04-12-2004 07:41									#31
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay A city with only mined grassland tiles for a non-agricultural civ has a food surplus of two per turn. With a granary, if the city maxes at size 12, it could draft every ten turns and grow back to size 12 the turn after each draft. That draft rate also wouldn't produce significant happiness problems unless the situation is borderline. That's not a fast rate of troop production, but the city can keep it up while at the same time focusing its production on city improvements.

This is a tactic I regularly use in my games with stock rules. But by the time I have enough conscripts to fill MP duties and start to help on a front, its usually just for mopping up the distant tribes to finish a conquest victory. An extra HP in this circumstance would be of negligible benefit to me.

I've never paid much attention to how much the AI uses conscripts, but those would have a more immediate affect on the game. An extra HP here would be a major benefit to the AI.

Yes, a human can draft many units and transport them to the area of an attack to help in a pinch. Here also I've never studied the AI very closely- they don't draft from distant cities to help fend off a human SOD? If not, then yes, this mod would heavily favor the player in this circumstance. However, I can't recall the AI ever placing me 'in a pinch' since my first couple of games- too predictable. (Maybe this is just because I've developed a 'builder' approach- I've never analyzed my stratagey in depth...)

Just because more players will try to use conscripts does not necessarily mean it will prove a benefit to humans. The question is 'will more of the player's conscripts see important battles than the AI's?' I haven't played enough Post-Industrial Era games to make this call...

	04-12-2004 09:02									#32
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quote: Originally posted by Modo44 A side note about conscripts. The Russians won a whole World War with almost exclusively those, you know. It's not like something I made up.

If your image is of Russia winning the war on the eastern front with mostly just conscript infantry, it's off target. Yes, Russia had to go in an emergency mode when Germany first attacked. But as time went on, Russia developed an armored force that could out-fight Germany's more famous panzers. Russia also developed a rather potent dive bomber and, from what I understand, some other pretty decent aircraft. It wasn't just a case of drafting a bunch of people, giving them minimal infantry weapons, and expecting them to win the war by themselves.

Also note that in the real world, as in Civ 3, conscript units gain experience over time if they survive. After the war had been going on for a while, a lot of the people drafted into the Russian miliary served as replacements in veteran units (reflected in the healing process in Civ 3) rather than forming new conscript units.

So what Russia had was not just the draft but also a very strong impact from mobilized production. That, plus promotion of conscripts that survived, resulted in a powerful military by the time the war was over. If you look too closely at the exact mechanics of Civ 3, you can find nits to pick about realism. But I'm not so sure the overall impact is all that far off target.

Nathan

	04-12-2004 12:28									#33
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What Russia had, was a cheap tank that could be mass-produced. What Russia had were throw-away infantry division, often ordered to attack without a real plan. An all-out assault was usually the thing to do, not really counting casualties. The initial training was bad in most units (land units for sure, including tanks; I don't know about air exactly). Yes, they had relatively good equipment, especially well suited for harsh conditions. And yes, it helped a lot. But the men had bad training, almost all of them. Add to that that the beginning of the war saw the USSR with lack of officers, because Stalin got many killed for political reasons not long before. What in Russia was sheer numbers. Even if you lose 90% of your units, there remain 10%, who are now good fighters. This was the case throughout the German push into Russia. Including the famous workers entering tanks they just finished assembling (in Stalingrad) - how's that for a drafted unit? Of course, the longer the war lasted, the more regular/veteran, even elite troops emerged. But most often not due to training, but out of patriotism (yes, Russians still call it Great Patriotic War) and sheer will to survive.

With the above, I just convinced myself, that those weak conscripts are actually just the right thing. We'd definately need a possibility to draft othe units than infantry, and this kind of war just might happen in-game.

	04-12-2004 13:25									#34
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From what I've seen, I get a very strong impression that the Russian T-34 tank was at least comparable in quality to contemporary German tanks in addition to being relatively easy to mass produce. That is in stark contrast to America's Sherman tank, which had to rely on vastly superior numbers to overcome a serious problem of qualitative inferiority.

Back to the game, as best I can tell, there is no mechanism in the editor that could provide a choice of what kinds of units can be drafted. And even if there were, I would oppose activating it in the absence of AIs' knowing how to make good use of a draft for anything other than emergency defense.

