Status: This mod is now release version 1.0 (Updated 12/06/2005)

Description: This mod adds three new units, the Caravan, Entertainer, and Freight. As best as I can tell, the AI does know how to produce and use these units. Stats follow:

NOTE: Each of these units is limited to a maximum of 3 each in existence at one time (just like missionaries).

Caravan: Available with Currency and Construction, costs 50 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special abilities: Can perform a trade mission like the Great Merchant but will only produce a base of 50 gold; can hurry the production of the city it resides in by 25 production. Uses the Great Merchant graphic. Upgrades to Freight.

Freight: Available with Railroad, costs 150 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special abilities: can hurry the production of the city it resides in by 100 production; can perform a trade mission like the Great Merchant but will only produce a base of 150 gold. Replaces the Caravan. Uses the Great Merchant graphic.

Entertainer: Available with Drama, costs 40 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special ability: can provide a one-time shot of 15 culture to a city a la the Great Artist ability. Uses the Great Artist graphic.

Version History:
Beta 1
- Initial Release
- Caravan and Supply Train units added

Beta 2
- Freight and Entertainer units added

1.0
- Combined Caravan and Supply Train/Freight units
- Added the readme file


INSTALLATION: Instructions are in the readme.txt file.

NOTE: if you have the previous version you can overwrite that installation with these files HOWEVER: I do NOT recommend loading a saved game that was not started with this build of the mod if you install this mod. In other words, don't change out mods and then reload a saved game... it'll probably corrupt the saved game.


Please provide feedback and thoughts on this mod.

Sounds very cool :-).

Supply Train with Construction?
Isn't that too early?
I suppose it can only fasten regular buildings, no projects and wonders
- am I right?

I suggest trains coming with Industrialism or Rails...

Otherwise, a fine idea! :)

Nice idea!

Is the caravan actually worth building though, i.e. what sort of figures are we talking with basic and more extensive caravan journeys? Is it more worthwhile than a city producing wealth?

Love the idea, but agree that the Supply Train might be too early. I'll have to see how the AI actually uses them, but I can see myself using lots of them in cities I don't want to improve or build more units in.

Love the idea, but agree that the Supply Train might be too early. I'll have to see how the AI actually uses them, but I can see myself using lots of them in cities I don't want to improve or build more units in.

I wonder if it's not the name that is causing the confusion. Train doesn't have to mean locomotive, it's actually a very old term for a procession of wagons (or camels), as in 'baggage train'

I wonder if it's not the name that is causing the confusion. Train doesn't have to mean locomotive, it's actually a very old term for a procession of wagons (or camels), as in 'baggage train'

Not really a confusion, but it seems that Construction and Currency are researched fairly close together. That's why I felt it was too soon to offer another "caravan" type build. I think they need to be spaced out and have the Supply Train be larger and more expensive.

edit: I guess they aren't really the same thing. My bad. I thought one was just a better version of the other. Maybe a better caravan like Frieght or something later on then?

Just so you know, I had to create them as two separate units so that the AI would understand how to use them. There's a tag in the XML called UnitAIType that defines how the AI should use the unit. It seems possible to add multiple AI's to a single unit type but I felt it would be better to single task the units just to make sure the AI's using them correctly since they would be imbalancing if the AI's don't use them as well. I'm looking at testing a single unit with both functions and both AI tags but like I said, this is a beta and feedback is important.

On the Caravan: I tried to set the funds returned to be just a bit (about 25-50%) better than having the city just produce gold. My rationale on this is that the Caravan is vulnerable and can be lost or captured whereas having the city produce gold has no risk. And yes, if you capture a Caravan, you get a Caravan... not a worker. Longer distances do produce more cash but it's at a slower rate than the Great Merchant so it seems hard to abuse that way. If you folk see that the funds returned are out of line, PLEASE say so. I put this out as a beta because I needed more eyes than just mine to look at this.

On the Supply Train: It can hurry any building but not projects or units. So yes, it can hurry a wonder. Keep in mind though that you only get half of the production you put into it... i.e. it costs 50 production to make one but only contributes 25 production. And it's vulnerable to destruction or capture like the Caravan. Oh, and the name was simply because I couldn't come up with anything else that made sense to describe its function.

