NiGHTS: General Discussion

Great Great MOD!

So sad it will be broken after the next patch. Do you think it will be difficult to adapt?

Dear all,

please help!

I m dissapointed from what i have seen so far from AI:

AI does not build planes and battleships,also,its strategies are too predictable and very easy to win.
Also,i have seen that sea units ALWAYS attacking my ground units and do not try to destroy my navy.

These problems,are fixed with this mod?anybody knows?

-Player of Civ since 1992
-Very dissapointed from CIV V

Toor said:

Hello!

First post ever here, even though i've been reading it for a long time and playing civ for 15+ years

I felt i had to register just to give my appreciation to this mod! Some extremely good ideas and groundbreaking new functionalities. The tech pyramid is pure genius!

A few questions/thoughts/possible bugs: (I've only played the mod for a couple of hours, started a few different civs and settings)

Are all civs supposed to start with agriculture like in vanilla? I'm guessing not, since i haven't recieved it at start with any civ i tried. But i notice that no civs have it as their starting civ. Also, if i open tech tree, i can't choose agriculture there, nor do i get any info if i hover over the icons. (All other techs work fine in tech tree view)

I do have the DLC civs installed (spain, babylon etc) and i notice that you haven't assigned new starting stats for them. Could this be a potential cause for bugs? Also, do you plan to include them in the future?

I don't get any notifications (from city-states, new policies etc). According to your info, there should be smaller icons showing? I get the sound playing, but no message or icon. The end turn-button does change, both for new policies and when a city-state requires help etc.

I understand your change to call happiness stabily/unrest, since it's a new way to implement it. Overall i think it will work out great, hard to see if it's balanced yet (i played my games on immortal, and it seemed ok at start). You still have the wording "happiness" in a couple of menus etc, just need to change it all through. Also, a suggestion, for the stabily overview menu when you hover at the topbar. There you list all the things giving a plus, and then all the negative ones. The plus from population comes as a modifier to the negative side, it's a minor issue of course, but why not just list it up with the bonuses? So you first add up all the buildings, population etc, and get a total. Then subtract military etc and get a final score. Would be more logical, at least from my perspective.

Anyway, back to playing! Thanks again for giving us players an incentive to dive back into the world of civ

Will give more feedback later on.

edit: Thought i saw something else, but i was mistaken. Back to the game again

Click to expand...

Glad you like the mod so far Toor. I'm pretty excited about the Tech Pyramid as well and it's one of the features I'm most looking to get feedback on as it's one of the most radical departures and will probably need the most tweaking.

As far as starting Techs go, each Civ starts with a different starting Tech - not every Civ starts out with Agriculture in this mod. The issue you're having with not being able to click Agriculture on the Pyramid is due to me moving Tech icons around. You can click Agriculture but only if you hover around the bottom of the Tech button. Selecting it also works normally when you're not on the main Tech screen. This is something that I will fix over time as the whole Tech Pyramid itself is in need of a nice UI face-lift.

As far as Stabiliy and Unrest - I've replaced most of the instances in which the terms Happiness and Unhappiness crop up during a normal game-play but any that you do find, feel free to post so I can change them to avoid problems with immersion.

You having DLC shouldn't be causing any problems other than I haven't yet upgraded their starting traits and starting Tech so they will be starting with Vanilla Traits and Agriculture. I may have to splurge on new Civs if it turns out most people have purchased these added Civs. That would be an easy fix that's harder on my wallet more than anything else.

In regards to the Stability overview tool-tip, it is doable to switch the added Stability through LUA but would take some time on my end to complete. As long as the feature works I will probably leave it as is and then go about switching it's placement when the mod is closer to completion.

For Notifications - it appears I used poor wording here. My fault. I have indeed disabled most of them to avoid the constant screen clutter that occurs throughout a game. I felt that if you still hear the sound and see the notification on the END TURN button when it occurs, that would hopefully be enough. Again, I can change this back if people prefer to have Notification icons drop down as in Vanilla.

Overall, thanks for the early input Balance always remains an issue in complete mods like this and any suggestions anyone has on improvements is most welcomed.

Fabiano1979 said:

Great Great MOD!

So sad it will be broken after the next patch. Do you think it will be difficult to adapt?

Click to expand...

