Turn/timeline changes

[AbsintheRed]

It had been brought up a couple times now, and I always agreed:
Turn progession does seem too quick in the first half of the mod.

I have been toying with the idea of adding a couple more turns for a while.
Now with the upcoming Arab revisions we have another reason, so I think I have decided to do in the next version of the mod.

On the other hand I most certainly don't want to go overboard with this.
While it would be great to have almost each year represented, the mod is already slow enough towards the endgame. Can't put too much burden on good ol' Civ IV, especially since we want to have new civs too.
Instead of the current 500 turns I'm thinking somewhere around 600. Maybe 650.

Currently:
4 years per turn from 500 to 900, 100 turns
3 years per turn from 900 to 1500. 200 turns
2 years per turn from 1500 to 1700, 100 turns
1 year per turn from 1700 to 1800, 100 turns

As a very first proposal:
(just to see the general direction where I imagine the extended turns)
3 years per turn from 500 to 1100. 200 turns
2 years per turn from 1100 to 1700, 300 turns
1 year per turn from 1700 to 1800, 100 turns

As it is probably clear, IMO the most critical places are the 3 years/turn after the 11th century (with the Crusades and all the new civs), and the 4 years/turn after the Arab spawn.

 

[The Turk]

I mean, it looks good to me. How many turns would there be between 632 - 750 then in your revision? and between 500 - 909?

 

[AbsintheRed]

How many turns would there be between 632 - 750 then in your revision?

39
And you have to make galleys, settlers. Quite a few settlers actually.
So the Umayyad conquests still can't be done without some special mechanics, which I'm reluctant to do.

 

[Publicola]

As a very first proposal:
(just to see the general direction where I imagine the extended turns)
3 years per turn from 500 to 1100. 200 turns
2 years per turn from 1100 to 1700, 300 turns
1 year per turn from 1700 to 1800, 100 turns

An alternative (#1) might be:
3 years per turn from 500 to 800. 100 turns
2 years per turn from 800 to 1700. 450 turns
1 year per turn from 1700 to 1800. 100 turns

Adding up to 650 turns total. This wouldn't significantly help with the Umayyad Conquests, but it would provide extra time to most civs coming out of the Early Middle Ages ('Dark Ages' where there's limited historical records and limited historical events).


Another possibility (#2) might be to start with 2 years per turn, from 500 to 1700. This would work out to 700 turns total, which might be too much but which would provide considerably more time to work in the Arab spawn and other early events (there'd be 59 turns between 632 and 750...). My inclination would be to support the alternative #1, but up to you.

 

[gilgames]

Go go go, do it!

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

I play exclusively Marathon on BtS, so I'd love as many turns as you're willing to have

 

[The Turk]

39

So, why not increase the number then? 500-800 as said above should be treated as an extra long period of time, given that it dealt with the expansion of empires (Francia and the Caliphate). Post-800 dealt with the gradual break up of those Empires, and that can be simulated a bit faster. But don't neglect that earlier period.

 

[2phunkey4u]

If you are going to upvalue the early middle ages like that, you might want to add 1-2 civs the early empires can interact with (i.e. conquer them) for flavor, though. Goths and/or Lombards come to mind.

 

[The Turk]

Visigoths in Spain would be amazing. They would later respawn as Castile (Spain) later in the 11th century. Lombards would be great, and pagan Saxons in Lower Saxony would also be amazing to have. Although IMO they probably should be unplayable civs (like the Buyids in SoI).

 

[Swarbs]

Currently:
4 years per turn from 500 to 900, 100 turns
3 years per turn from 900 to 1500. 200 turns
2 years per turn from 1500 to 1700, 100 turns
1 year per turn from 1700 to 1800, 100 turns

As a very first proposal:
(just to see the general direction where I imagine the extended turns)
3 years per turn from 500 to 1100. 200 turns
2 years per turn from 1100 to 1700, 300 turns
1 year per turn from 1700 to 1800, 100 turns

As it is probably clear, IMO the most critical places are the 3 years/turn after the 11th century (with the Crusades and all the new civs), and the 4 years/turn after the Arab spawn.

I like

Also gives the Franks another 20 turns which allows more scope to add in the full extent of Charlemagne's Empire (inc Flanders, Holland, Bavaria, Liguria and Corsica).

Although unit cost will need to be tweaked for the early units, as the SOD growth by 1200 onwards is already pretty bad for some civs imo (Germany, Hungary, Byzantium are the usual candidates)

 

[AbsintheRed]

Also gives the Franks another 20 turns which allows more scope to add in the full extent of Charlemagne's Empire (inc Flanders, Holland, Bavaria, Liguria and Corsica).

Yep, better realization of the 1st French UHV is also on the table with this.

