I'm going to make a mod today that will help the player have more control over the size of the REF that they will face during the WoI.

It will change the following:

At present, except for tax hikes any request from the King can be rejected with zero negative effect. The correct answer for these is to say "No" each and every time. Because by saying "Yes" you lose out (monetarily).

This mod will change that so that if you say "No" there is no change (no negative effect to rejecting the King). But if you say "Yes" and pay the request, then the REF will be reduced accordingly (no lower than the beginning amount of REF). Think of it as the King getting more at ease with you since you gave into his ridiculous request. "You can kiss my pinky for 150 gold". :)

Therefore:
- The player can influence the size of the REF (outside of the bells mechanic) by paying the King's requests.
- Both options "Yes" and "No" are now equaly viable (instead of always saying "No" being the right answer).

This fixes the requests, and helps to alleviate the REF size issue.

I'll post the DLL when it's ready.

How do you compile the DLL? I have some changes I'd like to test, but I can't get it to work.

What a practical mod!

My first game of CivCol, I have been giving into all of the King's monetary requests because I have adopted a "friend of the monarchy" approach. I had no idea that there was no negative outcome for turning down his requests!

Although I wasn't expecting my continuous acceptance to do any good, I certainly thought that rejecting his requests would cause the REF to grow!

This almost feels like an exploit :sad:.

At present, except for tax hikes any request from the King can be rejected with zero negative effect. The correct answer for these is to say "No" each and every time. Because by saying "Yes" you lose out (monetarily).


Awe, is that true? I had assumed the force would get larger if you reject. In fact I always said "Yes". That's lame.

How do you compile the DLL? I have some changes I'd like to test, but I can't get it to work.

I would suggest reading the sticky on how to compile the DLL in the Civ4 C&C forum. :)

Has detailed instructions for a number of different compilers.

Brilliant! This will add flavor to the game. Good job Dale

Nice Dale. Me and my MP bud will be waiting to see what you do. :goodjob:

This is a very good idea! My first two games I kept giving into the King's demands most of the time, expecting (like most) that the REF would go up if I didn't. Once I found out that all it did was add a -1 to relation's with the king, a relationship that doesn't matter one bit, I stopped paying and had a much better time in my next game. It annoyed me though that it kept popping up with no advantage and no punishment.

This seems to be the solution to the game's two main faults, in my opinion. :)

To be honest, I think the -1 diplo hit for saying "No" does affect any requests for troops you make, but aside from that I can't see anything.

To be honest, I think the -1 diplo hit for saying "No" does affect any requests for troops you make, but aside from that I can't see anything.
On the other hand, with the amount of money you save by saying no, you can buy twenty times that many troops, so...

Okay I've changed how the process will work. Instead of actively reducing the REF (ie: eliminating units) I have changed it so the threshold will grow.

So if you agree to the gold demands, the amount of time between army growths will increase based on how much gold you give the King.

This effectively means you can produce a lot more bells between REF increases.

I think this is a lot fairer for all parties. :)

It will be nice as quick fix.

The best approach, imho, to rewrite REF increases from scratch and make it dependent on your relations with King. I mean - if relations are bad - then King will increase REF from time to time. If relations are good - then increases will be much lower or no at all.

Then make Rebel Sentiments to worse relations with King (bad relations), Paying tributes - increase or made same, deny to pay - worse relations. Add possibility to offer gold to King to improve relations. Add some other relation-positive actions. War with his foes in New World - increase relations. Founding Father can increace relations. And so on.

There even possible to add the 'Peacefull victory' - if you relations with King are high for long time AND your rebel sentiments are high - King can grant you Independence without a war at all...

I think it will be more intuitive to peoples and really playable. If it will made good balanced, of course :)

Awe, is that true? I had assumed the force would get larger if you reject. In fact I always said "Yes". That's lame.

I think it worsens the king's mood, but the King's mood has no bearing on anything else right now.

Okay I've changed how the process will work. Instead of actively reducing the REF (ie: eliminating units) I have changed it so the threshold will grow.

So if you agree to the gold demands, the amount of time between army growths will increase based on how much gold you give the King.

This effectively means you can produce a lot more bells between REF increases.

