[MOD] Medieval: Conquests

I nominate Sviatoslav to lead the Rus.
Hey, he looks like a good choice to me too. I am going to read the full article on him but what would be the name of his Civ? Like the Franks proceeded the French, Anglo-Saxon the English. Also, I am looking for a German Civ and thinking maybe Otto the Great would be a good choice.

I still think there needs to be some base (read: free) research. Civs that don't start with Monasticism can easily fall 30+ turns behind others. I usually try to get 2 monasteries up with libraries ASAP, and it still seems to take a long time to get to some of the more essential techs. Once I get everything going and have some inventors and monks, the rate seems pretty good (maybe a little too good, if I got a bunch of inventors and monks), but it's tough getting going, especially when you have to wait on monasticism.

Well, I have merged the JAnimals mod and I started a new game to test things and right off I realized what you are saying as I am playing as the Ostrogoth. Yeah, Monasticism is one of the more critical techs early on. It took forever for me to get a Seasoned Scout so I didn't do much exploring early on. I finally managed to make friends with Charlemagne and had enough gold to buy Monasticism from him. I started saving to buy that tech as soon as I realized It would take me 50 turns to get it :)

I had the tech rate low when I first released the mod so that it would be easier to test the techs for bugs and game balance. Now that a lot of things are worked out and fixed we can work on research rate.

Ok, here are some thoughts... If we give more free research then later on in the game the free research maybe to much as you say the rate as it is maybe still too good. I actually want the player to feel as if he really is living in the "Dark Ages" at the start of the game so adding "free research" would take away from this effect so I would like to find an alternate solution.

We could lower the cost of the first techs so it doesn't take nearly as long. However, Medieval unlike Civ4 doesn't rely so much on techs. There is plenty to do at the start without waiting on techs. I also wanted the first tier of techs to be very valuable thats why they have more benefits than other later techs. Sense these first techs give such good bonuses a Civ may get behind in Techs early on but they will be ahead in other areas. This also opens up the option of trading techs with other Civs and is a profitable strategy. But, what if no other Civs on the map starts with Monasticism? Well, in that case the Civs will all be even :)

Also, there is one feature that may go unnoticed and I will bring this to light more in the next update and that is a player gains a bonus to research when you Trade goods. It is historically accurate that Trade spurs on new ideas. Its been a while sense I looked over the mechanics of this but I bet it needs to be adjusted to match the research times.

I just tested things and you do gain a bonus when selling goods to Europe not with Natives though so I'll adjust that. I had 7 turns to go on my research then I sold about 180 units of wine at the Fair and gained enough research bonus to reduce the turns to 5. I will work on this feature in the next update and then we can test things out again.

On a related note: Islamic monks don't get a research bonus?
Fixed for next update. I just can't seem to ever get this Units right :mad:

On settlements: While somewhat related to research, it just takes too dang long to get MaB up. What if, as I think you suggested, military units founded military settlements (Call them forts or outposts or whatever you like.) that could be improved to MaB and later Castles. Then you'd have 3 distinct settlements, each having unique buildings, each founded by different types of units. Monasteries for early research and agriculture, villages as economic manufacturing centers, and forts for military production.

I like this idea and will go with it. We'll call them outposts and will be founded instantly and have it set up so that only Castles can be built at an outpost. I plan also to expand Castle building. People didn't wake up one day and there was all of a sudden huge castles with all the bells and whistles, it was a gradual development with new features being added as new ideas and experience was gathered.

Also, I been thinking of adding special defense bonuses to Castles in the effect that Castles have a Defense radius and also have a Zone of Control. The Defense radius would add a defense bonus to your towns and monasteries that are within this radius. Also, they can detect Marauders like Towers do and I plan on adding new Military buildings like the Barracks and Archery range that will give benefits to soldiers.

What exactly is the deal with Marauders? They seem to always pop up in the same places, which is kind of boring. How is their spawning figured? Also, can they maybe not demolish settlements? Steal stuff, burn a building or two, and maybe murder an innocent citizen, but don't raze the city. That's a job for armies, not roaming marauders. Maybe when you capture them , they should be slaves, instead of outlaws, too

Well, the reason I haven't fixed cities being razed yet is that I will have to add in new code for such a feature. In the Vanilla game Indians would destroy a settlement if there was no defenders there with muskets. If there was defenders after the attack they would make off with goods. I am adding in Animals for the next update and this will add even more threat. It for sure would not be logical for Animals to raze a whole city so I will have to add a feature as you describe for them. The Vikings where Marauders so to speak and they for sure destroyed whole settlements, especially if the settlement put up a good resistance.

Now that would be a cool feature to add in that the player is presented with a choice to put up a resistance or let the Marauders take what they want. There could be certain buildings or a chance that helps to "hide" goods so they want be detected by the Marauders.