I'm unsure how difficult it will be to fix. The main problem will be in finding all of the changes to Buildings/Units and deactivating them or combining them somehow with features that I already have in place. Also, any changes to the Tech Tree will cause crashes as this is one of the most labor-intensive changes that NiGHTS makes. This is more of a balance issue, though, and less of a technical one. I would say that the best case scenario would be maybe a 2-3 day fix if the patch comes close to a weekend while probably closer to a week at minimum if it's released at the beginning of a week.

Also, there's a chance the patch will break LUA files if they touch those at all so here's hoping they don't as those always require going over with a fine tooth-comb...

makrisgialos said:

Dear all,

please help!

I m dissapointed from what i have seen so far from AI:

AI does not build planes and battleships,also,its strategies are too predictable and very easy to win.
Also,i have seen that sea units ALWAYS attacking my ground units and do not try to destroy my navy.

These problems,are fixed with this mod?anybody knows?

-Player of Civ since 1992
-Very dissapointed from CIV V

Click to expand...

I've made numerous AI tweaks that I'll document in the next couple of days. It's too early to tell if the issues you have in the Vanilla game will play out differently in NiGHTS without some serious play-testing. What I can say is that if you're unhappy with CIV 5 at all from a builder perspective, NiGHTS will scratch that itch.

I've made numerous AI tweaks that I'll document in the next couple of days. It's too early to tell if the issues you have in the Vanilla game will play out differently in NiGHTS without some serious play-testing. What I can say is that if you're unhappy with CIV 5 at all from a builder perspective, NiGHTS will scratch that itch.


Thanks my friend for your reply,

I can volunteer in testing your mod.
However,i have done some changes my self:

i have increased value defense plus offense for aircrafts.
Ironclad -> upgrades to battleship.
my experiment to upgrade units into aircrafts didnt succeed,cause they are immobile.

How did you make changes to AI (or how can you make it) to be more aggressive?

I'll recommend 2 of my own mods as solutions to some of your problems. My wwgd ai mod resolves some ai idiocy in regards to demeanor and combat. My custom notifications system also will allow the player to turn off drop down notifications by type from a menu. If you use the system, it is pretty simPle to create your own

Sneaks said:

I'll recommend 2 of my own mods as solutions to some of your problems. My wwgd ai mod resolves some ai idiocy in regards to demeanor and combat. My custom notifications system also will allow the player to turn off drop down notifications by type from a menu. If you use the system, it is pretty simPle to create your own

Click to expand...

Thanks Sneaks. I will definitely have a look at your custom notifications system as I was planning on doing something similar myself over time and hadn't realized someone else already had.

I've also heard nothing but good things about your wwgd mod and could see some sort of implementation/collaboration going on there in future updates of NiGHTS.

Most of your changes sound very interesting, but I dislike what you did to the roads. I really, really, really liked what Civ V vanilla does with roads, and am not interested in playing a mod which returns us to the old days of building roads everywhere for their bonuses.

Ideally, things like that would be made an option in the start menu, something that could be turned on and off for an individual game.

makrisgialos said:

I've made numerous AI tweaks that I'll document in the next couple of days. It's too early to tell if the issues you have in the Vanilla game will play out differently in NiGHTS without some serious play-testing. What I can say is that if you're unhappy with CIV 5 at all from a builder perspective, NiGHTS will scratch that itch.


Thanks my friend for your reply,

I can volunteer in testing your mod.
However,i have done some changes my self:

i have increased value defense plus offense for aircrafts.
Ironclad -> upgrades to battleship.
my experiment to upgrade units into aircrafts didnt succeed,cause they are immobile.

How did you make changes to AI (or how can you make it) to be more aggressive?

Click to expand...

The AI in CIV 5 is a multi-headed beast. There's literally hundreds of flavors/priorities/tactics to try and balance. Many of my tweaks have come on the AI priorities and tactics XML files. I wouldn't say it makes them more aggressive, but it seems to make them a little bit smarter. They don't generally run headlong into a losing cause as much it seems from my early playtests.

If you go through the AI Tactics XML file you'll see that they are programmed to act in a specific order regarding different situations. By tweaking this order you could probably make them more aggressive - but people may interpret their aggressiveness for sheer AI stupidity. That being said, it's not like you could make things much worse.

