"Bigger, Better Worlds" C3C Mod

** 2005/08/15: NEW VERSION **

Download: 21.2 Meg ZIP File (http://www45.pair.com/dburgdor/c3cbbw/Bigger_Better_Worlds.zip) 19.8 Meg RAR File (http://www45.pair.com/dburgdor/c3cbbw/Bigger_Better_Worlds.rar)

This C3C mod provides larger world maps, significant tech tree additions and revisions (most notably in the ancient and modern ages), three new government types, over 40 new improvements and wonders (including small wonders unique to each government type and civilization strength), more than two dozen new units, some minor graphics refinements, and a variety of rules adjustments.

Though the mod has grown much larger than I originally expected, it remains my purpose primarily to enhance the game. "Bigger, Better Worlds" is meant to make the "Civilization III" epic game more interesting and challenging; unlike some of the other mods out there, though, it is not intended to be "an entirely different way to play." Of course, my intent notwithstanding, it seems to be developing in that direction, anyway. While much of what you know about and expect from the default epic game will still apply when playing BBW, much else will not. Be sure to consult the Civilopedia to learn the specifics of what's different.

LARGER WORLD MAPS:

The smallest map available in the mod is the default epic game's "standard" map, a 100x100 grid which supports up to 8 civs. The largest map available is a 220x220 grid, which supports up to 24 civs.

TECH TREE ADDITIONS AND REVISIONS:

"Bigger, Better Worlds" adds the following 19 technologies to the game: Adv Med Tech, Criminology, Cryonics, Deep Space Travel, Drama, Expert Systems, Gaia Theory, Improved Siegecraft, Libertarianism, Mining, Motion Pictures, Nanotechnology, Neural Interface, Oligarchy, Piracy, Sailing, Siegecraft, Theocracy and Vassalage.

The ancient age's tech tree (screenshot (http://www45.pair.com/dburgdor/c3cbbw/BBW_Ancient.jpg)) has been extensively modified, in part to incorporate some ideas I liked from the various "Conquests" scenarios, and in part to allow each civilization strength to be attached to a unique starting technology. Agricultural civs now start with Pottery, commercial civs with Writing, expansionistic civs with The Wheel, industrial civs with Mining, military civs with Organized Armies, religious civs with Ceremonial Burial, scientific civs with Mathematics, and seafaring civs with Sailing. (Note that the irrigation and mining worker abilities are also now attached to techs. Neither is automatically known by your workers at the start of the game, unless you start with Pottery and/or Mining.)

Espionage has been moved from the industrial age to the ancient age, and the cost of espionage missions has been reduced. This should allow espionage to be a much more important and interesting part of the game.

The tech trees of the medieval (screenshot (http://www45.pair.com/dburgdor/c3cbbw/BBW_Medieval.jpg)) and industrial (screenshot (http://www45.pair.com/dburgdor/c3cbbw/BBW_Industrial.jpg)) ages have also been revised, though not as extensively.

The modern age's tech tree (screenshot (http://www45.pair.com/dburgdor/c3cbbw/BBW_Modern.jpg)) has been redone almost completely from scratch, to better reflect real-world technological development and to make it impossible to win a "space race" victory without first researching every technology.

NEW GOVERNMENT TYPES:

I've added three new governments to the game: Oligarchy, Libertarianism and Theocracy. I've also tweaked most of the other governments a bit. The Civilopedia is completely up-to-date, though, and I've provided a detailed "Goverment Stats" reference file, so everything you might want to know about them is readily available.

NEW IMPROVEMENTS AND WONDERS:

I've added 12 new improvements: Amphitheatre, Baths, Brothel, Coffee Shop, Geothermal Plant, Guild Hall, Movie Theater, Refinery, Smithy, Supermarket, Winery and Worker Housing.

I've added eight new government-specific small wonders: Arc de Triomphe, Bayeux Tapestry, Egalitarian Society, Hammurabi's Code, The Inquisition, Magna Carta, Soviet War Memorial and Statue of Liberty.

I've also added eight new strength-specific small wonders: Craftsmen's Hall, Enshrined Relic, Great Harbor, Homesteaders' Hall, Military Headquarters, National Breadbasket, Sages' Forum and Traders' Guild.

I've also added two new "generic" small wonders: Assembly Line and Slave Trade.

I've added 20 new great wonders: Area 51, Bacchanalia, The Curies' Lab, Dinosaur Park, Disney World, Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, Encyclopedia, The Gateway Arch, Grand Unified Theory (GUT), Gutenburg's Bible, Hollywood, Machiavelli's Il Principe, Mayan Calendar, The Plays of Sophocles, Scotland Yard, Solar System Colonization, The Spirit of St. Louis, The Taj Mahal and The World-Wide Web. (The Internet is now a small wonder which allows creation of the Web.)

As with everything else, of course, I've also tweaked some of the improvements and wonders which already existed in the game. Probably the most important changes are that the Great Wall and the Temple of Artemis no longer become obsolete, to prevent walls and temples from suddenly disappearing from your cities, and that the marketplace improvement now produces a flat two happy faces instead of increasing your luxury trade.

NEW UNITS:

"Bigger, Better Worlds" adds 29 new units to the epic game: Airship, APC, Assassin (produced by Machiavelli's Il Principe), Balloon, Bombard, Continental Marine, Corsair, Covert Operative, Crossbowman, CyberPlane, CyberTank, Early Tank, Emissary, Fire Catapult, Galleass, Hover Artillery, Hover Tank, Missionary, Modern Infantry, Ocean Curragh, Prophet (produced by Enshrined Relic), Sabre Guard, Secret Agent, Shadow Infantry, Siege Tower, Spy, Terrorist, Trireme and Tyrannosaurus (produced by Dinosaur Park).

The Emissary, Spy, Secret Agent and Covert Operative units can operate invisibly and have stealth attack capability. As I noted above, espionage in various forms should be much more a part of the game, now. The Assassin is a Spy with hidden nationality.

The Missionary's nationality is also hidden; after all, a missionary ostensibly works for God, rather than for any human leader. It's useful for "converting" (either peacefully or forcibly) the workers and settlers of other civilizations.

The Terrorist unit is a "homicide bomber," essentially a human cruise missile with hidden nationality. I added it to reflect an unfortunate but undeniable element of modern warfare.

Settlers now cost 40 shields and three population points, and can't be built until you've researched The Wheel. Similarly, workers now cost 20 shields, and some worker actions (most especially clearing forests and wetlands) take longer. The settlers you start with cannot enter any terrain tiles other than grassland, plains, flood plains and hills, unless following a road. (An upgraded settler unit is available in the medieval age to eliminate that restriction.) Finally, citizens in your cities require three food each, rather than two. These changes were made to slow initial expansion.

With the exception of workers and scouts, none of the units available in the ancient age can move into desert, forest, jungle, mountain, tundra or wetlands tiles. Just as civilizations can be isolated in the early game by virtue of being located on islands, civilizations can now also be isolated by impassible terrain.

All of this adds up to make the early game much more varied, and at least in my own view, much more interesting. Whereas in the default epic game, AI civs all tend to develop initially at roughly the same rate, in BBW, many things -- starting terrain, strengths, available resources, research choices and simple luck -- can make big differences. Some civs will develop rapidly, some will develop slowly, some will stagnate and, yes, some will actually self-destruct, leaving only ruins for others to find and wonder about later.

Various other modifications have also been made to units. Perhaps the most significant changes are that spearmen, pikemen and early gunpowder units now have more balanced attack and defense capabilities, and that archers and crossbowmen have taken over as primary defensive units. As I said in reference to governments, though, the Civilopedia is up-to-date, and I've also provided a detailed "Unit Stats" reference file, so you shouldn't have any trouble figuring out what's what.

GRAPHICS REFINEMENTS:

All civilizations have consistent and unique colors. No more "maybe this color, or maybe that one" nonsense. There are 32 available civilizations, and 32 available colors. So who needs alternates? And speaking of civilization colors, the citizen heads you seen on your city screens and on your domestic advisor's display now include color-coded "smiley faces" to make it easier to tell at a glance how happy they are and which civilization they're originally from.

Strategic and luxury resources display on the map with small shields and smiley faces, respectively, to make them easier to spot quickly. And there are now twenty-seven strategic, nine luxury and eighteen bonus resources. (The city display screen has been modified to allow display of all nine luxuries, though I can't change the fact that only up to eight will affect the city's happiness.)

I've also given the boxes on the tech trees a cleaner look.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

(Check the actual "Read Me" files for these!)

-- Darryl C. Burgdorf

There's a problem when playing the game : There's a civilopedia error pertaining to the Ampitheatre entry. Fix it :( I want to play roar!

Edit : Also tundra and desert not supporting cities makes some problems arise; such as oasis' and incense being unavailable and tundra with game is useless. Plus it leaves no explanation for desert countries and eskimoes ;)

There's a problem when playing the game : There's a civilopedia error pertaining to the Ampitheatre entry. Fix it :( I want to play roar!

What error, exactly, and when did you encounter it? I'm not getting any errors....

Also tundra and desert not supporting cities makes some problems arise; such as oasis' and incense being unavailable and tundra with game is useless. Plus it leaves no explanation for desert countries and eskimoes ;)

Tundra and desert tiles can still be within a city's radius, and thus, the resources can still be available. But you're probably right in a more general sense, as the other changes I've made to tile food production and population food consumption will probably make desert and tundra cities pretty unpopular without the need to actually prohibit them.

Of course, I've already noticed a need to tweak things there a bit more. I found myself earlier this morning with a starting city that wouldn't rise above size 2 until after I'd moved out of despotism. It made early expansion rather difficult, since I couldn't build any settlers. ;)

Thanks for the feedback, by the way. Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

-- Darryl

This is the error :

You're getting that error because the game can't find the right scenario folder. Apparently, you've saved the scenario file and the scenario folder with different names. They should both be called "Bigger, Better Worlds"....

-- Darryl

Ah I see what I did wrong, I'm real eager to test this out :D

Hey... 3 food per pop is INSANE! You can't expand early unless you start with irrigation! Its just crazy.

Hey... 3 food per pop is INSANE! You can't expand early unless you start with irrigation! Its just crazy.

Food production in several tile types has been boosted, and there are a number of resources that add food, as well, so it's quite possible to have a starting city that can grow beyond size 2 even without irrigation, and even under despotism. But you may need to look around a bit; building a city in your starting tile may or may not make sense.

