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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:34
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The Problem:
The Agricultural trait provides one extra food in the center tile of each city, which is not subject to the Despotism penalty for cities adjacent to rivers. The trait also provides cheaper Aqueducts, Solar Plants, and Recycling Centers, and gives an extra food from irrigated desert.
With early growth being so important in Civ3, the above advantages result in Agricultural being the most powerful trait in the game, and often results in a game one difficulty level lower (or even more).
Since the AU mod is intended primarily for single player mode, unbalanced traits are not an urgent issue. However, balanced traits do encourage variety in play style and civ selection.
Possible Solution:
The real power of the Agricultural trait comes not directly from population growth, but more specifically from the ability to set up more powerful Settler and Worker pumps.
The extra food from the center tile means that you need a food surplus of just 4 per turn from the rest of the tiles to set up a 4-turn Settler pump, which frees your Agricultural citizens to work some high production/low food tiles to get the necessary production for 30 shields in time. If we increase the shield cost of the Settler for Agricultural civs, then it might sometimes become necessary to sacrifice even more food to get more shields in order to get the required production for a Settler pump. You might have to mine a plains tile instead of irrigating it, or use a forest tile instead of a grassland tile, for example. That would push the food surplus back to the levels of non-Agricultural civs.
Therefore, the proposed solution is:
Increase Settler cost to 35 shields for Agricultural civilizations.
I think this change would be enough to reduce the early-game advantage of Agricultural civilizations just enough for the trait to come back in line with the other traits in Civ3 (except Seafaring, of course, but that’s for another thread  )
By the way, the AI would benefit from a Settler shield cost increase, as it often waits on towns to grow to sufficient size with a Settler already completed.
So do you agree that the Agricultural trait is the most powerful trait in the game? Do we need to balance it in this mod? Do you have any ideas to balance it? Do you think the above solution is too drastic, or not drastic enough? Please comment!
Background reading: On the Agricultural trait, by Dominae.
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Ision
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Whether or not '35 shields' is the correct magic number - I do not know, but the fundemental idea is very sound.
Ision
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ducki
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I agree that - since the Settler is not a UU - changing its cost is inelegant at best. There's no way we could balance the cost so as not to disadvantage Agricultural in certain situations during the phase of the game that - IMO - it is most suited to have the advantage.
Color me stodgy.
I'll withhold further comment, though, until after AU502.
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Krill
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On a cold wet rock, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Dec 2003
time: 05:34
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Ducki seams 100% right...leave the conversation until after 502. Therefore, Ducki, why not release the game right about, oh, I don't know, now?
Last edited by Krill on 16-03-2004 at 22:09
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Dominae
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The problem with Agricultural is that people restart to find a starting location that suits them (i.e. that's above-average, often far above-average). Thus the trait's balancing factor, namely it's map-dependency, completely goes out the window. Seafaring is surely as powerful on Archipelago maps (at least a difficultly level easier), which people also seek out when they want to play a Seafaring civ.
I argued this at great length when Conquests first came out.
Ultimately it's up to each individual player to decide whether Agricultural is too powerful or not, because it's up to each individual player to restart or not. You could say that Cattle (the resource) is too powerful because it allows 4-turn Settler-pumps, but that seems silly. It's the same situation with Agricultural.
And no, this is not similar to pre-C3C Industrious. That trait was bar none the best across all maps and opponents. In this way it restricted your choice if you wanted to play a more competitive-type game. Agricultural is only good on a certain subset of starting locations, and is therefore more balanced than what Industrious used to be. Again, it's up the players to keep it balanced.
I'll admit that Agricultural is still a very good trait, even you do not reload (although far cry from what it is when you do). This is mainly due to the fact that Agricultural has abilities in addition to the "next to fresh water" one. But this is something I do not think we can satisfactorily patch with the editor.
Dominae
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Dominae
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I've not seen a sample game as an Agricultural civ that did not have a river start. Kind of telling.
Dominae
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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002
time: 23:34
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quote:
By the way, the AI would benefit from a Settler shield cost increase, as it often waits on towns to grow to sufficient size with a Settler already completed. |
Won't this just give the appearance of the AI getting smarter? It seems like the AI starts building settlers without caring about food production, and the fact that the two are slightly more in-line for a 35 shield settler will just look better, but in fact the AI will probably spend the same number of turns working on the settler (either waiting for growth or the extra five shields).
I'm not a fan of this tweak though... since AI agricultural civs tend to be powerhouses in my games, which I like.