I think this is a lot fairer for all parties. :)

Even better, good work once again :)

I too am looking forward to this one. I too thought that if I said no to the king I was doing something majorly wrong that would bring down the entire European world on my little colony.

Okay I've changed how the process will work. Instead of actively reducing the REF (ie: eliminating units) I have changed it so the threshold will grow.

So if you agree to the gold demands, the amount of time between army growths will increase based on how much gold you give the King.

This effectively means you can produce a lot more bells between REF increases.

I think this is a lot fairer for all parties. :)

This makes sense, but I'd like you to clarify one thing please. Here's my example:

I'm playing a game where I only start producing Bells at turn 200, all the while ignoring the king's demands for money. Once I start producing bells I start accepting the king's requests for money. Does the mod only take into account the most recent requests, or does it remember all the previous requests and use those as part of the calculation? :)

It remembers all previous requests. So each time you pay the King, it will increase the threshold based on how much you pay him.

Good, otherwise it would be too easy. :)

This is a good idea. Waiting patiently for the release. :)

Still testing. Initial outcomes looking good.

Still testing. Initial outcomes looking good.

Interesting prospect, Dale. However, I disagree with your initial statement that "no" is always the right answer.
Let's say you have a city producing a lot of silver early in the game and the King asks for a small tax increase. Are you really better off dumping tons of silver and losing the ability to sell silver? On the long run, refusing tax raises obviously saves a lot of money, but earning 1,500 gold on turn 40 may have a bigger impact on your development than saving 15,000 gold on the whole course of the game... Don't you think?

Interesting prospect, Dale. However, I disagree with your initial statement that "no" is always the right answer.
Let's say you have a city producing a lot of silver early in the game and the King asks for a small tax increase. Are you really better off dumping tons of silver and losing the ability to sell silver? On the long run, refusing tax raises obviously saves a lot of money, but earning 1,500 gold on turn 40 may have a bigger impact on your development than saving 15,000 gold on the whole course of the game... Don't you think?

You must differ tax rise request and money tribute request.

Interesting prospect, Dale. However, I disagree with your initial statement that "no" is always the right answer.
Let's say you have a city producing a lot of silver early in the game and the King asks for a small tax increase. Are you really better off dumping tons of silver and losing the ability to sell silver? On the long run, refusing tax raises obviously saves a lot of money, but earning 1,500 gold on turn 40 may have a bigger impact on your development than saving 15,000 gold on the whole course of the game... Don't you think?

I believe he is talking about always saying "no" to the King's request for lump sums of cash, not his demands to raise your tax rate.

Yes, I am only talking of the money requests, not taxes.

Glad to hear your tests are going good Dale. I've fiddled with the Global Define values for the REF and that helps, but an SDK change is definetly needed. I'm interested to see your implementation. :goodjob:

Yes, I am only talking of the money requests, not taxes.
My mistake, sorry...

Hey Dale!

I'd love to understand the relation to the king a bit better, if you could be so kind.

Okay, I understand that failure to "Kiss the Ring" has no direct impact on the REF but does it at least influence the frequency and size of the next tax increase?

Short of obvious stuff like building up a military and stirring up rebellion, what other aspects will hasten the buildup of the REF and his tax increases? I'd imagine doing a lot of trading of manufactured goods with the Natives (therefore cutting him out of his fair share of the loot) gets you in trouble?

Are there ways to gain favor from the king other than simply handing him cash? Does doing a lot of trading back to the old country or perhaps taking over other European Powers' colonies make points with him?

I'm assuming the king's attitude, tax increases, and building up of the REF is a lot simpler than many of us would think...like maybe based almost solely on two elements and not the complex web many of us would have assumed goes into these AI decisions (okay, he just raised the taxes after I added the Expert Fisherman to Jonestown so clearly fishing must upset him...).

Sounds good.. look forward to the fix/mod.. Refusing to pay his lump sum demand with no penalty was something I too was surprise to see... :)

Thanks

So, any eta on a release...? :mischief:

According to Colpedia, tax-hike requests will come more frequently and will be larger, if you anger the king by not giving in to monetary requests.

According to Colpedia, tax-hike requests will come more frequently and will be larger, if you anger the king by not giving in to monetary requests.

It has a tiny influence, but negligable.

