[Religion and Revolution]: Feedback and Questions

[ConjurerDragon]

Huh? That sure sounds like a bug. I will look into it when I get time to do so.

For example here when negotiating with the dutch colony:

Wild animals aren't supposed to appear in your diplomatic options.

If you've modified the scenario in WorldBuilder, be sure to keep #47 and #48 as follows:

BeginPlayer
	Team=47
	LeaderType=NONE
	CivType=NONE
EndPlayer
BeginPlayer
	Team=48
	LeaderType=NONE
	CivType=NONE
EndPlayer

Those are for wild animals and the church. We should let those players be generated automatically by RAR.

I made several changes to the vanilla game: I installed TAC, after that I installed R&R, In your map file RAR Americas Gigantic.ColonizationWBSave I deleted the line Speed=GAMESPEED_TAC_NORMAL, but the entries you mention are unchanged in that file.

And I added
<City>Port Royale</City>
as the french colonies first city in the CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml file and changed swedisch Fort Christina to
<City>Fort Kristina</City>

Edit: Oh, and I added the two files from your 1650 scenario
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=541535
and did the change to be able to zoom out farther that you mentioned here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14220812&postcount=974
and the change to more autosaves that Nightingale shared.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
I've been thinking about that too. As a matter of fact, by the end of the game when we have large convoys on paved road with waystations, land units become faster than sea units.

Because of that reason, and also to make the Carribean regions funnier, I've thought about testing the game after doubling the speed of all boats. The issue then is that they all move to Europe in 1 single turn which kills the piracy aspect of the game. So for this to work out, we would need to push the tiles to reach Europe further from the shores. It's all only XML/WorldBuider editing so it could be tested. But no matter what, the faster will be the boats, the harder it will be for pirats to catch them.

Now that I think about it, an idea may be to double boats sea vision as well in order to balance that.

Well, if doubling the speed creates problems for pirates then why not do a smaller change, e.g. the danish bonus for ships is +1 to speed,
so how about all nations ships get +1 to speed in gigantic maps, and the danish bonus rises to +2?

 

[Marla_Singer]

For example here when negotiating with the dutch colony:

View attachment 406341

Ah ok, indeed wild animals appear there, but they'll always be red because RAR is set up so that all Europeans are in "permanent war" against wild animals. Don't pay attention to this.

Well, if doubling the speed creates problems for pirates then why not do a smaller change, e.g. the danish bonus for ships is +1 to speed,
so how about all nations ships get +1 to speed in gigantic maps, and the danish bonus rises to +2?

The game works well the way it is, so I don't believe that would be worth it. If you want to play the Danes and start the RAR Americas map nearby the US shores, then the best is probably simply to swap the starting location of the Danes with the one of the Swedes.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I don't have RaR installed at the moment.
But AFAIK it's just a simple change in CvPlayer::buildTradeTable
Under case TRADE_WAR, set instead of
for (int j = 0; j < MAX_TEAMS; j++)
this:
for (int j = 0; j < (MAX_TEAMS - 1); j++)

EDIT: and of course you have to compile a new .dll after editing cvplayer.cpp

EDIT2: I supposed animals are the last team in RaR
if not, just add another if in the next line with the correct number for the animal team (if (j != animal_team_number))

 

[Kwalokumn]

Hello there.
I'd like to ask about an issue, regarding automated transportation system.

Due to unknown reason some of my transports use very odd routes to deliver goods, while automated. To be more presice -- instead of simply delivering goods from A to B, as they are commanded to, they want to visit town C, making it A -> C -> B, instead of A -> B.

Important notice: this "C" point is always one exact city -- my very first colony ("capital").

Extra notes:
Not all of transports behave like this. Most of them are just fine.
Although in screenshots below you can see Carriages (those which require plastered roads to travel), this problem also was witnessed with simple wagon trains.
I played so far only on pre-made Gigantic Map of Western Hemisphere, idk if this problem exists on other maps.
It doesn't matter if route to C is long or short, once one of my transports that worked in California decided to visit C (C is New York), making it tens, maybe even 100+ tiles long journey!