	04-12-2004 13:32									#35
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay From what I've seen, I get a very strong impression that the Russian T-34 tank was at least comparable in quality to contemporary German tanks in addition to being relatively easy to mass produce. That is in stark contrast to America's Sherman tank, which had to rely on vastly superior numbers to overcome a serious problem of qualitative inferiority.

Yes, it was a great tank at that time, I don't deny that. The point is, the crews were conscripts, most of the time, so the use of the tank wasn't very good. Add to that that for a long time, they didn't even have radios in those tanks, and you'll get the picture. But yes, those were the conscripts that survived more fights, than their infantry bretheren. So they became skilled faster.

quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Back to the game, as best I can tell, there is no mechanism in the editor that could provide a choice of what kinds of units can be drafted. And even if there were, I would oppose activating it in the absence of AIs' knowing how to make good use of a draft for anything other than emergency defense.

Yes, I agree. The current battle system would give too much power to someone drafting tanks.

There is a "Draft" property in the "Unit Abilities" list. I wonder if anyone tried checking units that can be built at the same time...

	04-12-2004 15:18									#36
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Guerillas, riflemen, infantry, MechInfs, and TOW infantry all have the draft attribute. I think what happens is that the unit drafted is whatever unit is most powerful among the units a civ can build at the time of the draft.

	06-12-2004 22:19									#37
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nice that my idea has caused quite some discussion.

but lockstep did mention a side-effect that could make the 3,3,4,5 idea impossible anyhow: 3 HP-barbarians.

especially in the early games and at era-changes, barbarians can be a nuisance. making them 50% stronger just makes this worse.
the attack bonus vs. barbs could be modified to level this again, but iirc there is no way in giving a defence bonus.

i believe that if the barbarian issue cannot be solved, there's no real point discussing if the human or the AI benefits more from 3HP-drafts (imho: the AI).

	06-12-2004 23:48									#38
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Sabrewolf, that depends on your understanding of the problem. To me, barbarians are very weak, so I'd rather have tem stronger. The fact that a lone Spearman or an outpost city can stop a virtually endless stream of those is just silly. So the added HP would be just fine, if you ask me.

	07-12-2004 00:17									#39
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I quite like the notion of 3,3,4,5 EXP levels.

All we are doing is making a feature of the game more benefical to the AI, whilst increasing a little the chances of the human using the feature.

Any instance where the increased chance of the human using drafting is off-set by the fact that it aids the AI every single game it plays, and every single time the human attacks one of it's cities after discovery of Nationalism.

The Barbarian issue simply made life harder for the Human, so again I don't see an issue. In fact this seems like a Very Good Idea Indeed!

	07-12-2004 00:26									#40
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quote: Originally posted by pvzh About weak militaristic trait: Some thing to consider: * Colliseum could be 120 shields and made militaridtic (other stats like AU mod), so militaristic civs will have them for 60 shield. Roman republic with colliseums everywher * same as above, but +1 to upkeep and add flag reduce war weariness. * Police Stations: add flag militaristic, and reduce upkeep to 1 gpt.

	07-12-2004 02:22									#41
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Harder barbarians is also more trouble for the AI, who perhaps dont quite understand about leader farming

	07-12-2004 02:25									#42
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Remember, the AI always gets the Regent-level bonus versus the barbarians (+200%).

	07-12-2004 02:38									#43
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And they often send teams of units to deal with barb camps. Teams perfectly capable of doing the job.

	07-12-2004 05:25									#44
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quote: Originally posted by The pirate Harder barbarians is also more trouble for the AI, who perhaps dont quite understand about leader farming

the problem of the weak barbarians is mainly because of the C3C-introduced bug. they are still quite potent in masses against cities that lie on the NW/SE axis (iirc there's a partial fix for that by changing something in the conquests.ini file, but this can't be part of the AU mod).

i believe the AI will be able to cope with the additional barbarian HP quite well, but that should be tested extensibly (maybe debug mode using the 2 and 3 HP conscripts on exactly the same raging barb map).

the main reason why i am/was sceptical about my own proposal is that the barbarians are an issue in the most crucial time: the first 1.5 eras, whereby drafting only plays a role in the later game at which usually the game has been decided.

but ignoring the barbarian factor, 3HP conscripts not only slows down the human attack (more artillery needed), but also makes drafting more interesting. in all my games, i've only used drafting for faster reduction of the size of enemy cities (making it easier to retake if it flips or getting one's own population in the majority a lot faster).

	07-12-2004 08:02									#45
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"(iirc there's a partial fix for that by changing something in the conquests.ini file, but this can't be part of the AU mod)."