What exactly do you suggest here? You say they pop up in the same places, you mean like around the same settlements? Basically when a settlement starts to do well and word starts to get around of the wealth at the settlement Marauders will start to appear. This is random and it can happen to any settlement no matter who owns it. Much like Privateers will appear near any prosperous city.

And Marauders become outlaws because I had it in mind to allow them to be able to take on the Marauder profession. This would make Outlaws desirable by the player but it needs to be balanced.

Do workers "learn" professions they do long enough, like they did way back in the original Colonization? Like if you had a colonists working prime timber as a lumberjack, there was some chance every turn that he might become and expert lumberjack. I'd love to see this, especially with peddlers having the potential to become wily traders.

This is a feature that is on the to do list. You may of heard of my Professions mod which adds this very thing. I did however feel like it was over powered and a few people advised that it was. Its a balancing thing, if too many peasants become masters then the game becomes too easy if not enough then its a useless feature. You have to look at it this way. If we use the Vanilla game as the starting balance factor then by adding in auto learning professions then this will obviously through the game out of balance as more Masters/Experts will be in the game than intended.

Like I mentioned when I first posted this mod after we get the basic game balanced and bug free we can start adding new features. This was one feature I wanted to add however I want it to be balanced. I been thinking of maybe changing the way players can "Learn from Natives" in that the player can "wear out their welcome" and Natives will no longer allow you to learn from them, especially if they don't like you. This would in effect allow for new ways to acquire Masters/Experts.


On a similar note, do serf really need to be educated to free peasants? Can this just be bypassed so that serfs can go straight to learning a profession (just at the slower rate). It feels silly having to educate the lower classes first to peasants, when the natives can train them straight into some profession.

Again, game mechanics such as this are all in the testing phase. I would have to agree with you on this. To start with I had it set up so that serfs, outlaws, and slaves could not learn from natives but I changed that before I released the mod. So yeah, it is kinda pointless at the moment to even train up serfs and such this way. I will change this in the next update.

One Idea I have is to change the amount of food required for Serfs/Outlaws/Cottars to only one and make Slaves cost no food. This may actually make these units desirable to be used in your cities. Right now I purchase slaves and just send them on to learn for natives.

So, we can have them able to be educated but change it so they can't learn from natives as so..

Serfs are bound to the lords land and pretty much their labor force is needed in order for the empire to function correctly. Thus they can not become Peddlers and travel where they will or travel to barbarian villages to learn from them.

Outlaws would not be welcomed in other settlements long enough to live among them and learn, they can however become Peddlers.

Cottars are just basically poor peasants. They can and are best used for Peddlers or learning from natives. When we do the educate over time feature Cottars and Outlaws could get a bonus to becoming Wily Traders as it was their class that more than likely became the true historical Peddlers.

Slaves are still on the drawing board and we may do something special with them similar to what I did in my Privateers mod.

Finally, I've attached a save where I have been building a MaB for like 25 turns on the coast. It should complete the next turn, but all it does is remove the jungle. I tried removing the jungle first, but it still did nothing. (If you change the way castles are built it probably wont matter, but at the moment I would call it a bug.)

Yeah, this would be a bug and not sure why that would be but with your save I can figure this out. However, like you say, building castles this way may be done away with.

Wow, I just wrote a lot :crazyeye:. Thanks for your input. Like I mentioned you guys are helping develop this mod into something quite entertaining :goodjob:
 
Kailric,

I just downloaded the new version and update. I am getting an error at startup:

Tag; Promotion_Trader

It seems to be some kind of XML error that I am getting. I've downloaded this twice and reinstalled it three times and this error keeps repeating on startup. If I hit OK, it proceeds to start up, but I get many crashes throughout every game.

Think you can give this a look?

I may not have packed the update files right. I'll check into this now and post an update tonight. I'll edit this post when I get it done and post the upload to the first page. In the mean time I just posted a wall of text in the last post on ideas and such so if you wanted you could read all that :p

Actually, if you downloaded the Full version it doesn't need updated. However, if you applied the update it shouldn't cause an error but then again maybe it does :) The update is only if you had a previous version thats after 1.1b.

Yeah, there was a file left out of the update. I am going to remove it from download at the moment. The full download though should be working fine.
 
