As per my latest post in the ghouls thread, I believe that the AI's current biggest problem is the vulnerability to fortress strikes.

If an AI sends a doomstack towards the human lands, the human has two options.  One: They can build a counter doomstack strong enough to attack the AI doomstack before it reaches its target.  Two: The human can dump a doomstack in to garrison whatever the AI is targetting.  This second option is a little problematical because the AI doomstack may switch targets at that point, which may result in the human requiring the equivalent of a doomstack in all of their garrisons.

However, on the reverse side, if the human sends a doomstack towards the AI, especially to do what we refer to as a fortress strike, then generally the AI has one huge problem with this.  The human will usually do so with a stack powerful enough to kill the AI fortress by itself - however, this generally has the side effect of meaning the human doomstack has enough overland army strength that nothing short of the AI capital garrison will even consider attacking the human doomstack.  This means that even though there may literally be dozens of AI stacks of units nearby, none of them will attack the human doomstack until it is weakened.  This means the human can literally wait and pick the time to attack the fortress so that the human knows they will succeed.


I'd like to add a new targetting/diplomacy feature to the AI:

If there is a human stack within 6 squares of the AI capital, it should be targetted by all stacks of 7-9 units the AI has within reach REGARDLESS of the comparative overland strength; and the AI should actively try to build stacks of 9 near its capital (which it already does to a large extent). Basically, this is to give the AI the chance to use combat spells to at least weaken the human doomstack.  Good chance it will do nothing, but right now, leaving the human doomstack to wander around unopposed just leads the AI being banished. City garrisons (especially the fortress garrison) would be exempt from this rule to attack the human stacks.

The human should get a warning if it leaves a stack within 8 squares of the AI capital.  If at least 5 turns go by with no human units within 8 squares of the AI capital, the warning will be reset.

The warning should basically be 'I don't care how friendly we are, even if I'm peaceful and we're allies. Get away from my fortress or I'll destroy your offending troops.'

The warning itself will have no diplomatic penalty. If the human leaves, hurray, diplomacy continues without notice. (Given the 8 square distance, I think this is required, as this will cover a big chunk of the map.) Since presumably it will be the AI attacking the human and losing in most cases, I don't THINK there would be any diplomatic penalties there either? So the human is free to stay near the enemy fortress and be attacked, without actually changing the diplomacy of the game.

This will have a secondary side effect, that the AI will claim all cities and nodes within 6 squares of its capital as it's own. If there are enemy cities in that range, that could lead to potential wars, but I don't think this is a problem. If something is that close to a fortress, the AI SHOULD consider it theirs, in order to protect themselves.

Edit: I'm aware this leads to potential abuse with the human sending lots of small stacks near the enemy capital to use up mana. But since the human can already do that, I don't think it's an issue. And if the AI attacks and wins a battle, I believe that has major diplomacy repercussions, so the human would pay for it anyway.

Now that we changed artifact costs, I wanted to play using an Artificier hero strategy again....but I don't know if it even still works. Maybe we overnerfed it?
(to put it simply, this is the strategy that relies mainly on heroes to clear nodes and conquer - nonhero troops are primarily self-defense, garrison, and filler in the hero armies.)

First of all, the wizard.
1 Artificier - This is obviously needed for an Artificier strategy.
1 Famous - Not really optional anymore - with the first 30 turns having no heroes, this is essential to make sure you get a hero in a reasonable amount of time. You could afford waiting 40 turns for the first hero originally, but now that the clock starts to tick on turn 30, that would make it turn 70 - by then you already lost the game if you weren't doing anything.

5 Life - Not optional - 5 books are now required for the good enchantments (Invulnerability, Lionheart)
5 Sorcery - Not optional - You need it for Phantasmal and Invisibility.

This still leaves you without Teleportation, but that's acceptable.
The problem here? First of all, zero flexibility. Not even a single pick you can use on something different. So you can't play this as a Myrran, you can't have Alchemy, or an additional Nature or Death or Chaos book, or anything. That's boring.
The second, zero flexibility means the strategy isn't scaleable to the difficulty. You can't pick more, and stronger retorts to play on higher levels. If this beats, for example, Expert in the current version, that's all you can play. You can't add Alchemy or Archmage or your preferred "powerhouse" retort to try Master or Lunatic difficulty (though I doubt the strategy is viable for the latter and probably shouldn't be). You also can't "drop" something and pick a weaker choice to play lower difficulty.