Some screenshots, depicting the problem:
(green arrows -- the route that transport is supposed to be following
red arrow -- an unplanned detour)
http://i.imgur.com/iY6Kv9U.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ttqnoXn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/N16NyYS.jpg

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nightinggale]

The problem is a clash of code from 2-3 different modders. What happens is the transport picks up say cotton from A, which is intended to go to B. If B has restrictions on import (like max 100) and the transport picks up too many, then it will have to drop the load somewhere and there is a nice algorithm for that from TAC. After a lot of checking it picks the best colony for that purpose, which is almost always the first one. If cotton is consumed, going to B after reaching C makes sense as it suddenly has room for the cotton.

I remember talk about this issue before, but I can't remember the solution, which points towards the "nobody solved this" solution.

 

[Kwalokumn]

Thanks for the answer.

If B has restrictions on import (like max 100) and the transport picks up too many, then it will have to drop the load somewhere and there is a nice algorithm for that from TAC..

Yes, indeed, it happens to cities with import limits.
But this algorithm is a bit strange. In the third screenshot you can see that transport is moving some cattle to my "capital". The thing is, "capital" is not set up to import cattle at all!

 

[Nightinggale]

But this algorithm is a bit strange. In the third screenshot you can see that transport is moving some cattle to my "capital". The thing is, "capital" is not set up to import cattle at all!

I noticed that issue too. The algorithm to do that is from TAC, which is from before my time and I haven't actually looked at that one. Moving cattle to a colony, which doesn't import cattle is indeed strange.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Ah ok, indeed wild animals appear there, but they'll always be red because RAR is set up so that all Europeans are in "permanent war" against wild animals. Don't pay attention to this.

The game works well the way it is, so I don't believe that would be worth it. If you want to play the Danes and start the RAR Americas map nearby the US shores, then the best is probably simply to swap the starting location of the Danes with the one of the Swedes.

Is it possible that exploration points don´t take gigantic map size into account? I seem to gather more exploration points by exploring than on normal sized maps so that I have no problems at all reaching the required exploration points for founding fathers.

 

[Nightinggale]

Is it possible that exploration points don´t take gigantic map size into account? I seem to gather more exploration points by exploring than on normal sized maps so that I have no problems at all reaching the required exploration points for founding fathers.

I don't think it does that. Now that you mentioned it, I started wondering if it would make sense to scale based on number of plots on the map

I think this is one of the issues, which isn't well balanced, just like military FF points are easier to get the faster the game is, meaning they are kind of tricky to get in marathon.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I don't think it does that. Now that you mentioned it, I started wondering if it would make sense to scale based on number of plots on the map

I think this is one of the issues, which isn't well balanced, just like military FF points are easier to get the faster the game is, meaning they are kind of tricky to get in marathon.

If a gigantic map is twice the size of a huge map then there are twice as much tiles to explore and exploration points to gather. In my current game on a gigantic map I already have enough exploration points for the whole page of founding fathers and only my political points are still lacking to actually get them.

Is there a way to lower them generally for certain map sizes (e.g. gigantic map = 50% or 75% of the usual exploration points from exploring tiles)?

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I don't think it does that. Now that you mentioned it, I started wondering if it would make sense to scale based on number of plots on the map

I think this is one of the issues, which isn't well balanced, just like military FF points are easier to get the faster the game is, meaning they are kind of tricky to get in marathon.

It´s extreme. I didn´t even explore half of the gigantic map and the first 2 exploration founding fathers already joined me and the exploration points still are:



On the other hand there seems to be something wrong with trade points too.
200 seems to be the points for the 2 docks I built but considering that I constantly buy from and trade to the natives it should be much more.

Edit: Is the exploration point value only for me that high, is that a problem with that specific map only (RAR Americas Gigantic) or is that a general problem on any gigantic map?

