Civ4 Reimagined

Team NP

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 20, 2016
Messages
91
Civ4 Reimagined

Introduction:
Civ4 Reimagined is an extensive overhaul for Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword. Despite touching almost every aspect of the game, Civ4 Reimagined strives to feel like an as-it-should-be version of Civilization IV, not a kitchen sink mod. As such, don't expect tons of new units, technologies and whatnot. All new content has been carefully added to fix problems and improve lackluster gameplay, and all new content is AI supported. Civ4 Reimagined started as a K-Modmod (which means you get all the benefits from K-Mod such as a much stronger AI, speed improvements, less OOS errors in multiplayer etc.) and includes the graphic modifications Varietas Delectat and Cultural Citystyles. In addition to numerous AI improvements on our own, it is also rather multiplayer stable. Content is optimized for a game with 18-20 players, but lower numbers should work reasonably well.

Download:


Main Features:

Unique Powers
All civilizations have access to unique powers, encouring more distinct playstyles.

Eurakas
Technologies can be boosted by completing their corresponding eureka (instantly gain 40% of the :science: needed to discover the technology)

Resources
A single resource can only support a finite population. If your population grows too large and a single resource can't satisfy the demand all health, happiness and production benefits are reduced accordingly. Additional resources of the same kind are then required to mitigate the resource shortage: If one pig would grant you only +0.7 :health: because of high population, two pigs will give you the full +1.0 :health: bonus. Production speed for units and buildings that rely on a resource is reduced in the same manner. Movement speed using railroads is reduced with a low coal and oil ratio. Researching technologies improves your resource ratio, reflecting your increased ability to foster and distribute resources. This change is a boon for small realms who can keep up their 1.0 ratios easily. However playing a large realm is more fun than ever as your constant struggle to connect new and old resources keeps you on the lookout for good settling positions and trade deals.

Combat
The problem: BTS combat resolves largely around stacking enough collateral damage until you can wipe out the enemy tanks with your swordsmen. Even worse, artillery units in BTS charge head first into the enemy and die in the process, even though they should logically be attacking safely from afar. As the most drastic redesign in Civ4 Reimagined, the combat system has been partially remade to fix both issues.

Some units possess a range stat, denoted by the bullseye symbol next to their movement points.
Collateral damage is greatly reduced, but is still very important to tip the scales in an otherwise balanced fight or to even the odds in an unbalanced one. Collateral damage units such as archers and artillery receive an attack bonus against units who cannot match their range. This allows archers to harass melee units with little fear of retribution - at least, until it is the enemies turn to attack! However, a defending high-range unit might return fire and kill the attacker.

Walls and Castles are useful again. While their defensive stats are greatly reduced, they can no longer be blasted into oblivion by ancient siege weapons. Now walls truly grant a defensive advantage instead of merely delaying the enemy advance by one turn. This changes again with the ride of cannons and modern ships which can bombard cities and destroy both defensive structures and buildings alike.

AI
Civ4 Reimagined features a strong AI and countless AI improvements on top of K-Mod. All new features and changes of this mod are AI supported.
Just a few examples:
-AI evaluates its own happiness and health surplus or shortage when trading resources.
-AI demands all ressources from its vassals that could be useful.
-AI evaluates all civic effects including the effects of any combindations that might exist (instead of comparing each civic change separately) and generally is much more accurate with its evaluations.
-AI will delay revolution when it currently researches a technology that will grant it a better civic.
-Better evaluations when deciding which technologies to research next.
-Smarter city placing and improvement building, resulting in a stronger economy for your AI opponents.
-AI doesn't use slavery as mindlessly as before which results in bigger cities and stronger AI overall.
-When deciding which player to attack, AI focuses on its neighbors instead of far away civs.
-AI no longer uses nuclear weapons without thinking. They evaluate the consequences of a nuclear counterattack and may decide not to attack you at all if your nuclear arsenal is big enough.