I may still change the food consumption back, though; the idea behind the change -- slowing down initial growth -- is one I still want to implement, but this may not be the best way....

-- Darryl

I'm impressed! I haven't gotten a chance to play all the way through obviously, and it'll take some time to see if the food-per-pop changes balance (I started as AGRICULTURAL in floodplain with forest nearby and had a REALLY quick start to growth) so it may need some terrain tweaking, etc for balance judging from those earlier comments about not getting started at all without irrigation.

I skimmed the tech trees, l like the overall additions and will try to actually play through to see how the game balance/flow is affected.

By the way, I especially like the additions to the Ancient Age (espionage, mining to push back bronze working, etc.) and at the very end of Modern Age to give a little "future" feel. Have you considered an expansion to the Medieval Age to differentiate the gradual introduction of gunpowder? I always wanted the flow to be more like...

ALCHEMY (gunpowder, greek fire) - Dromond, Fire lancer(CH)*, Rocket(CH, KO)

METALLURGY - cannon

FIREARMS - musketeer


*Dom Pedro just released this unit by the way - YAY!

Originally posted by DB_in_Omaha


Food production in several tile types has been boosted, and there are a number of resources that add food, as well, so it's quite possible to have a starting city that can grow beyond size 2 even without irrigation, and even under despotism. But you may need to look around a bit; building a city in your starting tile may or may not make sense.

I may still change the food consumption back, though; the idea behind the change -- slowing down initial growth -- is one I still want to implement, but this may not be the best way....

-- Darryl

Check out Rhye's of Civilization for slowing down growth. I'm sure if you asked him nicely and gave him credit, he'd be more than happy to let you use his method. He initially had it set up for 4 population in ancient times for a settler then changed it to 3 population but increased the shield cost to 120 shields. Settler costs vary by the tech age you are in as well.

I just started playing this mod and like it so far. It'll be even better once you have all the graphics added. At first I thought my tech slider was busted but confirmed that it was intentional in the editor.

Originally posted by Antiochus VII
Have you considered an expansion to the Medieval Age to differentiate the gradual introduction of gunpowder? I always wanted the flow to be more like... ALCHEMY (gunpowder, greek fire) - Dromond, Fire lancer(CH)*, Rocket(CH, KO) METALLURGY - cannon FIREARMS - musketeer

I'm not quite sure I understand your request. The dromon is an ancient era unit, and I'm not sure "Greek Fire" really had much to do with gunpowder, anyway. Cannons are already available with the metallugy tech, separate from musketmen, which are available with gunpowder (which would seem to serve the same purpose as your "firearms" tech).

Also, I couldn't find the "fire lancer" unit you mentioned.

-- Darryl

Originally posted by EL_OSO
Check out Rhye's of Civilization for slowing down growth. I'm sure if you asked him nicely and gave him credit, he'd be more than happy to let you use his method. He initially had it set up for 4 population in ancient times for a settler then changed it to 3 population but increased the shield cost to 120 shields. Settler costs vary by the tech age you are in as well.

I've played with various ideas a lot this weekend, and I ended up here. ;)

I'm putting food consumption back to 2, and resetting tile food production back to the defaults. (I'll probably disallow irrigation of deserts, though; I really dislike the idea that an agricultural civ can irrigate deserts and make them just as productive as irrigated plains.) I found that in some situations, my change actually *INCREASED* early city growth, which was obviously not what I wanted.

I'm not going to use a set of different settler units as Rhye did, but I like the idea of increasing the population cost from 2 to 3, and will very likely borrow it.

-- Darryl

Just to clear up what I was referring to (and I was just illustrating an expansion, not really requesting anything exactly) was a slight expansion on the lines of the other ones you had already done to correct and expand the medieval research tree.

In reality early explosive or 'chemical' weapons such as gunpowder and greek fire (I know the dromond is an 'ancient' unit but the use of Greek Fire it portrays was 7th-8th Century in origin) were stumbled upon indirectly (through 'ALCHEMY' - i.e fairly UNscientific experimentation ;) a precursor to invention in my own mods) and put into use far before cannons which in turn far preceded any effective musket, etc. With the flavor units available it would be possible to include such an expansion and correction.

Oh, Firelancer is in Battlefield Asia (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81018) not by itself so it'd be hard to find. Sorry about that obscure reference.

No DB ! Keep the consuption of 3 food !

Great Mod, along the lines of Ak47's Missing Links. I love mods like this.

You may want to expand upon the Age of Sail in the Medival Age(the age of sailing ships)

For instance, maybe an early medival warship, the Cutter, should be introduced, which upgrades to Frigate.

Also maybe one additional tech, advanced Naval Tactics, which would net the heaverer Ship of the Line(a more powerful, more expensive, larger frigate), this unit would later upgrade to the Battleship,(or perhaps a Heavy Ironclad could be introduced as a "Missing Link" unit) kind of like the Frigate upgrades to the Ironclad(optionally) and then the Destroyer.

Playing the Dino version - (as the dinos, of course).

Great job so far. I like the 3 consumption for growth and settler creation - Optimator has that (with heavier food production from terrain, mass bonus resources, and irrigatable terrain having variable bonus when irrigated).

Do you plan on continuing to expand this mod?

BBW 1.10 is now available. Changes are as follows:

- Re-enabled city building on desert and tundra tiles.
- Set food consumption per citizen back to 2.
- Reset tile food production numbers back to defaults, but disallowed irrigation of desert tiles, and disallowed mining of desert and tundra.
- Raised shield cost of settler to 60, and population point cost to 3.
- Raised shield cost of worker to 20.
- Increased time needed for mining (now 18), irrigating (12), building railroads (18), planting forests (24), clearing forests (24) and clearing wetlands (32).
- Tweaked unit stats to mimic many changes from "Patch Suggestion" mod.
- Increased naval unit movement rates by one-third to allow for the fact that the mod's maps are larger.
- Added improvement prereqs to numerous wonders, in part to encourage AI to build more city improvements.
- Added "production" to "build often" lists of all civs that didn't already include it.
- Decreased optimal city number for each world size by about one-third to discourage huge, sprawling civs.
- Added Machiavelli's Il Principe wonder. (Rufus T. Firefly's splash art was just too good not to use!)
- Added assassin unit, essentially a spy with hidden nationality, to be created by the new wonder.
- Moved Art of War from Espionage to Code of Laws.
- Moved Carrier from Mass Production to Advanced Flight.
- Made Rocketry a prereq for Synthetic Fibers, to make it impossible to build stealth fighters without being able to build jet fighters.
- Added new territory border graphics.

Originally posted by Amesjustin
Playing the Dino version - (as the dinos, of course).

Of course. I have a sneaking suspicion that hardly anyone is every going to play the dino version to play *against* the dinos. ;)

Great job so far. I like the 3 consumption for growth and settler creation - Optimator has that (with heavier food production from terrain, mass bonus resources, and irrigatable terrain having variable bonus when irrigated).

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the three food consumption to work in a way I liked. The only way I could prevent *very* quick stagnation of most city growth without absurdly increasing food production and thus defeating the whole purpose was to get rid of the tile penalty under despotism, which I really didn't want to do. And the change, believe it or not, while slowing down city growth in many cases, actually *increased* a city's growth rate in others.

So I opted to go a different (and more direct) route to slow down initial expansion. Settlers are more expensive.

Do you plan on continuing to expand this mod?

Yep. No guarantees as to how fast I'll get updates out, but I do plan to keep working on it, and I'm making notes of the various suggestions offered here. ;)

I'm not really interested in creating "a whole new game" the way some of the large mods do, but I'm having fun revising C3C a bit to make it play just the way I want it to.

-- Darryl

I think making "a more fun civilization expierence" as you put it Darryl, is a pretty good approach, I mean, how many DyP and Steph mods does there have to be?

PS: I'll play against the Dinos, I enjoy a challenge!

I'm against your rules back for food :o

Originally posted by Lachlan
I'm against your rules back for food :o

Noted. ;)

I may still play with raising the food consumption. I like the idea in theory; I just couldn't get it to work in practice the way I really wanted it to.

-- Darryl

Just one tiny question: Why was the Mediterannean culture group eliminated? And, to add to that, why are the Byzantines Mid-East and not European? (Carthaginians and Egyptians I can understand as Mid-East, though I still think that the Mediterannean civs have too little in common with others and too much in common with each other not to be a separate culture group.)

One other comment: The lux and science sliders reset to a total of 50% between each turn, even from below 50%. (I had science at 10% and Lux at 10% near the beginning and the sliders reset to 40 and 10 every turn. If I decreased the Lux to 0, the Science slider would return to 50.) Is there any reason that this happens?

I have a question regarding the rate cap on tech research for the new governments. I'm not sure if you changed this or not in the patch.

I'm devious with my tactics when I play in order to dominate the opposition. I researched Oligarchy first and then traded it to my neighbors for other techs that I didn't have. They were dumb enough to switch to it out of Despotism while I waited until I had Monarchy researched. Needless to say, I managed to build every wonder barring the government wonders in the middle ages and eliminate my neighbors with ease. I'm playing on the biggest map with 23 opponents. Well, lets say 21 opponents now.

I'd like to try these new governments but I don't think I ever will willingly cripple my ability to research technology. I can deal with it in despotism but I think you should reduce the others that precede the ones availabe in the Industrial Age or get rid of it all together. Either that or make the research time for Monarchy a lot longer than it already is.

I'm playing on regent level with normal aggression for the AI.

The spy is a really cool unit. The AI seems to like these a lot and builds tons of them. I've kept mine in my cities so far. I have the iroquois and the UU is built for a speedy assault. I've just had to deal with these hidden flank attacks but they're easily defeated so far.

Originally posted by Cuivienen
Just one tiny question: Why was the Mediterannean culture group eliminated? And, to add to that, why are the Byzantines Mid-East and not European? (Carthaginians and Egyptians I can understand as Mid-East, though I still think that the Mediterannean civs have too little in common with others and too much in common with each other not to be a separate culture group.)

I had to eliminate one of the culture groups in order to allow the Saurians (in "BBW, with Dinos") to have dinosaur citizen heads. I couldn't introduce a sixth culture; I had to replace one of the existing five.