And lastly, availability: Yeah, I did set both units to be available fairly early in the game. The Caravan was deliberately put at Currency because I felt there needed to be something to help with early game expansion given the lack of any early game Economy civics. I went from there with the Supply Train looking for a reasonable counterpart tech. And while yes, they are pretty early game units, keep in mind that these cost almost as much production as a settler and in the early game that can take a while. Of course if you folk think that one or both should be moved to later in the game, please make suggestions!

Have you considered doing something similar with food? For instance, a unit that consumes extra food as part of its production cost, like a settler, that can be used in another city for a quick population boost. Though I suppose this is a little more difficult since there isn't already a unit that does something similar.

I'd really love to do a unit that transports food but from what I can see in the XML file for units, there aren't any tags to work with. Perhaps something can be done at a later date using Python or the SDK.

Oddly enough, just about everything else can be transported... Science, Production, Gold, and Culture via the following tags:

<iBaseDiscover>0</iBaseDiscover>
<iDiscoverMultiplier>0</iDiscoverMultiplier>
<iBaseHurry>0</iBaseHurry>
<iHurryMultiplier>0</iHurryMultiplier>
<iBaseTrade>0</iBaseTrade>
<iTradeMultiplier>0</iTradeMultiplier>
<iGreatWorkCulture>0</iGreatWorkCulture>

Science transport doesn't make much sense as a unit although the culture code is somewhat tempting. Wouldn't be as useful as a Great Artist but maybe enough to get a city from a 1 tile radius to a 2 tile radius without having to build an obelisk or Stonehenge. Literally, I'm thinking only about 10-20 culture to a unit like this. Any interest in an "Entertainer" unit like this?

Entertainer, food shipments, production assistance, it's all a good idea....if the AI uses it too. I don't remember how well the AI used this stuff in SMAC, but I know that the player could.

Well, given that the AI knows how to use a Great Artist, it should be able to use an Entertainer/Troubadour/Chronicler/whatever it'll be called just fine. My initial thoughts are to make it cost around 40 production and produce 15 culture. This makes it just a little more expensive than an obelisk but not unbalancing in the amount of culture it generates. Again this is just a gut reaction but I'm thinking of making it available with either Drama or Music... probably Drama.

Love the idea of this mod, the entertainer and food moving versions sound great too. :)

Maybe set a cap on max one use Supply Train per city and turn, so you can't rush wonders with like 10 Supply Trains at a single turn.

Maybe set a cap on max one use Supply Train per city and turn, so you can't rush wonders with like 10 Supply Trains at a single turn.

Sadly you could conceivably chop down 10 forests in 1 turn, but I see the point on trying to limit the overuse of this.

Would a food transport work in this way: Make a caravan or whatever in City A, move it to City B, and now City A donates 1 food per turn to City B? This would be great if possible for those coastal cities with high food and no hammers. This could be real trade.

Sounds like an awesome mod. How do I instal it to make it a permanent part of my game. I think that if caravans produced permanent trade routes like in civ2 that would be a lot better than the current setup of having them set up automatically for you. But that kind of mod would be harder to make

Mirrored this file at http://civilization4.filefront.com/ :) Looks like a useful file indeed Hastur!

MattJek: Just follow the installation instructions in the first post. Copy the files into the folders already present in My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CustomAssets and start up the game. That's all there is to it.

As for the various units, I've done the Caravan and Supply Train as gold and production. I'm 99% sure I can do the entertainer for culture.

Food though is one I just don't see a way to do using what I've got available. I'd REALLY love to make that unit because it drives me nuts to have a city that's stalled in growth while there's another city nearby that has plenty of food and could ship extra to the stalled city if there was just a mechanism to do so. New York City is a huge city but they don't get much food from their immediate area as a perfect real-life example.

As for limiting use of the units, the only cap the game will let me set is a maximum number of active units per player at one time. For instance, I could set that you can only have five Caravans active at once. I don't see too much problem with having plenty of Caravans running if that's your choice but after the discussion here, I am considering capping Supply Trains. Thoughts?

Thanks JamieCiv4Files!

for food it should be "immigrants" it should cost vary little production like 20 or something but the same food as a pop increase and you should be able to put that pop in any city

It'd be a shame to not be able to do food since your analogy is dead-on. Without bringing in food how many big cities would we have?