Minor Features:
-Almost all technologies, units, buildings and improvements were modified in some way. Unique units have a larger impact. Balanced for an ancient start, late-game unique units and buildings were made more powerful to compensate their inavailability for most of the game.
-Civiliopedia entries for all new or modifier content - including strategy and background texts.
-After discovery of liberalism, all Civilizations adopt an Ideology depending on their current civics. Ideologies influence diplomatic relations and allow building specific wonders.
-More compact tech tree and technologies are sorted in a historically more accurate order.
-Everyone's research speed is now adjusted for difficulty to allow for roughly the same number of turns whether you play 'Settler' or 'Deity'.
-New civics with many synergies to discover.
-New names, symbols, and corporation effects, and a few totally new corporations for the early stages of the game. Corporations automatically spread to cities which have their needed resources nearby. But while you can no longer keep your corporations for yourself, feel solace in the fact that cities with your corporation in it will be weakened to your spionage efforts.
-Small realms generally received a leg up from the original. Carelessly managed large empires will have trouble modernizing with the numbers of workers being limited to eight (but if that is not to your liking, you can use the Unlimited Workers game option). Additionally, the resource system punishes players for over-expanding and neglecting research.
-Better sea invasion defense: Naval movement in enemy territory is limited to 2 tiles/turn. Cities with a high cultural influence - which now also expands over the ocean - buy themselves a turn of preparation before the enemy fleet reaches their shore. Also, sea units can see further away, allowing you to spot naval invasions earlier.
-Various adjustments for a smooth game with a 17-19 players: New wonders, domination victory requires a lower % of land and population, AI makes less diplomacy spam and needs more convincing for open border agreements
-More music variety. We also removed a few of the old ones that were prone to being annoying - if you always hated the abundance of medieval chorals, this is for you!
-New cities start with additional population and buildings depending on era. We recommend playing on totestra maps with "New World" settings because colonizing is more fun than ever.
-Better starting position balancing. Also, if your unique unit requires horses or ivory, a resource of that kind will be present at your starting location. Never will you play the Khmer empire without elephants or ancient Egypt without chariots again! Of course, starting positions should be roughly balanced nontheless.
-Civilizations have starting terrain preferences
-Stronger Espionage: Our goal was to make espionage with it's unique up- and downsides a viable late-game alternative to classic economies. More buildings have espionage modifiers, stealing techs depend on the same modifiers as if you would research them yourself, and spies respawn in your closest city instead of the capital.
-Slaves will work for your empire if you settle on other continents after discovering Astronomy for as long as you maintain slavery. You can also capture slaves by conquering enemy cities.
-More barbarians contest the sea. Do not ignore your navy!
-Three new leaders, one for every combination of traits.
-Some new units: Wargalley (medieval ship), Marauder (ancient privateer), Pirate (medieval privateer), cruiser (industrial ship) and motorized infantry.