Edit:
When browsing through the xmlfiles I noticed in
CIV4WorldInfo.xml
that the fatherpercent value is identical for huge and gigantic maps despite the latter being double the size and despite that all former mapsizes have constantly rising values: tiny 110, small 120, standard 130, large 140, huge 150. Only gigantic has the same value as the next smaller map:

	<WorldInfo>
			<Type>WORLDSIZE_HUGE</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_WORLD_HUGE</Description>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_WORLD_HUGE_HELP</Help>
			<iDefaultPlayers>18</iDefaultPlayers>
			<iDefaultNativePlayers>12</iDefaultNativePlayers>
			<iUnitNameModifier>0</iUnitNameModifier>
			<iTargetNumCities>6</iTargetNumCities>
			<iBuildingClassPrereqModifier>0</iBuildingClassPrereqModifier>
			<iGridWidth>64</iGridWidth>
			<iGridHeight>100</iGridHeight>
			<iTerrainGrainChange>1</iTerrainGrainChange>
			<iFeatureGrainChange>1</iFeatureGrainChange>
			<iFatherPercent>150</iFatherPercent>
			<iAdvancedStartPointsMod>120</iAdvancedStartPointsMod>
			<iAIImmigrationModifier>200</iAIImmigrationModifier>
		</WorldInfo>
		<WorldInfo>
			<Type>WORLDSIZE_GIGANTIC</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_WORLD_GIGANTIC</Description>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_WORLD_GIGANTIC_HELP</Help>
			<iDefaultPlayers>39</iDefaultPlayers>
			<iDefaultNativePlayers>31</iDefaultNativePlayers>
			<iUnitNameModifier>0</iUnitNameModifier>
			<iTargetNumCities>8</iTargetNumCities>
			<iBuildingClassPrereqModifier>0</iBuildingClassPrereqModifier>
			<iGridWidth>110</iGridWidth>
			<iGridHeight>215</iGridHeight>
			<iTerrainGrainChange>1</iTerrainGrainChange>
			<iFeatureGrainChange>1</iFeatureGrainChange>
			<iFatherPercent>150</iFatherPercent>
			<iAdvancedStartPointsMod>120</iAdvancedStartPointsMod>
			<iAIImmigration

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I found the setting for fatherpoints in
CIV4FatherPointInfos.xml
and exploration points are gathered accodring to

<FatherPointInfos>
		<FatherPointInfo>
			<Type>FATHER_POINT_EXPLORATION</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_FATHER_POINT_EXPLORATION</Description>
			<Button>,Art/Colonization_Civilizations_Leaders.dds,5,6</Button>
			<iFontButtonIndex>14</iFontButtonIndex>
			<iLandTilePoints>5</iLandTilePoints>
			<iWaterTilePoints>3</iWaterTilePoints>
			<iMeetNativePoints>50</iMeetNativePoints>
			<iScoutVillagePoints>50</iScoutVillagePoints>
			<iGoodyPoints>100</iGoodyPoints>
			<iExperiencePoints>0</iExperiencePoints>
			<iConquerCityPoints>0</iConquerCityPoints>
			<iRazeCityPoints>0</iRazeCityPoints>
			<iMissionaryPoints>0</iMissionaryPoints>
			<iEuropeTradeGoldPointPercent>0</iEuropeTradeGoldPointPercent>
			<iNativeTradeGoldPointPercent>0</iNativeTradeGoldPointPercent>
			<BuildingPoints/>
			<YieldPoints/>
			<iProductionConversionPoints>3</iProductionConversionPoints>
		</FatherPointInfo>

Are those values really unchanged between tiny and gigantic maps?
With 5 points for each land and 3 for each watertile and 100 for every native met and scouted it´s no wonder that points climb up high on gigantic maps with lots of natives.

