NiGHTS: General Discussion

I find it very odd that the AI tends to hoard money. I usually play on "king" and already in the early 18th century some of the "fat cats" already own 50.000+ gold.

I'd suggest to implement economic mechanics like inflation, that is activated after a certain tech is researched (maybe economics). A possible realisation of this idea appears to be quite easy if the inflation ratio increases proportional to the treasury and the particular "GDP". In fact, the bigger the specific treasury is the more the national income shrinks until a certain value is reached (which depends on the GDP itself (richer nations = bigger treasury)).

Such principles would make the whole thing a bit more realistic because absolutely no "industrial" nation would have any interest in hoarding so much money instead of investing it.

Some things:

-Denunciations come way too fast. I met Kamehameha, and ONE turn later, he denounced me, because he wanted my land, and apparently we had shared victory conditions...I didin't even know which condition I was going for, lol. I think that "wanting your land" should justify a reason for a civ to dislike you.

-Check these two graphical mods out: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=391764

The first mod, Tradingposts - No Tents V1, removes the tents from the ugly trading posts, and uses stone buildings instead.

The second one, Tradingposts - ReColored V1, make the colours of the trading posts look more fitting.

Perhaps you can integrate this mod into NiGHTS (it's already compatible with it), and make them for towns (fully get rid of trading posts)

leeuw01 said:

Hey, I played you're mod and I like it very much, the specialist and new government system make it a perfect game for me.

Unfortunately I have a strange crash, the loading button is black in the right side of the screen is black and the next turn won't load...

Any way of resolving this problem???

EDIT: The special improvement of the grain specialist hasn't got a graphic.

Click to expand...

Any luck with your save? I'll test it out over the next couple of days here. And the Grain Harvester bug is well-known. For some reason that one improvement doesn't want to appear despite my coding being correct. Sometimes it does appear on a reload,though. It's a work in progress at this point.

looorg said:

On the other hand it is an active choice to take them, so you should be aware of the risks involved. It's not like they just drop in your lap for no reason at all. Plus you can if it catches you by surprise just kill it the same or the next turn if it turns out it didn't work out like you wanted it to.

As it is now there is barely any drawback to taking them at all.

Click to expand...

I agree with you there - but the one problem that still exists, and that exists for almost any change made to the mod, is that the AI does not and can not made to understand this. They have enough trouble getting back into the game when they lose a worker, I'm not sure I want to expound the issue with Slaves. If I go this route, I'd have to - at the very least - reduce their Unrest cost to -1.

Balerune said:

I'm not exactly sure how to approach this. I have a game with good natural defenses for my civ, 2 choke points against both contiguous AI. I played this game differently than I usually do, Arabia, immortal, sparse resources and went for wonders. (I trashed 2 games as I lost the race for the first or second wonder.)

With the state of AI intelligence I had Rome afraid of me (Rome wimpy?), early on, as when they war they are not tenacious. In my other games and with other patches Siam was the worst as far as just doggedly hanging on to a war they started – which was annoying and ruined my game but I hate to say, yes I want to win, but we all know people who just won't let go no matter what.

I attributed my success in this game to 2 things, position and the building of wonders. The AI appreciate the wonders and the gp and the advantages (as when I captured and Egyptian capital with 6 wonders) make the late game (I like accumulating gold as I use it to buy replacement war units) much easier …. perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, the wonders are a bit too powerful but on the other hand you are going to expand the early stages – but the AI loves to build wonders and if you capture a capital city you get some powerful advantages. But they still (I checked all over the map) overbuild specialists.

All this being said I get my chance for a domination or points win that has always eluded me on immortal. I'm top @ 1700 to 1300 and much advanced in tech. @ 1950(and I might not complete the game as it isn't the winning that is fun for me but the progress of getting there. But I do remember one civ4 game I had; 2 continents, I had one in hand, well ahead in points and a small Mongolia on another. Late sudden surge and the Mongols did what they did in history: ravaged thru the continent they were on destroying all the cities they captured. I had to prepare a force to deal with them to eek out a win.)

With city states you can liberate them (and I assume they are grateful.) Irrc in civ 4 you could “liberate” a regular AI city, and you could have vassals and all that. I re-captured a Spanish city from France but there was no option to liberate. The depth I was looking for is the idea that I will help you in your war with X in return for your co-operation in the future – we form an alliance (with the background being that if this alliance is broken then there would be world disapproval (denunciation by other AI and the threat of future wars etc.)

But I like that they don't seem to back stab but there could always be one civ that has this as a characteristic.

All in all just a report from the front.

Click to expand...