Tweaks:
-A new game speed: Online (2x speed)
-Traits were gently redesigned.
-Archers and crossbows are the new collateral units in the classical/medieval era.
-Cottage growth is a lot slower than before. Mindlessly spamming cottages is still a viable strategy, but should no longer be uncontested.
-Nuke overhaul: AI players nuke more responsibly (evaluating whether they are in the offense or defense and if they are facing a nuclear power who could strike back), they frown upon the usage of nukes on their friends, and the power value of nukes is greatly increased.
-More goody hut events.
-The outcomes of all events are less drastic and should offer more interesting choices. Multiple players are competing for the same quest with a higher probability. Events occur slightly more often and a few new events have been added.
-Vassals grant their master a small portion of their gold, research, and espionage. Let them prosper and you will be rewarded.
-Most combat promotions nerfed and many other promotions were tweaked.
-Almost all AI-Human relationship modifiers are shown.
-Modern units like artillery, bombers, battleships can destroy buildings.
-Relationship bonus with AI when sharing same civics.
-Research costs for technologies that found religions are reduced for all civilizations after they have been discovered by someone.
-More detailed trade route system. The strength of your trade routes depend on both cities and on factors like culture and population size.
-Religion can be switched without anarchy but doing so has a long timer independent of civic change anarchy.
-All deals and most notable peace treaties last double as long. Make sure to make the right decision!
-Workers can no longer be captured, both to make the game work well with our new worker limit and to make early worker-capturing a less dominant strategy.
-Chopping produces less production at the beginning of the game and more towards the end of the game to provide a more interesting trade-off. Chopping grants a large production bonus for the production of wooden ships.
-Resources are less likely to appear on only one continent and almost all resources can now be placed on small islands.
-Gold gain from shrines and headquarters are now subject to diminished returns.
-New loading screen tips
-Instead of AI players constantly rejecting your deal proposals for resources they are not interested in, you can now only offer resources the AI is interested in to begin with.
-Colonies will become unhappy if not released in modern times.
-Connecting resources adjacent to rivers (without roads) now requires sailing.
-Increased tech diffusion if technology trading is disabled (as per recommended settings, see below).
-Missionaries can no longer be build when monasteries become obsolete (except with organized religion).
-Driving out a religion leaves their temples and monasteries in ruins
-Cities cannot be razed anymore as soon as they reach culture level 3.
-Slightly increased reach for blockade missions.
-Your vassalls are more easily intimidated by your army and less often declare war on you for imposing tribute.
-No civilization starts with mysticism.
-Reduced failgold for wonders by 50%.
-Missionaries, corporation executives and most classical/medieval ships can enter foreign borders.
-Spreading corporations with executives doesn't cost anything.
-Fighter and jet fighter can destroy ships. Carriers now have the important role they deserve!

Notes and known issues:
-To use existing scenarios with our mod, see this post.
-Our feature list is by all means not exhaustive! We changed so many things before eventually deciding to publish this mod that it is hard to remember everything. If you are playing our mod and notice something weird or staggering that should be in this introduction, by all means please tell us.

Recommended settings:
You can use any settings you like and Civ4 Reimagined will work reasonably well. But to get the most out of it we recommend the following settings:
-17-19 players: We made many tweaks to support a high amount of players (more wonders of the world, tech diffusion etc.). A high number of players keeps domination victories exciting until modern age, too.
-We strongly recommend playing without tech trading. It might feel weird at first, but our improved tech diffusion mechanic will make for a more balanced and realistic tech spread. At least give it a shot. ;-)
-Totestra map with empty, colonizeable continent ("new world"): Our personal favourite mapscript offers realistic landmasses and at least one major oversea continent ready to be explored and exploited. Colonies are more interesting than before and the AI makes quick use of colonization opportunities. The only downside is that creating a new game can be quite time consuming.

Credits:
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

Thanks to the Civ4 modding community for providing invalueable help and resources we were able to build upon.

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword by Firaxis
K-Mod by karadoc
Dawn of Civilization by Leoreth
Varietas Delectat by avain
Cultural Citystyles by GeoModder
Totestra map by Sam Trenholme
Partial french translation by juni_be_good
A few buttons and icons from ambrox62, Edgecrusher, AchillesZero and Caveman2Cosmos
Events from Cybrxkhan's WOL
...and all respective mods and helpers those build upon.
...and everyone we forgot. If we are missing someone, drop us a note!

Music:
"Chee Zee Jungle", "Drums of the Deep", "Firesong", "Rite of Passage", "Tikopia", "Celtic Impulse", "Eastern Thought", "Myst", "Angevin", "Lord of the Land", "Pippin the Hunchback", "Suonatore di Liuto", "Tabuk", "Teller of the Tales", "Virtutes Vocis", "Disquiet"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 