You could also tweak the AI tendencies to go to war, what mood they are in when they approach you, how negatively they react to any of your diplomatic actions. Your best bet on turning up their aggressiveness would be to delve into the AI XML folder and start messing around

The AI coding in CIV 5 really is quite complex. IMHO, it appears to be too complex. There are too many variables active at any given moment and the order they play out in is often muddled and illogical.

PhoenixMuse said:

Most of your changes sound very interesting, but I dislike what you did to the roads. I really, really, really liked what Civ V vanilla does with roads, and am not interested in playing a mod which returns us to the old days of building roads everywhere for their bonuses.

Ideally, things like that would be made an option in the start menu, something that could be turned on and off for an individual game.

Click to expand...

I think you read into my changes the wrong way. While I did get rid of maintenance costs for roads, I didn't end up giving them any benefits either. On the other hand I think I've made them less spam-worthy as now building roads over existing Improvements weakens said Improvements. When you're closer to the end game you will most likely have Improvements on all of your land so really, this new system may in fact have a steeper difficulty curve than Vanilla road maintenance.

Here's the breakdown.

-Building a Road on a Farm = -1 Food.
-Building a Road on a Quarry = -1 Production.
-Building a Road on a Mine = -1 Production.
-Building a Road on a Camp = -1 Gold.
-Building a Road on a Pasture = -1 Food.
-Building a Road on a Plantation = -1 Gold.

That being said, building roads through any of the new 40+ Specialist Improvements has no negative effect on them.

If you don't like the above changes and others don't either, I may make it an option to have either Maintenance-based roads, or the current system I just described. Too early to tell either way.

Activated within the current LeoPaRd concept phase, have a look by clicking below and start thinking about what your own 80x80 Mod_Icon should look like!

ok,very usefull your advices!

<Row>
<Type>MILITARYAISTRATEGY_ENOUGH_NAVAL_UNITS</Type>
<CheckTriggerTurnCount>2</CheckTriggerTurnCount>
<MinimumNumTurnsExecuted>2</MinimumNumTurnsExecuted>
<FirstTurnExecuted>50</FirstTurnExecuted>
<NoMinorCivs>true</NoMinorCivs>
</Row>
<Row>
<Type>MILITARYAISTRATEGY_NEED_NAVAL_UNITS</Type>
<CheckTriggerTurnCount>2</CheckTriggerTurnCount>
<MinimumNumTurnsExecuted>2</MinimumNumTurnsExecuted>
<FirstTurnExecuted>50</FirstTurnExecuted>
<NoMinorCivs>true</NoMinorCivs>
</Row>
<Row>
<Type>MILITARYAISTRATEGY_NEED_NAVAL_UNITS_CRITICAL</Type>
<CheckTriggerTurnCount>2</CheckTriggerTurnCount>
<MinimumNumTurnsExecuted>2</MinimumNumTurnsExecuted>
<FirstTurnExecuted>50</FirstTurnExecuted>
<NoMinorCivs>true</NoMinorCivs>
<UpdateCitySpecializations>true</UpdateCitySpecializations>
</Row>

In the XML above,how can "convince" AI builds much more naval units for example,what you should suggest to change?

Does in XML units this,for example affects it?

<Row>
<UnitType>UNIT_BATTLESHIP</UnitType>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_OFFENSE</FlavorType>
<Flavor>29</Flavor>
</Row>
<Row>
<UnitType>UNIT_BATTLESHIP</UnitType>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_DEFENSE</FlavorType>
<Flavor>19</Flavor>
</Row>
<Row>
<UnitType>UNIT_BATTLESHIP</UnitType>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_NAVAL</FlavorType>
<Flavor>18</Flavor>
</Row>

(Values are edited for battleship)

None of the military strategies listed above will change the AI debating whether to build navies. It simply tells the AI when to start doing a "do I need a navy" check.

You can certainly pump up certain flavors to cause the AI to want to builld more battleships, but this by no means will get the AI to use its navy correctly. The AI just doesn't seem to handle naval combat well at all, probably due to the larger movement rates.

What is the name of your mod please?
I want to test it and play,if you dont mind

Yes,the AI does not uses its navy correct.
Airforces as well.

It impresses me that the patch refers nothing to correct this,and almost none in 2K seem to identify this problem.