To be honest, I'm surprised you even noticed. Culture groups have always seemed to me to be rather pointless in the game, other than to allow some civs' cities and citizens look different from others (and to allow an annoying predictability in who you'll end up living near on random maps if you don't remember to turn off "culturally linked starting locations").

Of course, since I really don't much care about the culture groups myself, it goes without saying that I'm quite amenable to suggested changes regarding who should be in which group. ;)

One other comment: The lux and science sliders reset to a total of 50% between each turn, even from below 50%. (I had science at 10% and Lux at 10% near the beginning and the sliders reset to 40 and 10 every turn. If I decreased the Lux to 0, the Science slider would return to 50.) Is there any reason that this happens?

Check the new Civilopedia "Rate Caps" entry for details. The short answer is, rate caps apply to all three uses of your money. If you set the science and happiness sliders such that the tax rate is above the rate cap, the game will automatically "fix" them for you at the end of the turn. ;)

-- Darryl

The problem that is the AI who make a too lot of money, consequently AI develop early warfare :(

With 1.00 The game was more balanced

Like in real history, in my precedent 1.00, it was one city civ, four littles civs, and three giants civs :)

EDIT : i tried again but this is not fun again, in regent and in warlord level AI attacked me !!!

The mod is unbalanced, AI build lot of units (3 spearman in each town) when human can build only two spearman due to limit of treasury :mad: And IA can still build archers !!!

Definitively, i will wait the next version of your mod ...

Your first try (1.00) was very good

Originally posted by Lachlan
The problem that is the AI who make a too lot of money, consequently AI develop early warfare. With 1.00 The game was more balanced.... The mod is unbalanced, AI build lot of units (3 spearman in each town) when human can build only two spearman due to limit of treasury. And IA can still build archers !!!

I'm afraid I'm not quite following you. How does the treasury affect your ability to build units? And what change from 1.00 to 1.10 do you think allowed the AI to build more units? The change you mentioned earlier that you disliked was the fact that I put food consumption and production numbers back essentially as in the default game, but I don't really see any connection between that change and your current complaint....

-- Darryl

I will try to explain it :)

In 1.00 AI is minus implicated in settle race, she prefer build settler and buildings/wonders , as result : she is more peaceful and logic ...

In 1.10 AI is too war ! war ! war !

I prefer the mods with an optic of économic development, later, war, re-économic development, re-war, ...

I loved the idea to have have only on 25/30 cities : 5-10 level 20+,10-15 level 15+ and other 15-

Because in the real world all cities are not megalopolis ...

I recall the fact that the comsumption of 3 food didn'd impeached the ai to develop herselve very well
:)

And when i try a mod ;) i want new mechanisms of playing, i dislike standard civ ...

I'm getting the error message too. since this is not self extracting, just where do I put what files in order top play?
It looks interesting.

Originally posted by Civslayer4sure
I'm getting the error message too. since this is not self extracting, just where do I put what files in order top play?
It looks interesting.

The RAR or zip files contain three items: a "Bigger, Better Worlds" directory, a "Bigger, Better Worlds" scenario file, and a "BBW, with Dinos" scenario file. All three should be put, just as is, into the "Scenarios" directory under your main "Conquests" directory. The "Bigger, Better Worlds" and "BBW, with Dinos" scenarios will then show up as available mods when you select "Civ Content" from the main "Conquests" menu.

-- Darryl

2 or 3 others than me appreciated food consumption = 3 per citizen ...

Your mod version 1.00 was balanced, equilibrated ...

In wainting this, i uninstalled your 1.10 mod ! Sorry !

I have an idea : i tested 1.10 onlevel chieftain --> too easy !
warlord --> too hard !

The ai should a malus of 50 %

The human with 100 shields builds an unit, AI should have to musts have 150 shields for the same unit :)

What do you think ?

Sorry for my bad english ;)

Originally posted by Lachlan
In 1.00 AI is minus implicated in settle race, she prefer build settler and buildings/wonders , as result : she is more peaceful and logic ... In 1.10 AI is too war ! war ! war!

Personally, I haven't noticed that the AI is really any more or less warmongering in BBW (either version) than it is in standard C3C. In 1.00, the AI wasn't less likely to build military units; it just took AI civs (and player civs, of course) a bit longer to get started. And in 1.10, the AI civs' behavior seems pretty much in line with that in the standard game.

And when i try a mod i want new mechanisms of playing, i dislike standard civ ...

If I'm understanding you correctly, your real complaint is summed up right here: you dislike BBW 1.10 because the AI behaves too much like it does in standard C3C.

That's fine, but while it's my goal to make the game a bit more challenging and a bit more interesting, and perhaps make the tech trees a bit more realistic, it's not really my goal to make the AI civs more pacifistic. ;)

I have an idea : i tested 1.10 onlevel chieftain --> too easy ! warlord --> too hard ! .... The human with 100 shields builds an unit, AI should have to musts have 150 shields for the same unit What do you think ?

How AI requirements compare with human player requirements is determined by your difficulty setting, not by the mod. If you consider the AI too aggressive -- and it sounds as if you regard that as a problem with the standard game that you want the mod to "fix" -- then I'd suggest setting the "agression level" lower when you start a game.

-- Darryl

Just after I posted the above comments, I visited another thread and came upon a post mentioning that changing the OCN (optimal city number) setting for a given world size will affect how heavily the AI pushes settlers. As I said, I haven't really noticed any change in AI behavior between BBW 1.00 and 1.10 myself, but I *did* lower the OCN settings to discourage large, sprawling empires. (I got that idea from the "Rhye's of Civilization" mod, by the way.) So I'll look into it. There may be more to your complaint than I'd realized, though if there is, the change is apparently unrelated to the issue of food consumption that we both thought we were discussing. ;)

-- Darryl

My apologies DB_in_Omaha :(

My agressivity level AI was set one level up :D !

I play at the moment your mod in warlord + level 4/5 aggressivity level AI ...

But are you agree with the fact that Diplomacy is too simple in CIV 3 ... ?

BBW 1.11 is now available.

- Attached Road Building (worker ability) to Masonry.
- Disallowed irrigation of floodplains.
- Returned optimal city numbers to default values.

I promise I'll leave things alone, now, and give folk (including myself!) some time to actually playtest the mod a bit, before I make any more alterations!

-- Darryl

I will take this 1.11 when i will finished my current game :)

OK, BBW 1.12 undoes the change to road building; it's once again available to your workers (no matter what civ you play) at the start of the game. I decided sort of at the spur of the moment yesterday to attach it to a tech, but quickly realized it was a bad idea. I should know better than to pull something like that.

I promise I *will* leave things alone for a while, now, to allow some actual playtesting. ;)

-- Darryl

What's the utility of units produced by Machiavelli ?

I can't attack cities !!!

Version 1.20 (3/21/04):

- Added Gaia Theory and Neural Interface techs to modern age.
- Added wonders: Area 51, Grand Unified Theory (GUT), Mayan Calendar, The Spirit of St. Louis.
- Removed wonder: Luther's 95 Theses.
- Renamed Libertarianism "Filler" Wonder as Egalitarian Society.
- Added improvements: Coffee Shop and Geothermal Plant.
- Added new military units: CyberPlane, CyberTank and Terrorist.
- Added new units to spy chain: Emissary and Covert Operative.
- Added two early air units: Balloon and Airship.
- Moved Bomber from Flight to Advanced Flight, and Helicopter from Advanced Flight to Rocketry.
- Removed Rubber requirements from modern age units and Mass Transit System.
- Added Saltpeter requirement to Rifleman.
- Made Engineering a requirement for clearing wetlands.
- Increased food production in jungles and wetlands (marshes), since they can no longer be modified in any way in the early game.
- Increased rate caps on the governments that have them.
- Replaced Jade, Olive Oil and Silver resources with Cocoa, Coffee and Hot Springs.
- Rotated Mayan, Persian and Hittite civ strengths so that Mayas are scientific and Persians are expansionistic.
- Extended game from 540 to 600 turns, and pushed start date back from 4000 to 6500 BC, to allow more time for ancient wonders to actually be built in ancient times.
- Enabled plagues.

-- Darryl C. Burgdorf

Originally posted by Lachlan
What's the utility of units produced by Machiavelli ? I can't attack cities !!!

Sorry for the delayed reply.

An unfortunate side-effect of the "hidden nationality" flag is that the unit so designated can't attack cities. (I've clarified that in the updated Civilopedia entry for Assassins.) The units are still useful for capturing workers and settlers and for attacking units in transit, without precipitating a war, though.

-- Darryl

I registered on the forum today so I could say that this mod is quite neato. I'm quite impressed, though I installed Snoopy's graphics at the same time, which probably boosts my impression level slightly. Graphicwise, though, I really like your cultural borders, in that they indicate which side of the border is which. I have now adopted your border set into the standard game.

There seems to be a bug, which is either a Firaxis bug or a facet of the way things work which needs to be better taken into account: Some wonders bring the effects of a particular city improvement to every city. Some other wonders require X many of a particular city improvement to exist before they can be built. Using these in combination does not work, however. The wonders of the first category do not actually build the improvements, but only bring the effects of the improvements. So, they "don't count" towards the requirements of the wonders in the second category.

An example: I built Sun Tzu's Art of War before having built five barracks "the hard way". Now, I cannot build the Knights Templar because I do not have five barracks. ;)

If this is intentional on Firaxis' part then it needs to be worked around. If a wonder of category A brings the effects of improvement X to every city, and a wonder of category B requires N improvements X to exist before being built, what I suggest is putting the same requirement on building the wonder of category A. So, in my example, this would mean requiring five barracks before building Sun Tzu's Art of War; this way, the requirement for the Knights Templar will have already been met, and frustration will be avoided.


Also, is there nothing that can be done about the AI's settler-building frenzy? I think the 3 population cost is cool, but as has been discussed at length in this thread, the AI can't deal with it. Increasing the shield cost helps a little, but I still have AI's falling far behind because they wasted so many shields on a finished settler that is waiting for population to increase.

Awesome mod, though, and keep it up. :)

It is a Firaxis wonder/improvement limitation you are hitting.

As I have stated before - I have done extensive playtesting in my mods with settlers using 3 pop costs. With proper terrain/resource food balancing, the AI does quite well with it. From what I have seen the settler-building frenzy is just slightly slowed.

