So yeah, this is the major new event thing going on in .32, and I think it needs some work. Let me try and hit on all the points:

1) Currently Astrological events trigger every couple of turns in the early game, and have little to no effect on play, because they require religions to exist that couldn't possibly exist then. And then you rarely see these events when the religions ARE around (Due to a 'thicker' pool of possible events, these become more rare).

2) A lot of events have poor description text as to exactly what they do. This is very frustrating to deal with because they are so common. Some say that 'research' is better, but no more beakers get made. Some say graveyards are easier to pillage, but it doesn't seem to have an effect. Others will silently and with little warning change terrain for 20 turns near your cities. Most of this is unknown to someone who hasn't researched their effects.

3) The current system has it so that different civs will have different Astrological events taking place in their empire at the same time. This is a bit of a flavor break. On the same turn I'll see the Black Hand go into prominence, while someone else gets a different Constellation. We aren't so far away that our night sky should be so different!

4) Not enough of the Astro events DO something most of the time. And we get twice as many as we used to, but now we aren't getting dead dukes, crazy cultural advisors, or upgraded obelisks... we are instead bombarded with useless bits of 'ohh, if only I'd somehow founded Ashen Veil already...'. It gives the player a lot of negative feedback. "You should have gotten a religion already!" etc etc.

My thoughts exactly, although I suppose, after all these games, we'd run out of affluent dukes eventually...
Here's a thought. Why not disable the constellation events until someone researches astronomy? That would seem appropriate.

Not all constellation events have religious prereqs, there's Bhall's for Clan. So there's at least one available from turn 1.
What about making them appear in (semi-)even intervals, eg. every 20 turns or so, independent of other events?
Like a counter that increases by a random number between 0.0 and 0.1 per turn and if it reaches 1 a random constellation event occurs. Don't know if it's possible to do, I'm a Python zero.

There is one for Illians too. But then you might argue that a golden age at turn 1-10 is a bit overpowered and/or a waste.

Ceridwen's depends on evil alignments rather than civ or religion.

Although i whould say that maybe it whould be good to give the team some time to flesh those constellations out (perhaps not all are even implemented and some will be reserved for ice? Thats the risk of being a beta tester after all and so i think its a bit early to scrutinize a feature that has just been introduced :p.)
i have to agree that those should be global (if thats usefully possible) and that they shouldnt come into play at least for the first 50-100 Turns (+scaled on game speed.). (even though upon research of Astronomy sounds qite flavorful, it seems to late to really be of any significant impact.)
Also timing them phasely or on fixed turn intervalls whould be neat.

On documentation and full implementation: wait and see. ;) Im sure the team will come up with something. Patience is your friend. ;)

So what precisely constellations do? So far I have found that Mulcarn (bear) temporary turns land to tundra, Sucellus heals units. But what i.e. Danalin does (more suicides and more fish), and all the rest?

EDIT: Blackmantle was faster. I agree, we are just beta testers :) but this is a damn good beta. :)

Danalin if it triggers for you and you have OO as state-religion gives a golden Age. :) (as does the ones for Agares, Junil, Sucellus, Kilmorph, Esus and Lugus) (At least if you chose that option :p)
So these are the really major ones (perhaps the one for Dagda favors the Grigori?).

On a side note: Must be really fun to hop religions during those ages if you get a good streak. Constant golden age. :D :p



Indeed its a beta that puts about 90% of "finished" and commercial games to shame :D (and raises expectations towards the rest of the industry as a whole which it will never be able to fulfill completely.).
Which perhaps leads many to the assumption that its allready finished. Thats one of the reasons i keep repeating it so people who perhaps don't know and as such falsely assume everything need be polished get to know / understand (is not true for the op i belive. But im sure there are more than enough readers around here where this impression is fitting.). Also pointing it out that those events are not very well implemented is surely not a wrong thing to do, as it garners the teams attention to the subject (so @ op: please don't see this as an offense. Its not meant that way.). Though i feel the degree of scrutiny is a bit hefty.

Constellations, to be frank, piss me off. I just ignore them now.

I think the whole system should be redone.

Is it possible to add a star map screen? As turns progress, an arrow can move around in circles to show the current astrological situation. The screen could show in detail the significance of the current sky and how it impacts the game.

I think that it would be nice if the religion-associated constellations allowed you to switch to its religion (assuming you would normally be able to) without any anarchy. Or if it provides some sort of bonus for switching.

a star map or contellation map would be easy to exploit.

Just swich religion a turn or two before the constellation shows up and you get a golden age.

I would like to see different effects from the constellation events. How about instead of getting a golden age if you have that religion, all units with that religion get the blessed promotion, or 2XP, or you get a free priest of that religion in your capital, etc. There are a lot more interesting fun things that wouldn't be exploited if the constellation map idea was implented.