Nice report. It's always helpful getting hearing about these in-game situations as I don't always have the time to test thoroughly beyond 100-200 turns when releasing updates. I've tweaked the AI's building of specialists a little bit more in tonights update - hopefully it helps reduce the spam of them in conjunction with the Town improvement.

looorg said:

I don't know if Markus would want to recommend them but I know of a few minor modifications that work fine. I use them on and off to "enhance" the game even further;

AggressiveCityStates (v 3)
AiRealistic (v 1)
BarbaricBarbarians (v 1)
CombatModifierRebalance (v 3)
No XP Cap from Barbarians (v 1)


BTW totally unrelated but isn't the riding pasture and the archery range gone? There are still district policies under feudalism that use them or is that in name only?

Also I just found the "resource list" in the info panel/menu, shouldn't it say I have for example 12 iron and 6 used instead of 6 iron 6 used? (I do have 12 but have used 6).

Click to expand...

If they work they work. I'll add them to the list of mods to look at when I release the next major update. And nice find with the District Policies - I'm currently working on 2 different builds of the mod, (the current version, and V9), and sometimes files get mixed up between the post and the pre-patch version. This has been fixed as of today's update.

Sinchi Roca said:

I find it very odd that the AI tends to hoard money. I usually play on "king" and already in the early 18th century some of the "fat cats" already own 50.000+ gold.

I'd suggest to implement economic mechanics like inflation, that is activated after a certain tech is researched (maybe economics). A possible realisation of this idea appears to be quite easy if the inflation ratio increases proportional to the treasury and the particular "GDP". In fact, the bigger the specific treasury is the more the national income shrinks until a certain value is reached (which depends on the GDP itself (richer nations = bigger treasury)).

Such principles would make the whole thing a bit more realistic because absolutely no "industrial" nation would have any interest in hoarding so much money instead of investing it.

Click to expand...

It's a problem in the base game as well, and a frustrating one because Diplomatic wins really don't feel earned knowing that the AI, with any sort of planning at all, could have provided a much greater challenge. I'll start looking into ways that cause them to spend more and hoard less. Some features are coming in v9 that will help with this as well.

Oohforf said:

Some things:

-Denunciations come way too fast. I met Kamehameha, and ONE turn later, he denounced me, because he wanted my land, and apparently we had shared victory conditions...I didin't even know which condition I was going for, lol. I think that "wanting your land" should justify a reason for a civ to dislike you.

-Check these two graphical mods out: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=391764

The first mod, Tradingposts - No Tents V1, removes the tents from the ugly trading posts, and uses stone buildings instead.

The second one, Tradingposts - ReColored V1, make the colours of the trading posts look more fitting.

Perhaps you can integrate this mod into NiGHTS (it's already compatible with it), and make them for towns (fully get rid of trading posts)

Click to expand...

I'll look into the Trading Posts - I think I remember those from months back. At the time this was a mod that wasn't exactly modular, in that it required overwriting core files. If this is still the case, then it probably wont make it into the mod. That being said, the graphic for Towns is temporary at best, and I'll change it to something more suitable in the near future.

I agree with you about Denunciations - it seems since the last patch the AI has become quite a bit more aggressive. The latest update attempts to reign this in to some degree.

V8.9f Update Released: => http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=16650

INSTALLATION

Delete the entire Civ5 cache folder (not just it's contents).
C:\<username>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\cache
Place the download in your Mods folder, load Civ V and click the Install button in the Mod Browser.
C:\<username>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS


Since the latest patch, many of you have noticed that the AI seems to be a little Denunciation crazy, especially with-in the first 5-10 turns. This update attempts to bring some sense of roleplaying back into Diplomacy and makes the AI act more like they did in CIV IV.

1. The AI will Denounce you far less often - and rarely will this happen within the first 10 turns of the game.
2. Denunciations themselves will be rare over the first 50ish turns of the game while Empires are expanding.
3. Once borders start to touch, then Denunciations and DoW's will start to pick up.
4. AI like Ghandi are now far less likely to DoW or Denounce you while AI like Ghengis + Bismark will be more likely to start causing conflicts.
5. Tool-tips and Texts for District Policies of Despotism and Feudalism have been fixed. (They had been displaying pre-patch information).

AI changes are always difficult to balance. This update alters AI Diplomacy behaviors quite a bit. My goal is for Denunciations to really feel like they carry some weight, as opposed to them being constantly spammed by the AI. Wars were basically the driving force of CIV V vanilla, and I don't want to cut back too far on this aspect of the game, as it's essentially what drives Diplomacy. If games feel too peaceful overall with this update, I can start rolling back the changes until we find a balance that works for the majority of play-styles out there.