Well, I just discovered one thing that I did not know and that is if you set the tag NoCapture for a unit to 1 then the unit can't capture cities or units. So, in the next update I'll set the Marauder so they can not capture cities or units. In the mean time all you have to do is open up CIV4UnitInfos.xml in any text editor and edit the below code for Marauders.
Code:
<bOnlyDefensive>0</bOnlyDefensive>
[COLOR="Red"]<bNoCapture>1</bNoCapture>[/COLOR]
<bQuickCombat>0</bQuickCombat>
 
Just letting you guys know what I have planned. I am currently working on adding a "Barbarian" civ much like Civ4. The Barbarian Civ will spawn animals as well as maybe Pirates and such. To counter Animals the player will have a new profession called Huntsman and a new unit type called the Master Huntsman. Hunting was a huge part of medieval life especially among the Nobles. Kings would even set aside game reserves and impose heavy penalties for pouching including death. Not only was it a popular sport but also helped to supplement a castle's food stores.

Huntsman gain a bonus when attacking animals. They also gain one or more cargo space so they can transport the Luxury Food they "capture".

I am also wanting to change the way Great Generals work. To me its kind of silly having a Great General attach himself to a Baker or Cotton Planter and then follow him around. So, I been thinking of what could be done to better Generals.

One idea I have is to make it so that Generals no longer become attached to units, instead you simply group with a Great General to gain his bonuses. A General can still use his ability to grant experience to all units in hit tile but his bonuses would need to be changed though. Instead of the 100% bonus to xp to all units in his group they could gain a smaller xp bonus, say 20% and maybe also a bonus to attack. Great Generals garrisoned at your towns could also help decrease the amount of turns it takes to train up your units.

Also, I plan to add Monks to the list of professions you can learn from Barbarian villages. If you are playing a Civ they doesn't start with Monasticism you can search for a Barbarian village that teaches Monks. Once your unit becomes a Monk you will automaticly learn the Monasticism tech.

Well, thats some of my progress and ideas so far. Any thoughts on this? I hope to have an update in a few days.
 
AWESOME MOD Kailric!

I will be buying Civ4 Colonization JUST to play this mod ;)

Can't wait to try it out :D

But just wondering, what is the list of civilizations included?
 
AWESOME MOD Kailric!

I will be buying Civ4 Colonization JUST to play this mod ;)

Can't wait to try it out :D

But just wondering, what is the list of civilizations included?

Cool, let us know what you think of the mod so far after you play.

The list of Civs are:

Playable
Anglo-Saxon
Arabs
Byzantine
Franks
Mongols
Normans
Ostrogoths
Scandinavia
Visigoths
Turks

Barbarian Tribes
Berber
Burgundy
Huns
Lombards
Magyars
Malinese
Slavs
Vandals

I have plans to add other nations between the years 500 and about 1300.
And if anyone wants to mod in a new Civ I'll be happy to add it to the Mod.
 
Don't forget that Rus' is a Kievan rus at that period, so the main appearing city should be Kiev. Moscow is a little village most of that time :).

Ok, I will rememeber that. I am posting a quick fix patch. Update 1.2a is up. It just fixes the Sunni Missionary and makes Marauders where they can not destroy cities (hopefully). There is only one file changed.
 
I'm pretty sure I'm on the same page with you on most of this stuff, and that is exactly why I think you need a base research value (I was trying to avoid "free"). What I mean is not just to give free research with the existing tech values, but to rebalance the whole thing. You start with the base tech rate at X, and designate for each tech a maximum amount of turns they should take to research (which remain open to balancing) as Y, so that the value of each tech will be X*Y. Then determine how much of an impact you want researchers to have and set X accordingly. Say for example you want a common citizen researcher to increase research by 15%, granting 3 research would mean the base research should be 20 units, so a tech that takes at most 30 turns to research (without extra research) would cost 600 units. Then, of course, you'd want to rebalance the trade value and bonus from selling goods at market.

As it is now, a basic researcher essentially increases research by 300% (since the base seems to be 1/turn). Now the 15% I mentioned (as an example) is probably a bit on the low side, but its just another value to balance and experiment with. Intuition-ally, I think 25% might be as low as you'd want.

I do think the earlier techs should be dropped down a bit in regard to max research time from 30 to something like 20 or even 15(for something like monasticism). It should definitely ramp up as you get towards the back end of the tree, though. Especially if you consider that the player should have at least a few researchers by then.

Monks also seem extra valuable, being that they can't be recruited. Having a native village able to train them will be nice (assuming the player can find one), but then the research bonus seems kind of high. Even the bonus they get for wine is a bit much. They're very good at a lot of things compared to other units. I'd make them all 50% bonuses.

And while I'm thinking about %, the popup on monasteries, still says 50%, but the actual 25% is working.

On the castles, I love it. I noticed the castle and bailey tile improvements, and was wondering if they were going to be like a later game fort, but having that bonus as part of the actual settlement will be cool.

The thing with marauders is that they seems to always come from the same settlement. It also seems like maybe they always spawn in the same spot, too, but for a few turns after they spawn they seem to be invisible. I'll send a unit out to fend them off when I get the message, then two or three turns later they pop up a few tiles away threatening, or even taking, a civilian unit. The AI is very opportunistic. They seem more like bandits than marauding barbarians. In vanilla, raiding Indians were because you were at war, these marauders seem more like a random disgruntled group of natives. I was mostly just curious as to their cause, and their role in the grand scheme of things.