It would be interesting once you build a supermarket if some how the system would average all the food connected via highways and harbors weighted to the population.

Also a thought about caravans; once you hit the modern age, I think a caravan should be obsolete. Transportation will make it common place.

Interesting idea there about making caravans obsolete. I hadn't really thought about that part of it. Someone earlier suggested providing a modern upgrade to the Supply Train unit called Freight. Definitely things to think about tonight. I'll take a shot at the Entertainer unit and can look at doing a modern Freight unit if there's interest.

A cap on supply trains sounds like a very good idea to prevent wonder rushing too easily - effectively it would be allowing prebuilds again like in Civ 3 (or the civ 2 OCC, where using caravans on a later wonder build was a near-essential 'strategy').

Ok... per the mod notes in the first post, I've added the Freight and Entertainer units and set a cap of 3 units of any particular type as being active at any time just like Missionaries. Let me know what y'all think...

Can you do food too?

What about having the caravans founding permanent trade routes like in civ2? would that be possible?

I'll pour through the XML files again to see if I can find something but so far no joy on making a unit that can transport food. I'll keep trying.

Permanent trade routes a la Civ2 is going to be way out of my ability. That would require at least a ton of Python code and quite possibly the SDK if it's even possible at all. Sorry about that.

Permanent trade routes a la Civ2 is going to be way out of my ability. That would require at least a ton of Python code and quite possibly the SDK if it's even possible at all. Sorry about that.
No problem, I know it would be a big challenge to put that option into the game.

When you will put the final version ?

Because your Mod give taste of Civ 2 to Civ 4 !

What do you think to Recall your Mod "Taste of Civ 2" and :

- make planes to attack like in civ 2 ? because i loved the system of Civ 2 for ships and planes

- spies with bad and very bad missions like planting nuke case in cities and contaminate the water or buy the cities ???

:king: :goodjob: Good work !

Well, I'd really like to get some feedback from folks using the mod before I call it final. That and I'm still trying to make a reskin (skinning is definitely NOT my best skill) for each of the units so you can tell them apart easily.

So as of right now, the only enhancements I have in mind for this mod are reskins and balance corrections based on feedback. I do have a few other ideas for mods and have been working on them so we'll see what happens.

I'm not a fan of the caravan or entertainer units.
I'm not sure I like the idea of re-adding layers of micromanagement to things which have already been intentionally abstracted and simplified for a good reason.

The supply trains, however, I like a lot.
It's a good idea (although I dunno if its unbalancing and how) to have one city send food or help production in another city via supply shipments, and I appreciate that you mind the balance and logic of the thing so that it becomes a strategic choice rather than a cheat for zipping productions between towns (because you lose some of the production you put into it).

Still, are you sure its well balanced and not open to some kind of abuse?


PS. Culture moves don't make any sense and ARE open to abuse for cheap cultural victories :>

Doesn't work, can you make a folder called "Civ2taste" ?

and you rebuild on it ...

I would like install the mod in the mods folder like a normal mod

Can you add a merchant ship, a fret ship and a fret plane ?

:)

There've been some interesting reviews of these extra units so here's my reasoning on them:

All Units: Keep in mind that you are limited to having three of each unit active at one time. This tends to limit any of the excesses that are even possible. You can't form up a huge set of Supply Trains to instant build a wonder. Nor can you have waves of Caravans supplying you with gold. And you can't have large numbers of Entertainers building up a city's culture unduly (in fact, given that Entertainers provide 15 culture and Great Artists provide 4000 culture, it would take 266 Entertainers to provide that same amount and would cost 10,640 production to build them... or about 7 times as much as the Eiffel Tower just to get the effect of ONE Great Artist).

Caravan: No, this doesn't replace (nor should it) the trade routes functionality. It is intended to provide an option regarding commerce and nothing more. The return on using the Caravan vs. just setting a city to build wealth is designed to be about 20% better. Nothing so huge as to provide an overly large return given that, at least in my experience, it's uncommon to just leave a city on the build wealth setting. But it can be handy when you're needing a small temporary boost in available gold.

