Updated 17-02-06: Minor Update-solved the problem relating to State religions, with the assistance of the very talented A-G-you're a legend mate ;).

OK guys, my very first ever mod for a civ game (so please be gentle ;) ). Also, please note that I still very much consider this to be at the 'PlayTesting' phase, so please play it and give me any and all feedback. So far, I have limited my changes solely to civics, but will add changes to other areas down the track.
I believe that the zip file I am providing should have all the files necessary to play with the modified rules but-if not-then please let me know.

OK, a couple of issues from the get-go. First, there were certain modifications I wanted to make to unit and city maintainance costs, but there appears to be some bugs in this section of CivicInfos.xml. Therefore I hope to come back to these when the bugs are fixed.
Second, there are a few things which I can really only change with Python, and this will take me a bit longer to do. Therefore, particularly in the case of religious civics, many of the effects are only of a 'placeholder' form (I want priests to generate certain commerce and yield benefits under certain religious civics).

Lastly, things to be done:

1) Overhaul of the Ancient and Classical tech tree, and the addition of a new religion (Shinto).

2) Addition of Farmers, Soldiers and Civil Servants to the list of Specialists.

3) Addition of a host of 'Civic-Specific' Improvements and Wonders via Python scripting.

4) Hope to incorporate elements of Mylons Mod, The Inquisition mod and the EE3 mod (assuming all the creators give me their permission).

Anyway, enough of me blabbing on. Hope you enjoy my first-ever mod :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Oh, forgot to mention what I have actually done in my mod.
I will include a full readme later on but, for the meantime, I have done the following:

-Added Rights and Organization as new Civic Categories.

-Totally overhauled both the effects and appearance of the various civic options.

In total, I believe that there are now a total of 56 civic options, in 7 categories, from which to choose. Economics, in particular, now has earlier options associated with it (Barter and Cash economy).
Lastly, I realise the civics screen will look a little messy, but I do plan to go back to the Civic titles and shorten them as best I can-so that they all fit within the various borders.
Anyway, as I said above, please enjoy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hi Aussie,

I thought I'd be the first to comment in your thread because of all the great things you added to my thread "Civics: Need Modification?". Hopefully, I'll be taking some time to check out your civics mod. Unfortunately, right now I'm quite busy.

Lastly, things to be done:

2) Addition of Farmers, Soldiers and Civil Servants to the list of Specialists.



I believe there is a mod that already has done this, so maybe you could grab the proper pieces and put them in yours. :)

I really like your ideas on civics and whatnot, however due to whatever changes you have made it is impossible to adopt state religions even if you found one.

Also, I think you work in extremes, while human sacrifice may lower the population, it wouldn't cause starvation (from -health). I think you should tone down the benefits and drawbacks and use "no maintanance from capital" far less friequently.

Pretty impressive mod so far.
These are the little things that make the orginal game better than before

Hi Lief. First of all in regards to State Religion-I was afraid that this might be the case. I borrowed Arbitrary Guys modification of religion civics and thought this would work (its a long story, but having negative happiness values per non-state/state religion was conflicting with the State Religion boolean). Apparently it seems I was mistaken :(. This is quite strange, actually, because in the EE3 scenario I am playing, State religions can still be founded and adopted normally (I think I will chat to A-G about this).

As for the 'No Maintainance' issue, this is what I mentioned above-namely that there appears to be a bug in city maintainance. I want a modification to the maintainance cost-up or down-not no cost. This is something I plan to work on, possibly with python.
Lastly, your point regarding sacrificial is exactly the kind of 'play-test' advice I need. I will tone it down before I put out the next version-which will occur after I add the new specialists to the game.

Anyway, thankyou all for your feedback so far. I know that, with your help, I can make this a really good mod :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Do you want help with graphics for custom specialists? I'll see what I can do.

Suggestion: let's change the name of Jail to Public Safety and in addition to the current bonuses, let's have it make a Policeman specialist available.

Great work so far, keep it up! :goodjob:

I have a problem. I installed your mod, but when I load it, I see no changes made anywhere. What could be the problem? Did I unzip it in the wrong place or something?

Have you put it under Mods? Also, remember that you have to go to Advanced under the main screen, and then 'Load a Mod'-then choose Civic Mod. Unless.....check my Civic_Mod folder, is there a Civic_Mod.ini file? If not, I am REALLY sorry, and I will post a new version of the zip folder tonight.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Have you put it under Mods? Also, remember that you have to go to Advanced under the main screen, and then 'Load a Mod'-then choose Civic Mod. Unless.....check my Civic_Mod folder, is there a Civic_Mod.ini file? If not, I am REALLY sorry, and I will post a new version of the zip folder tonight.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
I am currently searching for a Civic_Mod.ini file, but so far I have not found one. I did everything else right, as far as I can tell.