Originally posted by Guildenstern
I'm quite impressed, though I installed Snoopy's graphics at the same time, which probably boosts my impression level slightly. Graphicwise, though, I really like your cultural borders, in that they indicate which side of the border is which. I have now adopted your border set into the standard game.

I use Rhye's terrain graphics, myself, which are based on Snoopy's. And I can't take credit for the borders. I only (very) slightly modified the border graphics posted here recently by CornMaster.

There seems to be a bug, which is either a Firaxis bug or a facet of the way things work which needs to be better taken into account: Some wonders bring the effects of a particular city improvement to every city. Some other wonders require X many of a particular city improvement to exist before they can be built. Using these in combination does not work, however. The wonders of the first category do not actually build the improvements, but only bring the effects of the improvements. So, they "don't count" towards the requirements of the wonders in the second category. An example: I built Sun Tzu's Art of War before having built five barracks "the hard way". Now, I cannot build the Knights Templar because I do not have five barracks.

I hadn't specifically noticed that myself, though it probably explains why my son couldn't build the Templars himself the other day. I'll adjust things to allow for it now that I know about it.

Also, is there nothing that can be done about the AI's settler-building frenzy? I think the 3 population cost is cool, but as has been discussed at length in this thread, the AI can't deal with it. Increasing the shield cost helps a little, but I still have AI's falling far behind because they wasted so many shields on a finished settler that is waiting for population to increase.

I'm still playing with this. It would be nice if the AI were just smart enough to build something else if it can't build a settler yet, but obviously that's not the case. Any specific suggestions are of course welcome!

Awesome mod, though, and keep it up. :)

Thanks! ;)

-- Darryl

Originally posted by Amesjustin
As I have stated before - I have done extensive playtesting in my mods with settlers using 3 pop costs. With proper terrain/resource food balancing, the AI does quite well with it. From what I have seen the settler-building frenzy is just slightly slowed.

Some of what I'm playing with right now is along the lines you hinted at before.

Of course, being able to actually see what you've done in your mod might help. ;) But even just the general hints have gotten me (I think) on roughly the right track.

-- Darryl

Optimator has been under construction forever, and is nowhere near completion. That is what I get for trying to create a mod that surpasses even DYP without any help...:crazyeye:

At any rate, here is the current terrain food stats I am playing with. Keep in mind I have nearly 200 resources I am using as well, many with food bonuses, and some of those 'bonuses' are of the negative variety....

Terrain Base Irrigation
Desert 0 +1
Tundra 0 +1
Plains 1 +2
Grasslands 2 +3
Flood Plains 3 +1
Forests 1 N/A
Jungle 1 N/A
Swamps 1 N/A
Hills 1 +1
Mountains 0 N/A
Volcanoes 0 N/A
Coast 2 N/A
Sea 2 N/A
Ocean 2 N/A

I also assigned irrigation to a tech which becomes available towards the middle of the first era. This really makes grawth hard for almost all civs in the beginning - most cannot expand at all untill getting this tech, as most heavy food-based resources don't start becoming available until around the same time. If I play with over 20 or so civs, usually one or 2 will get an early population boom. Usually these are explorer civs, as their scouts will uncover extra techs or settlers. This is all fine with me, as I love the randomness all this creates.

You can also play with which techs and governments increase food production. You might want to make settlers more expensive (I did - about 35% more), although if you make it TOO expensive you will severely cripple the AI.

What I aimed to do in my mod was make expansion nearly impossible in the beginning, but slowly gets easier. By the time you are nearing the end of the modern era, about a third the worlds civs are absolutely booming, the second third is doing alright, and the last third is barely there.

You got quite a few options to control the AI Growth. Try them all out and see what creates the reaction you are looking for.

You can also take a lesson from Kal-el. In DYP he has some settlers that require 2 pop to create, and more expensive ones that require only 1. You could go the same route only using 3 and 2 pop settlers.

Many of the numbers you're using aren't that far off from what I'm experimenting with right now, as it happens. (I'm playing with the 3 food requirement again, as I *really* like the concept.) I see you've added food production to ocean squares; I'm not entirely sure about that one, since especially in the early game they're supposed to be effectively inaccessible, but it's worth consideration. I also see that you're allowing hills to be irrigated. Did you create special hill irrigation graphics?

Have you pretty much gotten past the problem of AI civs sitting with settlers "almost finished" for years waiting for enough population points to complete them? I assume so from your earlier comments, and I seem to be making progress in that regard myself, but I figured I'd ask. ;)

One thing I've noticed about requiring three food per citizen that I find rather "cool" is that cities can self-destruct. (Under despotism, the city tile itself only produces two food rather than three, and so cities aren't necessarily self-sustaining.) It doesn't happen a lot, but in one test game I ran the other day, with AI civs fighting each other and cities occasionally vanishing into the mists of time on their own, exploration had a whole new feel. The territory I was exploring was empty, but obviously hadn't always been so. Remnants of past residents were everywhere to be seen. ;)

-- Darryl

Originally posted by Amesjustin
Keep in mind I have nearly 200 resources I am using as well, many with food bonuses, and some of those 'bonuses' are of the negative variety....

Does Optimator use random maps or a set map? I'm adding new resources to BBW, but I'm proceeding a bit cautiously, as I've read some comments around here indicating that having more than 32 resources on a random map can cause problems with resource placement, and I've yet to get any real confirmation either way on the matter....

-- Darryl

Originally posted by DB_in_Omaha


Does Optimator use random maps or a set map? I'm adding new resources to BBW, but I'm proceeding a bit cautiously, as I've read some comments around here indicating that having more than 32 resources on a random map can cause problems with resource placement, and I've yet to get any real confirmation either way on the matter....

-- Darryl

Both - which reminds me if you are using a set map you can also use LM terrain.

I had some of the same questions as you. If you have C3C the only resource limitations left you will face are that only the first 8 luxuries to hit a city affect happiness, and that the more strat/lux resources you have, the more clustered they will appear on a random map. That 32 limitation was apparently removed with PTW.

Personally I like the clustering as it promotes war and trade.

Originally posted by Amesjustin
If you have C3C the only resource limitations left you will face are that only the first 8 luxuries to hit a city affect happiness, and that the more strat/lux resources you have, the more clustered they will appear on a random map. That 32 limitation was apparently removed with PTW.

The clustering of luxury resources doesn't really bother me. It's rather realistic, in fact.

Only the first eight luxury resources actually affect a city's happiness, though? Damn. I've got nine luxury resources in the mod, and made a point of modifying the city display page so they'd all display neatly if you had access to them all. I didn't realize the ninth one served no purpose. ;)

-- Darryl

Ninth lux still serves SOME purpose - you are denying your neighbors happiness.:D

If you attach requirements to luxuries (like strategic), they will still fulfill those requirements, too!

I do not like that border mod. I have seen it before, and it irritates me, as it does nothing but adds an errant splotch of color that ruins the elegant simplicity of the standard borders. If someone modded it to show small towers, perhaps with pennants, instead of colored lines that would be even better.

Also, where is the file that adds those rather annoying shield markers over some resources? I want to slay that also, but am unsure what created it.

Other than that, I am greatly enjoying your mod. I always mess with the mods I download; if you want, I will show you what I end up with.

Have you thought about marrying your mod with a world map? Before C3C came out I did that with the Balancer mod and basically worked it into what I got with C3C. Well, they gave me a few things I didnt think of, but regardless.

Anyway, nice mod! My only problems are graphical aesthetics, which really only matter to me.

Keep up the good work!

Oh, and I love the coffeehouses!
Best idea ever!

2 happy faces lol more like 300000000000!

Noticed you are missing text for Nanotech, so figured I could type something (waiting for some people to pick me up, so might as well use the time to help someone).

In the realm of science fiction, Nanotechnology has taken on almost mythic proportions; it is the new magic. The reality is far more interesting.

Nanotechnology is engineering at sub-microscopic levels. Already, highly dense materials (in small amounts) have been formed through nano engineering. Nano particles are being used in the creation of a revolutionary brain tumor fighting drug which will safely deliver a highly toxic drug to the affected area of the brain, without releasing it to run rampaging through the human body. These tiny particles are also being explored for their potential to form incredibly small and powerful computer chips, as well as the possibilty of using them to rapidly reproduce simple objects.

Originally posted by Aeon221
I do not like that border mod.

/Art/Terrain/Territory.pcx

Delete it, and you'll be back to standard borders. ;)

Also, where is the file that adds those rather annoying shield markers over some resources?

/Art/Resources.pcx

You can't just delete the file, since the resource list in the mod is different from the default list, but you can edit it. Deleting the shields and happy faces and leaving only the basic resource images shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Other than that, I am greatly enjoying your mod.

Glad to hear it!

Have you thought about marrying your mod with a world map?

Not really. I like not having any idea what to expect on the map when I start a new game. ;)

The only thought I've given to creating a predefined map is in reference to the "BBW, with Dinos" variant, to allow the Saurians to start well away from any humans. But I haven't really given it much *serious* thought.

-- Darryl

Originally posted by Aeon221
Noticed you are missing text for Nanotech, so figured I could type something....

Thanks. ;)

-- Darryl

Thank you for the files, first off. Secondly, I'm kinda new at modify the original game and have had a few problems.

1. When I select the Scenario "Bigger, Better Worlds" the map screen shows "YOUR CIVILIZATION" instead of "default".
2. When I choose civilizations, it says "YOUR CIVILIZATION" instead of "Random".
3. Below "Chieftain" difficulty level, it says "DIFFICULTY LEVEL" and under "Sid" it says "EASIEST" instead of most difficult.
4. In the game, when I open the encyclopedia to the tech-tree, it says that a file is missing and then crashes.

What am I doing wrong? I've put the files all in the Conquests Scenarios folder and haven't changed names or anything.

Originally posted by tyson
1. When I select the Scenario "Bigger, Better Worlds" the map screen shows "YOUR CIVILIZATION" instead of "default".
2. When I choose civilizations, it says "YOUR CIVILIZATION" instead of "Random".
3. Below "Chieftain" difficulty level, it says "DIFFICULTY LEVEL" and under "Sid" it says "EASIEST" instead of most difficult.

It sounds like you're using a non-patched (i.e., pre-1.10) version of C3C. Quick test: on the upper right corner of your world setup screen, do you have an option to enter a "seed" value for a world map? If not, you're using a pre-1.10 version.