Supply Trains/Freight: These seem to be the one type of units that everyone actually likes. :D

Entertainers: As noted above, these units are horribly inefficient for developing large amounts of culture. They are good for helping a very new city (or conquered city) get on its feet. One Entertainer will get a city to a radius of 2 squares. It would take 7 (and remember you can only have 3 active at a time) to get a city to a radius of 3 squares. The intent is to represent the effect of a government deliberately encouraging the growth of their culture through small efforts rather than taking the small frontier town and building an opera house in it. Think minstrels, bards, circuses, and travelling road shows. If they are still considered to be too powerful as they are, I may drop their benefit down to just 10 culture.

Other Units: Since I put up this mod, I've been getting requests to make a food transfer unit. And believe me, I'd love to do it. The only way I've been able to come up with something like this that would actually work is a bit roundabout but it's interesting... A pair of buildings set to work like National Wonders (i.e. you can only build one of each). The first would be Food Export and would lower the available food in town by say 4. The second would be Food Import and would require that the Food Export building had been built somewhere in your empire before it would provide its benefit of say 3 food (some would be lost or spoiled in transport). This would enable a single city to help support the growth of another city. It's possible that this could be enhanced to allow it to work for multiple city pairs (using roughly the same kind of python code that checks to see if you have enough temples before building a cathedral) but I don't know for sure. I'd also like to see if there's a method that the buildings could be torn down so you could rebuild them for a different city pairing. Any thoughts on this?

As for merchant/freight ships and planes, you can always board the units onto a ship or use an airport.

Can you take my comments in consideration ? :(

I'll take a look tonight to see if I can make a version of this as a mod rather than as a permanent piece of the CustomAssets.

As for planes fighting like they did in Civ2, that one's WAY out of my ability. The combat system definitely can't be changed as things are and only MAY be able to be changed with the release of the SDK (whenever that is).

I haven't taken a look at the spy missions but I'm sure you can't change/add missions without at least heavy python scripting which I am definitely not good at right now.

Sorry to be so little help to you but I can only work within the limits of my skill. Perhaps someone else here on CivFanatics will take up the challenge.

Other Units: Since I put up this mod, I've been getting requests to make a food transfer unit. And believe me, I'd love to do it. The only way I've been able to come up with something like this that would actually work is a bit roundabout but it's interesting... A pair of buildings set to work like National Wonders (i.e. you can only build one of each). The first would be Food Export and would lower the available food in town by say 4. The second would be Food Import and would require that the Food Export building had been built somewhere in your empire before it would provide its benefit of say 3 food (some would be lost or spoiled in transport). This would enable a single city to help support the growth of another city. It's possible that this could be enhanced to allow it to work for multiple city pairs (using roughly the same kind of python code that checks to see if you have enough temples before building a cathedral) but I don't know for sure. I'd also like to see if there's a method that the buildings could be torn down so you could rebuild them for a different city pairing. Any thoughts on this?




I love this idea Hastur. For early civs though the spoilage rate should be high. Once you get combustion and then refrigeration the rates should drop to nearly equal to show the benefits of higher techs :) Maybe even flight could aid!

Thinking about it (and I'm no coder) the cathedral-style code makes much more sense and should be workable, perhaps requiring a number of granaries (or grocers or supermarkets) to build the export buildings (Corn exchanges?) and then 1 export building per import building, thereby ensuring they come in pairs. If you wanted the efficiency to increase with tech, you could perhaps allow improved versions of the buildings or upgrades to them - for example, the first Import building provides 2 food, then the second one requires the first to be built but provides an extra 1 food for a total of 3 and so on.

Yes very nice. Now some way of making one city more happy and healthy than the others so you can really use the extra food.

What do you think of multirule supply ship 'prod, commercial and cultural) for little "city-islands" or cities on islands ?

When i can expect a version which with i can install your mod like a mod ?

No problem if i must wait :)

Two quick things...

Making this work as a mod rather than just being added to your customassets: I'm going to have to work with this more tonight because I just haven't made a change to Civ4 before that was intended to work as a "mod" to be loaded. I want to make sure I've got the directory structure right before I upload it.

Before I do upload this as a mod, I'm going to go back and tinker with the AI settings to see if I can make a combined unit that can perform both the production and commerce functions of the Caravan and Supply Train. If that works, I'm going to replace the two units with the combined unit and release that as an alternate mod.