Thanks for the update

markusbeutel said:

I'll look into the Trading Posts - I think I remember those from months back. At the time this was a mod that wasn't exactly modular, in that it required overwriting core files. If this is still the case, then it probably wont make it into the mod. That being said, the graphic for Towns is temporary at best, and I'll change it to something more suitable in the near future.

Click to expand...

Do you think it's generally possible to integrate the Civ IV principle of villages, which - over time - turn into towns?

Since they've been "deleted without replacement" in Civ V they somehow left a gap. To see them getting bigger not only looked well. The concept of "growing" improvements is more than a cool design. To build them was always like a motivating long-term investment. And since it really paid off to pillage them, especially in the more early game, they made warfare and "ground control considerations" a bit more interesting. Later, they even gave a defense-bonus within a BtS mod-mod (Rise Of Mankind: A New Dawn).

The trading posts kind of suck, I think... in terms of gameplay and design.

Sinchi Roca said:

Thanks for the update
Any luck with your save? I'll test it out over the next couple of days here. And the Grain Harvester bug is well-known. For some reason that one improvement doesn't want to appear despite my coding being correct. Sometimes it does appear on a reload,though. It's a work in progress at this point.

Click to expand...

No, it still doesn't work, I have tried it again today but it still doesn't load the next turn. But am I the first one to encounter this crash? If so I could give it a name

- Black Loading Button of Death
- Posterus Ultimus Ira

Or just BLB (black loading button)...

PS: I don't know Latin I just searched some words.

AggressiveCityStates (v 3)
AiRealistic (v 1)
BarbaricBarbarians (v 1)
CombatModifierRebalance (v 3)
No XP Cap from Barbarians (v 1)

Maybe include them all, except AggressiveCityStates.

I often encounter AI cities with like 35 in defense. I have no idea how they can get their defense this high, basically rendering their cities unconquerable.
Keep in mind, this is in the era where I only have the catapult (and Im high in tech).

I modded down the defense for walls and castle (which are the 2 buildings the AI can build at this time) but it doesnt really seem to help. What other features increases the AI defense?

@Oohforf, I can only find the no xp cap mod, where did you find those others? Thank you.

riddleofsteel said:

@Oohforf, I can only find the no xp cap mod, where did you find those others? Thank you.

Click to expand...

Oh, those are not my mods. But I'm betting you can find them in the modhub in the game.

Sinchi Roca said:

Thanks for the update
Do you think it's generally possible to integrate the Civ IV principle of villages, which - over time - turn into towns?

Since they've been "deleted without replacement" in Civ V they somehow left a gap. To see them getting bigger not only looked well. The concept of "growing" improvements is more than a cool design. To build them was always like a motivating long-term investment. And since it really paid off to pillage them, especially in the more early game, they made warfare and "ground control considerations" a bit more interesting. Later, they even gave a defense-bonus within a BtS mod-mod (Rise Of Mankind: A New Dawn).

The trading posts kind of suck, I think... in terms of gameplay and design.

Click to expand...

I agree that Trading posts seem rather inconsequential compared to the cottage/hamlet/town system of CIV IV. The XML for re-incorporating this is in CIV V, it's just a matter of hooking up the lua - which is easier said than done. I'm almost certain at some point this mechanic for improvements will be back in CIV V.

leeuw01 said:

No, it still doesn't work, I have tried it again today but it still doesn't load the next turn. But am I the first one to encounter this crash? If so I could give it a name

- Black Loading Button of Death
- Posterus Ultimus Ira

Or just BLB (black loading button)...

PS: I don't know Latin I just searched some words.

Click to expand...

The leeuw01 bug - and we could make it an unlockable achievement.

Tayran said:

I often encounter AI cities with like 35 in defense. I have no idea how they can get their defense this high, basically rendering their cities unconquerable.
Keep in mind, this is in the era where I only have the catapult (and Im high in tech).

I modded down the defense for walls and castle (which are the 2 buildings the AI can build at this time) but it doesnt really seem to help. What other features increases the AI defense?

Click to expand...

Palisades also boost defense and they're available very early. Some Civ's also have a much higher starting defense from their unique palace so maybe you've been running into a few of those.

Beyond those examples the only other factor would be garrisoned units. I might raise defense values all around for this version - but v9 introduces many new units, many of which will specialize in being able to take cities, so that should help this aspect of the game as well.

markusbeutel said:

Palisades also boost defense and they're available very early. Some Civ's also have a much higher starting defense from their unique palace so maybe you've been running into a few of those.