I am really, REALLY sorry ToV. When you mentioned the problem, I suspected that-in my haste-I might have forgotten to include the .ini file. I will rectify the problem at my earliest possible conveniance!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I played the mod, all was fine.
1 note: try to rebalance, for example whole game i was pantheic(religion) and it is huge bonus in science/commerce.

1 question: how can I declare state religion, i found 5 religions and I could not convert to any.:mischief:

Well, Heav, that is the purpose of this Alpha version of the mod. I want people to try it out and tell me where imbalances are and-more to the point-how you think I should change it to make it more balanced. So, I see what you are saying regarding Pantheism, but can you think of a way of making it better?

Actually, I should point out that I hope to change the religion civics-using python-to attach the bonuses either to Priest Specialists or Cities with your State religion. In the meantime, though, any rebalancing ideas you have would be appreciated!

Lastly, have posted an updated version of the mod, with the problem regarding State Religions solved. Enjoy :).

EDIT: Hang on, Heav, is Culture not important to you? This civic has a -25% culture penalty (due to the attraction of people of various cultures and faiths to cities practicing pantheism). Perhaps I will boost that penalty to -50% and see what happens. Will post the resulting mod tomorrow-but now its bedtime :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I am testing a game and I cannot change religion. Does one of the early civics prevent choosing a religion or something?

Hi, Aussie. With all the comments you had before Civ4 was even out, you were bound to create a mod. Good work. :clap:

As for the 'No Maintainance' issue, this is what I mentioned above-namely that there appears to be a bug in city maintainance. I want a modification to the maintainance cost-up or down-not no cost. This is something I plan to work on, possibly with python.
Lastly, your point regarding sacrificial is exactly the kind of 'play-test' advice I need. I will tone it down before I put out the next version-which will occur after I add the new specialists to the game.

If you're playing with the cost factors in the game, then you might want to check out the strategy article on city upkeep costs. Especially now that Krikkitone has added a formula for city upkeep at the end of this thread. This formula seems to be a work in progress, but it looks good enough to be used for modding (see post 68 and onward). The modifiers used in this formula can be found in the xml-files.
The article can be found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138473&page=4).

I might also warn you that you've increased civic upkeep cost considerably by adding two more types of civics. This could change the costs versus income balance. I co-authored (with colony) an article on the civic upkeep cost which can be found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=148840). Modifying the civic upkeep costs is something that is probably a lot easier than the city upkeep costs. Maybe you've already done so and then you can forget this warning.

Good luck with perfecting your mod.:thumbsup:

Ok, my rebalance suggest for religion civic(other are quite balanced)

Pantheist: +25% science stay, no commerce bonus, -25%culture can stay(or 15%), and not in all cities, but in cities with state religion.
Sacrificial: add -25% science or -25% culture in cities with state religion, +food/hammers too in cities with state religion
Militant: +free units modul, -10->-25% science in cities with state religion
Organized Religion: -25% science(to negatiate +commerce bonus, so you get only +golds) in cities with state religion, or add +25% gold, not commerce
Orthodox: +2 :) in cities with state religion, -%science +%culture in cities with state religion, priests +2(3) culture or +1(2) gold, state religion church +2(3) priest, no-state churchs +0 priests, cathedral(state religion) +4(5) priests
Reformist: +1(2) :mad: in cities with state religion, +%science, -%food
Fundamentalist: -50% science reduce to -25%, add -25% commerce in cities with state religion
Pacifist: +25->50%:mad: war
Free Religion: no science bonus, +20% culture or +culture per non-state religion in a city, 1->2 :yuck: in all cities

What I have not writen, that can stay.

Game: AI in middle age still convert to serfdom->big population-> great numbers of specialst, + other civic with -culture on specialist(republic?) => culture is dead for them.:(

@Dalwand. This might be the problem other people are experiencing with State Religions. This problem should have been solved in the most recent update, so re-download the above zip file, unzip it and try the game with that-you should now be able to change religion (I hope ;) ).

@Roland. The Crux of my problem is more that the % maintainance modifier simply doesn't seem to work. i.e. either you pay maintainance or you don't. I, OTOH, want to have civics subtly alter the maintainance costs of cities. I do say that this MUST be a bug, because this is not a Boolean, but an Integer entry.

@Heav, those are very interesting suggestions, and I will definitely take them into consideration. Many of the suggestions you give, though, can only be done via python, as the tags do not currently exist in XML to change commerces or yields as a result of having your State Religion in a city. The question is, should I make yield and commerces changes contingent on a Priest, or the presence of the State Religion?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

@Roland. The Crux of my problem is more that the % maintainance modifier simply doesn't seem to work. i.e. either you pay maintainance or you don't. I, OTOH, want to have civics subtly alter the maintainance costs of cities. I do say that this MUST be a bug, because this is not a Boolean, but an Integer entry.