I think that it would be nice if the religion-associated constellations allowed you to switch to its religion (assuming you would normally be able to) without any anarchy. Or if it provides some sort of bonus for switching.

I'm not sure if player is supposed to switch religions all that much. It is against the theme and switching religions should be punished, not rewarded. Switching religion should cause massive unrest in old religion cities, and cause priests to abandon you, or even turn against you.

I like Farfir's idea of having them require Astronomy. There isn't enough reason to research Astronomy on most maps i play and i don't think it's too late game at all. By that time most religions should be founded.

I also like the idea of making the constellations appear in a pattern but then would want the religion golden age ones nerfed.

If the constellations are made regular and follow a pattern then a star chart could be made for the manual and wiki and used as a legitamite ingame tool.

I'm not sure if player is supposed to switch religions all that much. It is against the theme and switching religions should be punished, not rewarded. Switching religion should cause massive unrest in old religion cities, and cause priests to abandon you, or even turn against you.

I'd agree, and I'd add other religious units to that. "Oh we're going to worship the Order now, but let's keep our old Diseased Corpses, that'll be fine". Of course for Valledia that might be appropriate ;)

After looking though the XML files, it appears that 8 out of the 21 possible constellations do nothing (or are not implemented) but are still enabled as possible events.

Frequent random events which give the player no meaningful choice are more of an annoyance than anything. The events should really look something more like this:

An astrologer in (city A) warns of an imminent planetary conjunction in (constellation C)

option 1: This is a sign from the gods - convert to religion X, rewarded with a half duration golden age
option 2: We needed a new Royal Astrologer - gain a free specialist in city A
option 3: Let him found a temple - gain a temple of religion X in the city
option 4: We have no need of false prophets, let us concentrate on research instead - gain a one time beaker boost

and for the goblin waste dumping:

Goblins are dumping waste near city X, what do you want to do about it

option 1: ignore them - tile gets -1 food as currently
option 2: find the tribe and attack them - spawns hostile goblins and wolf riders on a mission to attack the city
option 3: burn the waste - starts a fire in the tile and gives a temporary health penalty

@uberfish
yeah i also think an event has to have some choses, or at least two which are available always and 1-2 others which are available if you have the correspending religion/civ.

still i'd be interested, if the flavour text which is shown with the constellation events has an impact (as for grave robery etc.) on the game already or in the future.

One annoying thing about constellations is that, as they are so frequent, they don't half gum up the End of Game Timeline.

I think they should occur infrequently and have a dramatic global effect. Right now they are just a distraction.

Seems to me a free Golden Age is way too generous. Maybe if it only lasted a couple of turns (or until the next Constellation, whichever comes first.) More appropriate would a "We Love Our" turn for the Capital.

Has anyone managed to identify appropriate iWeight settings for these events, to keep them from being selected so often? I have pretty much all of the events in the game turned to 100% Games Available, except the Constellation Events which are at 20%, and they STILL pop up all the time, so it must be a Weighting issue. Playing with the settings is difficult to test....can anyone venture some advice for a setting that will tone them down?

Has anyone managed to identify appropriate iWeight settings for these events, to keep them from being selected so often? I have pretty much all of the events in the game turned to 100% Games Available, except the Constellation Events which are at 20%, and they STILL pop up all the time, so it must be a Weighting issue. Playing with the settings is difficult to test....can anyone venture some advice for a setting that will tone them down?

yes the iWeight is set at 400, I turned it down to 200 in my games and they still pop up alot but other events sneak in also, I might try turning it down to 100 when patch B comes out.

i think it would be cool if these actually had lasting passive effects that would affect your civ differently depending alignment, what civ u r, religion, armageddon counter, and perhaps if u built celestial compass.

so if they were something more than just events but actually different phases that lasted 20 turns each and you would have to compensate for or plan to exploit. perhaps with astronomy u would be able to know what one is next once u research astronomy. it should be too powerful so that it dramatically alters gameplay like the AC affects the game, but not as passive or ignorable as crime rate.

Just out of curiosity, have anyone EVER got a constellation event that was to their advantage? Played 5 games since they were introduced and still they've only been a bother.

I got a Great Prophet from Dark Candle (Ceridwen's Constellation) event once. I think that is the only time I could actually select an option that did anything (this one depends on Alignment, not Religion)


Personally I like the idea of the event, but think that they need many more options in order to be made more interesting/fun. Not all options should require a religion, alignment, civ, etc. For example, it might be nice if the event could give you research towards the tech that founds the appropriate religion in exchange for gold, population, health, happiness, etc.

I also think that each mana type should have allow another option in the constellation event associated with that sphere's deity.