A hidden nationality outlaw type unit might be pretty cool. Maybe they should be raiders, and you could use them to capture natives, or really anyone, as slaves. Then you don't have to worry too much about balancing them against city defenders, and you have a source of slaves.

I did remember something about a mod having professions be learnable. I thought it was AoD, or maybe the AoFD, but I thought it worked pretty good. If it's just a balancing issue, then that's actually good to hear. What if only converted barbarians could acquire advanced professions automatically? I am assuming, of course, that only field work can be acquired this way. It would basically build upon their original bonus, just after so many turn of doing something, they have a chance to specialize.

I actually didn't know you could train slaves with the natives, and this does seem a bit odd. I don't think that should be an option. I also think the penalty slaves have for field works is a bit high, but the concept is pretty good. I don't think outlaws should be allowed to train with the natives, either, but I do like the idea of them becoming wily traders (or raiders, from above). As you say, peasants not being trainable from natives kind of does make sense, though they should be able to be educated. They also probably should be excluded from immigration. I'm not so sure about the 1 food for all of them, but I do like the general idea you've got there. Looking at your implementation of slaves in the privateer mod, it looks awesome, and could be perfect for this mod.

I'm a little skeptical of the animals and hunting, due to the increased value of units in this game, compared to regular civ4, but I'll hold my concerns until you implement it.

Why don't you have generals work like in civ5, where they simply give a bonus to units in surrounding tiles. I don't think the experience bonus is really necessary, but if they granted something like "+1 xp from combat," instead of a % that might work well. That way, even units that significantly overpower their enemy can learn a little(more) from every encounter. You could even make them capable of building slightly upgraded military settlements (given the right resources).

I wonder, though, how well does the AI manage with all these different settlement types and production chains and what not? I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to them, yet. They did kind of screw my up with taking most of the Founding Dignitaries on my last game, but that seemed to be because 3 of them spawned quite close to each other, and I expect they all did a lot of fielty production trying to maintain control of their areas.

Ok, last thing. Crazy wall of text almost over. I was tinkering with some civilization ideas and here is a list I came up with:
Spoiler :

Anglo-Saxon (DIS) = Alfred the Great (CHA), Harold Goodwinson (LIB)
- Picts = Bridei III (ABS, AGR)
- Jutes = Hrothgar (AGR, MEN)

Arabs (SPI) = Saladin (PRT), Omar (AGR)
- Malinese = Mansa Musa (ABS, MEN)
- Berbers = Ziri ibn Manad (IMP, IND)

Byzantine (CRE) = Justinian (IMP)
- Bulgarians = Krum (PRO, AGR)
- Serbs = Vlastimir I (ABS, IMP)

Franks (IMP) = Charlemagne (PRO), Clovis (DIS)
- Burgundians = Gundobad (IMP, IND)
- Lombards = Albion (INS, ABS)

Normans (MIL) = William the Conquerer (EXP)
- Frissians = Aldgisl (ABS, GRA)
- Bretons = Nominoe (INS, PRO)

Ostrogoths (RES) = Theodoric the Great (CHA)
- Avars = Bayan (AGR, IND)
- Vandals = Genseric (PRO, IMP)

Swedes (SEA) = Ragnar Lobrok (RES)
- Finns = Väinämöinen (INS, GRA)
- Kurs = Grobin Karalis (IMP, AGR)

Turks (PHI) = Alp Arslan (CHA)
- Armanians = Ashot II (ABS, MEN)
- Georgians = David IV (GRA, INS)

Visigoths (MIL) = Reccared I(SPI)
- Moors = Tariq ibn Ziyad (AGR, ABS)
- Basque = Lupo II (PRO, INS)

Poles (LIB) = Casimir the Great (EXP)
- Magyar = Arpad (IND, GRA)
- Slavs = Samo (AGR, ABS)

Rus (DIS) = Sviatoslav I (MIL)
- Khazars = Ziebel (IND, PRO)
- Volga Bulgars = Kotrag (IMP, ABS)


I thought the barbarian civ list was a little lacking in contrast to the playable ones, so I went through and chose 2 "neighboring" civs that should in some way coincide with each playable civ. I kept most of the original stuff the same, but I did remove the Mongols as a playable civ (While I would certainly say they had quite an impact on eastern Europe, they didn't really stick around much, and they didn't really show up until the end of the time period you've mentioned for this mod.), and the Huns as barbarians (Their time was mostly over by the time frame of this mod.) For playable civs I added Poles and Rus. I think you mentioned that you were thinking of adding a German civ, but really, half of the civs are already essentially Germanic tribes. I know there always seems be some kind of outcry for the inclusion of Poland in many mods, but this period actually is the time when Poland was a major player. As mentioned, Rus is originating in Kiev. The Muscovite empire didn't get going until after the mongols thrashed the region.