Beyond those examples the only other factor would be garrisoned units. I might defense values all around for this version - but v9 introduces many new units, many of which will specialize in being able to take cities, so that should help this aspect of the game as well.

Click to expand...

Atm I feel that units and city defense is a bit out of sync. So some extra "city attackers" would be nice!

I was wondering if you could have the great general unit get movement upgrades at certain techs? Like +1 movement at horseback riding, then another +1 at combustion. Just an idea. I find it very annoying that GGs can't keep up with horse units or tanks it makes their use frustrating at times.
Are you really going to get rid of the more modern techs? I really hope you don't! I personally miss the more modern techs that you've already taken out. I hope you can evolve you're tech pyramid to fit more techs. The pyramid is a novel idea but it really doesn't work in the later ages. So what are you going to do in the future to bring back modern techs? Are you going to change your tech pyramid or do you have another idea?

Why balistic missle has 6 unrest?

This should be a cheap unit and use a large number of this unit. But with unrest so high you just use one, two or three at same time. I Think balistic missles should have 1 unrest or nome unrest.

markusbeutel said:

I'm almost certain at some point this mechanic for improvements will be back in CIV V.

Click to expand...

Nice to hear that a revival of them is possible!

Canabrava said:

Why balistic missle has 6 unrest?

Click to expand...

I think that's alright and realistic. Think about the pacifist movement. In reality, Nuclear weapons are everything but popular within the general public.

I'd rather suggest to leave the unrest that high as it is for them at the moment and to make a possible reduction of this a social policy or something.

I desagree,

A Nuclear Submarine has 10 unrest e can carry 2 missle.

A missle has 9 unrest, mora than normal submarine (8 unrest).

One missle should not has this unrest, almost a nuclear submarine. A real submarine can carry many missles. Maybe this varius missle should have 9 unrest.

Canabrava said:

I desagree,

A Nuclear Submarine has 10 unrest e can carry 2 missle.

A missle has 9 unrest, mora than normal submarine (8 unrest).

One missle should not has this unrest, almost a nuclear submarine. A real submarine can carry many missles. Maybe this varius missle should have 9 unrest.

Click to expand...

Personally I think that high unrest is good for nuclear weapons are good, this causes the AI to handle them more realistic.

But...

Wont It be a better idea that a missile itself has +4 unrest, but when uses it causes alot of unrest which decreases over time.
For example: first 20 turns +5, and after every 5 turns the unrest shrinks by 1,
this would represent the peoples hate/fear against nuclear weapons.

Good of Bad Idea?

I encountered a strange bug (??) - I discovered some coal and got some coal from my CS allies. And my total number was 63 (!!) I couldn't figure it out where all the coal is coming from - only after I lost the ally-status with one of my CS. The CS had one coal mine (worth 7 coal) - but this counted as 28 coal units!! the same with my second CS - just 7 coal units but they count as 28.
Perhabs it has something to do with my civ - I'm playing as the Arabic civilization.

I'm playing V 8.9e

Tayran said:

Atm I feel that units and city defense is a bit out of sync. So some extra "city attackers" would be nice!

Click to expand...

I'm up to +15 extra units so far for V9 - this will probably go up to around 20 when all is said and done - so all in all, there will be much more variety in regards to military units.

ComradeKristov said:

I was wondering if you could have the great general unit get movement upgrades at certain techs? Like +1 movement at horseback riding, then another +1 at combustion. Just an idea. I find it very annoying that GGs can't keep up with horse units or tanks it makes their use frustrating at times.
Are you really going to get rid of the more modern techs? I really hope you don't! I personally miss the more modern techs that you've already taken out. I hope you can evolve you're tech pyramid to fit more techs. The pyramid is a novel idea but it really doesn't work in the later ages. So what are you going to do in the future to bring back modern techs? Are you going to change your tech pyramid or do you have another idea?

Click to expand...

I could increase the General's movement - or possibly allow him to be upgraded with movement improvements, (this would allow him to fight as a regular unit would), in combination with his regular abilities. I'll look into this for V9.

I will be temporarily taking industrial/modern techs out of the game. This isn't permanent, and they'll be added in again. My plan is for the Tech Pyramid to double back on itself like an hourglass with 50+ techs devoted to industrial/modern/future buildings and units, (far more than in the current build and Vanilla CIV V combined). I may also release this as a standalone mod for people that prefer to play in the later eras. Conversely, there may also be a version that just deals with the Ancient-Renaissance era's, (like V9), and there will be a complete version that combines all era's.