 

[Nightinggale]

int CvTeam::getFatherCostModifier() const
{
	int iCostModifier = 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getHandicapInfo[/B](getHandicapType()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getWorldInfo[/B](GC.getMapINLINE().getWorldSize()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getGameSpeedInfo[/B](GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getEraInfo[/B](GC.getGameINLINE().getStartEra()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= std::max(0, ((GC.getDefineINT("[B]FATHER_COST_EXTRA_TEAM_MEMBER_MODIFIER[/B]") * (getNumMembers() - 1)) + 100));
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	return iCostModifier;
}

This mean using the number 100 means no change and 150 mean +50% cost. It also reveal which xml values affects the costs.

You also seems to have located where the "income" of exploration points is set. You can change it and play to see if you come up with something, which is better balanced. If you do, please report back as it could be useful for other people.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

int CvTeam::getFatherCostModifier() const
{
	int iCostModifier = 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getHandicapInfo[/B](getHandicapType()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getWorldInfo[/B](GC.getMapINLINE().getWorldSize()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getGameSpeedInfo[/B](GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= [B]GC.getEraInfo[/B](GC.getGameINLINE().getStartEra()).getFatherPercent();
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	iCostModifier *= std::max(0, ((GC.getDefineINT("[B]FATHER_COST_EXTRA_TEAM_MEMBER_MODIFIER[/B]") * (getNumMembers() - 1)) + 100));
	iCostModifier /= 100;

	return iCostModifier;
}

This mean using the number 100 means no change and 150 mean +50% cost. It also reveal which xml values affects the costs.

You also seems to have located where the "income" of exploration points is set. You can change it and play to see if you come up with something, which is better balanced. If you do, please report back as it could be useful for other people.

I changed the value for
<iFatherPercent>150</iFatherPercent>
in
CIV4WorldInfo.xml
from 150 (identical to huge map) to 160 for the gigantic map and the cost of all founding fathers was raised accordingly,
e.g. Malinche went from 360 political and 600 exploration points (values from my old game on "RAR Americas gigantic") to 384 PP and 640 EP.

However that is only a very small amount compared to the gigantic exploration points gathered on a gigantic map and it raises all other point costs (e.g. political points) too.

 

[Nightinggale]

Changing exploration point requirements according to map size without affecting the other FF point types is currently not possible without modifying the DLL. Try lowering the "income" instead to see if that matches the game better.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Changing exploration point requirements according to map size without affecting the other FF point types is currently not possible without modifying the DLL. Try lowering the "income" instead to see if that matches the game better.

I´ll start a new game on RAR Americas Gigantic
with Fatherpercent set to 160
and exploration point income divided by 2 and rounded up so that there are no decimals:

<FatherPointInfos>
		<FatherPointInfo>
			<Type>FATHER_POINT_EXPLORATION</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_FATHER_POINT_EXPLORATION</Description>
			<Button>,Art/Colonization_Civilizations_Leaders.dds,5,6</Button>
			<iFontButtonIndex>14</iFontButtonIndex>
			<iLandTilePoints>3</iLandTilePoints>
			<iWaterTilePoints>2</iWaterTilePoints>
			<iMeetNativePoints>25</iMeetNativePoints>
			<iScoutVillagePoints>25</iScoutVillagePoints>
			<iGoodyPoints>50</iGoodyPoints>
			<iExperiencePoints>0</iExperiencePoints>
			<iConquerCityPoints>0</iConquerCityPoints>
			<iRazeCityPoints>0</iRazeCityPoints>
			<iMissionaryPoints>0</iMissionaryPoints>
			<iEuropeTradeGoldPointPercent>0</iEuropeTradeGoldPointPercent>
			<iNativeTradeGoldPointPercent>0</iNativeTradeGoldPointPercent>
			<BuildingPoints/>
			<YieldPoints/>
			<iProductionConversionPoints>3</iProductionConversionPoints>
		</FatherPointInfo>

The change works, as the first movement of my starting ship revealed 3 watertiles and exploration points went from 0 to 6 (3X2).

