sinusgamma

Join Date 08/2010

[suggestion] Thoughts on expansion

I don't like, that I can build a very large empire without any real penalty. To keep together a large empire always was difficult. Rebellions, seceders, lack of real influence in the distant parts of the empire.

The other problem with this, that it enable you to conquer everything before you reach the 2/3 of the techtree. So you can't fight with your best units against the other factions best. Or you can play on hard or above, which leads to the stream of armies on the AI's side.

I was speculating on realistic ballance, which doesn't throw away the actual mechanism.

I think the "prestige" could give us a good oportunity. Philosophically in the game the presige is your global authority. If you haven't got enough authority you cannot manage a great empire efficiently. So lets connect the size of the empire and the efficiency with the prestige.

My idea:

The number of prestige determines how many cities you can manage without penalty. The first two cities would be free, but after you need three (or less/more) prestige per city to avoid penalties. If you haven't got enough prestige you aren't able to settle (but you could build outposts). Or you could build one or two more cities above your prestige limits, but your empire would suffer. In this case you have to deal with some new challenge. The prestige buildings would be really worth building. And you can always conquer an enemy city, but that would cause additional penalties because of your insufficient authority.

The penalty would be a global unrest, and all of your cities would suffer if you don't care about that. So you have to build prestige buildings, solve it by spells . . . I think this could cause an 5 percent unrest per cities above your limit. So the captured cities could have 100 unrest if you expand too fast. Ok, you can raze the, but in this case you loose a good city. Maybe raising a city could cause 5 per cent unrest as well for five turn (decreasing by one percent each turn).

This mechanism would punish the large and help the small. This would lead to a more ballanced game. The AI could have less penalty on chalanging difficulty and could loose all penalty on hard and above.

The authority should be a new index. It would be the difference between your prestig, and the prestige needed to maintain your empire on maximum efficiency (which is determined by the number of cities). If it negative, you would get 5 percent penalty from -1 to -5, 10 percent penalty from -6 to -10 and so on. If it is positive, you are ok, and you can see how much other cities can you have without penalty.

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Something else that would tie well is stronger penalties for unrest:

1. The existing production/research penalties

2. No militia defenders at medium unrest levels

3. Outright rebellion at high unrest levels

Of course, this would require the ability to suppress unrest with garrisoned troops - every man in the garrison would reduce unrest by 3% or so, and a champion would be just as much as a policemen as a lowly spearman. This will also help to alleviate the problem of early rushing.

And then, finally, razing cities should have a terrible effect on your prestige and foreign relations with at least some nations.

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

@Tuidjy. This sounds a lot like CIV III and it would work out as micromanagement hell.

@sinusgamma. Using prestige to limit could work, but I would rather that this was solved in other ways that is more direct. Roaming monsters should be a problem for setteling too much too fast. Other empires should take this as a negative thing and be more prone to join up on you if you overexpand.

Since we already have limited number of places to settle, I dont think we need any CIV III (unrest/corruption) or CIV VI (general loss of effectiveness in cities if overexpanding) mechanics in this game.

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But we need something that makes the overexpanding harder. If you want to play a long game, then you let the AI grow. But if you want to win the game, you just attack their cities, demand surrender end in a short time you win.

Yes, the monsters are problem for a while, especialy in the early game. But a bit later they doesn't really limit you.

And I think I didn't make too hard suggestions. With this mechanism the first four-five cities would be easy to keep under prestige limit. Some tech, some building and thats all. But it would make harder the rapid-expansion.

I don't think this an ultimate solution. I would greet other solutions, or combinations.

The point is that there must be a mechanism that makes the rapidexpansion harder and not so rewarding.

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

When you talk about 5+ cities, you are quite far into the game. When the monster AI and empire AI is more mature, you will not be able to just roll over the AI as you can now.

It seems to me that what you really worry about is the fact that you can get many cities by stomping the AI. The solution is not to punish the big empire, but to make the AI able to defend itself and punish you for the over expansion.

At this point the AI often just stick to armies with 3-4 units while you have full armies of 7-8 units. This makes midgame too easy. When this is fixed, you will have a more challenging game.

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"At this point the AI often just stick to armies with 3-4 units while you have full armies of 7-8 units. This makes midgame too easy. When this is fixed, you will have a more challenging game. "

I hope you will be right!

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

I won a game on challenging with dense monsters, playing with an Umber sovereign (GET THEM BACK ON THE RACE LIST STARDOCK) a couple of days ago. Gilden was far beyond me in score for a while, but as I could take out his army one by one with my toughest stack I won with ease. If he had focus on better troops and larger armies, I would be toast.

Yesterday I started a game as resolin and the first race/sov I met, was my custom made Umber Sovereign. That was fun. He and me are gonna take down Gilden.

Is it just me, or is Gilden the strongest AI in most games??

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RE: Occupation armies. It's not just CivIII. It's also Age of Wonders, every Total War game, and about every game in which a single hero unit can slaughter the garizon, but can't handle police/fireman duties. The micro-management bothers me a lot less than rolling AIs does.

RE: Better AI fixing everything. It would make the game more fun. But it would still feel wrong to be able to flip cities with as little trouble as now. Speaking for myself, wrong -> not fun.

RE: Bigger army stacks. It would be great, but I do not think that a full 9x9 elite troop stack will be able to scratch a soloing hero, no matter how good the AI, not even with flanking bonuses and overwhelm penalties. Not without making heroes artificially constrained and not fun to play with at low levels.

I mean, even in .913 (low experience) on Ridiculous, before turn 100, my tankS get to the point where they can take on anything below a wilderness boss, as long as the mana reserves are topped. In .914 I beat the game without building any units, without building in any but one city, without declaring war even once, and without any experience abuse - just by doing everything with my sovereign. My hero "The Hero" was level 38 when he finished the Master Quest, and I had a blast (By the way, the Kingdoms wiped the floor with the Empires)

Without severely reducing heroes' power to the 'meh' levels, you will always have the "single unit takes city" situation. Hero in AoW, Horse archer in TotalWar, what have you... This mechanic is fine, if on the next month, the single guy gets mobbed by the angry citizens and tossed out the gates. It is not fine if on the next day he walks out the gates, and the city is a firm supporter on the new order, EXCEPT, if as sinγ suggested, the conquering side has done some serious work to look like the Savior.

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RE: Better AI fixing everything. It would make the game more fun. But it would still feel wrong to be able to flip cities with as little trouble as now. Speaking for myself, wrong -> not fun.

And yes, Gilden often floats to the top. I have no idea why, as in Ridiculous AI everyone keep 100000+ coins at any time, so it's not their money making skills. End games are usually Gilden vs Yithril when I leave AI be.

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Pretty sure it's because Gilden (or rather Markinn) has the "builder" trait, which focuses into civic research pretty heavily. This is usually how you gain a huge advantage over other faction if you can survive (so if you or someone don't take them out early, they become powerhouses). If you play on hard or above difficulty, it'll seems like they are down right cheating sometimes. They will often finish most of the world wonders before your capitol city meets the level requirement for them. Which, of course means they get even more prestige and more power.

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you can build the wonders faster than guilden if you settle a location with at least 4 food, make a sencond settlement to make troops and start building as sson as you hit lv 3 on your capital. turn your taxes to low or none and start with the merchant bazaar to get gold, then turn taxes down to none and make the great mill.

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I'm telling you, my capitol hasn't even hit 3, and he already finished the bazaar, the vault, and the acadamy (that's next to last tier civic).

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