The main reason for this change is to increase the amount of time given to specific units before more advanced units make them seem inferior. This should result in full-scale wars consisting of era-appropriate units, as opposed to rifleman taking on archers, for example.

Canabrava said:

Why balistic missle has 6 unrest?

This should be a cheap unit and use a large number of this unit. But with unrest so high you just use one, two or three at same time. I Think balistic missles should have 1 unrest or nome unrest.

Click to expand...

These will get some tweaking - I was never completely comfortable with the high Unrest costs associated with units that are destroyed on impact. I think it's safe to say they will have a lower unrest in coming updates, but nuclear missiles will probably remain with their current unrest modifiers.

Sinchi Roca said:

Nice to hear that a revival of them is possible!

I think that's alright and realistic. Think about the pacifist movement. In reality, Nuclear weapons are everything but popular within the general public.
I'd rather suggest to leave the unrest that high as it is for them at the moment and to make a possible reduction of this a social policy or something.

Click to expand...

Not a bad idea. Once I re-introduce the a full industrial/modern/future era, the Policy screen will have either an addition to, or a completely new and separate screen devoted solely to future Governments. (I've yet to decide on this as both scenarios will require quite a bit of UI work).

Ideologies like this, (Pacifism/Environmentalism), will play a role in this new set of expanded Governments.

Canabrava said:

I desagree,

A Nuclear Submarine has 10 unrest e can carry 2 missle.
A missle has 9 unrest, mora than normal submarine (8 unrest).
One missle should not has this unrest, almost a nuclear submarine. A real submarine can carry many missles. Maybe this varius missle should have 9 unrest.

Click to expand...

Nukes will probably stay around the same level while other missiles will probably have a lowered Unrest cost. Has Stability been hard to maintain in the end-game? If it's getting out of hand with the more advanced units, then I'd look at lowering Nuke unrest costs as well.

leeuw01 said:

Personally I think that high unrest is good for nuclear weapons are good, this causes the AI to handle them more realistic.
But...
Wont It be a better idea that a missile itself has +4 unrest, but when uses it causes alot of unrest which decreases over time.
For example: first 20 turns +5, and after every 5 turns the unrest shrinks by 1,
this would represent the peoples hate/fear against nuclear weapons.
Good of Bad Idea?

Click to expand...

This is an interesting idea. Unfortunately, the problem with a system like this is that the AI has no idea how it works. Basic Unrest costs have been manageable so far with Stability linked to Population, (and Cities growing at population intervals), but adding to many mechanics and systems - I just don't see the AI coping. The immersion resulting in a system like this would be nice to have, though.

What I may end up doing is have specific Government types, once enacted, (and mutually exclusive in V9), have different modifiers for Nukes. Democracy could have a lower tolerance with increased Unrest, while Technocracy could have a much higher tolerance along with increased overall maintenance costs.

Karantaner said:

I encountered a strange bug (??) - I discovered some coal and got some coal from my CS allies. And my total number was 63 (!!) I couldn't figure it out where all the coal is coming from - only after I lost the ally-status with one of my CS. The CS had one coal mine (worth 7 coal) - but this counted as 28 coal units!! the same with my second CS - just 7 coal units but they count as 28.
Perhabs it has something to do with my civ - I'm playing as the Arabic civilization.
I'm playing V 8.9e

Click to expand...

That is strange. Has anyone else noticed anything like this? Certain policies linked to City-states increase the amount of Strategic resources you have, (the foreign policy of Monarchy I think), and this may be playing a part here. With that policy enacted, the 7 should turn into 14, not 28. Did you notice any of your other Strategic resources fluctuate in their number?

How is V9 coming?

black213 said:

How is V9 coming?

Click to expand...

It's a work in progress. I'm looking at around 20 new units, and roughly 40-50 new buildings - (to fill in gaps left by buildings/units removed for the industrial/modern later addition). Add in the removal of the Utopia Project tied to Policy Branches, (and how culture will work to correspond with this), along with new resources, Guilds, Techs, and UI + Art/Icon changes, and it all adds up. Then there's also the list of mod components I'm slowly integrating on top of all that.

Ideally, I'd like to get this version out before the next patch - as I'm still working on getting things I had added previously, (but hadn't released yet) - to work with the latest patch.

That being said, while I work on V9, I'll continue to update v8.9X for bugs and suggestions anyone may have - both for v8.9X, and what you'd like to see that hasn't already been added or included in the mod. (One thing to remember, is that any suggestions/idea's should always take into account the AI and how they would react/adapt to these). If I find the time this coming weekend, I may put up a progress report of some kind on the header thread for the mod so people can get a better idea of where things are at.