I've always been a fan of Rhyes and Fall for Civ IV. I was surely disappointed to find out that he was not remaking it for CiV. I am doing my best to put together a mod list that will allow for an organic, dynamic, and ultimately realistic historical playthrough. I will be outlining a couple of key principles I think goes along with this concept, and would appreciate discussion about such. It will allow for me (and others) to better fine tune our mods/mod tweaks to move towards the overall playthrough goal.
First off, here is a list of mods I am currently using (minor tweaks I have made will be listed):
MedMod (AI only): Essentially makes the AI more trustworthy, less backstabbing, more focusing on building up and improving tiles. Little more defensive.
Combat Mod by Gedemon: Improves the Combat in all aspects
Culture diffusion, Revolutions, ect : Self explanatory
Giant earth map with tsl: Obviously
Historical Spawn Dates
Ingame editor
Reform and ReRule: changes the social policies to make them more in depth
Over 12 different custom Civ mods
60 Civ DLL
I have done roughly 4-5 playthroughs with these and have come up with these issues or topics of concern and would appreciate community feedback and discussion:
Amount of Civs: Depending on whether or not you have a good computer, 60 civs is pretty obtainable. I feel if wanting to create the most realistic, more is better. City states don't carry much benefit to me, as they don't seem to be realistic. There has never been a group of people that weren't allowed to capture other people's territories. These rules break the organic playthrough of Civilization. So to me, City States should never be includes, but instead be replaced by more actual Civs.
What Civs and when should they spawn?: This is actually a fairly complex topic that could be discussed for days, but I feel it also one of the most important as well. Within Historical Spawn Dates, you can add custom civs and change the dates as to which they spawn. I disagree with some of the spawn dates for some, and have changed them. You need a civilization to represent every Major "people" in history, which can be very hard to do in practice. Just to give you an idea of some of the issues I have ran into, here are a couple of issues:
Germans and Vikings: Vikings can seperated into 3 different Scandanvian people : Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Germans could be put into 2 different categories:
1. Nordic/Scandanavian People themselves, or
2. Its only larger "Germania". In which case, would it be appropriate or realistic to separate them into its different Germanic tribes? Or is this too indepth?
If the latter is true, should the Vikings simply be one civilization or 3 (or more?)?
Byzantium and other civs that are simple "recreations" of other civs:
Should they be included? They are essentially the same people, and after a certain point almost any new civ would be a simple colony or renaming of another civ. ie:
American
Brazil
Venetian
ect ect
In my opinion, they shouldn't. It is best to find a civilization that best represents a people, and whatever colonization or revolutions happen with them, happens. Forcing or spawning other civs deters from the "Dynamic" aspect of the playthrough.
That brings the final question on this topic, what Civs (both custom and not) best represent the major groups of people throughout history best and when should they spawn?
Barbarians and AI Settling Pattern: This topic is a bit shorter but it still hold a huge factor in how the game plays.
Barbarians are a staple for the Civ series but are they really realistic? In theory, any barbarian in history has technically been apart of some sort of "Civilization", especially if they to produce and significant force like what is displayed in CiV. In my opinion , they should be removed entirely and simply replaced with more civs (recurring theory here, haha). But, this brings me to the next issue in this topic: AI settling pattern.
Now, I would like to first state that I do not believe in a AI settling map. This takes away from the organic free flowing dynamics of the game. So what if Egypt would rather push its empire further West then it did in real life? Who cares if Rome wants to settle further north into Scandanavia this time instead of avoiding it like the plague? I don't care. I do care, however, if it doesn't make sense. The capital of every civ (if not civ is there when they spawn) is automatically settled in the spot they spawn. This is realistic, as it best represents where the civs people started. After that, however, I have seen the AI do some interesting things. For instance, Greece will avoid settling areas right around its capital (that are very smart city spots) and instead dive into central europe like its an olympic size pool. That isn't nearly as bad as Koreas cross world colonization of Europe when the only other city they had was their capital in Asia...
These are obviously idiotic decisions by the AI and I have tried messing with ai coding to no avail but I am starting to wonder if no barbarians are having an impact on this. As the map is a little more empty and allows for further exploration then before. Any tips on this is welcome.