Although unit cost will need to be tweaked for the early units, as the SOD growth by 1200 onwards is already pretty bad for some civs imo (Germany, Hungary, Byzantium are the usual candidates)

Not only units costs, but tech progress, buildings, all production modifiers, etc.
Needless to say, this is a huge change for gameplay, with lots of stuff to rebalance.
That's why we should figure out an optimal turn/date conversion for the needs of the mod. It won't be done again for RFCE.

The hard thing in it is to balance between the need for additional detail and performance. Although that's an issue with almost everything, so it's not that surprising
Anyway, I have to make a good guess what's tolerable.
For example adding 100 turns to the first and middle half of the timeline will directly delay the Dutch spawn with some rather slow 100 turns. It will probably delay it with +60-70% minutes.
Surely it's way less for early and middle civs (even in percentage), and there is the late start scenario too. But that's still very significant.

 

[The Turk]

Any chance of adding some unplayable civs to Europe? Visigoths, Lombards and Saxons are all strong contenders IMO (the Pagans from Lower Saxony, not England).

 

[AbsintheRed]

Any chance of adding some unplayable civs to Europe? Visigoths, Lombards and Saxons are all strong contenders IMO (the Pagans from Lower Saxony, not England).

No. At least definitely not in the immediate future.
Also, if some minor nations will be introduced at one point, it will be done in a very minimalistic way.
Basically a separate indy civ, only with a unique flag and color. Maybe an UU. But no leaders, no settler/war/stability maps, etc.

 

[The Turk]

No. At least definitely not in the immediate future.

I had the impression that all of this was in the far future. So I'm just implanting the idea in your idea

Basically a separate indy civ, only with a unique flag and color. Maybe an UU. But no leaders, no settler/war/stability maps, etc.

That is all I, and I'm sure others, would want. Like the Buyids or Zengids. I don't even think the Zengids in SoI have a UU (the Buyids do). But the idea is that they wouldn't expand except where scripted. But would fill out the map in the early game. This is why I'm saying to add more time to the "Dark Ages".

 

[Force44]

I had some time to think about increasing the amount of turns and I think it is a bad idea because it will cause more problems than it will solve.
Having said that, it might be a bad idea that is worth executing nonetheless because the endresult is closer to the ideal version of the mod you envision.

I play on marathon whenever possible, so at first glance more turns would be right up my alley.
There are some issues with it though.

First, the relative size of the map is inversely proportional to the amount of turns. (the map gets smaller with more turns) This is a thing I like because I like small maps, but it means the AI stays even closer to home because of predetermined war and settlermaps.

Second. The density of interaction decreases. The amount of civs is spread over the amount of turns. Introducing a new civ and also increasing the map yields netto no new gameplay. I prefer to do something once good over doing it multiple times with mixed results. The questioning of the ability to switch civilizations further exacerbates this point. It is rather pointless to insert additional turns just to skip them.

A solution I'd like better is to give the 1200 AD start scenario the turns it would take to get from 500 AD to 1200 AD at the end.
And on a similar note a modmod that starts before 500 AD and has some some additional turns per year towards the end.

 

[Swarbs]

No. At least definitely not in the immediate future.
Also, if some minor nations will be introduced at one point, it will be done in a very minimalistic way.
Basically a separate indy civ, only with a unique flag and color. Maybe an UU. But no leaders, no settler/war/stability maps, etc.

I believe this is how Byzantium was implemented in RFC on the 600AD scenario.

It makes good sense, imo, as rather than having civs like France and the Arabs conquer multiple independent cities, each of which can be taken out separately, you get a proper war, with other cities and a coherent army to face. Particularly for France in Italy - you shouldn't, imo, be able to conquer Milan and then wait 100 years or more before any hostilities with Florence / Pisa / Ancona.

 

[Force44]

There are only two independent factions right now. Introducing a a separate indy civ, only with a unique flag and color just makes that counter go one up. So you will actually be punished less severely for invading one of them.

 

[merijn_v1]

`RFCE has 4 independent civs.

 

[AbsintheRed]

There are only two independent factions right now. Introducing a a separate indy civ, only with a unique flag and color just makes that counter go one up. So you will actually be punished less severely for invading one of them.

There were always 4 indy civs in RFCE, right from the start.
2 of them more agressive, 2 more peaceful.
I usually try to put close indy cities into different teams (when those cities can't be considered under the same nation/rule).
The whole indy system is not perfect, but it's actually not that bad with 4 "civs".
It's very hard to improve on it without separating indies to even more civ slots.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I believe this is how Byzantium was implemented in RFC on the 600AD scenario.

Ahh. I guess it's starting to get obvious that I never played RFC or DoC.
I just can't stand the scale there. For me it's totally immersion breaking that a historically big and very important civ is represented with 2-3 cities, tops.