Attachments

  • Range.png
    Range.png
    33.3 KB · Views: 13,942
  • [1]Civ4_Reimagined_Resource_Screen .jpg
    [1]Civ4_Reimagined_Resource_Screen .jpg
    355.3 KB · Views: 2,382
  • [2]Civ4_Reimagined_Archer_Ranged_Attack.png
    [2]Civ4_Reimagined_Archer_Ranged_Attack.png
    6.9 KB · Views: 1,522
  • [3]Civ4_Reimagined_Civic_Screen_Renaissance.jpg
    [3]Civ4_Reimagined_Civic_Screen_Renaissance.jpg
    151 KB · Views: 3,282
  • [4]Civ4_Reimagined_Civic_Screen_Modern.png
    [4]Civ4_Reimagined_Civic_Screen_Modern.png
    380.8 KB · Views: 1,712
  • [8]Civ4_Reimagined_Corporation_Screen.png
    [8]Civ4_Reimagined_Corporation_Screen.png
    472.3 KB · Views: 1,559
  • tech tree.png
    tech tree.png
    2 MB · Views: 1,239
  • 2022-10-21 18_45_49-Civ IV_ Beyond The Sword.png
    2022-10-21 18_45_49-Civ IV_ Beyond The Sword.png
    63.5 KB · Views: 515
  • 2022-10-21 18_45_30-Civ IV_ Beyond The Sword.png
    2022-10-21 18_45_30-Civ IV_ Beyond The Sword.png
    13.5 KB · Views: 516
Last edited:
Interesting. Take 'er out for a test run :)
 
Everything looks good and I will definitely try my next game on it, but if I read the notes correctly there is a worker limit at 8. I think it is a bad idea considering that on bigger map(big, Huge) with multiple continents , trying to move towards railroad would be a pain in the ass. Worker spam isn't a problem imho
 
Everything looks good and I will definitely try my next game on it, but if I read the notes correctly there is a worker limit at 8. I think it is a bad idea considering that on bigger map(big, Huge) with multiple continents , trying to move towards railroad would be a pain in the ass. Worker spam isn't a problem imho

Agreed. I have some concerns about some of the other notes as well, especially since I like playing on huge + maps. However, I also enjoy new mods and investigating all the hard work that goes into them. Nothing wrong with being taken out of your comfort zone just to spice things up a bit.
 
Thank you for your feedback :)

Everything looks good and I will definitely try my next game on it, but if I read the notes correctly there is a worker limit at 8. I think it is a bad idea considering that on bigger map(big, Huge) with multiple continents , trying to move towards railroad would be a pain in the ass. Worker spam isn't a problem imho

Yes, you are right. There is a worker limit in place. It serves two main purposes:
- Shifting tile modernization a little bit more towards later eras
- Making it more difficult for big empires to keep up with all the improvement building

There are still ways to help you out though:
- As long as you adopt slavery, every newly founded city on another continent after the discovery of Astronomy will receive a slave unit which is basically a weaker version of a worker
- Steam Power and the Industrialization Civic both improve the efficiency of your workers by 50%

So you should give it a try I guess. It would be really interesting to hear your feedback on this after that.

great great mod,
is it multiplayer stable?

Yes, it should be stable for the most part. If you are experiencing OOS there is a high chance it is caused by some of the new events. When this happens frequently, one quick fix is to disable them entirely by setting FIRST_EVENT_DELAY_TURNS in GlobalDefines.xml to a high number e.g. 1000.
 
i see that you created a whole lot that you dont use, like unique powers, some new tags and such :) great work man.
Thanks! We hope to get back to unique powers eventually. The opportunity to create a unique playstyle for every civilization is just too promising to pass up.

good work men.
how about limit stacks to 20 or 25 units?
That is an intriguing idea worth investigating. It has some significant challenges regarding gameplay and usability though. Most importantly, I suspect writing an AI for it might be a herculean task. Do you know of any mods that implement a stack limit with AI support? Any mod that already implements such a limit would also help us greatly to get an idea of the ramifications of such a change and whether it fits our vision for Civ4 Reimagined.
 
hi thanks for the responce.
a nice mod with stacks of 25 unit is Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD].
initial post 1320 on Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD] forum.
thanks
 
Thanks! We hope to get back to unique powers eventually. The opportunity to create a unique playstyle for every civilization is just too promising to pass up.


That is an intriguing idea worth investigating. It has some significant challenges regarding gameplay and usability though. Most importantly, I suspect writing an AI for it might be a herculean task. Do you know of any mods that implement a stack limit with AI support? Any mod that already implements such a limit would also help us greatly to get an idea of the ramifications of such a change and whether it fits our vision for Civ4 Reimagined.

