Multi-shot Diplomats/Explorers in civ2civ3 considered harmful
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2020 10:46 am
I'm aware of the discussion that led to Diplomats and Explorers getting longevity after creating embassies (someone thought that 30 production points was too much to just get an embassy). I initially agreed and have had a lot of fun in civ2civ3 with the starting Explorer and Diplomat. I've changed my mind. With the tech leakage in civ2civ3, embassies are WAY more powerful that those lame embassies in the default ruleset.
In the attached savegame (3.0.0-alpha3+ (41e42cbc47)) (you need to change the '.txt. back to '.sav.xz') I started with civ2civ3 defaults and changed:
- 100 tiles/player to 200
- 6 players to 15
I specifically kept pseudo-fractal height (when I normally select fully random) because that's what new players will get when they try out civ2civ3. Note that the point I'm about to make doesn't apply for any of the map generators other than pseudo-fractal.
The 2 changes I made only exacerbate the point I'm about to make; with only 100 tiles and 6 players the issue would have been absolute and completed ages ago.
In the savegame, it's turn 97, I've just acquired (or researched) trade, a city is getting ahead of tech in it's worklist and needs to pause with a Wonder to let research catch up. So which wonder? I consider Marco Polo's Embassy. Then I see that out of the 15 players, I'm only missing one embassy. And while my Explorer recently bought it, I still have my starting Diplomat to get that last embassy.
The combination of a free Diplomat at startup, Explorers getting embassy-creation, Diplomats and Explorers getting multi-shot and the choice of the pseudo-fractal map generator have conspired to make Marco Polo's Embassy obsolete (before Democracy ever could).
What to do?
1) Change the reward for Marco Polo's Embassy to something that you might want. Sticking with the Trade theme, maybe give the city that build it double (or triple? or quad-damage?) gold for it's 2 trade routes? Or maybe every trade-route in your empire gets one extra gold?
2) Change the default map generator to fully random height. Then you need caravels to get your multi-shot Diplomat and Explorer all over the world.
3) Remove the multi-shot ability for Diplomat and Explorer and just swallow the 30 productions points you have to spend per embassy. 30 pp is NOTHING compared to the gold you save via tech leakage over the life of the embassy. (this is my favoured solution)
4) Remove tech leakage so that embassies are less valuable, putting them in line with the now massively reduced cost (basically free) of getting them all. This would also need the reward to be changed to make it worth the effort of building it. (this is my least favoured solution, 'cos I love tech leakage and (especially) tech upkeep)
In the attached savegame (3.0.0-alpha3+ (41e42cbc47)) (you need to change the '.txt. back to '.sav.xz') I started with civ2civ3 defaults and changed:
- 100 tiles/player to 200
- 6 players to 15
I specifically kept pseudo-fractal height (when I normally select fully random) because that's what new players will get when they try out civ2civ3. Note that the point I'm about to make doesn't apply for any of the map generators other than pseudo-fractal.
The 2 changes I made only exacerbate the point I'm about to make; with only 100 tiles and 6 players the issue would have been absolute and completed ages ago.
In the savegame, it's turn 97, I've just acquired (or researched) trade, a city is getting ahead of tech in it's worklist and needs to pause with a Wonder to let research catch up. So which wonder? I consider Marco Polo's Embassy. Then I see that out of the 15 players, I'm only missing one embassy. And while my Explorer recently bought it, I still have my starting Diplomat to get that last embassy.
The combination of a free Diplomat at startup, Explorers getting embassy-creation, Diplomats and Explorers getting multi-shot and the choice of the pseudo-fractal map generator have conspired to make Marco Polo's Embassy obsolete (before Democracy ever could).
What to do?
1) Change the reward for Marco Polo's Embassy to something that you might want. Sticking with the Trade theme, maybe give the city that build it double (or triple? or quad-damage?) gold for it's 2 trade routes? Or maybe every trade-route in your empire gets one extra gold?
2) Change the default map generator to fully random height. Then you need caravels to get your multi-shot Diplomat and Explorer all over the world.
3) Remove the multi-shot ability for Diplomat and Explorer and just swallow the 30 productions points you have to spend per embassy. 30 pp is NOTHING compared to the gold you save via tech leakage over the life of the embassy. (this is my favoured solution)
4) Remove tech leakage so that embassies are less valuable, putting them in line with the now massively reduced cost (basically free) of getting them all. This would also need the reward to be changed to make it worth the effort of building it. (this is my least favoured solution, 'cos I love tech leakage and (especially) tech upkeep)