This mod has just gone to release version 1.0 Notes below... (and yes, it now has installation instructions for BOTH as a mod and for insertion into CustomAssets).

Status: This mod is now release version 1.0 (Updated 12/06/2005)

Description: This mod adds three new units, the Caravan, Entertainer, and Freight. As best as I can tell, the AI does know how to produce and use these units. Stats follow:

NOTE: Each of these units is limited to a maximum of 3 each in existence at one time (just like missionaries).

Caravan: Available with Currency and Construction, costs 50 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special abilities: Can perform a trade mission like the Great Merchant but will only produce a base of 50 gold; can hurry the production of the city it resides in by 25 production. Uses the Great Merchant graphic. Upgrades to Freight.

Freight: Available with Railroad, costs 150 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special abilities: can hurry the production of the city it resides in by 100 production; can perform a trade mission like the Great Merchant but will only produce a base of 150 gold. Replaces the Caravan. Uses the Great Merchant graphic.

Entertainer: Available with Drama, costs 40 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special ability: can provide a one-time shot of 15 culture to a city a la the Great Artist ability. Uses the Great Artist graphic.

Version History:
Beta 1
- Initial Release
- Caravan and Supply Train units added

Beta 2
- Freight and Entertainer units added

1.0
- Combined Caravan and Supply Train/Freight units
- Added the readme file


INSTALLATION: Instructions are in the readme.txt file.

By the way... I am currently playtesting the food export/import buildings. So far so good. This one is going to take a while to playtest and if you're interested in beta testing this, put up a post and if people are interested, I'll post a beta version of the mod.

Entertainer or someone else (that you can have max one or so of) should be able to raise the happyness of one city it's in.

I'll gladly playtest the food idea Hastur. I'm not sure how you're implementing it, but I'd love to see /make it work. Nothing worse than having a great city with no hills/mountains to make hammers and having another city nearby with just the opposite having no food potential.

Ok guys... here's the food transfer BETA VERSION. I really need input on this so if you try it, PLEASE give me feedback.

NOTE: THIS IS A BETA VERSION! The new buildings do not yet have civilopedia text (currently uses the granary text) and has not had any of their text translated for non-English languages.

Here's what's been added for this BETA VERSION:

Food Export (building): This building lowers food production by 4 in the city that builds it. Like Cathedrals, it can only be built once for every 3 granaries. Costs 80 production. Uses the granary graphics. Available once you have both Currency and Construction.

Food Import (building): This building raises food production by 3 in the city that builds it. Requires one Food Export building to have been built somewhere in your empire for EACH Food Import building. Costs 80 production. Uses the granary graphics. Available once you have both Currency and Construction.

Possible Issues:

I'm considering adding python script to disable Food Import buildings if somehow the number of Food Export buildings drops below the number of Food Import buildings.

I'm also considering bringing into this the mod that allows destroying buildings so that you can end a city's involvment in food import/export.

And lastly, I'm not 100% that the numbers (export 4 food, import 3 food) are right. They may be too high. That's one of the reasons for this BETA VERSION.

DOWNLOAD BOTH FILES: Due to size limitations, I had to split it up into two files. I'll try to find a way to reduce the size for the release version.

Oh... two other things:

First, Zuul... I'll look into finding a way for Entertainers to add happiness to the city they reside in.

Second, if anyone has suggestions for the food import/export buildings, please feel free to make them. I've thought of a few... Caravansarai, Warehouse, Distribution Center, Depot, Depository, and Cooperative though I'm not really thrilled with any of them.

Good work Hastur. My feeling is that the 4 and 3 food might be high, but since I'm at work I don't have any chance to try it yet. Damn. Also, are you starting your games at another era so you can test out your mods? I've always started at Ancient, but I can see why starting later would be helpful here. :)

Can cities make more than 1 of each? Could you have a supercity importing tons of food?

Distribution Center sounds good, but I can't right now think of anything better for the other building. I'll think on it.

And I think you definitely need to look into being able to either destroy or disable them. It would suck if a city starved and was still sending food out. And what happens if you lose a city to a rival? Does the food keep coming or going? That would be wierd....

Please Hastur : make a famous "Global Commerce Mod" :)

You are on the right way !

Good luck !

