it was a clear mistake. But obviously some disagree. |
Last edited by joncnunn on 12-02-2005 at 02:17
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14-01-2005 20:07
This would make Communism a no-brainer, even for peaceful games. It already dramatically reduces corruption, even without the SPHQ. 
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