It would actually be pretty cool if the game started with a random sign and then it cycled through the 21, like in real life. That way knowing which event came next would be important and it would add a strategic effect if each sign caused a global change (increased commerce, increased food, increased production, etc).

some other ideas might include doubling spell strength for divine units or halving spell damage for arcane units, having the sign of camulos give +30% str and 1 move to berserkers, aeron might spawn rav werewolves if baron already made. i think it could be a really unique and interesting feature.

So, I'm being reminded of the Gods of Old mod that came with BTS, where some of the religions got effects randomly every few turns. Shouldn't this system be fairly similar?

That is, I think Astrological events shouldn't be part of the Normal event system, but use a secondary one.

I got my troops healed by Sucellus. Very nice :goodjob:
An idea: Constellation that gives temporary 'strong' to all barbarians.

I got a Golden Age from the Kilmorph constellation event once (was following Runes of Kilmorph). Nothing otherwise.

Requirements to get the constellation events should at least be mysticism and probably also the appropriate religious tech. Would remove a lot of the annoying constellation events where you don't even have a chance to have the proper religion.

what if you allowed the map of the constellations for the civ who makes the celestial compass? but the map varied per game

Got on a tangent while posting in another thread, then thought better of it and figured I'd put it in this one.

Constellations could be something that creates an effect every 10-15 turns (or more or less based on game speed settings). The constellations would go through a cycle that is randomized at the start of every game. This would allow for the heavens to be more ordered (as they should be) without making every game play out the same way.
Using this model, all constellations would have effects that lasted until the next constellation appeared. The effects available would be depending on such things as alignment, religion, and possibly even Armageddon counter. For example:

The Random Evil Constellation has moved to prominence:
Requires Good: Tell the people to guard themselves well. Dark times are upon us. (Temporary +5% to city defense and -10% culture)

Requires Evil: Rejoice! This surely is a sign of victory!
(Temporary +10 to city attack, Units built during this time gain one free promotion)

Requires Order: Make ready the troops. The enemy is more likely to strike than ever. (Temporary +15% to military production)

Requires Ashen Veil & AC +25 & 250 Gold: The stars are now in alignment. Begin the ritual! (Summons a powerful demonic unit/units in random city with religion, +5 to AC)

Requires nothing: Pay these signs no heed. (+10 to AC)

As the constellations are going in a cycle, every civ would be getting to make a choice, meaning some of the effects would be cumulative. Imagine if a good number of civs all chose the final option (+10 to AC). Even with scaling, that would be a rather hefty increase, and certainly cause some "fun" stuff to happen in game.

Hmmm....further thinking makes me think that constellations should have effects that occur in addition to the ones that happen when a civ makes a choice. The evil constellation could add to the AC or activate a feature like Last Days and double all AC effects during its prominence. A good constellation could be decreasing the AC by a small amount each turn, helping to counter some of the nastier AC increases that might be brought about by this system. The Kilmorph constellation could add +1 currency to all mines for its durational effect.
Anyways, lot's of stuff there that could be done to make them a much more complete part of the game. Hope this helps out with any and all though processes going on.

Constellations, from a flavour perspective, are really nice. From a gameplay perspective, yes, they need to be tweaked majorly. Currantly, other than the golden age, the effects of the constellations are to subtle, or don't really effect gameplay. Why no bring things out a little more.

-Option 2: Worship the stars, they shall have great effects (-1 hammer in all cities, bonus (ex. +2 beakers, +2 gold, +2 food, +1 population, -25% crime rate, etc.)
Effects last until the next constellation, which should be coming on a regular basis, or just make effects last 10 turns or so.

I agree with the idea of them assorting randomly at the beginning of the game, then cycling through, with each lasting a duration proportional to the game speed. Let them affect all players, with possibly different effects based on religion, alignment, or mana types.

That sounds like quite a bit of work, but if implemented correctly would be a really cool feature.

Hmm, code wise, I'd think this wouldn't be too hard to do. Constellation objects in a list of some sort, an incrementor that mods the size of the list, and is incremented off a timer that ticks from n to 0 as turns go by (Then goes back to n) n is then dictated by the map speed. Take the number of constellations you have (Minus the golden age ones) and randomly put them in the list at the beginning of each game.

Voila.

Raise Thread! :deadhorse:
Rather than start a new thread, I thought I would bring back an old one that seemed to have some good discussion in it.

So constellations have been around a while longer now. I'm still seeing the same trouble with them. In the game I've been playing this evening, I don't know how many I've clicked through that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Children will become either great leaders or psychopaths! Some candle is in the sky! Now is a great time to get married! The list goes on. And while these events are going off, other events with possible benefits or detractions aren't. I'm genuinely excited if I see and event where I can actually do something these days.
Is there something in the works right now to make them more interesting? People still consider them a problem?

I agree with most criticism on the thread. Constellation events should be reworked a bit, and in general it´d be nice to have a couple of options always open with any event.

