Minor Civs, Nation States, and AI

Is this already commited into sourceforge? I'm really excited of nation states feature.

Fullerene said:

Is this already commited into sourceforge? I'm really excited of nation states feature.

Click to expand...

Yes, my latest changes are in the develop branch, which includes new city style art for Rome, and also the Apostolic Palace. Remember that the compiled DLL is no longer included on sourceforge and you will need to recompile yourself.

I could use some help testing things out, so please do download it to check it out.

With the time Limit I don't think the current AI could ever easily win by capturing Rome, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. TAC has some AI changes that look promising however so I am excited for the AI to learn new tricks.

This new Victory Condition does sound interesting though and I am excited about attempting to win this way myself, but I have been only playing with autoplay scouring the oceans for bugs.

Added some AI improvements from TAC:

// TAC - AI Assault Sea
// TAC - AI Assault Sea Fix
// TAC - AI Attack City
// TAC - AI BTS Groups
// TAC - AI Escort Sea

These should help the AI cope with the new Victory Condition, we'll see in testing.

With Minor Civs (natives) using Techs they have started asking for my techs instead of gold. Like I said, "dude how much for your 62 Tools", and dude was like "give me Monasticism". Anyway, I created a Define that you can set a percentage value for how much Natives will value Techs. Currently set to 25% of normal so that natives value Techs a bit less, and are more prone to stick to their old paths, which is the good way (ask for the old paths, which is the good way, and walk therein. Jeremiah 6:16).

Also, because if you have a bunch of techs you could make a killing selling them to the Natives, even useless ones (to them). To address this further I have added a new iNativeAIWeight for Techs that will even further modify a Techs worth to Natives. -1 Means its worthless and the Native will not ask for it.

I didn't tell the code to allow Techs when bartering with Natives it just worked out that way (it's been a while maybe I did) but anyway, this made me wonder why Goods can not be bartered this way so I am going to look into this and see how easy a addition it would be.

This would add the bartering trade effect like Doane has. Where you can skip trading for gold and just trade the Goods. 62 Tools for 21 Wine

Well if I was one of those native, minor or less advanced civs I would definitely want Techs for barter So it makes perfect sense they are wanting that, just as long as there's nothing making it so that techs will for some reason be entirely useless for them. If advancing in techs is something that they want and will make them progressively somewhat more advanced, this is realistic and will add a lot of cool political and trade possibilities, when for example you can cozy up to an initially backward civ close to one of your enemies, trading them techs/tools/weapons and helping them advance to create a friendly "buffer" state (while having to be careful not to let them get so advanced they become your competitor!)

This would add the bartering trade effect like Doane has. Where you can skip trading for gold and just trade the Goods. 62 Tools for 21 Wine

Click to expand...

that sounds good. but first better make sure that they havent filed a patent application on that idea!

orlanth said:

Well if I was one of those native, minor or less advanced civs I would definitely want Techs for barter So it makes perfect sense they are wanting that, just as long as there's nothing making it so that techs will for some reason be entirely useless for them. If advancing in techs is something that they want and will make them progressively somewhat more advanced, this is realistic and will add a lot of cool political and trade possibilities, when for example you can cozy up to an initially backward civ close to one of your enemies, trading them techs/tools/weapons and helping them advance to create a friendly "buffer" state (while having to be careful not to let them get so advanced they become your competitor!)

Click to expand...

Right, we can consider techs like Jury Trial, that offers two free Immigrants useless to Natives, but the majority could be useful, and perhaps there could even be Native specific effects added to the XML or a Native Trait effect that only applies to Natives only.

orlanth said:

that sounds good. but first better make sure that they havent filed a patent application on that idea!

Click to expand...

Well, I commented out one line and now all other Trade Goods want disappear once you bring one to the table. As before once you bring a Trade Good to the table all the other guys Trade Goods are removed. There is still no way to Shift Click and reduce the amount of goods you want to trade though. But, this could cause storage issues on the unit. But, again, this is already an issue. If your Peddler only has 1 cargo and he trades for two items, he only gets the one and the other is lost.

I am not sure I can add Shift Click as these barter screens may be done in the exe. That is why I bet Doane had to create their own barter screen perhaps. Which would be easy to do, but time consuming of course.

Anyway, I dropped my 100 Ale on the table, chose some Tools and Spices and said "What would make this deal work?" Ole Arpad then said he'd give me the Tools and Spice, plus 789 gold.