Other realms - Death for wraithform or Nature for regeneration or merging are entirely impossible unless you completely drop Life or Sorcery - what really matters in those needs 5 books.

So that's it for the wizard.
this could probably be fixed by reconsidering the book costs - maybe raising the good stuff to 5 was a bit too harsh.

Now for the actual gameplay.

In the first 30 turns you don't get heroes. Which means you have to enter the time period when the AI starts attacking you without any sort of plan. Sorcery/Life has no good summoning, so that's mostly your race and its units - but you don't get enough Life picks to do "super-buffed normal unit" either - you must pick Just Cause and Healing and Heroism (ok, maybe not heroism, Famous might level up your heroes...but I wouldn't bet on that) so you can only pick one buff and even that means no Heavenly Light - which is absolutely critical, too.
I suppose, Nagas are an option but...idk, feels a waste of mana crystals and sorcery picks.
Overall, you must go "military first" instead of the usual 1-2 settlers. Even if you see a spot with gold ores next to you or something. Of course it also means any race without a strong early military option is out. No halflings (even though they are great with Life) or Orcs or High Men or...I guess the others are fine.
Again, feels a bit overly limited.

Once you survive these turns, you need to...get a hero. Which means, passing turns without spending your gold. While everyone else is busy rush-producing the sawmills in their new outposts, you can't even buy a settler - if a hero shows up, you have to have the 200-600 gold needed to pay for it. This wouldn't be so bad but after already being forced to not build settlers, not being able to buy them for gold either hurts. Let's hope the "military first" strategy finds some gold in treasure.

Of course, once you have your hero, and possibly an item to equip - you had nothing better to do in the first 30 turns anyway - you can take advantage of that and conquer some neutrals or AI using the hero so it's not like it's a bad strategy or unplayable - but considering the sheer number of AI units, I don't thing the hero can keep up with all that and actually hold anything.

If you get past that obstacle too, then there is spell blast from the AI, and having to research create artifact, but once you manage to deal with both somehow, you finally have some really powerful heroes. Except, you need to still find a wraithform item for all your heroes and they are so rare now, you probably won't, so you can forget about fighting anyone with Nature books using heroes as you have no Crack's Call protection.

...so, does anyone else play an Artificier hero strategy? Is it still playable? Is it still FUN?

"OK, RBO-43, here's the script for the new show".

"Oooh, Meklar. So I get to play the all-conquering borg, assimilating the entire galaxy and forcing peace and happiness on my terms?"

"Uh ... no".

"Oh. That's OK. The Meklar make a pretty good antagonist, building a strong power that the hero can only overcome with a final, titanic struggle."

"Still no".

"No?"

"..."

"Hand that over."

<Flip, flip>

"Huh. The comic relief. I guess at least it's short".

-------

<A short while later...>

"Um, RB, could I have a word? Initial viewer responses are in, and I'm afraid we need to do a reshoot."

"Really, I'm kind of busy here..."

"You can try out for that Pirates role later. Right now, we need to redo your part in the game. I I know you were supposed to be comic relief, but that means 'funny' and your part came across more as  'so pathetic the audience feel sorry for you'. And some of your improv - I mean, the way you dithered about actually getting a second colony out..."

"You didn't provide me with any good planets!"

"... the way you hung around 'researching' IT10 at 40-50% for turn after turn after turn ..."

"That happens some times"

"... just turn the damn slider up like the script says next time! Sometimes there's such a thing as being too efficient. We did get a few laughs from that pair of Silicoid fighters rolling all your scout blockades up in sequence though - nice sequence."

"I did like the way I managed to get the timing just right - one turn faster with my fighters and I would have been there first, and spoiled the whole scene! Though I do think the audience might think it was fairer if I got free colony ships at my new frontier worlds like the other players do."

"However, letting the Psilons get into orbit above your homeworld was just seen as too grim."

"Look, that scene really worked! I loved the way I had to put half my pop into space to avoid losing the vote because every other race was in alliance! And that meant the production figures were lies - they said should have had a large cruiser and two missile bases completing that turn and I only got one base; audience should have been totally on the edge of their seats with the twist."

"Meh. No-one liked it. And that Hail Mary attack on the Psilons without even waiting to see if you could actually get orbital superiority? The audience just saw that as utterly unrealistic. No-one would do that in real life. I mean, even the dumb ones weren't surprised that the Psilons had eight larges waiting for you."