I just consider the constellation events another kind of spam nowadays. Most of them are pretty pointless, and never has one of them actually given me more than the option 'OK'.

I think the constellations are whacked up. In 10 turns i got 3 bear and 5 burnt wing constellations!!!!!! tell me that isnt totally disturbing:eek::eek::thumbsdown::wallbash::badcomp ::badcomp::badcomp:

yea, the constellation events are pointless 90% of the time.

I don't even bother to read them anymore, and even when options appear they're not selectable most of them time. I love events in general, but would actually like to turn these off to be totally honest.

It would be nice if they only popped up when they were relevant to you and had a selectable action that had an effect. Otherwise skip interrupting the player.

The "flavor" constellation events are way to spammy and really seem to crowd out the fun events.
The Golden Age's seem to good if you actually can get it, should have a greater cost associated with it, or a shorter length, and not actually appear unless you meet the requirements.
The terrain-changers can be really silly when playing a crowded game. Needs to have a smaller chance of occuring with each additional civilization in the game or something.
Biggest thing to me is, there's no real middle ground. Either you get a free GA, or you get told to plan a wedding.

I think haveing a Gods of Old style constalations that are seperate from regular events would be good. Or maybe just makeing them happen less, and pop-up for everyone in the game. I know Erebus is a big place, but the sky in your empire being diffrent from your nabourhgs? Rediculus.

I concur.

I thought I'd set it so that the religious ones wouldn't trigger unless you at least had the religion in a city in my version, but I guess I'm just not good enough with events yet.


I think that there really need to be more options and more effects. I think that every civ should have a unique option tied to its patron angel's sign.

I also think that the one about it being a good time to marry should be accompanied by something like +1 population in every (non-fallow trait leader's) city in the world. (The marriages may be brought about because unmarried women are getting pregnant more than usual.)

I pretty much just ignore the constellation events because those that give a choice almost never give any affect, even when the AI gets it.

It seems like we all agree on most of the points... I have to wonder what Kael and crew have planned though. I doubt that the events we have are the final product.

I also find the constellations annoying. Without a meaningful decision on the player's part, what's the point?

so... constellations are fine with the current chance as long as...
they happen to one civ at a time
they have less requirements to benefit
do not interrupt a players regular turn if they don't matter

Actually, I think the current chance rate could be toned down somewhat. Mainly to keep them from crowding out other events which have a lower chance rate.

What bugs me is that most of the time you only get one choice, and when you get two the decision is a no-brainer. So what's the fun in that?

I also find them an annoyance. The effects are too subtle and the event is too frequent.

Both lowering their frequency and adding effects would definately make them more popular with me.

I also think the Golden Age reward is too great for... what? Rushing a religion? Picking a certain civ? I don't like the idea of getting a huge boost early in the game just because I lucked out.

I think the best and simplest thing to do is turn off the text for the event happening to other players. That makes is seem like it is always happening (since the text is pretty vague).
Also, make them more rare, and make all the effects roughly equal.
Mostly what err said.

Otherwise, give them a more minor global effect (ie, for all players) and also make them more rare.

yes the iWeight is set at 400, I turned it down to 200 in my games and they still pop up alot but other events sneak in also, I might try turning it down to 100 when patch B comes out.
Since I'd like to reduce the frequency of the constellations, I looked at the XML. Before I actually change things, I've two questions.

The iWeight is found in CIV4TriggerInfos.xml, yes?

And the constellation events are labeled like the example below:

<Type>EVENTTRIGGER_SIGN_NANTOSUELTA</Type>

isn't it possible to set the events on a seperate "event list", making one of them happen every 10/15/25/40 turns (speed scale, just for example)? And then obviously having them trigger for every civ ingame, maintaining good/neutral/evil/religion specific bonusses.

Since I'd like to reduce the frequency of the constellations, I looked at the XML. Before I actually change things, I've two questions.

The iWeight is found in CIV4TriggerInfos.xml, yes?

And the constellation events are labeled like the example below:

<Type>EVENTTRIGGER_SIGN_NANTOSUELTA</Type>

answer to both questions is yes. and if you want to make the event a one-shot change bRecurring from 1 to 0. Right now each of the signs has an 80% chance of being in the game that can be raised or lowered in iPercentGamesActive.

answer to both questions is yes. and if you want to make the event a one-shot change bRecurring from 1 to 0. Right now each of the signs has an 80% chance of being in the game that can be raised or lowered in iPercentGamesActive.Okay. Thanks for the quick reply!

What's the point in getting a 10-turn golden age right in the beginning of the game anyway? Not much. You need food in the beginning, and golden ages help you with commerce and hammers.

Maybe it wouldn't do much on turn 1, but if you got it while you were building that first settler, you'd have a nice advantage.

Also, the boost to early research is significant as well.