So, it felt more like a barter and saved a few clicks from having to swap only gold. Although saying "What would make this deal work?" felt out of place because he up'ed the bid and not I. So, perhaps the text could be changed to "Care to make an offer?" or "What else can I get for this?" But then it just depends on what side has the better offer at the moment.

I just traded Arpad 58 Tools, 62 Spice, and 871 gold for 100 Ale and the knowledge of Metal Casting on in one trade. Quite nice.

Edit: I just tested one thing, TXT_KEY_TRADE_GOLD_FROM_THEM which is the text that asks you how much gold you want from them when you shift click their gold isn't found any where in the DLL so it must be in the exe, which tells me trading this way is handled in the exe, so I may not be able to shift click goods to choose an amount.

K, sounds like good progress. A chance to get immigrants could still be useful for any civ to have (especially if they are useful specialists they don't automatically start with access to). The main problem though is that the vanilla AI for natives prevents them from doing much other than wanting to make Horses, Food, and Braves.

Well, I commented out one line and now all other Trade Goods want disappear once you bring one to the table. As before once you bring a Trade Good to the table all the other guys Trade Goods are removed. There is still no way to Shift Click and reduce the amount of goods you want to trade though. But, this could cause storage issues on the unit. But, again, this is already an issue. If your Peddler only has 1 cargo and he trades for two items, he only gets the one and the other is lost.

Click to expand...

Wow that was quick work! If there's a line making Yields disappear from being selectable, maybe you could make this conditional on whether the buyer has storage slots left (after considering that the goods he's selling will be gone)? BTW a nice civicinfos tag to consider could be something like <iTradingSkill> which represents commercial sophistication of your traders and applies a slight modifier to how well you do during bartering. During trade/barter when it considers responses to offers, you could get a slight bonus if difference between your total TradingSkill (additive considering all techs/civics) and that of the other civ, or get a slight penalty if they are more skilled overall than you. This could be boosted by discovering early Techs like Barter and later Techs such as Banking, and possibly Civic choices such as Merchant Republic, or Usury which the pope will dislike. Wealthy merchant powers like Venice/Hansa etc could often get the better out of many deals through this, but could miss out on other advantages though using that Civic.

orlanth said:

K, sounds like good progress. A chance to get immigrants could still be useful for any civ to have (especially if they are useful specialists they don't automatically start with access to). The main problem though is that the vanilla AI for natives prevents them from doing much other than wanting to make Horses, Food, and Braves.

Click to expand...

I've already made steps to advance the Minor Civs. They no longer need to trade with Players to get Weapons and such as they will produce these all on their own. Looking over the techs there actually is a bunch that have no native benefit, like land improvement stuff. Should we allow the Natives to start improving their lands?

orlanth said:

Wow that was quick work! If there's a line making Yields disappear from being selectable, maybe you could make this conditional on whether the buyer has storage slots left (after considering that the goods he's selling will be gone)? BTW a nice civicinfos tag to consider could be something like <iTradingSkill> which represents commercial sophistication of your traders and applies a slight modifier to how well you do during bartering. During trade/barter when it considers responses to offers, you could get a slight bonus if difference between your total TradingSkill (additive considering all techs/civics) and that of the other civ, or get a slight penalty if they are more skilled overall than you. This could be boosted by discovering early Techs like Barter and later Techs such as Banking, and possibly Civic choices such as Merchant Republic, or Usury which the pope will dislike. Wealthy merchant powers like Venice/Hansa etc could often get the better out of many deals through this, but could miss out on other advantages though using that Civic.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought about the Trading Skill idea for units like the Wily Trader. I may have added some preliminary code for it. They can already get cheaper land purchases. I'll have to look through the code and see what would need to be done for this.

The code checks if there is any room for any of the Yields in the City. Which if the Trader is full then there will be no room and thus, no Yields from the City can be traded until the Unit sells his stuff.

Ok, with a little fandago I made it so that you can trade goods even if your transport is already full. The goods will just swap out when the deal is complete. There is still nothing in place to prevent the player from adding more goods than his transport can hold. This was a limitation to vanilla as well. Perhaps at some point this can be revised.

I've already made steps to advance the Minor Civs. They no longer need to trade with Players to get Weapons and such as they will produce these all on their own. Looking over the techs there actually is a bunch that have no native benefit, like land improvement stuff. Should we allow the Natives to start improving their lands?

Click to expand...