"Fine, fine, hand me the revised script. Maybe you'll have granted me one of the first three environmental control techs this time to go with all the barren worlds. No - you couldn't change that? What am I supposed to do? Trade for it with the Darloks ... OK. I can work with that."

------

"Oh, come on. You've got exactly the same thing with another race getting a cascade of colony ships escorted by peanuts and my fighters running around one turn too late. It's just that this time it's the Psilons, not the Silicoids - and with only one fighter. And them getting a world three parsecs from my home world on turn within the first ten turns, it's just ridiculous."

"Hey - you get four worlds this time- and two of them fertile! And you've got really good relations with the Psilons and Silicoids."

"Yeah - but look at the next page: Darloks declare war! How am I supposed to trade for Controlled Barren with them now? So, now I'm the bad guy, glassing their planets. And what's next - they're allied with the Silicoids? And the Silicoids have ships defending the Darlok worlds even although they're not at war with me? I guess that could be seen as funny, but teh humour goes a bit oddly with the whole 'glassing planets' thing.
Ooh - the alliance goes and ... is replaced by one with the Psilons? And they pull exactly the same trick of having their ships over the Darlok worlds? What next, do I tread on a rake repeatedly? Seriously.
Oh, they get annoyed enough with me that they declare war. And send a stack of larges with Death Spores to my worlds. Nice. Tens of millions of dead Meklar. Isn't this supposed to be a comedy? Tell you what - stuff this. I can get better parts than this just by snapping my fingers."

"Look, slow down, you're just going too fast - we can work with this. We'll just tweak it so you're not stupid enough to keep attacking the friendly ships and just wait for the alliances to wear off. Wait - where are you going: walk away from this and you'll never work in this town again!"

<Altercation continues. Roll credits.>

Game Summary:
I was able to get my starting Scout into orbit at Gion and prevent the Psilons from colonizing their second colony.  This despite scrapping my colony ship let me clean up eight worlds extending into the center of the map for a massive positive score.  From there war with the Silicoids propelled me to a domination victory in 2425.

Score Summary:
Scrapped starting colony ship:    +5
Settled:            Yarrow    +1
                       Gion        +1
                       Proxima     +1
                       Rayden     +1
                       Maalor     +1
                       Zoctan    +1
                       Draconis    +1
                       Keeta    +1
Destroyed:        Obaca    -1
Refounded:       Obaca    +1
Destroyed:        Seidon    -1
Refounded:       Seidon    +1
Destroyed:        Morrig    -1
Refounded:       Morrig    +1
Winning vote with veto control:    +5
Winning prior to 2450:        +10
_____________________________
Total:                    +28

Full report attached!

Attached Files

  RBO-43 Ianus' Report.pdf (Size: 873.22 KB / Downloads: 14)

This was actually a frustrating game to play.  I realized very early on that I had made some fundamental strategic mistakes that made it fairly hopeless to play the rest of the game out.  But I did so anyways, eventually ending up genocided by the Silicoids in 2514.  Read the full report in the attached PDF below.

Attached Files

  Meklar Imperium 43 report.pdf (Size: 533.53 KB / Downloads: 13)

Dear veterans, which of the Imperia were particularly fun or memorable? You might get some shadow reports in return.

Result:

Score: 1 (I didn't particularly try to maximize the score, but just recorded it anyway.)
Lost in the 2375 election.

I'm not even mad, this was one of the strangest games I played. Also, there were some weedy moves on my part.

Spring 1695



It was a beautiful spring day when Pocahontas took the stage before the City Hall of New Bath. Behind her, the rest of the Continental Congress filed in, with only a few notable by their absences: Magellan, Minuit, Cortes, Brebeuf, Sepulveda. Magellan was far away, his ship exploring the newly-discovered western island of the Sioux; the others had reasons of their own.

The native princess, her long hair falling silver to her waist, held up her hands for attention. The crowd, a mix of colonists and soldiers, of Natives and Europeans, fell slowly into silence. Only when the last voice had stilled did she raise her head and speak.