One of the other thoughts I had was to have the cities "pay" for the food to deal with the "what if a rival gets the city" situation. In other words, the city shipping food would also get say +4 gold and the city receiving the food would get -4 gold. Within your own empire, this wouldn't make much difference (except as other buildings within the cities modify the city's gold output). But if one of the city's are taken by a rival whether by force, gift, or culture, then at least there's some sort of reasonable explanation for the food transfer.

I'll also be looking at the mod that allows you to destroy your own buildings tonight. Keep in mind that if I implement this, I'm going to have to implement python code that disables the Food Import buildings if there are more importers than exporters. This is mainly to prevent people from building a lot of Exporters/Importers and then destroying all the Exporters so they get the benefit without the penalty.

And thanks, Lachlan! I'm doing my best with it.

Eek, I never thought about someone destroying the exporters. Lovely, but someone would. :(

Second, if anyone has suggestions for the food import/export buildings, please feel free to make them. I've thought of a few... Caravansarai, Warehouse, Distribution Center, Depot, Depository, and Cooperative though I'm not really thrilled with any of them.

A simple "Food Storage" perhaps?

Hastur: very nice mod :-).

Maybe add some national wonder that imports 1 food from each of the other cities in your civilization or something like that.
And maybe soem way of selling food, culture, production to other civs.

Great idea. Great Merchants are always a good way to get quick cash, and this will make it both easier and more realistic.

I see Hastur has combined two mods into one, i think this kind of activity should be a thing from the past:

I would like to get you acquainted with the 'Modswitcher' by TDB ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140188 ) This little prog, currently still in an immature form, will allow a large audience to combine different mods together without the hassle of modding the scripts by hand!

I think TDB could use either a little help or at least some encouragement for his activities, because this prog feels like the missing link in the current game to me.

Eventually, I hope we can come to some kind of standardized modding using a program like TDB's which would greatly enhance playability of mods on the game.

Roetghoer: I'm a bit confused by your post...

First you're saying that I combined two mods into one... I haven't combined any mods. I combined two units that I created originally. I put out a beta version of my mod with two new buildings in them to perform functions that can't be performed by units. And all the code I worked with was either written by Firaxis or by myself. I have been looking at incorporating the mod that allows deleting buildings but I haven't done so yet and wouldn't do so without getting permission from the author of that mod first.

As for standardizing. I've been following the (to my knowledge) accepted standard of putting ALL custom XML at the end of the document. I'd take a look at the standard you're suggesting I use but the link you provided doesn't work.

Would you care to elaborate?

I've been notified of the bad link a few minutes ago by someone else as well and changed it to the correct one (for redundancy http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140188 )

And my calling it 'two mods into one' might be a little problematic (excuse my english), what i mean is that u put several units/buildings etc into a single mod. This can be a great combo in well thought (and balanced) out cases , and I don't see any reason to use this argument against your mod, but there are some mods that just don't do it for me because they use some unit I find unrealistic or some option, say jungle-creation for instance, that ruins the package.

I would like to opt for several small, or in extreme scenario even single-line, mods which can easily be combined with a program envisaged by TDB (see link, it really is worth it)

This will reduce our Modwork by HoursAndHours and improve playability of mods and the game and it will be easy for scenario builders to use existing (micro)mods in their creations. This will certainly enhance the game

Do you agree?

I understand your point. However, until a reliable tool is available for merging mods (and while TDB's effort is admirable, I think he'd be the first to say it isn't yet reliable), releasing my mod as four separate mods would only be MORE difficult to deal with for people who might want to use it. Because a reliable merging tool isn't yet available, it would mean that anyone who wants to use my new units and buildings would have to manually merge them together after I manually pull them apart before posting them. That's just foolish. It would be like releasing a new civ as one mod for the civ and one mod for each leader. Which if that was the way people were releasing new civs, no one would download them.

And besides all that, the units and buildings in my mod are thematically linked. If I released a mod that had my caravan/entertainer units AND had new civics in it, I could certainly understand your point. But you have to admit that as things stand in the mod I have released, that is not the case.

I agree, i mentioned the prog was still immature. My goal was to get you and others to realize the point of conflicting mods and hopefully pool ideas with TDB or even help creating this kind of infrastructure for our modifications of CIV4.