Yup, VIP mod. Vinz has a ongoing conversation about his changes atm over in his thread.

Edit: Lol, ninja'd by Bagxri.
 
a nice mod with stacks of 25 unit is Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD].
initial post 1320 on Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD] forum.
Yup, VIP mod. Vinz has a ongoing conversation about his changes atm over in his thread.
Thanks for the input, we will take a good look at it - but no promises.

Say, im kinda getting the vide to mod, till c6 come out, maybe i can give you guys a hand, im a good merger and i did some nice stuff in my mods, also on kmod
Cool! Help is always appreciated. We have quite a few things we want to accomplish, but virtually all of them require c++/python coding. Merging other mods is not really on our agenda, but if you have specific changes in mind we can gladly discuss them.

hey guys,
i experienced a crash.

attached are all my auto saves pre crash + civ logs.

reloaded, no ctd , weird.
Thanks for the report. Sadly I could not reproduce the error on my end and the logs show no sign of unusual behaviour. Although not guaranteed to be useful either, you could try enabling BBAi logging in case you encounter future errors (can be done at BUG Mod Options -> Logging -> Enable Logging).
 
Hi, well, if theres anything you need, ill be happy to help.
I got some very nice features merged in my kmod basis, many new tags and such.

As for the crash, maybe it was domr memory thing at my end, ill watch for ctds if there will be any.

Another thing, gameplay at start, at least 150 turns, seem a bit boring, since my cities are run out of things to build, i recommend to enrich it with a fee more buildings.
 
I also experienced the lack of things to build around turn 100. I think the low build cost for some things coupled with the extra resources (my 2nd city had 2 copper) have something to do with this.

Also, I had 5 cities, but to keep barbs at bay I had to build some military, which basically bankrupted me (tech at 20%). Not sure if this is normal for this mod and if I can ever climb out of this hole.
 
Echo what Kel and ATH has stated. Early game needs a bit more to build, especially something financial. I realize that K Mod is part of this, but if you can't really keep an economy going let alone tech at a decent rate, then some minor tweaks may be in order.

Granted, I had a bad start, so that probably had a lot to do with it. But I'm playing on Mon difficulty and running out of things to build, let alone crashing my sci rate to protect myself seems a bit counter-productive.

I'll start another game in a few days and give it another run through. See what I might be missing :).
 
Interesting, we didn't experience a lack of buildings in most of our games so far. Just played a quick 100 turns on Monarch difficulty to make sure everything is working. I never ran out of buildings to build (had a good start though and could keep my research strong at all times).

I also experienced the lack of things to build around turn 100. I think the low build cost for some things coupled with the extra resources (my 2nd city had 2 copper) have something to do with this.

Also, I had 5 cities, but to keep barbs at bay I had to build some military, which basically bankrupted me (tech at 20%). Not sure if this is normal for this mod and if I can ever climb out of this hole.

Sounds like research cannot keep up with production in your cities. 20% tech rate is not normal and means you probably expanded too quickly and/or didn't put enough effort to generate commerce.

Generating early commerce is a bit more difficult in this mod than normal BtS as rivertiles don't grant 1C for free anymore and cottage growth has been slowed down as well.

Trade is crucial for early research/commerce and there have been some changes compared to BtS:
- You really need to connect your cities quickly either by building roads or researching sailing. New cities without trade connection are a sure way to go bancrupt.
- Open borders are hard to get as your AI opponents now have to be pleased with you. If you manage to get some it is very important to actually establish a trade connection (i.e. you need to see their cities and there has to be some kind of connection either by roads, river or sea). Scouts and ships are very useful to establish those connections as they are faster and can enter rival territory.

Looking at keldath's save I can see that you were playing at epic game speed. Maybe it has something to do with it. We didn't make any changes to the game speed modifiers but we also never really tested anything besides normal speed. We will take a look at it.

I would also encourage everybody to try a game with our recommended game settings in the OP. Early game should be more interesting because there is less space and more direct contact with the AI.
 
Top Bottom