Multishot Embassy Creators in civ2civ3 Create Problems (3.0.0-beta1+ 85e81abef5)
Attached patch makes embassy establishing to consume Diplomat or Explorer.
The rule change itself is trivial, but help updates required more work. Unfortunately I couldn't help strings between different rulesets from becoming less reusable, so there's more work for translators with this.
The new patch file is the same patch as earlier, but extracted from S3_0 (earlier was from master), so it hopefully applies better for Chippo.
It applies fine to S3_0.
It works for me.
alain_bkr it applies on 3.0 and works for me too.
While I don't approve of ML's patch (I wanted Explorers to lose Ambassador abilities altogether), the game is SOOOO much improved since then. I'm not a great player, so these stats should be considered appropriately. Before this patch, in 70 turns I would be dominating. Post this patch, it takes me about 200 turns before I rule.
Well done ML!
Reply To chippo
(I wanted Explorers to lose Ambassador abilities altogether)
Open a new ticket if that's something you want when we go towards 3.1. I don't think it's a critical one that should go to S3_0?
Good call. I find important that you fixed this one. Thank you.
I wanted Explorers to lose Ambassador abilities altogether
I submitted those changes to explorers before the release of v2.6, and I guess I did not test them properly in v3.0.
I'd like to keep the ability of explorers to investigate enemy cities without being killed, but I agree the ability to build embassies could be removed. I might do it in the future.
Reply To bard
I'd like to keep the ability of explorers to investigate enemy cities without being killed,
Absolutely! It was one of the (many) cool features of civ2civ3. I feel it's completely fair and it even matches real life.
But on this point, I don't think the AIs know/knew about the features that the Explorer has (and had). For example I never saw an AI establish an embassy with an Explorer, even when they had multi-shot capabilities.
Ditto for Diplomat. The AI's Diplomat would end its moves right next to our city. Next turn, it would establish an Embassy and do nothing with its 1 2/3 moves left - my Diplomat would be two squares away already. It was like the AI expected its Diplomat to get killed and then next turn discovers it has an unexpected extra Diplomat and decides to do something with it.
In civ2civ3, right now, Explorers and Diplomats can create multiple Embassies. Given that one starts with one of each and all players start on the same continent, within a short number of turns, the player can easily have an Embassy with all other players. This obsoletes Marco Polo's and creates lots of tech-leakage.
There are several solutions. My favourite is:
Some other possible solutions (but we might need more than one of them) are: