Fixed borders mod for Rise of Mankind
- Thread starter dexy
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Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
After playing with this mod a few times I think there a couple of smallish problems with it. One is an exploit that the humans can use and the AI does not consider. The other is too do with relations with other civs especially your vassals.
Looking at the second one first. It would be nice if you could un-claim land. This would result in one of the following.
As you can see from the attached image I have claimed huge tracts of land and sea. The simplest solution would probably be to increase the cost of claiming plots, if not at war, based on distance from your nearest city.
It would also be nice if the AI would claim sea resources just outside their current boarders.
Looking at the second one first. It would be nice if you could un-claim land. This would result in one of the following.
- If adjacent to a vassals land becomes owned by that vassals.
- Otherwise becomes unowned and let the civ cultural engine work it out
As you can see from the attached image I have claimed huge tracts of land and sea. The simplest solution would probably be to increase the cost of claiming plots, if not at war, based on distance from your nearest city.
It would also be nice if the AI would claim sea resources just outside their current boarders.
There are a few problems with it, definitely. That's why in my Earth 28 game, I allegedly own half of Asia due to aggressive purging of barbarians! It also renders culture almost completely useless and, as you say, strangles vassals and causes other problems.
It's a good idea, but it needs some work doing on it.
It's a good idea, but it needs some work doing on it.
OK, I've seen a lot of complains about Fixed Borders (here and in AND mod as well) and I must admit that I agree with most of them. I'd like to have time to make it perfect, but unfortunately this is not the case.
For the next version (whenever it is done; i can't promise any dates) I was thinking of something like this:
Instead of paying gold for claimed land - each turn you'd automatically lose any tile that has neither your culture nor your units on it. When you lose it, the player with the highest culture in the plot would get it or, if no culture existed, it would become unowned. This will make tiles farther from cities more difficult to maintain, especially in early times (without airlifts and fast supply roads). Also, the infamous "razing of barb cities" problem will be resolved.
However, the "fixed" part of the mod will remain, in the following way: if you own the tile by culture or by claiming it and keeping unit(s) on it, no one can take it from you without fight or trading (trading cities, not tiles for now).
For the next version (whenever it is done; i can't promise any dates) I was thinking of something like this:
Instead of paying gold for claimed land - each turn you'd automatically lose any tile that has neither your culture nor your units on it. When you lose it, the player with the highest culture in the plot would get it or, if no culture existed, it would become unowned. This will make tiles farther from cities more difficult to maintain, especially in early times (without airlifts and fast supply roads). Also, the infamous "razing of barb cities" problem will be resolved.
However, the "fixed" part of the mod will remain, in the following way: if you own the tile by culture or by claiming it and keeping unit(s) on it, no one can take it from you without fight or trading (trading cities, not tiles for now).
Killtech
Discutator
what about something much simplier: 'claim terriroty' just reduces the amount of enemy culture (culture of civs you are at war with) on a plot. it can only be used if the tile your unit is on is in cultural range of one of your cities.
the reduction formula should work percentual (i.e. reduces enemy culture on tile to 95% of previous value) and a static cut off (i.e. if the percentual formula would reduce foreign culture by less than 10 then the formula is not applied and just 10 culture is subtracted).
furthermore one could argue if forts could expand borders like cities too. since they do not generate any culture the borders would be fixed at radius 1 for them.
the reduction formula should work percentual (i.e. reduces enemy culture on tile to 95% of previous value) and a static cut off (i.e. if the percentual formula would reduce foreign culture by less than 10 then the formula is not applied and just 10 culture is subtracted).
furthermore one could argue if forts could expand borders like cities too. since they do not generate any culture the borders would be fixed at radius 1 for them.
Well, this is just what I don't want to do - culture would still define borders, just a new way of generating it would be introduced. This doesn't work for modern times - no monument or library can match the strong infantry and tanks when it comes to controlling land and resources. Also, the borders wouldn't be fixed during peacetime, since normal culture would still flip tiles.
These are my thoughts also. Forts could be used as micro cities, when it comes to defining borders. Will think about this more.
Killtech
Discutator
True, No monument can match troops But your troops are sometimes outmatched by the strong will of the inhabitants answering with fierce resistance!
when you understand culture = nationality (in a city tile it's even called so) it's quite consistent with modern times. with plebiscites like after the world war II in europe some borders were changed according exactly this: culture. ok, the borders in the east were determinated by other aspects (but still since several cities changed their owners too it's not inconsistent either).
anyway, you cannot deny that nationality plays a significant role in determinating todays borders.
another aspect of nationality/culture is that you can't use enemy roads. i always understood this as the inhabitants of these tiles being uncooperative, granting you no support but resistance instead thus slowing your troops down. so it would be most convenient if you need much longer to claim territory with huge culture than territory with very little of it. in addition to this i would even go so far that a very high culture on a tile should even hurt enemy troops passing through it. but that's just me i guess.