Thats the reason i got out of my clothes:Before even game tested properly,2k asked us extra money for expansion packs before these huge problems were ironed out,and now,only modders and players are our only hope

My AI mod is called WWGD. I will need to check this mods' files to make sure it is compatible fully.

Tried new release and that was a weird game.
* Enemy units attacked me about 4 times through whole game. I guess some of my other mods are interfering with NIGHTS. Cities defended normally.
* Less notification would be cool but without 'City attack' and 'Unit dead' it's easy to lose control... and bunch of civ declaration stuff is still cluttering the side bar.
* Workers are not trying to/less eager to work the dear, cow, wheat, chop down forests when automated
* New specialists are nice idea but I guess there should be some hint at tiles that can be improved by them
* Unrest cost while upgrading units would be helpfull.
* Unrest cost when annexing puppet city also (I know that's also vanilla flaw)
* The unrest units cost is pretty harsh and when you switch to unrest there is instant -50 strenght and that is painfull
* I don't know if there's a way to postpone adopting policies. They are danger right now... with 15 unrest
* I don't know what to think about new tech tree. Lots of options at the beginning and the tips didn't explain much. I think I need to play more to get used to it. I wonder if your 'hourglass tech tree' idea means lots of future stuff, with ecology and similar. If yes, I'm waiting for it.
* Some of the 'luxury building' was showing I guess in incorrect cities. Fur trader in city without furs in worked tiles, the same with cotton house. Just like the requirements were global, but in the hints there is text about 'near sources' or similar.
* I haven't seen any of the special units from previous release, are they gone?
* If the specialists would get unique units and improvement graphic that would rock!


Thanks for your work on this mod.

Fantastic Mod, completely changes the game!
Not even sure it's civ anymore...
By the way, I do have a question: you said to think "Materia meets Civ" for the specialists.
Since it's my favourite thing in your mod, what is Materia? I'd like to play more stuff with a system like that, if it is indeed a game!!

flymar said:

Tried new release and that was a weird game.
* Enemy units attacked me about 4 times through whole game. I guess some of my other mods are interfering with NIGHTS. Cities defended normally.
* Less notification would be cool but without 'City attack' and 'Unit dead' it's easy to lose control... and bunch of civ declaration stuff is still cluttering the side bar.

Click to expand...

AI has been tweaked so the enemy attacks and declares less - perhaps overkill on my part. The tactical AI was also tweaked so the AI now plays a much more defensive military strategy. The notifications will probably receive some tweaking to achieve a proper balance that gives you the info you need while not over cluttering things with DoW's all the time.

flymar said:

* Workers are not trying to/less eager to work the dear, cow, wheat, chop down forests when automated
* New specialists are nice idea but I guess there should be some hint at tiles that can be improved by them

Click to expand...

I haven't touched Worker AI so this is probably just an anomaly in the game that you played. The hint I provided was to include the icon of the resource that they can improve in their description but I may add more text strings with further details if others have difficulty determining their special tile builds. Eventually I will completely update the Civilopedia with all the new rules and requirements.

flymar said:

* Unrest cost while upgrading units would be helpfull.
* Unrest cost when annexing puppet city also (I know that's also vanilla flaw)
* The unrest units cost is pretty harsh and when you switch to unrest there is instant -50 strenght and that is painfull

Click to expand...

Good point about giving hints when upgrading units. I'll provide this in future updates as I can see how it could get tedious to constantly have to check the unit or the Tech Tree and do the math every time. I struggled with the Unrest cost before deciding that it would affect Strength. This is offset by Growth only being limited by 25% so if you have strong city placement and economies running you should be able to populate yourself out of Unrest and back into Stability. I didn't want to be too harsh on Growth and Production Unrest penalties as they can bail you out of Unrest while Strength does not affect Unrest directly.

flymar said:

* I don't know if there's a way to postpone adopting policies. They are danger right now... with 15 unrest

Click to expand...