I can't quite follow what you're saying. Are you talking about civic upkeep costs or city upkeep costs. The first are not noted specifically in each city as upkeep costs as they have an empire wide effect, while the second are dependant on the characteristics of a city and are noted in each city.

If you're talking about the civic upkeep costs, then I should advice you to take another look at the article that I linked to. There is no bug, but the civic upkeep costs are calculated for each civic first, rounded down and then added. So maybe, you're forgetting the effect of rounding down. Subtle changes in the civic upkeep costs are only noticable as being subtle when you have a large empire. Then the effect of rounding down is negligible. On the other hand, if you only have 1 or 2 small cities, then the effect of rounding down can mean a lot. Is that the effect that you are seeing?

Also, the city upkeep costs has some rounding down in the formula, but the details of this formula are not completely known as of yet.

Maybe, you could give an example or explain the phenomenon that you are seeing with a bit more detail.

@Roland. I am specifically talking about the City Maintainance costs (both distance and Number of Cities).
For example. I have a civic (Imperialism) which is supposed to reduce the Distance from Capital costs by around 25%. However, when I set the <iCityDistanceModifier> to -25%, it comes up in the Civic Screen saying 'No Distance Maintainance Costs'. The same happens when I try and change the Number of Cities cost as well. Do you see what I mean now?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

The question is, should I make yield and commerces changes contingent on a Priest, or the presence of the State Religion?

If this bonuses will give to priests, they will be very powerfull, and anyone will use only priests, when you want this formula, you must rebalance other specialists on other civics(for example: merchants bonuses with economies civics).

I thought, it can not be done with xml, it can be nice have that formulas, but it is not very important, because when you play and have state religion, you still spread your state religion into every city.

@Roland. I am specifically talking about the City Maintainance costs (both distance and Number of Cities).
For example. I have a civic (Imperialism) which is supposed to reduce the Distance from Capital costs by around 25%. However, when I set the <iCityDistanceModifier> to -25%, it comes up in the Civic Screen saying 'No Distance Maintainance Costs'. The same happens when I try and change the Number of Cities cost as well. Do you see what I mean now?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.


Ah, ok, I see the problem now. Probably you don't know exactly what the modifier does (there doesn't exist a modifier named iCityDistanceModifier, so I guess that naming was just used for explaining the problem to me). My guess would be one of three possibilities:

1) The ingame text is wrong and there still is a distance maintenance. Maybe the game has only the choice between 2 types of texts and puts one of them in the civics section that describes the effect of what you've changed to the civic closest (in the opinion of a computer).
2) The modifier has a value between 0 and 25 at the map size that you're testing it. The reduction of 25 is not a percentage reduction, like you think but a percentage point reduction. So the value becomes below 0 and rounded to 0 by the game.
Note that if you're changing a variable that is map size dependent, that it might be difficult to find a reduction that is fair on every map size.
3) The game doesn't accept modifiers to this variable between 0 and -100 and rounds the modifier to -100%. This is what you're thinking.

I would ask a question about it in this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138473&page=4) thread. There is some research into city maintenance modifiers in that thread and they probably know what the problem is.

Good luck!:thumbsup:

Both the city distance upkeep modifiers (CDM) and city number upkeep modifiers (CNM) do work. A quick test with different CNM-values (standard map, 25 size 1 cities, Noble difficulty, Gandhi) had the following city upkeeps;

CNM Maintenance without courthouse Maintenance with courthouse
+-0 4 per city, 100 total 2 per city, 50 total
+100 9 per city, 225 total 4 per city, 100 total
+50 7 per city, 175 total 3 per city, 75 total
-25 3 per city, 75 total 1 per city, 25 total
-50 2 per city, 50 total 1 per city, 25 total
-100 0 per city, 0 total 0 per city, 0 total

The differences between -25% and -50% will increase with more cities -- up to a point, since CNM is anyway capped (as is shown in the thread to which Roland linked). Anyway, the point is that the reduction does work, it's just not reported correctly on the civics screen. "No city number maintenance" (or something to that effect) shows regardless of the reduction. "No distance maintenance" is reported whenever the chosen civics amount to (at least) 100% reduction of CDM and seems to work more or less OK.

(EDITed for some clarity)

Ahhh, thank you muchly Holistic-it is nice knowing that it is a text-based error, and not a mechanical error (still hope they fix the text error though, as it is a bit annoying). To everyone else all I can say is 'Trust me, those maintainance modifiers for organisation civics are NOT making them maintainance free ;) )

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Some comments, and for legibility I bolded the names of the civics. I hope I do not come across as overly negative, since I think the system looks good even in its alpha-stage.

First and foremost; 7 by 7 civics is... many. Not necessarily too many, but given the layout of the civics' screen and the lack of general effects such as in SMAC, it gets rather hard to get a good overview. Some trimming might be in order. Of course, the names of the civics make some "synergies" easier to spot than others. Also, the "baseline" civics have actual effects, which makes them more interesting, but I'd still suggest that their net effect should remain zero. I.e. one baseline-civic's bonus would be another's penalty. Like Roland suggested, modifying the upkeeps could be a good idea (perhaps even add a fifth setting (Very High, corresponding to the present "High")?).