As I currently play R&R only on gigantic maps the drawback that all mapsizes suffer from those lower numbers is irrelevant to me.

 

[Nightinggale]

The naming convention is that numbers accepting floating point numbers (decimals) starts with f while numbers not supporting decimals are called integers and start with i. If you look around, you will notice a severe lack of floating point support, which has to do with technical issues in the DLL (network sync being a major factor). In other words, you should not even consider decimals unless you are explicitly told you can use it.

The whole issue with exploration points vs map size seems complex, yet quite important. You have given me something to think about

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Using the values of my last post I still got thousands of exploration points before even exploring a quarter of the gigantic map.

I will use those reduced point values in my game for gigantic maps which grant only 1 exploration point for a watertile and 2 for a landtile (in addition to using 160 for fatherpercent in the other file to raise the cost of founding fathers):

<FatherPointInfos>
		<FatherPointInfo>
			<Type>FATHER_POINT_EXPLORATION</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_FATHER_POINT_EXPLORATION</Description>
			<Button>,Art/Colonization_Civilizations_Leaders.dds,5,6</Button>
			<iFontButtonIndex>14</iFontButtonIndex>
			<iLandTilePoints>2</iLandTilePoints>
			<iWaterTilePoints>1</iWaterTilePoints>
			<iMeetNativePoints>25</iMeetNativePoints>
			<iScoutVillagePoints>25</iScoutVillagePoints>
			<iGoodyPoints>50</iGoodyPoints>
			<iExperiencePoints>0</iExperiencePoints>
			<iConquerCityPoints>0</iConquerCityPoints>
			<iRazeCityPoints>0</iRazeCityPoints>
			<iMissionaryPoints>0</iMissionaryPoints>
			<iEuropeTradeGoldPointPercent>0</iEuropeTradeGoldPointPercent>
			<iNativeTradeGoldPointPercent>0</iNativeTradeGoldPointPercent>
			<BuildingPoints/>
			<YieldPoints/>
			<iProductionConversionPoints>3</iProductionConversionPoints>
		</FatherPointInfo>

 

[Marla_Singer]

About founding fathers points, remember that political points are also required for all founding fathers. So the fact you get exploration points fast in normal speed doesn't mean you get exploration FF as fast.

Generally speaking, I would say the game is well-balanced on normal speed as it is. It's only rarely before the war of independence that all the founding fathers have been claimed by all nations in all categories. Furthermore, the way the system works actually generates a real competition between the human player and the AIs to get founding fathers.

So of course we can modify the criterias, but these two key points should be kept in mind.

Now in my opinion, it's not necessarily an issue that exploration points come fast because exploration is the very beginning of a game. Later in the game, when you start to expand and grow, religious and trade points will also become very abundant. And finally, when you prepare for independence, political points are produced industrially. As for military points, it all depends about your war policy, but even if you've been very peaceful the war of independence is such a massacre that you generally finish off military FF at that stage.

All this to say that I actually consider RAR Founding Father system to work very well on normal speed.

Nightingale is right though that it's on other speeds that flaws happen. Indeed, points of all categories are simply multiplied according to the speed. This system work well for religious, trade and political points, it doesn't for exploration and military points.

Considering exploration points, multiplying them by 3 means that on a gigantic marathon game, there's simply not enough tiles. So you end up having discovered the full map, but missing exploration founding fathers because you've ran out of all your points. As for military points, you already need thrice more ressources to arm or produce your units, thrice more time to train them and thrice more money to buy them in Europe. So you actually have not more units than in a game on normal speed, but you need to win thrice more battles to earn military points.

However, as Ray told wisely, Marathon speed offers no benefits in Civ4Col in general. In Civ4, I enjoy playing Marathon because of technological research, so that I can enjoy fully an era before reaching another one. This isn't true in Civ4Col because "eras" are determined by your own trade and expansion growth. So playing in normal speed is really strongly advised.