There are two ways to fix the problem. The first option, obviously, is to patch your version of the game to 1.15, using the "beta" patch that Firaxis has made available. You really ought to do so; there are a number of improvements and fixes in the patch. If you don't want to do that right now, though, the second option is to replace the "labels.txt" file in the mod's "Text" folder with the "C3C v1.00 labels.txt" file.

(You're seeing incorrect text, by the way, because the newer version of the "labels.txt" file has a couple of extra lines that the older version of the game doesn't know to allow for.)

4. In the game, when I open the encyclopedia to the tech-tree, it says that a file is missing and then crashes.

I'm not sure what the problem is, here, though I doubt it's related to the "labels.txt" file. What file does the game say is missing?

-- Darryl

Any updates on the way?

Originally posted by Amesjustin
Any updates on the way?

Yep. Should be ready in just a couple more days, in fact. ;)

-- Darryl

Cool. A suggestion for the dinos would be to incorporate maybe a few other animals - especially sea and air units. Lacking dino units in these areas, maybe a Squid for sea transport and an eagle for arial espionage.

Originally posted by Amesjustin
A suggestion for the dinos would be to incorporate maybe a few other animals - especially sea and air units. Lacking dino units in these areas, maybe a Squid for sea transport and an eagle for arial espionage.

I used a giant squid as a "Leviathan" (a generic sea monster, basically) in "Dinosaurs & Libertarians," but I wasn't terribly impressed with the unit, and so didn't carry it over to "BBW, with Dinos."

I understand your point, but I'd really prefer to avoid adding other animal units to the Saurian civ, as it would likely break the already incredibly thin rationale that has dinos present in the game.

Of course, Kinboat's new Panda collection is REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY tempting. I'm trying very hard to remember that giant sentient pandas would *NOT* make any sort of sense as part of the Saurian civilization. ;)

-- Darryl

True. I would love to see a mod with an all-animal only civ in it using all of the animal-only units out there. Sure it makes no sense but it would be fun. Even more so if ALL the civs were pure animal. Instead of a tech tree an evolution tree.

Back to your topic - I am playing a BBW Dino game, and am very close to winning via cultural victory - as the Dinos! Regent level...

..After that I will try playing against the dinos...

Seriously one of the best mods out there - one of the 3 that I play (other than the unfinished Optimator). The other 2 are DYP and Warhammer. This ranks up there with them - can't wait to see how it evolves!:goodjob:

Originally posted by Amesjustin
True. I would love to see a mod with an all-animal only civ in it using all of the animal-only units out there. Sure it makes no sense but it would be fun. Even more so if ALL the civs were pure animal. Instead of a tech tree an evolution tree.

Which brings up the question, of course, of whether the "Noah's Ark" mod is ever actually going to see the light of day. ;)

As I mentioned, I love Kinboat's new Panda units, and his Giant Eagle (which I hadn't looked at before you mentioned it) is nice, too. And I could bring back the Leviathan....

Sure, having Dinos and Pandas and Eagles together in a single civ wouldn't make much sense, but I could always claim that they're the result of alien genetic manipulation, and who can explain how aliens think? ;)

And as it happens, crashed UFOs *are* a new (extremely rare, required for the Area 51 wonder) resource in BBW version 1.30....

I'm not going to do it now, but I have a horrid feeling that I'm not going to be able to resist much longer. Must be the influence of the alien mind control beams. ;)

Back to your topic - I am playing a BBW Dino game, and am very close to winning via cultural victory - as the Dinos! Regent level.... After that I will try playing against the dinos....

The Saurians are winning a CULTURAL victory? Sheesh....

Seriously one of the best mods out there - one of the 3 that I play (other than the unfinished Optimator). The other 2 are DYP and Warhammer. This ranks up there with them - can't wait to see how it evolves!:goodjob:

Wow. I'm incredibly flattered. Hopefully, BBW can live up to the praise. ;)

-- Darryl

The mod keeps crashin on me in middle ages.
I have attached a screenshot in word.

Any suggestions?

i've also noticed the date is always "dec" - no year.

is this normal?

Hinxter7: Your screenshot didn't upload, apparently, so I can't see it. As to your other problem, I'd assume it's related to an inconsistency between the game version and the labels.txt file in use. Which version of the game are you running?

If you've never upgraded your copy of C3C at all, then you'll need to replace the "labels.txt" file in BBW's "Text" directory with the file called "C3C v1.00 labels.txt."

If, on the other hand, you've upgraded to C3C version 1.22 (which I'd guess you have), you'll need to add a line to the "labels.txt" file, as follows:

Find in that file these lines:

Reverse Capture the Flag
Default Rules

And add a new line between them, as:

Reverse Capture the Flag
Allow Scientific Leaders
Default Rules

BBW version 2.00 will be out very soon, and will include all three "labels.txt" files. ;)

-- Darryl

Actually Aaglo just finished a Sea Monster unit that bears a striking resemblance to an Elasmosaur or Pleosaur DB, you could use that as the Dino Naval Unit!

Originally posted by Sword_Of_Geddon
Actually Aaglo just finished a Sea Monster unit that bears a striking resemblance to an Elasmosaur or Pleosaur DB, you could use that as the Dino Naval Unit!

Already have it downloaded, though I'm not sure I'll use it immediately. Since a pterodactyl is apparently due for release soon (according to Amesjustin), I may leave the Saurians as they are for now, and add both units (sea and air) at the same time. Frankly, I'm just about to the point where I want to get 2.00 out and stop messing with it for a while. ;)

Or then again, I may *not* stop messing with it yet. I have a bad habit of never stopping tweaking. Heck, that's why what was supposed to be 1.30 instead of 2.00 isn't out yet. ;)

-- Darryl

You know the funny part of all this Dinosaur stuff? It is believed by some even today that some Dinosaur species never became extinct. One (Aborigine, so he wouldn't know what a Dinosaur was) person in rural Africa said he saw a creature that had a striking simularity to one of the Duck-Billed Dinosaurs.

Who knows, maybe your mod is coming true..........

Wait, was that an earthquake I just felt....It seemed oddly like......footsteps :eek:

thanks for the suggestions - still getting the same problem tho.

the error message says:
"file not found - art\units\emissary\..\..\..\conquests\middleages\a rt\units\spy\spy_default.flc"

it doesn't always happen at the same time - (i.e. doesn't coincide with me gettin espionage or anything) and doesn't happen if i'm playin as the saurians, just the normal civs.

i'm running version 1.22 on xp.

heeeelp!:)

Hope you don't mind DB but I modded your Dino version a bit. I added Optimator terrain (which is a bit more lush and, well, jungly and dino-ish than the base terrain).

I also could not resist adding the Pteradactylus and Pteranadon from Kinboat. I made them available with Physics. I am sure you will be adding them to the next version, but I just could not wait.

Any ETA on that, BTW?

Originally posted by Amesjustin
Hope you don't mind DB but I modded your Dino version a bit. I added Optimator terrain (which is a bit more lush and, well, jungly and dino-ish than the base terrain).

I use Rhye's terrain, myself. Not necessarily "dino-ish," but I just like the look of it.

I don't plan to add terrain graphics to the mod, though, as most folk probably already have a terrain set they like, and I've no particular need to override their tastes. ;)

I also could not resist adding the Pteradactylus and Pteranadon from Kinboat. I made them available with Physics. I am sure you will be adding them to the next version, but I just could not wait.

Yep, the flying reptiles are in the mod, as is the faux Plesiosaurus by Aaglo.

Any ETA on that, BTW?

I know I said "a couple of days" a while back, but this time, I mean it. ;)

I work tomorrow, but I'm off Wednesday and Thursday, and the kids are in school, so I should have it done and available by Thursday afternoon at the latest.

There are LOTS of changes, by the by. This release was originally going to be version 1.30, but along the way, grew into version 2.00. ;)

-- Darryl

Originally posted by Hinxter7
the error message says:
"file not found - art\units\emissary\..\..\..\conquests\middleages\a rt\units\spy\spy_default.flc"

it doesn't always happen at the same time - (i.e. doesn't coincide with me gettin espionage or anything) and doesn't happen if i'm playin as the saurians, just the normal civs.

Sorry I forgot to respond to this the other day. :(

I'm not sure what to tell you. I'd have to assume that the file in question really isn't available. Are the Conquests installed correctly and unaltered? (The file the system is looking for is one of the "Spy" animations from the "Middle Ages" Conquest.)

The basic inconsistency regarding when the error occurs is easily explained; it happens the first time *any* civ builds an emissary. (The game checks for the animation files as soon as a particular unit is on the map, whether you can actually see it or not.) I don't know why it wouldn't happen when you play as the Saurians, though....

-- Darryl

darryl
ive had a look in the files and i seem to be missing most of the art files for the emissary.
any chance you could send me them to save me having to download the whole mod again?

my email is hinxter@aol.com

by the way - i dont think ive said it but the part of the mod i've played is great

cheers:D

Originally posted by Hinxter7
ive had a look in the files and i seem to be missing most of the art files for the emissary. any chance you could send me them to save me having to download the whole mod again?

Those files aren't in the mod; they're in the "Spy" unit folder in the Middle Ages Conquest.

by the way - i dont think ive said it but the part of the mod i've played is great

Thanks!