Misc and a spot for things I can't think of right now:
Its getting late, so I am gonna wrap this up with some other small topics I feel need to be addressed:
Game speed (I am a fan of Ironman, it allows for the growth of Civs much better)
Spawning units (I use Warrior, Warrior, Scout)
Any other must have mods to better the experience and any other ideas that you can think of!
First off, here is a list of mods I am currently using (minor tweaks I have made will be listed):
MedMod (AI only): Essentially makes the AI more trustworthy, less backstabbing, more focusing on building up and improving tiles. Little more defensive.
Combat Mod by Gedemon: Improves the Combat in all aspects
Culture diffusion, Revolutions, ect : Self explanatory
Giant earth map with tsl: Obviously
Historical Spawn Dates
Ingame editor
Reform and ReRule: changes the social policies to make them more in depth
Over 12 different custom Civ mods
60 Civ DLL
I have done roughly 4-5 playthroughs with these and have come up with these issues or topics of concern and would appreciate community feedback and discussion:
Amount of Civs: Depending on whether or not you have a good computer, 60 civs is pretty obtainable. I feel if wanting to create the most realistic, more is better. City states don't carry much benefit to me, as they don't seem to be realistic. There has never been a group of people that weren't allowed to capture other people's territories. These rules break the organic playthrough of Civilization. So to me, City States should never be includes, but instead be replaced by more actual Civs.
What Civs and when should they spawn?: This is actually a fairly complex topic that could be discussed for days, but I feel it also one of the most important as well. Within Historical Spawn Dates, you can add custom civs and change the dates as to which they spawn. I disagree with some of the spawn dates for some, and have changed them. You need a civilization to represent every Major "people" in history, which can be very hard to do in practice. Just to give you an idea of some of the issues I have ran into, here are a couple of issues:
Germans and Vikings: Vikings can seperated into 3 different Scandanvian people : Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Germans could be put into 2 different categories:
1. Nordic/Scandanavian People themselves, or
2. Its only larger "Germania". In which case, would it be appropriate or realistic to separate them into its different Germanic tribes? Or is this too indepth?
If the latter is true, should the Vikings simply be one civilization or 3 (or more?)?
Byzantium and other civs that are simple "recreations" of other civs:
Should they be included? They are essentially the same people, and after a certain point almost any new civ would be a simple colony or renaming of another civ. ie:
American
Brazil
Venetian
ect ect
In my opinion, they shouldn't. It is best to find a civilization that best represents a people, and whatever colonization or revolutions happen with them, happens. Forcing or spawning other civs deters from the "Dynamic" aspect of the playthrough.
That brings the final question on this topic, what Civs (both custom and not) best represent the major groups of people throughout history best and when should they spawn?
Barbarians and AI Settling Pattern: This topic is a bit shorter but it still hold a huge factor in how the game plays.
Barbarians are a staple for the Civ series but are they really realistic? In theory, any barbarian in history has technically been apart of some sort of "Civilization", especially if they to produce and significant force like what is displayed in CiV. In my opinion , they should be removed entirely and simply replaced with more civs (recurring theory here, haha). But, this brings me to the next issue in this topic: AI settling pattern.
Now, I would like to first state that I do not believe in a AI settling map. This takes away from the organic free flowing dynamics of the game. So what if Egypt would rather push its empire further West then it did in real life? Who cares if Rome wants to settle further north into Scandanavia this time instead of avoiding it like the plague? I don't care. I do care, however, if it doesn't make sense. The capital of every civ (if not civ is there when they spawn) is automatically settled in the spot they spawn. This is realistic, as it best represents where the civs people started. After that, however, I have seen the AI do some interesting things. For instance, Greece will avoid settling areas right around its capital (that are very smart city spots) and instead dive into central europe like its an olympic size pool. That isn't nearly as bad as Koreas cross world colonization of Europe when the only other city they had was their capital in Asia...
These are obviously idiotic decisions by the AI and I have tried messing with ai coding to no avail but I am starting to wonder if no barbarians are having an impact on this. As the map is a little more empty and allows for further exploration then before. Any tips on this is welcome.
Misc and a spot for things I can't think of right now:
Its getting late, so I am gonna wrap this up with some other small topics I feel need to be addressed:
Game speed (I am a fan of Ironman, it allows for the growth of Civs much better)
Spawning units (I use Warrior, Warrior, Scout)
Any other must have mods to better the experience and any other ideas that you can think of!