Yeah that could be interesting, though I'd think they'd start out without access to the most advanced Improvements. Maybe they could start out able to build a few primitive improvements, such as Subsistence Farm or Artisanal Mine which boost output less than the advanced versions, but can progress into a regular Farm or Mine if worked for a long time like 80 turns. After all it would be rare to find civs without any farming or mining efforts of any extent.

There could be a basic non-tradeable technology called Iron Age Tools or something that everyone but the most backward civs start with, which enables building Farms and any other regular settled Improvements that arent already unlocked by other techs. Civs that don't start with that would start with a non-tradable tech Bronze Age Tools which gives them the more primitive improvement types, and maybe some primitive units/buildings.

Another cool and unique thing would be if one of the Improvements that only natives can build is actually a Goodyhut improvement, such as a Stone Circle or Tumulus. Since Civics can give a boost to a certain improvement, you can even make it so civs with the Heathen civic get some extra yield production from working tiles with these, so they will want to hold and protect them while other civs would want to seize and plunder them. If you leave natives undisturbed they can eventually build several of these sacred sites dotted around the landscape, you can swoop in and plunder them at the cost of enraging the local inhabitants You'd want to limit these improvements to being constructed once in a several tile radius, to keep them relatively rare/special.

Yeah, I thought about the Trading Skill idea for units like the Wily Trader. I may have added some preliminary code for it. They can already get cheaper land purchases. I'll have to look through the code and see what would need to be done for this.

Click to expand...

That sounds good too. Could even use the same unitinfos tag for something like a smuggler or coastal merchant vessel, which doesn't necessarily have huge capacity but nimbly plies between ports getting a good price, for those times when you want a "special delivery" of a specific yield.

I am adding a new Diplomacy option and functionality(talking through it so I understand it myself). The Pope will cycle through Civics that Players have and he may decided from time to time that certain Civics/Techs need outlawing or banned. He will explain this to a Player and the Player has to choose either to appease the Pope or pay him no mind. If you appease the Pope your Civics will change. When Religions are added there could be Anarchy in this if your Population does not favor the Pope, other wise this change is done free of charge with no Anarchy.

If you refuse, you fall further out of favor with the Pope. Civs that are in the Popes Favor will dislike you even more and the Pope can even call crusades against you.

He can outlaw certain Techs as well. Such as the Crossbow, which would prevent the use of Crossbowman profession if you abide. This was done in real life as Pope Innocent II in 1139 banned the use of crossbows against Christians. Looking through the other Cannons there could be several of them adapted to a game mechanic. These would work like Censures.

I see where they banned Joists and Tournaments. I have been wanting to add a Tournament Grounds building type to the mod. This would allow your Knights to Joist each other for XP, with the usual chance of Death of course
Anyway, the Pope could have this banned. That would suck missing out on all that carnage

We could even have it so that a Player can Bribe the Pope to lift a Banned.

Anymore ideas on this?

Edit: This can be set up so that any Civ not just Pope can demand you change Civics. And since Religion will be setup with CivicTypes then this can be easily used to attempt to force Player to convert to a religion as well.

Just for spelling purposes it is joust

These are sounding like great ideas, the tourneys sound like a great addition to your 'training camp' concept, so a jousting list could be one of the specific training buildings or improvements, and specific 'camps' train specific units, so you can make archery ranges or drill yards.

Lib.Spi't said:

Just for spelling purposes it is joust

These are sounding like great ideas, the tourneys sound like a great addition to your 'training camp' concept, so a jousting list could be one of the specific training buildings or improvements, and specific 'camps' train specific units, so you can make archery ranges or drill yards.

Click to expand...

No, I meant Joists, like Ceiling Joists. It was a popular sport back then to take the joists from dilapidated buildings and attempt to dislodge each other off of horses by swinging them in huge overhead arches. The winner was usually the one who could wield the biggest joist.

Here we have the lovers and the haters If a Civ doesn't like the Papacy and you have bad relations they will like you, and vise versa.

Yes i wondered if you were going to have an abundant supply of knights training to be master carpenters!

nice popey content too!

Moved this quote here:

Kailric said:

I have been trading Techs with Genseric in my current game and it has me thinking. While Genseric loves my techs and is willing to pay a decent price, there should be a draw back to giving away all your techs to Minor Civs. Perhaps, if a Minor Civs tech level is the Same or Greater than yours there is a Chance they will advance to Major Civ Status and become more Competition, how about them apples?

Currently, Minor Civs will offer you Techs that you do not have, so Tech trading is advancing along pretty well.