-- Darryl

NOW AVAILABLE: VERSION 2.00

Version 2.00 (4/22/04):
- Changed food consumption per citizen back to 3, and adjusted tile food production numbers to compensate.
- Added 22 resources, for a total of 54.
- Revised unit, improvement and wonder resource requirements extensively to utilize new resources.
- Also revised improvements required for wonders to allow for the fact that improvements "provided" by one wonder don't count toward the requirements for other wonders.
- Updated Shakespeare's Theater so that instead of allowing for large city growth (which really made very little sense), it provides amphitheatres in all your cities.
- Moved Swordsman, Spearman and their civ-specific replacements from Bronze Working and Iron Working to Warrior Code. (They require the resources revealed by the previously-required techs, anyway.)
- Prohibited roads on mountains, to keep them largely impassable throughout the game. (They provide commerce even without roads, though, and neither strategic nor luxury resources can be found on them.)
- Made forests, desert and tundra impassable to wheeled units.
- Designated most ancient units (including basic Settler) and some medieval units as wheeled.
- Set basic Setter shield cost back from 60 to 40, but set it to require new tech, Expansionism.
- Added upgraded Settler, available with Astronomy, which isn't wheeled.
- Added "primitive" Settler, available with The Wheel, which has higher shield cost but lower population cost than basic Settler.
- Changed Scout movement rate from 2 to 1, as their advantage now is that they can move through any terrain, rather than that they move faster. Also changed Explorer movement rate from 2 to 3, but also replaced "treat all terrain as road" trait with an ability to ignore all terrain movement costs.
- Changed movement cost for roads from 1/3 to 1/2.
- Made it impossible for ancient naval units to enter ocean squares.
- Shifted some modern units: AEGIS Cruiser to Smart Weapons, Helicopter back to Advanced Flight, Hover units to Integrated Defense, Mobile SAM to Satellites, Shadow Infantry to Superconductor and TOW Infantry to Advanced Synthetics.
- Added units: Bombard, Continental Marine, Corsair, Crossbowman, Galleass, Missionary, Sabre Guard, Siege Tower and Trireme.
- Added unit: Firelancer, which replaces Rider as Chinese UU.
- Gave units in Spearman/Pikeman/Musketman line more balanced attack and defense ratings.
- Made units in Archer/Crossbowman line the primary defensive units.
- Gave all units extra HP based on the age in which they're available. Units available in the medieval age gained one extra HP, those in the industrial age gained two, and those in the modern age gained three. (This helps to differentiate unit strengths a bit, and makes "upset" victories by primitive units less likely.)
- Gave barbarian units an extra attack point and an extra hit point.
- Renamed Ballistics as Siegecraft and Siegecraft as Improved Siegecraft.
- Moved fortification (worker action) from Construction to Siegecraft.
- Made Masonry a requirement for Siegecraft.
- Made Siegecraft, Improved Siegecraft and Economics mandatory.
- Made Invention a requirement for Education.
- Replaced Magnetism with Naval Ordnance and added Piracy, and modified some connections on the Medieval tech tree to accommodate the change.
- Made Motorized Transportation independent of Electronics.
- Moved Disney World from Electronics to Motion Pictures.
- Moved Eiffel Tower from Steel to Steam Power.
- Moved Mausoleum of Mausollos back to Philosophy.
- Added wonders: The Curies' Lab, Empire State Building and Taj Mahal.
- Addes small wonders: Adventurers' Guild, Assembly Line, Craftsmen's Guild, Enshrined Relic, Great Harbor, Military Headquarters, National Breadbasket, Philosophers' Forum, Slave Trade and Traders' Guild.
- Moved Coffee Shop to Chemistry.
- Moved Hospital to Medicine, and changed its effects. (Waste Treatment Plant now allows larger city growth; Hospital instead provides a content face and improved production.)
- Added improvements: Movie Theater, Refinery, Smithy, Supermarket and Waste Treatment Plant.
- Set nuclear plants and some heavily-polluting improvements to each make a citizen unhappy.
- Gave tech requirements to small wonders that didn't already have them, so that they'd all show up on the tech tree.
- Removed upgrade link from mounted unit line to tank line.
- Increased operational ranges of aircraft and bombard ranges of missiles by about 50%.
- Removed city border graphics from the mod. (My point isn't to change the "look" of the game, and most folk probably already have terrain and border graphics they like.)
- Added an alternate set of resource icons without the shields and smilies.
- Put "culture groups" back as in the default game. ("Bigger, Better Worlds" and "BBW, with Dinos" now have separate "popheads.pcx" files, so the former no longer has to allow for dinosaur citizen heads.)
- Set "retain culture on capture" flag so that city borders will no longer shrink when cities are captured.
- Increased turn count to 640 and moved start date back to 7000 BC.

Version 2.01 (4/24/04):
- Gave Curragh the ability to transport 1 unit. (This was done for the benefit of civs starting on islands without timber.) Also raised its shield cost from 15 to 20.
- Reduced movement rate of Galleys, Triremes and Dromons from 4 to 3.
- Added bronze as a requirement for Triremes.

Well I have been playing Version 2.00 most of the day, love it so far. Been playing with the dinos in this game. I will DL 2.01 after that game is finished and play the basic mod.

The only problem I have encountered so far is a text one - various text is all screwed up (for instance it is always December of a year that is not displayed. Many other oddities as well.). I know this has to do with the Labels.txt file from the mod not being compatible with the Civ3 version I have installed, and can be easily solved by deleting or renaming the file included with the mod. Only problem is it will remove any changes you made to that file. I have 1.15 beta still, as none of the differences from 1.15 to 1.22 were important to me, and some I disliked. I am assuming this mod was designed for 1.22? Would I be missing anything particularly good be deleting the Labels.txt file from the mod?

Just saw that labels.txt is for 1.20, and that you offered alternates for 1.00 and 1.10. Would the 1.10 version be appropriate if you have 1.15?

Originally posted by Amesjustin
Just saw that labels.txt is for 1.20, and that you offered alternates for 1.00 and 1.10. Would the 1.10 version be appropriate if you have 1.15?

Yes, the 1.10 version of the labels.txt file is actually good for any 1.1x version of C3C. (Only releases 1.10 and 1.20 added anything to that file.)

So far as I know, BBW should run just fine (or at least as well as the default game itself does) under any C3C version.

I wasn't wild about the changes to the Industrial tech tree in 1.20, but since I never play the default epic game anymore, anyway, I didn't worry too much about them. ;)

BBW 2.01 mainly just addresses a minor issue that came to my attention yesterday. As it happens, I was stuck on a rather small island. So I made a point of researching Map Making so I could build Galleys and expand off the island. It wasn't until after I'd gotten the tech that I suddenly realized that since I had no timber, I still couldn't build any ships that could transport units. ;)

-- Darryl

I downloaded the file, when I look at the file size it says 30,436KB, yet when I extract it, all I get is a folder called 'BBW Read Me Files' that is 121KB.
It contains 6 files: 3 excel docs, and 3 text docs.

What happened?

Originally posted by runedot
I downloaded the file, when I look at the file size it says 30,436KB, yet when I extract it, all I get is a folder called 'BBW Read Me Files' that is 121KB.

There should be three folders and two BIQ scenario files in there. I just double-checked and confirmed that both the ZIP and RAR files on my server are fine, so it would appear that either your download was corrupted somehow or there's something wrong with the program you're using to open it.

-- Darryl

Strange, for some odd reason my ZIP extracting programme could't pick out all the other files.
I used WinRAR and it could, so now it's all right.

Downloaded your MOD. Very well done. Should have read your documentation more though, found many things that changed the way I play. All for the good though, things that make sense. Love it.

By the way, it crashed once with no message, but loaded from an autosave and continued on with no trouble so I do not know if it was the MOD or something else.

Great Job.

I played your mod for the first time last night and ended up staying up until 3am! It was a very pleasant change from the normal game. I enjoyed the way restricting movement early on mixes up the game. I'm also new to C3C, and maybe I'm just going crazy, but I think the map generator is better than it used to be, because it turned out a map that's amazingly well suited to BBW.

The only thing I'm still confused about is mountains - I can't build road across mountains at all? Does that mean that they'll always be impassable except by workers? Obviously I have yet to play a game all the way through, but I'm working on it!

Edit: I just remembered I have another question. Have you thought about making it possible to irrigate hills? That would remove the frustrating situation of having fresh water just on the other side of a line of hills and no way to get it over. But that might make growth too fast and work against your goal, on the other hand. I don't know, I'll have to play some more.

Keep up the good work, I like it a lot.

Originally posted by Goncyn
The only thing I'm still confused about is mountains - I can't build road across mountains at all? Does that mean that they'll always be impassable except by workers? Obviously I have yet to play a game all the way through, but I'm working on it!

Mountains remain impassible throughout the game to "wheeled" units; however, there are many units, especially in the late industrial and modern ages, which aren't flagged as "wheeled."

Have you thought about making it possible to irrigate hills? That would remove the frustrating situation of having fresh water just on the other side of a line of hills and no way to get it over. But that might make growth too fast and work against your goal, on the other hand. I don't know, I'll have to play some more.

I've thought about it, and really have no particular dislike for the idea. I may yet go with it. The main reason I haven't implemented it already, to be perfectly honest, is aesthetic. The game doesn't allow for special graphics for irrigated hills as it does for irrigated deserts or tundra. If a mod allows hills to be irrigated, the normal plains/grassland irrigation graphics are used, and I don't much like the way the tiles end up looking. ;)

-- Darryl

looks cool will try:goodjob:

Love your mod. A lot of effort has gone into it. I do have one question, why is desert impassable to wheeled units?

I have jsut downloaded this.
It's my 1st attempt, but I think this is the best one arround to start of. :thumbsup:

Q: Do any of you advise me to complement this with any other modification pack/art/utility/something? Which ones, if any?

I have like the wrost start in the world should I continue?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Image2.jpg

Now, this IS an awesome mod! Huge respect to Darryl!:worship:

There should be a new Gr.Wonder in modern era: "Civilization" computer game - produces happy faces, but hemmm...reduces city's productivity :D Sleepless nights over Civ dont realy make a hardworker out of a man:)

Q: have anybody had problems with date - i have it always appearing as : " Dec. "

First, thanks to everyone for the favorable feedback. It's always nice to know your work is appreciated!

Charlesstjr: Desert is impassable to wheeled vehicles partly because deserts are, after all, somewhat hard to drive across, but mostly because my evil master plan is to seriously impede early expansion, and making deserts harder to cross or settle fit in well with all my other changes. ;)

Portuguese: I very strongly recommend Rhye's terrain graphics set and CornMaster's city border graphics. Both can be found right here; you can find links to both on my BBW Web page. (The URL's in my sig.)

Bobisback: Before you abandon all hope, at least found a city on the coast, build a curragh, and see what's on the land to the north of your island. Who knows? You might actually have an entire continent to yourself. ;)

Jethro-tron: You haven't upgraded your copy of C3C to v1.22, and so the labels.txt file used by the mod isn't being read correctly. You can fix that problem in either of two ways. You can upgrade your copy of the game, or you can replace the labels.txt file with one appropriate to the C3C version you're running. If you opt to go the latter route, you'll find the relevant files in the mod's "Text" folder.