Also, I did a fair amount of research on picking the leaders, but some (like Finns, and Kurs) are mostly made up, as they didn't have written history until quite late. Vainamoinen is a mythic figure, and Grobin Karalis is kind of a bastardized term for King of Grobin (where the Kurs had a stronghold). Most others are historic figures.

I know it comes out to a lot of civs. I just have a thing about consistency. I did put some thought into the traits as well, but towards the end it got a little tough to keep them fairly heterogeneous, so you may want to change some depending on what you use to keep the mix of traits well distributed.

[/end wall of text]

PS: I'd be happy to help out with the pedia, if you have any priorities there?
 
I know I have not even downloaded this mod YET, nor have I even bought colonization YET, but BELIEVE me, DO NOT put Saladin as a leader for the Arabs!! Saladin can be the leader for the Ayyubids. In fact I would suggest you remove the term "Arab Empire", and instead replace it with Ummayad and Abbasid. And then you can have the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Egyptian Caliphates. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not place Saladin as a leader, as he was largely hated by other Muslim leaders, and his Empire was almost always on the verge of collapse, (in fact he split up his Empire into two administrative parts after his death).

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to put it out there :D

PS. Tsar Simeon would be a better choice for a Bulgarian leader than Khan Krum.
 
I'm pretty sure I'm on the same page with you on most of this stuff, and that is exactly why I think you need a base research value (I was trying to avoid "free"). What I mean is.... ~I do think the earlier techs should be dropped down a bit in regard to max research time from 30 to something like 20 or even 15(for something like monasticism). It should definitely ramp up as you get towards the back end of the tree, though. Especially if you consider that the player should have at least a few researchers by then.

Well, all the varables you mentioned are moddable in the XML as shown below. This gives you your "X"...

The Base rate or "free rate" is found in the CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml here
Code:
<FreeYield>
      <YieldType>YIELD_IDEAS</YieldType>
      <iYield>1</iYield>
</FreeYield>

Then the "Base cost" for each tech is difined in CIV4CivicInfos.xml as shown below.
Code:
 <iCostToResearch>30</iCostToResearch>
This figure is modified by the below percent varable in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml...
Code:
<Define>
    <DefineName>TK_HUMAN_RESEARCH_COST_MOD_PERCENT</DefineName>
    <iDefineIntVal>500</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

So the final cost for this tech would be 30 * 500 / 100 or 150.

And lastly the Trade bonus to research is defined in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml as well at...
Code:
<Define>
    <DefineName>TRADE_STIMULATES_RESEARCH_PERCENT</DefineName>
    <iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
    <DefineName>TRADE_STIMULATES_RESEARCH_MIN_VALUE</DefineName>
    <iDefineIntVal>100</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

The formula is for every 100 in gold you sale to Europe (not buy) or trade(buy or sale) with a Rival nation you gain a bonus of 1% to Research. Right now Barbarian trade is not included but I will change that next patch.

So, if you or anyone wanted to test things just adjust these values to something you would like to try out, play test, and then see how balanced it feels.

The tech tree is going to evolve over time as we add new techs and adjust things. But if we can find a good balance now then in the future if we say add some more techs we will know better what variables need to be adjusted to keep the balance.

Honestly, I wouldn't consider the "free rate" of 1 per turn the "base rate" as its not significant enough to make any kind of real difference by itself. It would take you the whole game at the base rate just to research 3 techs. I would consider the base rate to be the rate of one Peasant plus 1 which, at the moment, would be 4.


Monks also seem extra valuable, being that they can't be recruited. Having a native village able to train them will be nice (assuming the player can find one), but then the research bonus seems kind of high. Even the bonus they get for wine is a bit much. They're very good at a lot of things compared to other units. I'd make them all 50% bonuses.
I adjusted the Monks/Missionary stats in that last patch to 100% to research, and 50% to wine and crosses. If Benedicts monks can be trained at Natives villages this may need to be adjusted.

And while I'm thinking about %, the popup on monasteries, still says 50%, but the actual 25% is working.
Ok, will fix

On the castles, I love it. I noticed the castle and bailey tile improvements, and was wondering if they were going to be like a later game fort, but having that bonus as part of the actual settlement will be cool.