Edit: Hmm, I wonder if you added a boolean for bIsNative. Currently when a Player is checked for being a Native it all goes back to the Civilization Info. I wonder what would happen if we added a boolean check, and if a Minor Civ becomes a Major Civ the boolean would be false. I wonder what that would do?

Click to expand...

In my current game I am choosing to ignore the Pope. He attempted to bully me into choosing his social policy of Ritualistic but I refused. I am at war with his constituent Harold Godwinson and I fear relations with his other constituent Oleg of Novgorod will grow worse. However, I do have some friendships brewing it seems because of my refusal to adhere to the Pope as Ziri, Arpad, Al-Mansur, and Ragnar all like me more because of this.

The Pope just Excommunicated me, which I am thinking shouldn't have happened since I am not adhering to his "Ritualistic" religion. This is where religion would be nice to have in the game as if you except the Pope's version of Christianity you have to start adhering to his requests.

Also, I have a Vassal now as an Ally, and his Name appears as Vassal Lord, as that is as far as I have coded this feature. However, I am thinking of adding several Minor Leaders with a bIsVassal boolean. These leaders will have special attributes that can effect your Empire. When you accept a Vassal you get one of these as a Random Ally.

Being excommunicated makes sense, as you 'renounced papal law' by not adhering to his ritualistic tenets of faith, so after a while this becomes untenable for the Pope and he declares you a heretic. (this of course should only happen for those who are part of the catholic faith but if we add religions to the game, we can have starting religions and you can choose to convert to another for strategic benefits).

Cool, I really enjoy the vassal element of the game, it is one of my favourite activities to achieve (Placing Monasteries and then shrines near to them is an effective way to achieve this), So I am all in favour of expanding the 'powers' of vassals and your ability to interact with them.

Things like:
Being able to tax more than one vassal city.
Being able to improve vassal lands and/or being able to increase their city size to increase tax income.
Being able to 'Raise the Vassal Army' to be able to gain a commander and a levy army some how based on the size/investment of that vassal for the length of a war.
(when the war is over they automatically travel home (either across the map or by 'teleport' depending on what can be done effectively.) (the problem I forsee is getting over water to get home.))

Stuff like this where you can 'nurture' your vassals and turn them into an ever more powerful and effective tool/ally.

If we do get religions into the game, then the byzantium empire should become a nation state like Rome, so that you can align with the orthodox church in the east or the catholic church in the west. That would make these powers very interesting, especially if it could effect the 'Victory Outcome'. I could be set to wipe out the 'opposing faith' or take over your 'parent faith' or if you feel really hard core, go protestant with your own faith and take them both out! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

I just had another thought about Papal Powers.

I was wondering if we could add in actual crusaders. So perhaps for example if you agree to join a Crusade a timer starts (a bit like the anarchy and censures, it could perhaps even begin and end with your declaration of war and peace.) In this time you could maybe use benedictine monks or priests to 'bless' your soldiers and turn them into crusaders, that get either increased stats or a special promo that does something nice, like increased XP gain or strength against the infidels (the enemy of the crusade) or some such.

The other thing that would be nice would be the ability to ask for specialists from your head of faith (a bit like the protection request) So you could get a Monk, or parish priest, or a special kind of bishop. To help 'bolster the faith of your subjects'.
This would be quite a good reason to keep your head of faith sweet, as 'faith' is quite a powerful income for both culture and immigration, and these units are also some of the most expensive specialists. Trading relationship for cheeap or freebies of these would be a definate incentive! As well as leading to a more robust, stable and faster growing empire.

Lib.Spi't said:

Things like:
Being able to tax more than one vassal city.
Being able to improve vassal lands and/or being able to increase their city size to increase tax income.
Being able to 'Raise the Vassal Army' to be able to gain a commander and a levy army some how based on the size/investment of that vassal for the length of a war.
(when the war is over they automatically travel home (either across the map or by 'teleport' depending on what can be done effectively.) (the problem I forsee is getting over water to get home.))

Stuff like this where you can 'nurture' your vassals and turn them into an ever more powerful and effective tool/ally.

If we do get religions into the game, then the byzantium empire should become a nation state like Rome, so that you can align with the orthodox church in the east or the catholic church in the west. That would make these powers very interesting, especially if it could effect the 'Victory Outcome'. I could be set to wipe out the 'opposing faith' or take over your 'parent faith' or if you feel really hard core, go protestant with your own faith and take them both out! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Click to expand...