Besides City Number Maintenance acting up, War Weariness also has a tendency to do so (-80% WW (from Oli-Sur-ML) was reported as "No WW"), as do food- and hammer-bonuses from trade routes. Do they in fact work at all? At least the information in the City Screen when Barter is in effect is very erroneous. Somewhat unexpectedly, Caste System shrank borders due to the free specialists (citizens) giving negative culture when run with certain other civics. Since I'm used to Caste System being a decent way to expand borders of new or newly conquered cities faster, this was not a very nice "surprise" (free artists would remedy most border-shrinking, though). Martial Law's unhappiness from conscription was instantly balanced by happiness from military presence, maybe by design? It's too bad that conscription-bonuses in CivicInfos also enable conscription. The only civic name that I'd suggest changing is Ethnic Segregation to "apartheid", since the latter is shorter. However, isn't apartheid already to some degree represented by Caste System? I.e. as in caste determined by ethnicity?

As for culture-modifiers, I actually feel they're too harsh at the moment (at least for the early available civics). Perhaps this is by design (or my playstyle), but the problem is that the penalties can't be easily "countered" until Drama is available. It also makes the land-grabbing phase even harder, especially when Obelisks give no culture if the wrong civics are selected. Should probably test it with a Creative leader next time, though (I tested with Mansa Musa). This could either be "remedied" by either removing the culture penalties (not a good idea, since I don't really know what you wish to model with the culture penalties - perhaps happiness penalties could serve equally well?), or introduce the penalty when a certain technology is discovered (is this possible?), or have certain civics give certain buildings culture bonuses (again, possible?).

Techwise, the upmost branch of the early tech tree (well, the two of them) is the only one not associated with civics, and some could be moved there (I'd suggest City States, at least with Sailing as a prerequisite tech if City States gets its own tech). I'd also suggest moving Universal Suffrage to either Electricity or Radio (or a new of its own), off the Industrialism-branch.

As for Slavery, the pop-rushing feature seems rather undervalued. Pop-rushing means (or should mean) that food becomes the main source of production; hammer- and commerce-bonuses to tiles work against the main feature of Slavery - which is why I also suggest pop-rushing remain exclusive to Slavery, and why farm-bonuses under Serfdom make the civic seriously "overpowered", as long as it enables pop-rushing. The +2 food bonus from farms should perhaps be lowered to +1, or scrapped altogether. Pastures and plantations are more "situational", but even then a +2 food bonus is simply too much (since it in effect enables an extra citizen, which somewhat goes against serfdom being a "rural" civic). I'd suggest giving food-bonuses to otherwise food-scarce improvements instead (such as workshops, mines, quarries etc.). Other than the unexpected border-shrinking, Caste System looks better. But why the increased unit support cost and high upkeep? If it is to balance the improvement-yield bonuses, I'd actually suggest at least removing the hammer-bonus from improvements (and perhaps even just give plantations, quarries and workshops one extra commerce).

Enabling cash-rushing (through Professional labor) already at Guilds might be a slightly too early. Again, I prefer smaller bonuses to improvement yields, but that's just me. Given that Professional labor enables cash rushing, commerce-bonuses might be slightly more "useful". Similarly, Organized labor might benefit more from commerce-bonuses to improvements (as long as cash-rushing is enabled). Military Conscription offers highly limited benefits (both conscription and free units can be had from other civics), and breaks the tendency of labor-options having effects on improvement yields. Perhaps hammer-bonuses would fit? Or for that matter, faster military unit-production? I'd also suggest replacing either Military Conscription or Professional with (or just add) a "Industrialized" labor civic (or something to that effect, basically reflecting the adjustment to workdays measured by hours). Industrialized would enable cash-rushing and significantly increase "urbanization" (i.e. Improvement Upgrade Rate), Organized would not have cash-rushing and have a smaller upgrade rate.

Like Military Conscription, Dictatorship seems rather weak at the moment. The culture-penalty is positively crippling if Caste System is "accidentaly" in effect. While this might be by design, I don't really see how the two concepts would be incompatible. Making it have more "synergy" with e.g. Martial Law might also be a good idea. Oligarchy is slightly more useful, but could perhaps have synergies with Property Rights or Plutocratic (since oligarchies are not an uncommon result of increased economic power)? As for Monarchy, the republican in me fails to see the difference to Dictatorship, but otherwise, it looks quite good, although the bonuses in themselves work for slightly different ends. Perhaps the GPP-modification could be more pronounced (at the expense of the bonus trade routes or the unhealth (which makes it slightly harder to actually do something useful with the GPP-bonus)).