-- Darryl

A little help for a computer idiot please...

I've been following the discussion of your mod and just downloaded it today. I'm excited to test it out but have a small problem. I can't stand the game's default graphics. Now I have Rhye's graphics set on my comp, but I'm too much of an idiot to know how to use them together with your mod. When I use Rhye's set I usually enter them from the civ-content page and it launces like a separate mod. How can I combine his graphics with your game?

If you have time to help me out with this, please assume that I know next to nothing about computers. You'll have to spell it out a bit for me.

Thanks in advance
Lepto

Originally posted by DB_in_Omaha
Bobisback: Before you abandon all hope, at least found a city on the coast, build a curragh, and see what's on the land to the north of your island. Who knows? You might actually have an entire continent to yourself. ;)-- Darryl


I have abandon that game, I started a new one and much better start:D

I have found a bug. I am playing BBW 2.01 with C3C 1.22. I noticed that my cities were producing far more science than taxes, so I tried building a marketplace in a city that didn't have one yet and sure enough - it did nothing. I checked the scenario in the editor and found that the Marketplace increases luxury output, not taxes! Oops.

It should be increaseing taxes not luxury output;)

nice job, waiting for those graphics!

Originally posted by Leptomeninges
Now I have Rhye's graphics set on my comp, but I'm too much of an idiot to know how to use them together with your mod. When I use Rhye's set I usually enter them from the civ-content page and it launces like a separate mod. How can I combine his graphics with your game?

The simplest thing you can do is exactly what I've done, which is to replace the default terrain graphics with Rhye's graphics, and be done with it. That allows his terrain graphics to show up in *any* game, unless you're playing a mod that specifically includes terrain graphics of its own.

Just move the "Art" folder from your "Rhye's Terrain" scenario folder to your main C3C folder. You'll get a lot of "Do you want to replace this file?" messages; answer them "yes."

-- Darryl

Originally posted by Goncyn
I have found a bug.... I checked the scenario in the editor and found that the Marketplace increases luxury output, not taxes! Oops.

Um, well, uh, back in ancient times, uh, the economy was so bad, that, um, going to the marketplace *was* a luxury! Yeah, that's it! It's not a bug, it's an undocumented feature!

OK, OK, I'll get it fixed. ;)

-- Darryl

Uh-ah! I got 2 scientific leaders in a row (just like in a SOTD). I gues its 'coz my folks had 5 sources of opium...:D

Great mod, I dl'd it last night, and managed to play most of the way through the ancient age.

One quick question though... is it intentional that barb encampments are unreachable in the desert, forrest and so on? In the game I'm playing, I've got a barb encampment not far from my capital in the middle of a desert. There doesn't appear to be any way that I can reach it.

Thoughts?

You have only 2 ways. One way is to build Machiavelli's Il Principe Gr. Wonder - it comes with espionage and it produces assasins which can go through any terrain. The second way is simply to wait untill chivalry in the beginning of medieval era - knights can also go through any terrain. Otherwise the only thing that you can do is defence... It is fairly enough 'coz ancient civilizations suffered very hard from barbs and original Civ doesnt reflects it.

I have some Q's first why are Ivory Silk Incense Wine Coffee and Cocoa Strategic Resources? I think you should change the food consumption back to two.I think you should to make wood easyer to find.

btw the game I just started I am maya and just got contact with another civ but the problem is that I am on turn 305 and just met my first civ:eek:

Downloaded it and have 1/2-way played a game ...

Very nice job. This mod really changes the dynamics of the early game, and mostly for the better. I especially like the gov't progression, not being able to reach a commerce-bonus gov't until the cusp of the Industrial Age.

Just a couple nits to pick:
One of the selling points of Libertarianism is the 200% workers, but the gov't comes at the end of the IA, when there really isn't much for workers to do anymore. (RR's should have been almost completely constructed, tiles irrigated/mined.) Maybe worth a re-think on balance for the gov't.

Why would anyone want to be an Oligarchy? There doesn't seem to be any advantage over Monarchy in any situation. So what am I missing?

And a couple of bugs (at least, I think they are bugs):
Captured cities retain culture from previous civ. Is this intentional? It really changes the balance/need to develop local culture to prevent flips. In the game I'm playing, I have built the ToA, so this may be a very specific bug.

Germanium appears in the resource box of captured cities long before the tech required to see the resource is learned. I saw Germanium in the box during the early MA.

My game was with v2.00, so maybe these have already been fixed.

The only part of the units-as-wheeled paradigm I disagree with is the inability to enter forests. Surely early civilizations lived near and at times in forests, it would have been a primary source of hunted food.

Again, Great Job!

DB can you offer an update from 1.0 to 2.0 or split the 2.0 file? 30 GB are to much for a dial up connection.

I've never downloaded one of these before. Could some one please explain how to install this mod?

OK, got the graphics working, thanks for your help DB. Another little issue has sprung up. My starting location now always has a white obelisk with a yellow rim in the right hand corner. I suspect this may be unrelated to your mod as it happens now with any scenario, but since I've only noticed it since I've been fiddling with your mod (and you were so helpful on the graphics) I thought I'd see if you could help me with this.

Thanks in advance.

Lepto

Gdek:

It's not specifically intentional that barbarian encampments can be unreachable -- a modder can't limit the terrain types where such encampments can appear -- but it works out well. ;)

Bobisback:

I made an admittedly arbitrary decision to define as "strategic" *all* resources that are required for units or improvements. Luxury resources in the mod increase citizen happiness, but are not utilized for creating anything. Some of the strategic resources could be made luxury resources instead, but I don't want to have more than nine luxury resources in the mod, since I can't prevent the list on the city screen from overlapping the pollution status display. :(

I'm probably going to leave food consumption as it is, but I'll take a look at the appearance frequency of wood. ;)

T_McC:

Interesting observation regarding Libertarianism. And as far as Oligarchy is concerned, it mainly allows you to get out from under the Despotism tile penalty faster than Monarchy, but I can see your point about it having no real advantage. I'll take a look at the stats again. If you have any specific suggestions regarding either government, of course, feel free to let me know!

In the 2.00 release, I deliberately set the mod to retain the culture of captured cities, though I'm not sure I'm liking the change as much as I thought I was going to. ;)

The germanium you noticed is the result of a bug in the game when more than 32 resources exist. I finally found specific documentation about it last week; it turns out that a city connected to a resource but not connected to your capital will also have access to any strategic or luxury resource 32 steps higher on the list. I've already reordered the list to minimize the bug's impact in the "under construction" 2.02 version of BBW.

I'm kind of on the fence regarding impassible forests. I'll probably end up making them more accessible again, though, if only because doing so wouldn't really have all that much impact, anyway, since the game doesn't tend to generate large areas of forest.

Schmiddi:

It's been so long since I used a dialup connection that I hadn't even really given it much thought. What's generally considered a reasonable size for "pieces" of a download, for dialup downloaders?

Atomicgopher (great handle, by the way!):

Just unzip the file into your "civ3/conquests/conquests" folder. The mod will then be available when you click "civ content" from the main game menu.

Leptomeninges:

On the main options menu for the mod, click the "default rules" button. The obelisks are showing up because you've set the game to play with victory point locations (or whatever they're actually called). Most likely, you played one of the conquests that utilize them, and now it's coming up by default. (The game assumes when you start a new game that you want the same victory conditions, etc., that you used in your last game.)

-- Darryl

Have you played Rhyes mod?

I am sure that this has already been said, but his mod has some pretty cool features that it sounds like you are parallel developing (all units wheeled, extra expensive settlers, more impassable terrain) and that at the very least you should check it out.

I will dl, play, and give input (gotta LOVVVVE da input ;p)

@DB_in_Omaha

Thanks

Haha, just realized I have posted here before.

look out... I AM a moron!

Originally posted by DB_in_Omaha

If you have any specific suggestions regarding either government, of course, feel free to let me know!


Well ... since you asked ...

I would actually suggest changing a few of the govt's:
To Monarchy, add Low War Weariness
To Oligarchy, remove War Weariness
To Feudalism, change hurry method to Forced and remove WW
To Republic, change support to 1/2/4

This creates a consistency across all of the gov'ts where systems that use the whip generate no WW. Paying the citizenry off to finish a project implies a degree of independence that is the root of the War Weariness.

It also makes the choice of gov't much more difficult for the player. In the AA, you can have freedom with the slider settings and lower corruption (Monarchy), or you can have a truly free hand to conduct military campaigns. Pop-rushing is a penalty in itself, unless you are whipping foreigners, so your choice of gov't and game tactics are closely intertwined.

Feudalism is then an improvement over Oligarchy, if your empire has lots of small towns. Again, a choice for the player to make: I can have a larger military (or stronger economy) if I de-emphasize growth in my cities.

Theocracy is then usually superior to Oligarchy, where the slightly stronger limits on the slider are more than offset by the faster workers and higher support and MP limits.

Republic would then be a superior alternative to Monarchy for a peace-time gov't, the trade bonus likely overwhelming the loss of MP and unit support. I would change the support limits for Metropoli to 4, to make the limits consistently half those of Monarchy.

The Industrial Age gov'ts could then stay the same, as Democracy vs Communism/Fascism is a decision about peace vs. War, and Communism vs. Fascism is a question of empire size.

Finally, I would change Egalitarianism by adding a Small Wonder that acts like a 2nd FP (SPHQ). I think you want this to be the uber peace-time gov't, and the idea of Communism-level corruption with Democracy-level trade fits that to a T. The price for that is very high support costs and no means to hurry projects. This also creates a decision about Egal vs. Democracy that is similar to the Comm/Fascism decision. I might even change the slider restrictions to 80% rather than 90%. Is there a way to force the player to maintain a 10% lux tax? That would also be a possible solution.

The net effect of all these changes would be to make it very rare to see a Monarchy, Oligarchy, or Feudal gov't in the IA. I think that is the right thing. If you did implement these changes, I think it would also be prudent to reduce the max Anarchy time, as I think players would have to bounce between gov'ts as conditions warranted.

That's my two cents (dollars?) ;)

To Leptomeneninges

You have the "Allow Victory points" box checked on the page where you select victory conditions .

Thats a shame only question i've ever been able to answer and it's already been answered.