the only thing about culture that is a bit strange is how strongly it spreads in territory beyond your borders, in that i agree. especially if you have no trade or any other agreement with your neighbors. in that case it should not spread in your opponents territory at all! with open borders agreement and good diplomatic relations culture spread on foreign territory could come up to 50% of normal culture rate. also foreign culture should never spread on tiles with a foreign fort so they can be used to fix ownership. so change that about culture and you'll have your fixed borders.
when you now imagine you could diminish enemy culture on tiles with military this will effectively result in claiming the land by repressing foreign populations resistance. furthermore you would have forts to claim territory beyond your cities domain.
i think you should consider to adapt cultural (nationality) borders behavior to the idea of borders you have instead of making a completely new mechanics for them.
or this. but beware if you want to diminish culture on tiles you will be forced to go throgh every tile of the map and check for every nationality each turn. this can mean quite a lot of performance on large maps with many civs i guess.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
I will greatly look forward to a revision of fixed borders. Culture fading away if you're not occupying or producing culture is a brilliant idea
I agree, it is a very good solution to my main problem with fixed borders.
I understand cultural (~national) influence on borders, but in the game it makes them way too flexible. In real life you need at least some kind of negotiations / treaty or war before you change the borders. In CIV they just move as the wind blows - during war and during peacetime.
Another aspect I hate in civ is that your friends (or even allies) get your territory while you are being defeated by common enemy. It's like when in WW2 UK would get part of northern France just because Germany occupied it. Makes no sense to me.
But putting it all together I guess you should just play without this mod. Everything you said is much closer to normal CIV game. Just turn the fixed borders off
.This is not an issue at all. I code everything in C++ and going through all map tiles is nothing compared to just one call to average python method.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
I have seen badly coded C++ code. I am told by a fairly reliable source that the speed difference between well written C++ and well written Python is not visible without an electron microscope - to mix dimensions up.
Afforess
The White Wizard
Yeah, Python is incredibly fast, I know. But whoever designed the piece of crap inter-language interpreter used in Civ should be flogged in the streets.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
May be, but they did do it quite awhile ago and they probably pioneered some of the stuff which made it ground breaking then.
Afforess
The White Wizard
IDK, it was only 2004. I doubt it was that earth-shattering. It's just that the programmers of Civ definitely did not optimize their code. For instance, when the game processes new buildings, civics, whatever, instead of saving the object in a variable, they call to find out what the object is... hundreds of times. I re-wrote the civic process, but I haven't gotten around to the buildings, and other ones...
It's not to say that the code is bad, per-se. Just not built for speed.
generalstaff
Steadfast
That was a long time ago, especially in computer technology time. But I agree, I doubt it was groundbreaking, and I do not expect that Friaxis expected that zappara would create Rise of Mankind.
The problem is that all civ modders have to work with an almost six year-old program which is stifling advanced projects.
NOTE: If I sound like I am complaining, it is simply that I am currently drinking.
fireclaw722
Imperial Guard
One of the many things you shouldn't do while drinking
.Quick two cents:
During peace, there could be an option to buy territory from a rival allowing someone whose territory is shredded to regain it after war-time
-or-
), borders will become the civilization's tiles that are surrounding it(as of now it doesn't do this if the borders are fixed).Good news everybody
I managed to find some time this wknd to code the changes mentioned above. The new version is done for my version of RoM (2.4), but it should be easy to port it to RoM 2.8. I'll see with Afforess about including the new version directly into his AND modmod, without releasing standalone Fixed Borders again.
Afforess, here's the src of the new fixed borders. It's all in C++, no python needed. All the XML tags from the version 3.0 (that you already have inside AND) are used in the same way, so no changes there either.
The changes should correct most of the problems people reported. Also, AI has been improved drastically (i.e. I was thinking while coding, rather than just copying the pillage code).
And finally, one of the modifications is that forts act as micro cities regarding culture and borders. However, this component can be used independently of the fixed borders and you'll see in the src separate comments for fixed borders and 'forts as cities'. You can create 2 different (independent) game options - 'fixed borders' and 'forts as cities', so people can use either one of them or both.
In a day or two I'll write detailed info about all changes.
The changes should correct most of the problems people reported. Also, AI has been improved drastically (i.e. I was thinking while coding, rather than just copying the pillage code).
And finally, one of the modifications is that forts act as micro cities regarding culture and borders. However, this component can be used independently of the fixed borders and you'll see in the src separate comments for fixed borders and 'forts as cities'. You can create 2 different (independent) game options - 'fixed borders' and 'forts as cities', so people can use either one of them or both.
In a day or two I'll write detailed info about all changes.
Afforess
The White Wizard
Dexy, still merging the changes... it's a complete PITA, your source code is from 3.17 RevDCM... That only makes a standard merge completely impossible, so I have to hand merge it... grr.