"My friends," she said, "for many years we have suffered the indignities Her Majesty saw fit to inflict upon us. We have seen our taxes rise and fall according to her whim, enforced by boycotts which even Congressman Fugger's best efforts could not wholly end. We have seen her wars with the Netherlands spread to our own shores, until we had no choice but to take their colonies by force. We have seen her stand idly by as the French expanded across this land, absorbing the Spanish with nary a quibble. And we have seen her offer military aid - at ruinous prices - with one hand, while raising up an army to crush us with the other.

"This cannot stand."

Pocahontas half-turned, and voices buzzed the crowd as noted revolutionary Thomas Jefferson stepped forward. He handed a roll of parchment to the princess, then retreated as she unfurled it. The crowd waited with bated breath for her words.

"'This Day, the Continental Congress has passed the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America.

"'I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Day's Transaction, even though We should rue it, which I trust in God We will not.'"

Pocahontas lowered the scroll, and her eyes seemed to gaze straight into the soul of each person gathered before her.

"This very morning, the Continental Congress has voted to declare the Confederation of West Wessex independent from the Kingdom of England. It is our solemn hope that Elizabeth will see her way fit to allowing us to part in peace, and Congressman Franklin," the man in question nodded from behind her, "will depart ere nightfall to negotiate it; yet we fear that she will see only a rebellion which must be crushed. Having been elected President by the Continental Congress, I-"

A ripple ran through the crowd, spreading out in waves from the stage. Voices murmured, rose into debates, then broke into shouts and exclamations. A chant went up, starting among the Native colonists but quickly spreading across the entire assembly: "Mother-of-us-All. Mother-of-us-All!"

President Pocahontas could do nothing but wait, as the people's acclamation swirled around her; and if some stayed silent, glowering, what of it? Natives and Europeans had mingled together for many years in West Wessex, and the prejudices of a few Europeans weren't going to change that.

Finally, the crowd returned to order, and Pocahontas stood forth once more. "As your President," she said, "I have pledged to defend your lands, your cities, your nation. Admiral Drake!" A cheer went up as the famed pirate stepped forward. "Colonel Revere!" A second cheer, louder this time. "General Washington!" The loudest of all, a wall of sound that battered the stage. "Are you prepared to take up arms against the Royal Expeditionary Force, to halt Elizabeth's army in its tracks, and to secure the liberty of this, our new nation?"

George Washington spoke for all three. "Madame President - Your Highness - Mother-of-us-All -" Each title punctuated with a bow and a small smile. "- for the Confederation of West Wessex, my soldiers and I would fight the very Devil himself, and raise our banners about the ramparts of Hell."

The crowd erupted, every man and woman leaping to their feet to cheer the Conqueror of New Holland and his men. Washington took his place at Pocahontas' side, waving to the people as the rest of the Congress came forward. From a dozen places in the crowd a song rose, haphazard at first but weaving together, until ten thousand voices joined as one into the anthem of the fledgling nation:

O home belov’d, where’er I wander,
On foreign land or distant sea,
As time rolls by, my heart grows fonder
And yearns more lovingly for thee…!

~

Welcome to FreeCol, the open-source remake of Sid Meier's Colonisation. It's about 90% a straight remake of the 1994 game with better graphics; the changes are mostly to fix bugs and unintuitive mechanics in the original, or to add things such as more European nations (up to eight, from the four in the original).

As someone who owned Colonisation on floppy disk, FreeCol is an absolute delight to me every time I remember it exists. It feels like a heavily-modded Civ 3 or 4 - which is probably why they chose Civ 4 for the commercial remake/reimagining - but in many ways it is entirely its own thing.

As you can see above, colonies in FreeCol look very different to their counterparts in Civ. The most notable difference is that colonies don't have an inherent population - every one of those colonists can step out of New Bath and head over to the next town whenever I want. They're also highly specialised: while the standard Free Colonist exists, almost all of my people have been trained to one profession or another. New Bath has everything from farmers and fishermen (in the hinterlands, on the left) to weavers, preachers, and a couple of Colonial Regulars placed in the various buildings of the town. (The Regulars are teaching at the university, training the next generation to fight. They don't actually have any students right now - I'll fix that for next turn.)

There are four ways to increase your population in FreeCol. The simplest, now out of our reach, is to ship colonists in from the homeland - but, y'know, we've just declared independence, Queen Elizabeth I isn't going to be letting our ships dock. Secondly, any colony that hits 200 food will use it to generate a new Free Colonist, who can then be trained up (all of mine go straight to one of the university towns to become soldiers). Thirdly, native villages can send you Native Converts, who are excellent farmers but not too good in buildings. And fourth, you can capture unarmed European citizens, who become your own with no downsides.