Haya Civ Guru's - tell me something : does militaristic civs expirience less war weariness then others? I had a war with Japan, they were (and still) under democracy and i've never attacked them before. It's already 11 turns since the war started and they look quite happy with it - thats what i see when i investigate their cities. Btw - AI have already lost 5 cities - they must be pretty scared.

Thanks again for your help DB. I got the obelisk thing sorted out.

I've got a monarch game going as America on a huge map with 24 civs (primarily for variety since I never play as the U.S.) I'm at the end of the ancient age and will give feedback as I go (if you don't mind.) So far I haven't noticed any obvious bugs. I like the three food pop, although I expected to have to pay more attention to my cities to ensure they are viable. With the increased food production for several tiles, it doesn't require as much planning as I thought it might. You may want to reduce the food output of squares like forests and mountains to make things more interesting. (I started in grassland so maybe I just had a good starting spot.)

Also, I remember you talking about cities "self-destructing." I saw several cases of this in my game from the AI. I'm admittedly a computer idiot, but I wonder if the AI "understands" the rules change. Persia had emerged as the early dominant civ and declared war. Then suddenly several of its cities went up in smoke for no apparent reason. (I was actually siegeing one of them at the time. Suddenly as my turn began I was standing next to ruins occupied by several fortified defenders.) It was a little strange

My chief thought so far is that the small wonder for industrious seems much more useful than the one for expansionist. more workers and 25% increased production are ALWAYS useful. The reduction to corruption from the expansionist small wonder is unlikely to be useful if built in an early city near your palace (the extra explorers are only really useful if you build it in the early game) and the war weariness reduction may be useful for a few turns of each game. The extra explorers of course are useful primarliy in the early game and moreso on a huge map.

Not sure I really have a recommendation here. It's just an impression so far.

Anyway, thanks for all your work. Enjoying the mod very much.

I think the very maximum would be 10 GB, so to offer the full package, you'd have to split the package into three pieces.

Originally posted by schmiddi
I think the very maximum would be 10 GB, so to offer the full package, you'd have to split the package into three pieces.

What on Earth are you talking about?

T_McC:

Wow. When I asked for suggestions, I had no idea you'd already thought things through so thoroughly. ;)

Unfortunately, there's no way to force a low (10% or so) tax rate under Libertarianism, though it would certainly make sense to do so. The rate cap you set applies to all three allocation areas (tax, luxury and science), and it can't be set any lower than 50%.

I was going to ask what purpose a second Forbidden Palace would serve under a government with communal corruption, but then I went back and reread the description of the FP. Since it no longer serves as a second Palace, decreasing corruption in nearby cities, but rather increases your optimal number of cities and thus decreases corruption a bit in all of them, it actually *would* make sense....

-- Darryl

Originally posted by Amesjustin
What on Earth are you (schmiddi) talking about?

He's suggesting that I split the download into multiple files for those stuck with dialup connections.

I'm not really sure I see the need, though. It doesn't seem like most of the large mods around here are split in such a manner (unless they've been broken up to accomodate the *upload* file size limit), and it's easy enough for someone to get software that will allow a stopped download to be resumed, anyway, making download of the entire mod at one sitting unnecessary.

*Shrug*

We'll see.

-- Darryl

(By the way, this is my 100th post. I'm into triple digits!)

Originally posted by DB_in_Omaha
He's suggesting that I split the download into multiple files for those stuck with dialup connections.

I'm not really sure I see the need, though. It doesn't seem like most of the large mods around here are split in such a manner (unless they've been broken up to accomodate the *upload* file size limit), and it's easy enough for someone to get software that will allow a stopped download to be resumed, anyway, making download of the entire mod at one sitting unnecessary.

*Shrug*

We'll see.

-- Darryl

(By the way, this is my 100th post. I'm into triple digits!)

Well, I understand what he wants, but he claims a size of over 30 GB, when it is under 28 MB - a pretty big difference. 28 MB is nothing.

File size is what eventually killed the Optimator mod - I was about 1/3 through developing it when I realized I was at 1.6 GB.

Congrats on the 100th![party]
<downs one for DB>

I am pretty sure he means megabytes but is either mistaken or abbreviating the appropriate word in his own native language.

An update. (Don't mind me, I just like to ramble.)

I'm five or six techs into the midevil age. I like the "stealth" units like the emissary and assassin. Maybe this is common to many mods, but it's the first time I've seen it. It's a fun dynamic. The only strange thing is when you're attacking a stack of units and suddenly you're attacking an "invisible" unit. I thought it was a bug before I figured out what was happening. It would be nice if the unit appeared if you forced a battle with it, but maybe that's not possible.

I'm still concerned by the way the AI's cities self destruct. Spain went from being the third or fourth largest civ I'd met to completely evaporating for no reason I could discern. I watched their stacks of archers abandon city after city until they finally settled in their capital (their only city on grassland, the others were all on plains) where I wiped them out. Strange to plunk down settlers in the middle of fully irrigated and improved tiles.

Also, maybe it's just my map, but happiness resources are VERY scarce. There are only two types on the continent where I started (which easily covers half of the huge map I started). I guess the others must all be on the other continent.

Anyway, thanks again for all your work. I'm having lots of fun with this.

Originally posted by Leptomeninges
The only strange thing is when you're attacking a stack of units and suddenly you're attacking an "invisible" unit. I thought it was a bug before I figured out what was happening. It would be nice if the unit appeared if you forced a battle with it, but maybe that's not possible.

Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about that. I can designate whether or not units are "invisible," but I can't change how the game *handles* invisible units.

I'm still concerned by the way the AI's cities self destruct....

I haven't noticed it happening as often as you seem to have, but I'll keep an eye on things and also see what others have to say about their own experiences with the mod. What difficulty level are you playing on, by the way?

Also, maybe it's just my map, but happiness resources are VERY scarce.

Apparently, a side effect of having more resources in the game is that the map generator has a greater tendency to "clump" luxury resources. But as it increases the odds of a civ having a monopoly on a resource, and thus increases the importance of resource trading, I'm happy with it. ;)

-- Darryl

Some more feedback. :crazyeye:

I have played a couple more starts, and I have come to the conclusion that your changes to food requirements and food production speed up growth more than they hinder it. The changed food requirements might make me a little more cautious about where I place my cities, but once I've got some irrigation or a harbor, they grow very quickly. Once I'm in Monarchy, it's really off to the races. The problem is that requiring 3 food makes those first few pop points hard (sometimes impossible to move up to 3 without irrigation), but after that it doesn't really make a difference. So I end up with ten 12-size cities easily before the end of the Ancient Age.

Which leads me to my second point. Since you have all these large prosperous cities and plenty of ways to make them happy (3 MPs with Monarchy, Ampitheatre + Plays of Aeschylus or whoever it was, Temple, Cathedral, Coliseum), plus Worker Housing and Smithy, you end up with several production powerhouses very early in the game. Even if you're only keeping even in tech, you can easily out-wonder the AI (at least at the middling difficultly levels I'm playing) simply because your cities are larger since the AI doesn't properly exploit the changed rules. Also, the abundance of production makes the Settler unit seem completely undesireable compared to the Primitive Settler, at least to me. If I can build a Primitive Settler in 9 turns and regain the pop point 1-3 turns later, why in the name of all the nine hells would I want to build a Settler and lose 3 pop points? I haven't done the math, but it seems at first blush that losing 3 pop points would slow you down more in the long run than the few extra turns to build the Primitive Settler.

Anyway, my suggested solutions to the problems I've raised.
[list=1] Swap the positions of Primitive and normal Settlers in the tech tree, increase Primitive's pop cost to 2, and reduce its shield cost slightly while increasing the normal Settler's shield cost slightly. This would slow growth a little more at the beginning and provide an actual incentive to researching Expansionism, which I find useless right now and usually trade or GL for.
As an earlier poster suggested, you might try reducing the food output of secondary tiles like forests and hills. One reason it's easy to get large and shield-powerful cities is that you can easily afford to work a few 2-shield (3 with mines) tiles once you have some irrigated grassland because of all the extra food you're getting from the grassland. If you had to trade off a little more food for the extra production, it might work out better. I'm not sure, it's a place for testing. Then you might also add hill irrigation to raise from 1 to 2 food, which would let very hilly areas get some growth from their hills at the expense of production.
As an experiment, you might try playing the same random map twice, once with the food requirements and tile values of your mod, once with the values from the base game and record how large your cities were by a certain turn. That would give you an idea of what your changes are actually doing.
[/list=1]
Please don't think I'm ungrateful, I'm just curious how to further improve this high-quality mod. :) Anyway, that's my duo aerei folles.

Originally posted by DB_in_Omaha
I haven't noticed it happening as often as you seem to have, but I'll keep an eye on things and also see what others have to say about their own experiences with the mod. What difficulty level are you playing on, by the way?

I have noticed this happens once in a while. I thought it interesting, since I have no idea why they are doing that. I have been playing this mod on Regent until I get a better feel for it.

Originally posted by DB_in_Omaha
Apparently, a side effect of having more resources in the game is that the map generator has a greater tendency to "clump" luxury resources. But as it increases the odds of a civ having a monopoly on a resource, and thus increases the importance of resource trading, I'm happy with it. ;)

I agree completely. It also gives the warmongerers a reason to go to war.

A little more feedback. At the outset let me make it completely clear that I really like the mod. I mostly just want to ramble here a bit and can't resist giving some feedback along the way. (I'm playing a huge game on monarch with the max number of civs - 24 I think.)

First off, I do like the scarcity of happiness resources. I've had to squeeze in a few "plantation" colonies on the other continent to pick some of them up. It's definitely more interesting when they're more rare. It requires more strategic planning for trading or colonization.

I also like the rate of tech progression. It's about 1100 AD and I'm probably 2/3 of the way through the midevil age (I'm the most advanced civ). This is with me gunning research as fast as I can.

Going along with this, tax revenue has been a real issue for me. I guess this is the marketplace issue someone else mentioned. I hope that normal marketplaces don't allow me to speed up my tech too much.

Like one of the other posters, I have completely outwondered the AI. I haven't missed one yet except for the oracle and slave trade (didn't want them) and the lighthouse (captured it.)

Just remembered. I also didn't build the great wall. It seems to have a feature common to improvements/wonders requiring walls in that it could only be built by a city small enough to build walls. (At least I think this was the problem. I'm at work and can't check my saved games.) Since my production cente