And of course i was exagerating a bit when i talk about a single-line-script mod, but there are mods available which consist of one simple add-on like being able to (re-)create forests. I think these kinds of modifications are really interesting for usage besides other (if so bigger/more complex) mods all at once.

But i believe you agree with me to some degree, and don't want to come over like i'm arguing with you so i'll stop here :)

You can use "PyCity.changeExtraHappiness(int HappinessChange)" can be used to alter the happiness of a city. The extra happiness will show up as if it were from Future Tech ("Oh Yeah!"). Getting this change to be a one time event is a bit more tricky. It might be possible that PyCity.getExtraHappiness() can be used: That is, if extra happiness is 2, then no change from performers, with perhaps some means to reset it, like if the check for an entertainer fails, perform the reset. However, this would adversely affect future tech, I imagine.

If anyone knows the next step I'm all ears. :)

Mylon: Hmmm... definitely worth looking at and thank you VERY much. I've been a developer for 20 years but I've never worked with Python so I'm having to learn a lot fast. I really appreciate the help.

Although I just found this thread I have implemented your ideas into a units like yours as well. Great work here.:cool:

I have also borrowed this idea. I merged the Caravan with the Entertainer to decrease the number of unit types.

I just got the idea to give all transport vessels the ability to create trade routes or add shields. That would give them something to do during peacetime.

I just got the idea to give all transport vessels the ability to create trade routes or add shields. That would give them something to do during peacetime.

I made a trade vessel, but I guess it would be better as a combo transport:D

Will check this out...


-=R=-

:goodjob: That´s weird, no really its really fantastic.

What about having the caravans founding permanent trade routes like in civ2? would that be possible?

But, those already exist, except they're free and have no graphical representation, nor are they piratable. Much better, IMO.


Distribution Center sounds good, but I can't right now think of anything better for the other building. I'll think on it.

Perhaps a Distr. Center could be a wolrd wonder, triggered by Refridgeration, and it would take all cities with a surplus, cut the surplus in half, and then redistribute it evenly.

I think that would be an interesting, especially in situations where unhleathy cities are starving, or you are in the middle of a nuclear desert. Just a thought.

I don't know exactly if you have noticed, but it seems to me, that there is no way buildings to autogenerate units like it was in Civ3.

Except great people, of course. Have anybody tried to find out, if <GreatPeopleUnitClass> tag in CIV4BuildingInfos.xml file works with normal units?

I don't know exactly if you have noticed, but it seems to me, that there is no way buildings to autogenerate units like it was in Civ3.

You obviously haven't built "The Sacred Tori Gate at Miyajima Island" lately. That's my world wonder that generates combat units for you every 5 turns until the Renaissance.

Roger Bacon

I plan to use your mod and modify it for our Phoenician Merchant ship in TAM.
Would that be ok with you?

Thank you

ok, so maybe i misread, but here is what i think you said: you cannot tranfer food with a "one time shot" kinda thing like you're doing with culture and money.

So here is my question: can you make a unit that can create +whatever food per turn as a specialist that becomes a permant part of that city?

If you can do that, then it'd be cool to have a specialist (called an Importer?), but then i don't know if you could trigger it to also create a specialist that will reside in that city (called an Exporter?) that would decrease the food in that city.

Or is this some of that XML/SDK stuff?

Going to try out your mod today... sounds great!

Hastur,
very good idea !
but for industrial & modern age, a real "train" of "goodies" could be really great !!
I'It's a long time i thought, that the rairoad ability isn't very balanced, but make a unit "train" and give to it the ability to carryinng units and/or goodies could be intersting.
One locomotive & 2 or 3 wagons- 1 goody by train and 2 or 3 units by wagon (?)
Only trains can use railroad, not a simple unit.
That's make sens of a train, !
:cool: ;)

*bump*

This mod is a great idea. I'd like to merge it into a larger "Economics" mod.

For the caravan, why not reduce the 25 hammers rush to 20 hammers, to make it less efficient than conversions in place. And maybe also make the caravans a national unit, limited to perhaps the number of cities, or number of cities+ trade buildings (e.g. perhaps each 'trade house' building in your empire equals one more caravan you can build?) That way they can't be lying around to be abused as a hammer bank.

How about caravan=currency+code of laws, supply train=code of laws+construction+horses/elephants, etc..?