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pvzh
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Canada
Aug 2002
time: 01:34
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I think fixing agricultural trait properly is beyond editor abilities. Agricultural trait should not have +1 food exempt from Despotic penalty (maybe just for capital only).
Soultion for AU mod would be restore aqueduct to full price.
Besides I HATE costs ending with 5. It puts more pressure to micromanage.
Last edited by pvzh on 17-03-2004 at 01:34
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Ision
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the question of 'handicapping' the trait really boils down to one thing;
Will the proposed change slow down any overly pro-human advantages of agri, while still keeping AI CIVs with this trait in line with the typical AI performance.
I believe that Alexmans proposal should not be so quickly dismissed out of hand. If the change (or any varient of the proposed change) were to slightly reduce the extreme human advantage while not nerfing AIs - then the rationale is perfectly in keeping with the goals of the AU Mod.
Perhaps it is not a good idea, and the Agri AIs will not cope well - if however, that is not the case, then the idea should be given some serious consideration.
The argument that a trait specific 35 shield settler is some how too extreme of a departure is simply not valid. A trait specific settler is no more a departure than the expansionist scout - the free tech of sci - or the trait specific workers of Industrious.
Ision
Last edited by Ision on 17-03-2004 at 02:50
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ducki
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quote:
Originally posted by pvzh
Soultion for AU mod would be restore aqueduct to full price.
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I don't get how this helps...
the biggest reason that Agriculture is overpowered is that in the situations where you don't need the aqueduct, you get extra food.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Nor Me
While I'd disagree, it's more important to note that we're already doing this a lot indirectly. The changes to curraghs and galleys have a big impact on seafaring. The campaign to make multiple goverment switches more useful would make religious a much better trait although the beta patch has now affected this more radically than any changes we're likely to support. The balance of the traits is different in the AU Mod and we don't want to make avoiding this more important than our other goals.
It's only a small step from this to trying to balance the traits directly. I don't think that this change will alter the agricultural trait that much anyway. It will still be good for the things it is now. |
In the case of Seafaring curraughs and galleys, the main issue is that human players can use them very, very effectively in a way in which AIs are programmed not to use them at all. If Seafaring AIs used suicide curraughs and galleys effectively to make contact with distant civs, a Seafaring human could have a monopoly on overseas contact and tech trading only in games where no Seafaring AIs are present. But because AIs do not use suicide ships, the advantage of being less likely to sink is applicable only to human players, not to AIs. Thus, toning down the power of that ability is directly a matter of eliminating an advantage that human players have over AIs that have the same trait, and the fact that the trait itself is weakened is (at least in my view) mostly incidental.
As further evidence that the effect on the Seafaring trait was largely incidental, consider the fact that we'd already weakened galleys in the PtW version of the AU Mod to undercut the advantage that suicide ships gave human players. The facts that Seafaring civs can use that advantage even more effectively and that curraughs let them use it earlier in C3C gave us some extra incentive to make similar changes in the C3C version of the Mod, but the fundamental problem and our efforts to deal with it actually predates the introduction of the Seafaring trait.
Similarly, the shift in balance in favor of Religious civs if changing governments twice instead of once becomes more attractive is (as best I can tell) purely incidental to our reasons for liking the idea of making a second government change more attractive. I do not recall hearing anyone even hint that a desire to make the Religous trait stronger is a significant motivating factor in that regard. Personally, I view the impact on the Religious trait as a disadvantage to making a second government change more useful, not as an advantage (although I don't view the disadvantage as great enough that it should stop us).
In contrast, the sole and exclusive purpose of the proposal to increase the cost of settlers for Agricultural civs is to weaken a particular trait. Further, while AIs use the Agricultural trait's food bonus differently from how humans tend to use it in that they focus more on production and less on food, it is nonetheless something that AIs get a clear benefit from (except when settlers or workers are delayed enough waiting for cities to grow to offset not just the production advantage building the settlers or workers but also the production advantage building other things in between). And where our changes to curraughs and galleys had no side effects that could possibly create situations in which the Seafaring trait would be a disadvantage to a civ at particular times and places in the course of the game, increasing the cost of settlers for Agricultural civs does. Thus, I see far more differences than similarities between the two situations. In my view, it's a leap, not just a small step.
Nathan
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15-03-2004 22:55
I support this change, although it looks like I'm in the minority. Of the changes possible in the editor, this is most likely to balance this trait. Settler pumps are the issue which can make Agricultural much more powerful than it appears.
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