At first blush, this seems like a very nice modification to make. Look forward to trying it out.

Two points to note, Dale.
You probably thought bout this. Make sure the gold demand is proportional to the REF decrease. Eg
50 gold = 1 artillery decrease
5000 gold = 5 dragoons decrease
(exaggerated )

Second point is about balancing issue. With the possible reduction of King's REF, this gives the player an economic way to fight the WoI. Depends on many expensive it is to reduce the REF, and how often the King make his demand , there is a possibility to use Gold to wipe out the King's REF :D . An interesting way to achieve independence.

As I mentioned above, I change the method from shrinking the army to increasing the threshold. So by paying the King you give yourself more room to produce bells before he adds more units to the REF. So it slows him down. :)

is this a good idea? The expected choice is to say "yes". Pay money to keep the king at peace. The mod changes the working dialog choice, instead of fixing the broken one. And is illogical since giving the king money should not decrease his army.

Maybe decreasing the base value of the REF and letting it increase if refusing to pay the tribute is better?

That would be the theory, but in reality clicking "yes" to the King's demands for money is wrong. By clicking yes you are out by money. Clicking no has no effect. You get a -1 diplo, which is always negated by the "+2 years of peace". So you never get a negative diplo effect from saying no.

What I'm doing is giving the player a positive by paying off the King. You pay the money, he'll not increase the REF as fast. The threshold increase is based on how much gold you give the King too. So the more gold, the higher the increase, which is additive and permanent for the whole game.

What I'm doing is giving the player a positive by paying off the King. You pay the money, he'll not increase the REF as fast. The threshold increase is based on how much gold you give the King too. So the more gold, the higher the increase, which is additive and permanent for the whole game.

The refusals SHOULD stack, though, so you'll eventually get past the +2 for constant peace issue. (I haven't checked the diplomacy code to be sure, but I would be surprised if they changed that from Civ4).

Thanks for starting to tackle this issue a bit (even though those needing the fix the hardest aka beginners won't get it. Hence a fast official patch of that issue at least is in order...)


For me the refusal of money-demands does indeed stack (sometimes with a delay which might mislead. Am not sure about that one. Im at -5 currently for dead sure.). Is my version buggy or is yours Dale? Or did you just got a wrong impression from the delay... Not that it hurts in any way though... :p King can bite dust...


But besides a quick fix, other factors besides Liberty-Bells (as only source) should really play a role in determining the size of the ref (and the Bells in turn should effect the whole thing less) to make it more interesting and seem more organic (and to balance the game out better and make it less exploitable...)



Possibilities / necessities in my book are:


Instead of a flat value for each increase in the ref, make:


Progressively raise the treshold of bells needed for each! Ref increase for each! unit that gets added to the ref. Raise it for example by 10% (like the way education advances progressively) multiplied by the handicap modifier. That leads to a hard cap to Ref from bells quite fast if you go all out bell-mad. Especially in lower handicap levels (preventing at least pilgrim and explorer-level players from getting swarmed.).

So if the 10% example is taken, each ref-unit at conquistador level roughly does come at 75 Bells for the first unit, rougly 82 for the next / second unit, about 90 for the next / 3rd unit.
At pilgrim it whould be more like 75 Bells for the first Unit, 90 for the second, 108 for the third and so on and so forth.
For revolutionary it whould rather "just" be like: 75 for the first, roughly 78 for the second, 83 for the third and so on and so forth...
You get the picture. ;)
Please don't all shoot on the number used, its possible to use it / change it until it fits. (5% or even as low as 2% might! be much more reasonable. 10% is just easier to understand and calculate such an example imo. ;))

Now one could argue that the bonus to WoI battles and founding-fathers are such a huge deal as pretended by the game. But honestly they aren't in comparison to what you get if you exploit the ref=bells Equation. Id rather fight the King with 3:1 odds staked for me than 1:10 odds staked against me. No matter how hot founding fathers are (supposed to be...) and how powerful the whole sentiment-bonus to colonial forces during WoI is (again: supposed to be...).
(Remember that time is a big factor in winning as well. So the 3:1 odds for me with weaker troops is doubly effective.)