Republic also looks good, but again I'd suggest "profiling" the civic (by perhaps altogether scrapping the GPP-bonus). The culture-penalty to specialists, again, is not very nice without Theatres (Drama as a tech prereq (would work for a ancient Greece-style democracy)? Or maybe a new tech with Drama and Code of Laws as prereqs?). Democracy is already quite nicely distinguished from Republic with bonuses to science instead of gold, but if Republic is "profiled" towards trade, Democracy could be profiled towards GPP (with the health-bonus and all). Although, GP:s are of less use by the time Democracy is available. Police State in its current shape doesn't really seem to warrant a High upkeep, and by the time it's available, health is more of a limit to city growth than happiness (which make the penalty somewhat "harsher", although with the penalty to GPP and trade routes, makes megacities less attractive). Again, profiling could be an idea (e.g. even harsher penalty to GPP and health, no happy-bonus (except maybe from Jails?), but more free units and even less WW).

As for the Ideology-column, I prefer the somewhat more neutral "Values"-term of SMAC, but it's easy enough for me to change for my own use. Survival (finally) makes arctic starts easier (perhaps even too easy). Plutocratic (Wealth?) also looks good, although I'd return the unlimited artists to Caste System (sorry 'bout the ranting, I just hadn't seen newly built cities' borders shrink before). Feudalist also looks pretty good (but isn't the food-bonus already somewhat modelled by Serfdom in its current form?). Faster city growth and more unhappies from large cities make for prime pop-rushing cities, though (but doesn't IMHO really "fit" as a model for feudal societies, where peasants "should" work the fields). If it is possible through Python, I'd also suggest that the XP-bonus should not be "general" but given by Castles.

Militaristic (Power?) is perhaps available slightly too early for the culture penalty (perhaps more science-penalty -- or perhaps a GPP-penalty instead?). As for Socialist, the happyfaces from Hospitals make them more valuable, and the health bonus somewhat superfluous (though nice). Since culture to some degree models propaganda, a bonus could actually make sense (actually somewhat more than a hammer-bonus). Why the science-bonus and extra trade-routes from Fascist ideology? Without foreign trade (which does make sense), the actual benefit from trade-routes is anyway rather limited. Unlimited priests from Theocratic does make sense, but with Angkor Wat this could be slightly unbalancing - is this a "placeholder" for extra priests from temples?

Why does City State enable drafting, and why not a happiness-penalty instead of culture-penalty? Oh, and as placeholder art, the City Ruins-button could work. Imperial looks quite good, but should (and will?) be available later than Monarchy, or after whatever tech grants Dictatorship -- or Hegemonic for that matter. For Hegemonic, how about a happiness penalty from Courthouses (the "symbol" of the hegemon) instead of a culture penalty? The new Nation State looks good, as does Devolved (though perhaps it should/will be available later than Liberalism?). Federalism also looks good, though I'd move it to Constitution.

I think I'll stop here, and I hope the input is at least of some use.

(EDITed for (some) clarity)

Wow, that is a LOT of info Holistic-it is going to take a lot of time for me to sort through it all ;)! A lot of what you say definitely makes sense, and I will look at starting to implement some of them. One thing I wanted to explain, though, was my thinking behind 'City-States'. For me the Great Age of the City-State was during the Early to Late Classical Eras-which to me is best represented by Polytheism. It might be possible to move it to either Bronze or Iron Working-or Sailing as you suggest. I should also point out though that Polytheism might be appearing just a little bit later in the game after I introduce the Shamanism Tech. As for its Culture and Conscription effects, I felt that a nation running city states will have precious little 'National Identity'-which is what high culture values allow a player to achieve-so I wanted a situation where someone running the civic might have a reasonable culture border around their cities, but not sufficient to link them up into a cohesive national border. With conscription, again it relates to the nature of the city-state, that people might be more inclined to rush to the defense of their CITY, than to the more nebulous concept of the nation. Anyway, hope that makes some sense :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

That does make sense. As for conscription, it offers very little at early stages of the game anyway (worst case scenario, a 15-hammer warrior takes as many pop-points as a 110-hammer rifleman). A defense-bonus (which I assume can be given through python?) could maybe be an alternative (and to some degree compensate for the slightly slower establishment of cultural defenses)?

Two corrections to my above post (which probably needs a lot more corrections, but anyhow); Barter is not the culprit, I just hadn't noticed the food-bar on the City Screen reporting (e.g.) 4 + 134986798 food before I switched to Barter (the city still grew at its normal rate, though, it's just the City Screen giving the wrong information (which might be a problem in my end)). Likewise, it's not really the Culture-penalties in themselves that are the problem, unless when the penalties total (?) or exceed 50% pre-Drama (or whatever tech enables the culture slider).

Hiya Holistic. Thanks again for your advice, and I hope to implement some of them later this week, and post a new update.