The castle and bailey tile improvements are only there because of a work around in the code and are not meant to be actual improvements.
What I am working on now for this is allowing the player maybe at "Monarchy" tech to be able to establish "Outposts" by your military units. Outpost will be the base for Baileys and Castles with certain military buildings only allowed to be built here. I am also adding in a Barracks building next patch that will speed up training times for units at these military settlements.
I would like at some point to also add an Archery range building, this would effect the Archer profession in that maybe only with an Archery range can a unit be an Archer. This makes sense because skill with the bow and arrow was not innate and had to be trained as compared to any peasant could pick up a club or axe and bash someone with it. And especially for the Longbow as it took someone with extensive training and strength to be able to weld it.

The thing with marauders is that they seems to always come from the same settlement. It also seems like maybe they always spawn in the same spot, too, but for a few turns after they spawn they seem to be invisible. I'll send a unit out to fend them off when I get the message, then two or three turns later they pop up a few tiles away threatening, or even taking, a civilian unit. The AI is very opportunistic. They seem more like bandits than marauding barbarians. In vanilla, raiding Indians were because you were at war, these marauders seem more like a random disgruntled group of natives. I was mostly just curious as to their cause, and their role in the grand scheme of things.
Well, I'll check the code again. Its suppose to be totally random as far as what city and when. Marauders are basically land pirates, gangs of poor peasants or thieves that band together so yeah, they are like a "disgruntled group of natives" :) and that is exactly their intent. Marauders and bandits where a constant real threat to a peasants life and that is their purpose in the game. When you get a warning that "Marauders have been spotted in the hills" you still don't know when or where exactly they will choose to appear unless you have a Tower built nearby. With a Tower nearby you would get a message like "Marauders have been spot 4 days out from Paris", meaning that in 4 turns the marauders will appear. I will add the Towers ability to detect marauders to Outpost/Baileys/Castles in the next update.

However, by adding in a "true Civ4 Barbarian Civ" that every other Civ (including the Natives) is at war with there will probably need to be adjustments made. I plan on adding in Barbarian villages just as they are in Civ5 where as Pillaging Barbarian camps can appear anywhere that is under the fog of war. These villages can be sacked for booty as well. Also, we will need to rename the "Barbarian Natives" to like a Minor Civ or something so there isn't confusion.

As you say, peasants not being trainable from natives kind of does make sense, though they should be able to be educated. They also probably should be excluded from immigration. I'm not so sure about the 1 food for all of them, but I do like the general idea you've got there. Looking at your implementation of slaves in the privateer mod, it looks awesome, and could be perfect for this mod.
I take it you ment "serfs" here not "peasants". Ok, I will remove then from immigration, I like that idea. Yeah, I liked the way slavery is implemented in the Privateer mod. If you capture say a Master Blacksmith he will be a slave unit and work as such. But you can purchase his freedom and he will then become a Master Blacksmith loyal to you. Naturally if you capture your enemy in battle he will not be a happy citizen so this gives the slavery issue a real live game mechanic where the player can choose to work them as slaves or set them free.

I'm a little skeptical of the animals and hunting, due to the increased value of units in this game, compared to regular civ4, but I'll hold my concerns until you implement it.

I will have it setup so you can turn off Animals/Barbarians/Marauders and the like.

Why don't you have generals work like in civ5, where they simply give a bonus to units in surrounding tiles. I don't think the experience bonus is really necessary, but if they granted something like "+1 xp from combat," instead of a % that might work well. That way, even units that significantly overpower their enemy can learn a little(more) from every encounter. You could even make them capable of building slightly upgraded military settlements (given the right resources).

Yeah, a combat bonus makes more sense here and will do that for sure.

I wonder, though, how well does the AI manage with all these different settlement types and production chains and what not? I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to them, yet. They did kind of screw my up with taking most of the Founding Dignitaries on my last game, but that seemed to be because 3 of them spawned quite close to each other, and I expect they all did a lot of fielty production trying to maintain control of their areas.

The AI will build Monasterys and Baileys/Castles as a ratio to Villages somewhat like a Player would. I haven't adjusted any specific FF rates as far as I know so things like Fealty production should not be unlike the player's and then maybe modified by difficulty.


Ok, last thing. Crazy wall of text almost over. I was tinkering with some civilization ideas and here is a list I came up with:

Thanks a lot for the time and research on this cause I do want a good Authentic variety of Civs for this time period. I'll look these all over some more. Speaking of the Poles their conquest of course could be to fend off the Mongol Invasion as to this day the Poles have a holiday where they celebrate stoping the Mongol invasion, which from what I read was not neccesarily their doing but rather a Mongol technicality where a General died and they had to return home to elect a new one. But none the less, the Poles where there to fight and ready to die for their country so they get the credit in my book :)

The main thing about all these Civs is finding a Leaderhead for them. Adding them in is the easy part. So, if you or anyone wanted to find Leaderheads for these Civs that would speed things along.

PS: I'd be happy to help out with the pedia, if you have any priorities there?