You should be able to tax more than one of your vassals, that is a bug. But all your suggestions are good. Yes, I plan to add the Byzantium as a Nation State as well. They would be locked in an alliance with the Pope, and come to the Aid of the Pope when necessary.

Lib.Spi't said:

I just had another thought about Papal Powers.

I was wondering if we could add in actual crusaders. So perhaps for example if you agree to join a Crusade a timer starts (a bit like the anarchy and censures, it could perhaps even begin and end with your declaration of war and peace.) In this time you could maybe use benedictine monks or priests to 'bless' your soldiers and turn them into crusaders, that get either increased stats or a special promo that does something nice, like increased XP gain or strength against the infidels (the enemy of the crusade) or some such.

The other thing that would be nice would be the ability to ask for specialists from your head of faith (a bit like the protection request) So you could get a Monk, or parish priest, or a special kind of bishop. To help 'bolster the faith of your subjects'.
This would be quite a good reason to keep your head of faith sweet, as 'faith' is quite a powerful income for both culture and immigration, and these units are also some of the most expensive specialists. Trading relationship for cheeap or freebies of these would be a definate incentive! As well as leading to a more robust, stable and faster growing empire.

Click to expand...

A simple thing to add would be a Crusader Promotion while you are on a Crusade. Crusade could be a new Civic type that is only acquired while you are under the Pope's directorate, this civic would allow the new promotion.

Yeah, I thought about the "specialists" as well, and that is a good idea. Also, the Pope could declare you can no longer appoint Priests (from the Investiture Controversy in history), and so sends his own Priests, which are locked in Place. These Priests perhaps add some kind of Negative effect, such as a penalty to Fealty, but they do produce a bunch of Religion.

Yeah, I like that as an idea.

Having priests that are appointed to you but that are not loyal to you, so they damage your fealty, but they do produce more faith.

I wonder what the condition would be for the pope to do that..

Perhaps it would be a combination of low relationship and alarm at rebel sentiment...

"Your lack of homage to the Mother Church concerns me, I am sending men of good faith to ensure your flock is not led astray." [Evil Face Pose]

I was wondering if the taxation issue might be because they are the 'same civ' both under the vassal lord, so the computer checks for civ taxation rather than individual city taxation, so it checks the civ, sees that it is taxed and assumes it cannot be taxed again?

Does col have promotion graphics like civ? where you can change the unit model? (or texture.. not sre how it works, never done it..I have only ever seen it done with medic arm bands and helmets.. this may be a TLO Tag mod upgrade though..) How cool would it be if all your troops wore crusader robes with a cross in your team colour!

Or perhaps if your troops don't get an upgrade, instead you can create various types of crusader units..(for the duration of the crusade.

Lib.Spi't said:

Yeah, I like that as an idea.

Having priests that are appointed to you but that are not loyal to you, so they damage your fealty, but they do produce more faith.

I wonder what the condition would be for the pope to do that..

Perhaps it would be a combination of low relationship and alarm at rebel sentiment...

"Your lack of homage to the Mother Church concerns me, I am sending men of good faith to ensure your flock is not led astray." [Evil Face Pose]

Click to expand...

Or just something that he does from his own desires. It could trigger if you are producing too much Religion from your own Parish Priest(his Priest wouldn't produce as much Religion for you as some of it would be siphoned off to the Pope), or it could trigger from having to little Religious production. You can read about the historical account here for ideas..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investiture_Controversy

Lib.Spi't said:

I was wondering if the taxation issue might be because they are the 'same civ' both under the vassal lord, so the computer checks for civ taxation rather than individual city taxation, so it checks the civ, sees that it is taxed and assumes it cannot be taxed again?

Click to expand...

It is done per city, I remember looking at this before and it was because the City wasn't appointed your Vassal correctly. Not sure what caused that. If you can get me a save before I have it fixed that would be great.

Lib.Spi't said:

Does col have promotion graphics like civ? where you can change the unit model? (or texture.. not sre how it works, never done it..I have only ever seen it done with medic arm bands and helmets.. this may be a TLO Tag mod upgrade though..) How cool would it be if all your troops wore crusader robes with a cross in your team colour!

Click to expand...

Not at the moment, although we do have separate Sub Profession Graphics. Which perhaps some Units could have a Crusader Subprofession that does as you say.

I don't know if my saves would work with your latest version, if you think it can, then I shall try and create a new save for you, it should be fairly easy to premake a situation for a double vassalage.