Here are a couple of key issues:

1) As I said before, I hope to move around some of the early techs-and add some new ones-and am even considering moving the start date of the game back 500 years or so (to be fair, some of the earliest cities are thought to date back as early as 5000BC).

2) I will be using Python extensively for the Ideology Civics, as I will have them grant an automatic specialist of a specific type (and remove the 'unlimited specialists'). So, for instance, Militaristic will grant a bonus Soldier, wheras Plutocratic will grant a bonus Merchant. As far as fascist goes-you mustn't forget that Fascist governments tend to strongly support science and business in order to 'advance the state'-meaning that I am thinking of having this grant a Free Merchant and Scientist (or Soldier and Merchant). Feudalism will grant a Free Farmer and Priest, wheras Soclialism will probably grant a Free Farmer and Citizen, or a Free Farmer and Engineer (not sure which yet).

3) So have you actually determined if the Economic civics really do effect trade route yields? I certainly hope so, and it seems odd that the tags would be there if they didn't work :confused:

4) I do see Apartheid and Caste system as being quite distinct, as the first represents the segregation and ghetto-isation of non-nationals, thus making it easier to make said city mono-cultural, wheras the latter involves segregating the society according to social class and profession, thus making it easier to create specialists in certain field. My original hope for the former was to have it boost the assimilation rate of your nation, but at a cost to happiness in multi-ethnic cities (much the same way as with multi-religious cities). By the same token, I was going to have equal rights work in reverse (lower assimilation, but bonus happiness in multi-ethnic cities)-guess this will have to wait until the SDK comes out.

5) I am looking at toning down the civics costs and culture penalties as you suggested-particularly for the earlier civics, I might try and see if I can move existing flat culture penalties to certain specialists in some cases.

6) I do want to have another look at the Martial Law and Slavery civics, especially in regards to population costs for the latter, and happiness costs for the former. I think I will also remove the Pop-Rush ability for Serfdom, as it makes this Civic much too powerful-which is exactly its problem in the vanilla game.

7) Your idea for Conscription is actually very good. There really were no specific plot yield bonuses that made sense for this one. Though I have-as much as possible-tried to thematically link the options in each civic category, there will always be the exception. I have forgotten though, how many civic options have conscription attached to them?

8) Monarchies and Dictatorships are sufficiently different, IMO, to warrant seperate treatment. e.g. Charles I was a Monarch, wheras Oliver Cromwell was a Dictator-the first got his power from birth and bloodline, the latter from appointment by parliament. Dictatorships, by their nature, tend to be short lived affairs-evolving either into more democratic systems, or by becoming more monarchic and the establisment of a new line of succession.

9) I agree with your views on certain civics acting synergistically, and had certain combos in mind when I originally put them together. Truth is that, I have revised the various options so much, I think I may have lost some of them by the final version. Oligarchy with Plutocracy, though, should be more synergistic once I give the latter the free merchant and artist specialist (yes, unlimited artist WILL be moved back to Caste System alone ;) ).

10) Lastly, for now, I do want to add more culture-boosting improvement, such as Mausoleums and Sacred Groves, as well as some wonders and improvements which are only available when you are in a particular civic (like Pantheons, The Temple of Zeus and Temple of Artemis during Pantheistic, or Temple of the Sun and Moon-and Sacrificial Altars-when you are in Sacrificial).

Anyway, I hope that helps to explain some of my thinking when it comes to the future of this mod-and, no, I didn't find your comments too harsh-this is exactly the kind of feedback I need, as it really helps me to get my thoughts into order for when I put out version 0.02

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Re 2) For socialism, Engineer & Farmer would sort of correspond to the hammer and sickle -- but not be that "realistic" (given the number of starvations (more or less) resulting from "socialist" policies). Engineer & Citizen might be the way to go?

Re 3) I was quite wrong. Trade-bonuses do work, it's just that it takes a while to get trade routes that actually give a hammer or food bonus under e.g. Barter (+4 trade routes for +1 food (4*30% rounded down), +5 trade routes for +1 hammer; the gold penalty only appears on +10 trade routes).

Re 7) City States, Nation State, Martial Law and Military Conscription enable conscription. In fact, if NS, ML and MC are run at the same time, six (!) units can be conscripted.

Aussie: Just wanted to say "GREAT WORK!"

I've been waiting for someone to take on the civics...definitely an area that was begging for some expansion and modding! I'll follow along with you guys while you get the kinks worked out. I can say from experience that making changes like these can be really challenging and you're going to get a lot of feedback, but it seems you're off to a great start here and this mod could easily become a "must have". :goodjob:

To be fair, Holistic, when I say 'Socialism', I am most definitely NOT referring to the sort of systems used by nations such as the Soviet Union (this is Communism, and is best represented by State Property IMO). What I am referring to are existing Social Democratic states like Sweden, Denmark and Norway, as well as nations which may have existed if full on socialism was implemented properly. My point is that Socialism is merely an ideology which seeks to protect and elevate the 'proletariat' over the upper-classes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I like this mod. Trying to pick the civics which balance out the negative effects of each other while collectively giving the bonuses to your civ you want. Be aware though, it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot with the many negative bonuses some civics give for specialists, especially the -culture ones. Your cities automatically make specialists if they feel the need for them, which can easily result in your citíes becoming culturally starved and having a sphere of influence of only 1 square, at which point you can't assign specialists to work the fields instead, meaning even MORE negative culture per turn. Evil Spiral of Death. Took me a whole lot of time as well as help from dreadful starvation to get one of my larger cities out of this, at which point it had 1 or 2 population.