I removed City Unrest costs, (the 1 Unrest garnered by a new city is offset by the initial population of said City), to prepare for the Stability-cost of Governments and Policies. You can always keep to Despotism (0 Stability), or Monarchy and Feudalism, (5 Stability each), until you get large enough to tackle the more complex Government types. Another step I took to ease the pain of adopting new Governments is that it now only takes 4 complete Branches and not 5 to start building the Utopia Project seeing as each Government now has 6+ individual policies.

flymar said:

* I don't know what to think about new tech tree. Lots of options at the beginning and the tips didn't explain much. I think I need to play more to get used to it. I wonder if your 'hourglass tech tree' idea means lots of future stuff, with ecology and similar. If yes, I'm waiting for it.
* Some of the 'luxury building' was showing I guess in incorrect cities. Fur trader in city without furs in worked tiles, the same with cotton house. Just like the requirements were global, but in the hints there is text about 'near sources' or similar.
* I haven't seen any of the special units from previous release, are they gone?
* If the specialists would get unique units and improvement graphic that would rock!

Click to expand...

I may explain more in the Tech Pyramid tool-tips in future updates describing what new buildings do and how the Tech Pyramid itself works. I fully expect the new Patch to break much of the tool-tips for both new and old buildings - but they will be fixed if they are incorrect in their wording. Special units from previous releases are currently inactive but I might put them back in. I'm still looking at adding some new features that will take precedence however. A portion of Modern Era techs have been currently removed or combined with other techs - but yes, my hourglass plans are for the Tech Pyramid to create an X of sorts with entirely new eras that delve deep into the future. I'm currently working on implementing unique units and improvement graphics for the new Specialists

flymar said:

Thanks for your work on this mod.

Click to expand...

Glad you like it so far For the most part if people start playing this mod with an open mind and not expect more of the same in regards to gameplay, I think they'll probably enjoy themselves.

The Godjester said:

Fantastic Mod, completely changes the game!
Not even sure it's civ anymore...
By the way, I do have a question: you said to think "Materia meets Civ" for the specialists.
Since it's my favourite thing in your mod, what is Materia? I'd like to play more stuff with a system like that, if it is indeed a game!!

Click to expand...

Materia was a system used in Final Fantasy 7 for the original Playstation in which all weapons had slots that could be filled up with magic orbs - materia - and you could level these up to gain special abilities to be used in and out of battle. In the end I basically just wanted to expand the concept of Great People as I think it really can add a lot to the new core gameplay.

is there a way to make it work with Hukkak Revised Extra Civs Pack?
If so what do i need to change to add the starting bonuses you have for the defaults?

dragonmage119 said:

is there a way to make it work with Hukkak Revised Extra Civs Pack?
If so what do i need to change to add the starting bonuses you have for the defaults?

Click to expand...

<Language_en_US>
<Update>
<Where Tag="TXT_KEY_TRAIT_CITY_STATE_FRIENDSHIP"/>
<Set Text="[ICON_BULLET][COLOR_PLAYER_BLUE_TEXT]Charismatic[ENDCOLOR] [ICON_HAPPINESS_1] +25% Stability per Population.[NEWLINE][ICON_BULLET][COLOR_PLAYER_BLUE_TEXT]Aggressive[ENDCOLOR] [ICON_STRENGTH] +75% Strength even when wounded. "/>
</Update>
<Language_en_US>

That's the XML for how I made starting bonuses look the way they do. I haven't played Hakkuk's Revised Civ's Pack so I don't know what bonuses/traits he gives his new Civ's to start. You'd have to start by updating his trait XML to be void and then go about deciding which bonuses you want to give from NiGHTS.

All Civ's in Vanilla always start out with Agriculture so you'll have to replace that with:

<Civilization_FreeTechs>
<Update>
<Where CivilizationType="CIVILIZATION_GREECE"/>
<Set TechType="TECH_TRAPPING"/>
</Update>
</Civilization_FreeTechs>

Here you'd input whichever of the starting Techs from the Ancient Era - Tier 1 - for the new Civ as well as the name of the new Civ itself.

As far as the traits/bonuses themselves, they're all located in the file New_Traits_1.xml in NiGHTS. Here you'll see that I've taken existing traits and merely replaced the bonuses they receive. I've also canceled the existing bonuses that were given. It looks more complicated than it really is. I've labeled which leader gets which trait so you could just copy and paste which of Hakkuk's leaders you want to get which bonuses and techs to start and there should be no issues unless he alters other parts of the game as well.

After the next patch comes out I'll release a list of mods that work well with and conflict with NiGHTS so integration can work smoothly but this may take some time to configure as NiGHTS alters numerous files.

kk ty for the info
btw great mod