It's a complete fix, really, insomuch as it reverts them back to PTW-style.

	07-12-2004 13:32									#46
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Yes, it's a simple fix. To make the barbs go more randomly again (and make the AI move idle units as well !), add "NoAIPatrol=0" to the "Conquests.ini" file. This works only while you have this line set. If the save is played by someone else, and he doesnt' have the line included, barbs will stand still again.

And, Sabrewolf, even those moving barbs are not much of a problem IMO. They still can't go through a Spear on rough terrain, and they still can't take/raze cities.

	07-12-2004 14:06									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Moonbars Any instance where the increased chance of the human using drafting is off-set by the fact that it aids the AI every single game it plays, and every single time the human attacks one of it's cities after discovery of Nationalism.

From my experience, that is a significant exaggeration. In my experience, at least the vast majority of AI drafting is in response to a specific threat against a particular city. Thus, in situations where the AI does not recognize in advance that a particular city is about to be hit, I rarely encounter conscript defenders. (Modern Armor blitzes are especially good for catching AIs off guard like that.) And I'm pretty sure there have been quite a few times when I didn't face conscript defenders even when it seemed like the AI could have seen a threat coming, although I've never tried to figure out the percentages.

I'm not sure exactly how the balance of advantage between human players and AIs would work out if we gave conscripts an extra hit point. But I don't think such a change would produce anywhere near enough net benefit to the AI to justify how much it would change the feel of the game from stock, at least in what is supposed to be a conservative mod.

	07-12-2004 14:27									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Modo44 Sabrewolf, that depends on your understanding of the problem. To me, barbarians are very weak, so I'd rather have tem stronger. The fact that a lone Spearman or an outpost city can stop a virtually endless stream of those is just silly. So the added HP would be just fine, if you ask me.

Whether or not people want barbarians to be stronger is a matter of taste. People who like strong barbarians would like a change that makes them stronger, while people like me who find barbarians annoying enough already would dislike such a shift.

If the AU Mod leaves such matters of taste alone, we don't risk undercutting people's willingness to use the AU Mod unless perhaps they might choose to use some other mod instead. But if we do change the game where matters of taste are involved, we risk putting people in a position where they think, for example, "I'd like to use the AU Mod, but I hate those souped-up barbarians so much that I won't." I view creating such situations as bad for the Mod.

	07-12-2004 14:35									#49
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Yes, AI mostly (if not exclusively...) drafts in cities that are directly under attack (or in danger - with enemy units nearby). The only Conscripts I've seen when doing blitz attacks (no time for responses - no time to draft either) were apparently left-overs from previous wars.

The added HP does force a human to use more Artillery, that's obvious. But, as stated by Nathan, the problem is with the speed of a human's attack. Even if the AI is given a chance to draft, I won't leave it more than a turn to draft defenders. And 2 added units don't make a big difference (4 Artillery, until Mech Infantry where it becomes 6, or 2 Modern Armor), so it won't help all that much, I'm afraid.

	07-12-2004 17:33									#50
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these super-fast attacks are usually when you've got an overwhelming force of 3-movers (and workers) to capture and build railroads to bring in the next wave. in such cases the AI won't have conscripts.

but in closer wars where the KAI has all resources and every unit upgraded, artillery-supported attacks become necessary. and in these cases usually you move in slowly tile by tile which does give the AI plenty of time for drafting.

	07-12-2004 18:13									#51
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quote: Originally posted by sabrewolf but in closer wars where the KAI has all resources and every unit upgraded, artillery-supported attacks become necessary. and in these cases usually you move in slowly tile by tile which does give the AI plenty of time for drafting.

But under those conditions, if greater value from human drafting would free up production for half a dozen or so extra artillery units, getting rid of AI conscripts' extra hit points would not be a problem. The same artillery units could get rid of the extra hit point from AI conscripts in city after city at no risk to themselves. So I still don't see a significant net advantage to the AIs; certainly not a large enough net advantage to be worth significantly changing the feel of the game over.

I might also note that more potent conscripts would probably undercut the emergence of killer AIs because it would favor defense over offense in wars between AIs.

	07-12-2004 18:32									#52
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Sabrewolf, I don't know about you, but I usually take AI cities like this:

Turn 1

• Enter Artillery with defenders, to have the city in range.
  
• Enter Tanks (if I can - with defenders) to have the city in range of attack.