I say remove the -culture penalties for specialists. Add instead -food perhaps? For keeping the artistic, productive and commercial elite well-fed and happy?

To be fair, Holistic, when I say 'Socialism', I am most definitely NOT referring to the sort of systems used by nations such as the Soviet Union (this is Communism, and is best represented by State Property IMO). What I am referring to are existing Social Democratic states like Sweden, Denmark and Norway, as well as nations which may have existed if full on socialism was implemented properly. My point is that Socialism is merely an ideology which seeks to protect and elevate the 'proletariat' over the upper-classes.
Oh, I didn't get that. Then again, the terms are extremely mixed up. The reason why I concluded that you were trying to represent e.g. the Soviet system is that "socialism" was used by Marx to describe the transition-step between capitalism and communism (hence USSR, not USCR). Rather amusing that you used the terms in the opposite way (which is also possible, and probably more common). For less... misunderstandings "social welfare" could be an alternative, but doesn't really "sound" like an ideology (and repeats "welfare" in civics names).

Aussie_Lurker, I checked again, and I'm sure now that the problem is on my end. Now that I think about it, I have not been able to get ANY Civ4 mods to work right.

About the shrinking boarders I hear about, I can say right now that sounds extreme. Instead, you should have LESS culture, not NEGATIVE culture. For a -25% culture penalty, 8 culture/turn becomes 6 culture/turn.

It's true, I had one city with a whopping negative 83 culture because I'd pretty much forgotten about it.

And what gives the negative culture isn't the -25% culture civics, it's the civics that give culture penalties for every specialist working in the city - meaning that when the city's culture goes negative, the city radius shrinks to just the city square - meaning that there aren't any land tiles for your people to work, so they all become specialist, meaning even MORE culture penalties etc.

Hi
Nice to see you propose a mod, your interventons are always pertinent.
I remember in particular your discutions with Eddie_Verde ideas in civ3.
That way, the idea of NO PRE CIV TRAITS, coutch my attention .
Yes, a new category with the TRAITS. If that is possible, i think it should be priority, because i belive they gives you realy new poins of gameplay.

Cheers

It's true, I had one city with a whopping negative 83 culture because I'd pretty much forgotten about it.

And what gives the negative culture isn't the -25% culture civics, it's the civics that give culture penalties for every specialist working in the city - meaning that when the city's culture goes negative, the city radius shrinks to just the city square - meaning that there aren't any land tiles for your people to work, so they all become specialist, meaning even MORE culture penalties etc.
Then it sounds best not to have negative culture from specilists. Just negative culture from the civic directly, as I have described.

Just a quick note Barbeque, you can't have specialists effect food yields via civics-only directly under SpecialistInfos-I have merely applied penalties as the XML system allows. I might do stuff like that, though, when I tackle Python. I might say, though, that applying -'ve culture via specialists seems MORE fair to me, as the player then chooses if they are going to take a culture hit-rather than having it forced on them. i.e., if you are running a legal civic where your specialists give a -2 culture penalty, then you know not to specialise a city if it has less than +2 culture per turn.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well, I just never micromanage cities as a rule. It hurts lazy players like me :)

The changes sounds great, yet since i dont have the hold on the cd right now:


I want screenies:(

Oh, I didn't get that. Then again, the terms are extremely mixed up. The reason why I concluded that you were trying to represent e.g. the Soviet system is that "socialism" was used by Marx to describe the transition-step between capitalism and communism (hence USSR, not USCR). Rather amusing that you used the terms in the opposite way (which is also possible, and probably more common). For less... misunderstandings "social welfare" could be an alternative, but doesn't really "sound" like an ideology (and repeats "welfare" in civics names).
I think that Socialism is an ideology (Myself drawing heavily from it), but what I think Aussie is trying to say is that while the USSR was named the United Soviet Socialist Republic, it wasn't socialist in action due to what is called 'state capitalism', that being the same old inequality and heirarchy all within the state. What Aussie's version of Socialism is what Socialism is supposed to be (think the Parris Commune or the Anarchist communes in Spain during it's civil war), not what one of the worst examples of things being done in it's name.

I do not what is wrong, but I still cannot get it to work. I might have instald it wrong. Could you please give specific instructions to install? In particullar, I would like to know it I need anything special to unzip the file. Any help here would be appriciated.