Ok, cool. I think on this and get back to you. I'lll stop replying there for now. I may have more to say on things later.

[/end wall of text]

I see your wall of text and raise you mine :goodjob:
 
I know I have not even downloaded this mod YET, nor have I even bought colonization YET, but BELIEVE me, DO NOT put Saladin as a leader for the Arabs!! Saladin can be the leader for the Ayyubids. In fact I would suggest you remove the term "Arab Empire", and instead replace it with Ummayad and Abbasid. And then you can have the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Egyptian Caliphates. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not place Saladin as a leader, as he was largely hated by other Muslim leaders, and his Empire was almost always on the verge of collapse, (in fact he split up his Empire into two administrative parts after his death).

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to put it out there :D

PS. Tsar Simeon would be a better choice for a Bulgarian leader than Khan Krum.

Just have time for a quick reply. I agree with you on the naming of the "Arab" leaders. Right now the game is more focused on Medieval Europe and the main reason is is that I am more familiar with that. With your help though I hope to bring the Islamic Civs which played a major significant part during this time period up to the same level of diversity and authenticity. Saladin is the leader of the "Arabs" at the moment because I just ported him over from the basic Civ4 game. I still want Saladin in the game in some form or another because I kinda like the guy. In reading about the crusades and such you hear his name mentioned a lot of times. But we will change things up so that all the Caliphates you mentioned are represented here.

I have one question right now. The English speaking people call the time between 500 and 1500 the "Middle Ages" or Medieval times... what do the Arabic speaking people call this time period and what is its English translation?
 
Just have time for a quick reply. I agree with you on the naming of the "Arab" leaders. Right now the game is more focused on Medieval Europe and the main reason is is that I am more familiar with that. With your help though I hope to bring the Islamic Civs which played a major significant part during this time period up to the same level of diversity and authenticity. Saladin is the leader of the "Arabs" at the moment because I just ported him over from the basic Civ4 game. I still want Saladin in the game in some form or another because I kinda like the guy. In reading about the crusades and such you hear his name mentioned a lot of times. But we will change things up so that all the Caliphates you mentioned are represented here.

I have one question right now. The English speaking people call the time between 500 and 1500 the "Middle Ages" or Medieval times... what do the Arabic speaking people call this time period and what is its English translation?

Well I mean, don't remove Saladin, just make him the leader of the Ayyubid Sultanate, just like Embryodead did for Sword of Islam.
As for the Middle Eastern version of the Middle Ages, that's a tough question, and frankly I don't think there is a name. Heck, Embryodead just called the first era "Islamic Golden Age", which makes sense, and I guess the period from 600-1000 or so would be considered that. After that came the Turkish Invasion Era, than the Mongol Invasions. But that's my best answer for you, as I've never seen such an equivalent before.

I know I don't have the game yet, but currently is the entire Middle East from beginning to end dominated by an "Arab Empire"?
 
Well I mean, don't remove Saladin, just make him the leader of the Ayyubid Sultanate, just like Embryodead did for Sword of Islam.
As for the Middle Eastern version of the Middle Ages, that's a tough question, and frankly I don't think there is a name. Heck, Embryodead just called the first era "Islamic Golden Age", which makes sense, and I guess the period from 600-1000 or so would be considered that. After that came the Turkish Invasion Era, than the Mongol Invasions. But that's my best answer for you, as I've never seen such an equivalent before.

I know I don't have the game yet, but currently is the entire Middle East from beginning to end dominated by an "Arab Empire"?

At the moment there are no "Scenarios" and every map is just a random map with random leaders. I want to convert some of the Earth maps that have been made for Colonization for this mod and it would take some work to do so as you have to change most of the resources and add in the New Civ starting locations. I have never worked on making maps so I am not sure what all it takes. I do know I tried to load up an Earth map someone made for Col into this mod and I got all kinds of errors. What I want is to have maps for different starting dates that had most of the more notable and influential Leaders in history. So, thats another thing that if someone wanted to work on they could.

Yeah, I was thinking there may not be an equivalent Medieval term from the Middle East point of view. I want to have a somewhat customized Dawn of Man screen for each Civ. Right now it just says something about being the year 476 and the last Roman Emperor has fallen ushering in the Dark Ages.. but from my studies the Middle eastern Civs didn't have a "Dark Age", not at least at the same time the Western Civs did. While the western Europe world was in dark times the Middle Eastern world was coming into a great age, a Golden age as you say. So I want to change the Dawn of Man screen to fit them.

I also would like to have a customized Tech Tree that is have techs only certain Civs can research or, have it so that once you learn one tech you can't learn another. That way Players can customize their culture to their liking. They can either follow history or choose another path. Or have it setup like Civ4 where techs unlocks Civics and you use Civics to customize your Civilization.