Put simply, the goal of FreeCol (and Colonisation before it) is to settle the New World, build up your colonies, declare Independence, and fight off the mother country's army to secure it. This report opens on the very eve of the declaration, and will follow the Confederation of West Wessex through to either its victory (driving off the Royal Expeditionary Force) or defeat (losing all its coastal colonies/90% of its population to the REF).

Along the way, I'll explain a few of the game mechanics (see above), but mostly this is a narrative story. My cast of characters is made up of the 25 Founding Fathers from the game, AKA the Continental Congress. You elect these every so often, and they provide bonuses and benefits to your colonies. Of course, they're also a wildly-anachronistic collection… what I'm saying is, my cast will share names, nationalities, and some traits with their real counterparts, but in terms of specifics of their history and personality, I'm working on mostly from their FreeCol bonuses and my own imagination.

Here's the two who've had speaking parts so far:


Pocahontas
Real World: Daughter of a native chief local to the Jamestown colony, who (anecdotally) saved John Smith from execution, and (actually) married John Rolfe and had a son named Thomas. She died in England at the age of 21; her descendants include astronomer Percival Lowell. 1596-1617.
FreeCol: Removes all tension with the natives that has been accumulated to that point, and makes it accumulate half as fast. Joined my Continental Congress in 1649.
West Wessex: President of the Confederation, Princess Powhatan, Mother-of-us-All. She combines the best of her own story and the Plymouth Colony thanksgiving tradition, and has been instrumental in unifying the natives and Europeans in West Wessex. Her election, however, was not unanimous... 


George Washington
Real World: The General who led America to independence, and its first President. Come on, it's Washington, you know this one. 1732-1799.
FreeCol: On winning a battle, a soldier or dragoon is upgraded to the next level (Soldier>Veteran Soldier>Colonial Regular). Joined the Congress in 1664.
West Wessex: General of the armies of West Wessex. He will be organising and leading the offensive against the Royal Expeditionary Force.

(The song, by the way, is 'Oh Home Beloved', which I've cribbed from the Latter-day Saint hymnbook. It's by a Welshman who moved to America, and is nice in that it's mostly about the landscape, rather than violent patriotism and/or religion. It's a bit anachronistic, dating from around 1900, but, y'know, President Pocahontas. )

Next update will be the map of West Wessex; then we'll get stuck into the War of Independence itself.

PS: I'm assuming that as a remake of a Civ-relative, this thread is okay to be in the Civ forum. If it would be more appropriate on the Gaming Table, I'm happy for it to be move/to move it (not sure how that works).

Currently, Entangle subtracts 2 movement points of the available amount on each enemy unit at the start of each new turn.
This sounds like as if the unit had 2 lower maximal movement, but doesn't work that way.

-This matches the description of the spell (unit loses 2 movement each turn).
-This causes units to be able to attack fewer times. For example a 4 move Stag Beetle would have 2 moves left but would still spend 2 moves to attack (half of the maximal 4), so it can only attack once a turn, even if not moving.
-This causes the AI to not recognize the loss of movement on the enemy units (the maximal movement per turn stat is not affected, even though the unit is slower), so it'll still decide on running or chasing tactics as though the unit wasn't any slower.
-This causes the reduction to not affect fleeing, though it wouldn't be affected anyway as fleeing uses the overland movement stat of units - combat movement is probably not safe to call after the end of combat.

So, the question is, do we keep this weird behavior, or change the spell to do "the maximal movement of all enemy units is reduced by 2" instead?
I feel the AI part is significant enough to warrant a change?
Also, is there any other possible side effect of this change I didn't notice?

I am currently designing some negotiation scenarios, as well as an entire negotiation simulation system of my own. One of those scenarios concerns disaster relief -- it is a highly assymetric, risk management negotiation between a disaster relief organisation, two wholesale suppliers of relief kits and a flexible number of minor suppliers in the face of a major incoming hurricane. This scenario needs testing, and I would welcome assistance. The participants would have some private information and goals that they need to achieve, the result is scoreable. I would like 4+ signups, there is no upper limit, but over 9 would probably be too much. Negotiation would be by forum/discord. For an example of a negotiation already run on the site, you can see: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=8646