@ToV. Download the file into any folder you like, then be sure to unzip it into your MODS folder. Then it should work, beyond that I can't see what could be wrong. If everyone was having a problem with it, then I would say that I did something wrong with my files. Anyway, hope that works (oh and, don't forget, you have to go to 'Advanced', then 'Load a Mod' in the Start-up screens.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

@ToV. Download the file into any folder you like, then be sure to unzip it into your MODS folder. Then it should work, beyond that I can't see what could be wrong. If everyone was having a problem with it, then I would say that I did something wrong with my files. Anyway, hope that works (oh and, don't forget, you have to go to 'Advanced', then 'Load a Mod' in the Start-up screens.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
That's exactly what I do, but I want to know what you reccomend I unzip it with. Right now, I am right clicking on the folder and selecting "extract all", which might not be the same as unzip.

So, is this mod work in progress? I think it could take a little fine-tuning and maybe some descriptions for better immersion value,

This is a work in progress, just one I have had no to work on recently. I hope to change that in the next couple of weeks (hell, I haven't even had time to PLAY Civ4 lately, let alone mod it :( )

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I am still unabla to play it, but I figured out how to open up the XML files. There is one thing I have issue with: You give Universal Suffrage war wariness! I get very irritated whenever I see people do that, because Univeral Wariness, by itself, DOES NOT CAUSE WAR WARINESS! Cic III was wrong. We got through World War II without people protesting in the streets. It is free speech that causes war wariness. (I suggest +50%) In the vietnam War, it was not our Democracy that caused War Wariness: it was all of those images sent back, and all of the soliders telling the puplic what was happineing. Please remove Universal Suffrage war wariness in your next modification.

Delete, Please.

HI Aussie,
I was wondering if you could post a screenshot of your civics changes...I would like to look at them, but I am not on my computer,so I can't download and look at it through the game.
Thanks,
Patricius

Yea a little description of the civic changes would be cool.

Aussie_Lurker, I realize I did not make myself clear in my post above, so I want to clear it up. (Before you even respond!) I will use another example to prove my point. In world war one (and maybe two), Most European nations used propoganda to supress war wariness. Reporters were not allowed anywhere near actual battles. Britain was one country who did this. However, Britain was still a Democratically elected counrtr, not a police state. They simply suspended free speach. In game terms, they went from the free speach to the nationhood civic. Many nations made this change.

Hi ToV. You didn't need to explain it to me, as it made perfect sense in your original post-I have just been 'Mulling it Over' in my mind. I agree that it should be Free Speech, and not Democracy, that effects war weariness-but then that leaves me wondering what should counterbalance the benefits of the Democratic Civic. Any ideas? What would be ideal is if we had a more flexible civic system-in terms of effects. For instance, I would like to give free speech a base War Weariness penalty, but with an additional penalty if you have a printing press and/or Mass Media-but with added research/culture bonuses to offset (free-flow of information and all that). At the same time, I would like if Police State had the reverse effect on Printing Press/Mass media-for obvious reasons. Lastly, it would be great if you could differentiate between defensive and offensive war weariness-so that a democracy/free speech setting might give you a bonus to defensive war weariness, but penalties to offensive war weariness. Oh well, a man can dream.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Armandeus, in his mod, had universal sufferage and representaion hav varing city maitanaince penalties, his reasoning being that you have to fund all thode elections, and that a large empire would be a bit harder to maintain. You could play around with this.

Hi. Me again. I was looking through your mod, and I just now noticed that you forgot to add Civopedia texts. And also, you added new "We Love The King" messages, but do you not ned new texts for those, too?

Hiya ToV. Just so you know, I hope to have a new shot at this civics mod-especially now that both the SDK has come out AND that more of the games features have been exposed to Python. I am hoping that this means I can do a lot more than previously!
When I am finished all of the bare-bones, THEN I will go back and sort out the Civilopedia and everything.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hey, I know this mod has most likely been replaced by the later, three phase civics balancer, but I have a question: why did running this mod cause all text, including that in the start menues to disappear? Help = appreciated.

Norbert.

TOV: It sounds to me like you have the classic "Extra Folder layer" issue (because the mod is working for everyone else), When the Mod is extracted from the Zip it will be wraped in an extra folder which must be removed.

The proper folder heirachy must be..
Your Civ4 Mod Folder
ModName
Assets
XML and others

Compare with other mods if your still having problems.

Ummm, just so everyone knows. This thread marks my first-worse than lacklustre-attempts at modding. I really wouldn't bother downloading or using this one, but instead try one of those in my sig-they are MUCH better IMO. I think my problem with this one-aside from not backing up my alterations with text changes :mischief: -is that I moved too far away from a nice 'minimalist' approach. In my new version, ALL civics have 2 positive effects and 1 negative. Plain and simple :).

Aussie_Lurker.