My ultimate goal really is to make a historically educational game that simulates the time period.
 
The Islamic Golden Age is generally attributed to the rise of the Abbasids in 750, declining into the 10th century as Fatimid power rose and conflict grew. I wouldn't use more than a couple "Arab" civs, these two being the ones.

I think I figured out where I'm having issues with the AI. I noticed something weird when I went to start a new game yesterday so I did a bunch of testing. I like to use the faireweather script, but at least 85% of the time 2 or even 3 civs get spawned on the same tile in the south of the map. I (the player) always seem to spawn in the middle of a landmass, too, but that's barely an issue compared to the AI civs spawning on top of each other. Of course this isn't really a problem for the civs that spawn at sea. I did a lot of searching through the python to see if I could figure out how the starting locations were being determined, but couldn't find anything.

If someone could help me out with this, or point me in the right direction, I'd be very appreciative. I really like using faireweather, especially with this mod.

@ Kailric's response: :thumbsup: nothing to add at this time.
 
The Islamic Golden Age is generally attributed to the rise of the Abbasids in 750, declining into the 10th century as Fatimid power rose and conflict grew. I wouldn't use more than a couple "Arab" civs, these two being the ones.

I think I figured out where I'm having issues with the AI. I noticed something weird when I went to start a new game yesterday so I did a bunch of testing. I like to use the faireweather script, but at least 85% of the time 2 or even 3 civs get spawned on the same tile in the south of the map. I (the player) always seem to spawn in the middle of a landmass, too, but that's barely an issue compared to the AI civs spawning on top of each other. Of course this isn't really a problem for the civs that spawn at sea. I did a lot of searching through the python to see if I could figure out how the starting locations were being determined, but couldn't find anything.

If someone could help me out with this, or point me in the right direction, I'd be very appreciative. I really like using faireweather, especially with this mod.

@ Kailric's response: :thumbsup: nothing to add at this time.

Faireweather is maps with all good terrain right or something like that? K, I know what is causing this, its the same problem thats been mentioned before and that is the Natives take up so much of the good starting spots that it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the other Civs. So, on some maps they all get stuck on the same tile. Anyway, I thought of some things to do to prevent this and will implement them in the next update.

The code that assigns starting plots is in the SDK and I didn't save a copy of the SDK for 1.2. I have made too many changes already to try and fix this one thing so, yeah, it will have to wait till next update.

Edit: Speaking of the next update, I am currently working to adjusting the code to make it easier to mod for the different city types. When thats done and "seemingly" bug free I'll start back working on the adjustments we talked about already.
 
Faireweather is maps with all good terrain right or something like that?

Hi Kailric!

You can try to use Earth33.py mapscript in your mod. Here you could generate a map quite similar to map of our planet, especially if you have Huge size maps.
 

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I think I figured out where I'm having issues with the AI. I noticed something weird when I went to start a new game yesterday so I did a bunch of testing. I like to use the faireweather script, but at least 85% of the time 2 or even 3 civs get spawned on the same tile in the south of the map. I (the player) always seem to spawn in the middle of a landmass, too, but that's barely an issue compared to the AI civs spawning on top of each other. Of course this isn't really a problem for the civs that spawn at sea. I did a lot of searching through the python to see if I could figure out how the starting locations were being determined, but couldn't find anything.

Hey, Thonnas can you post a link or upload the faireweather script you use. I am testing things now and if I had that script I will test it.


@KJ

Thanks, KJ, I'll check it out.
 
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10812

It really doesn't seem like the natives take up particularly good spots in general. It seems like what happens is that one civ is planted in the north, the player in the middle, and then who ever is left get planted in the south. So if only 2 other land start civs are used, there's no issue, but if there's 4, then 3 will start on top of each other in the south. I also noticed that all of the AI civs seem to get a boat that starts somewhere in the "Europe" tiles. I'm thinking the scrip needs to be tweaked for land based starts, but it's beyond my understanding.

I like the script because it feels more natural. It also makes larger maps. If you can get it to work right, I will be a very happy man. I find the newworld scrip generally unpleasant after using faireweather.
 
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10812

It really doesn't seem like the natives take up particularly good spots in general. It seems like what happens is that one civ is planted in the north, the player in the middle, and then who ever is left get planted in the south. So if only 2 other land start civs are used, there's no issue, but if there's 4, then 3 will start on top of each other in the south. I also noticed that all of the AI civs seem to get a boat that starts somewhere in the "Europe" tiles. I'm thinking the scrip needs to be tweaked for land based starts, but it's beyond my understanding.

I like the script because it feels more natural. It also makes larger maps. If you can get it to work right, I will be a very happy man. I find the newworld scrip generally unpleasant after using faireweather.

Ok, I got it. What settings do you use when you have been playing?
 
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