What you suggested / implemented here sure makes sense and gives a strategic choice of what to focus on. :)


To smother the effect of the cap a bit and take into account other sources of resistance / power to fight back also let the following things have an influence on the size of the ref (which also helps to fix some serious exploits.):

the number of maximum! colonists in a colonial powers control during a given game should effect the ref (should have medium influence perhaps to about half the degree that bells do in an averagely played game without metagaming. Thats to prevent the unthematic mass-disband of colonists pre bomb-shelling sentiment in the small leftover colonies in no time...
Number of colonists gained / bought + converted overall is a very bad base [even if it whould be by far easier to track i recon] because of some cycling going on during the game and other issues. But i have no idea if its easy to track the overall maximum of colonists a colonial power did posess in a given game.)

the number of cannons should effect the ref (to a small to medium ammount. Bought ones should effect more like about twice as much than manufactured ones.)

The number of guns bought effect the ref (to a smaller ammount really. Manufactured ones maybe should be exempt. Because its rather hard to produce (hardest good to produce in the game if im not mistaken?) but those things are really easy and rather cheap to buy in Civ4:Col. At least in my experience and in comparison to col 1.)

Overall Gold gained (should only effect the whole thing in a small way. But here gold gained seems ok since fluctuation on a big scale is rather normal and you get a lot from trading alot. Perhaps just Gold traded with / from Europe will suffice. It might lead to some awkward results but if the influence is not all that overwhelming it whould lead to a small variation between games. Which might be a good thing if it makes it harder to downright calculate the ref in a feasible way for even hardcore math-geeks.)

Number of surplus food available at max (including sitting in ships and Wagons, 300 Food are a colonist after all) at a given point if trackable (should only have very minor impact but its a cheesy cheat to fastgrow after disbanding all your population. That last one seems minor in comparison though and hard to track. So if its to much hassle perhaps just leave it out.)


And all! those Ref modifications should directly also scale to handicap level + possibly have a quasi-cap by progression at least for the lowest 2 difficulties. And of course the ammount generated by those should lead to the Bells part / influence beeing reduced accordingly. Because the Ref will still grow big enough. But less extreme and less exploitable (no more 5:1 or 10:1 stakes possible vs. the King... and no 10:1 for the King on Pilgrim either...)

With the bell part still playing a big role. But not a huge one and certainly not the only one... (whould be easily modified by changeing the bell-treshold progression until the whole thing fits as is liked.)

Try to add those thoughts to your quick fix if possible in a reasonable timeframe and have a look (+ let others look into as well) how the whole thing works out.

That would be the theory

Yes. But with the mod the "no" choice still does nothing and the "yes" choice begins to challenge common sense.


Maybe decreasing the base value of the REF and letting it increase if refusing to pay the tribute is better?

Which is the inverted version of what youre doing. By clicking
Yes - player pays money, king is pleased and does not increase army.
No - player keeps money, king is angry and increases army.

oh well, just my opinion.

Looking at it, I don't think it should be THAT simple. If the player refuses, he already makes the king's mood worse, right? Just tie the liberty-bell 'threshold' a bit more to the mood, so that he's more likely to increase troops if he's pissed off regardless of the reason.

You would just need more ways to assuage the King's wrath with this method, but there's got to be SOMETHING. (Maybe gifting goods, etc...)

I'm not going to release this, as I've been working with Snoopy on an unofficial patch for the game which addresses REF and many other issues. :) Please try out our new patch and make suggestions/bug reports for that please.

Thats disappointing. O well, I guess I can just rip the REF code out of the "Unnofficial Patch" mod.

Thats disappointing. O well, I guess I can just rip the REF code out of the "Unnofficial Patch" mod.

If you're just trying to lower the REF amount (which is not an uncommon request), you can simply change the XML as described in another thread, without requiring a major patch. :)

If you're just trying to lower the REF amount (which is not an uncommon request), you can simply change the XML as described in another thread, without requiring a major patch. :)

I already have done the XML change, but the REF needs to work differently, and it would be nice if the King's demands for money ment something. :)

I already have done the XML change, but the REF needs to work differently, and it would be nice if the King's demands for money ment something. :)

Sorry, I thought you meant you wanted a more immediate solution. :)

Dale, is there any chance you will combine this with the Age of Discovery II mod?

Yep .