Éa, Dawn of the Mortal Races (phase 1, pre-alpha code development and discussion)

Pazyryk said:

I'll incorporate some names and ideas above but I'm changing the system a bit. I don't like the way occupation vanishes instantly when you put out 500g for a building. I think occupation should actually have a role in gameplay. Also, I've already implemented a "city race system" (can be different than your civ race), so I want to make use of that. Here's what I came up with:

Any city that you own (occupied or puppet) that is of a different race than your civ race has +2 unhappiness (hidden building mechanic).

Governor's Compound (requires Militarism policy and occupied city) Reduces unhappiness from occupation by 2.
Gallows (requires Slavery policy and occupied city) Reduces unhappiness from occupation by 2.
Courthouse (requires Philosophy) Increases happiness by 1 and reduces unhappiness from occupation by 1.
Tribal Council (requires Tradition policy and city of another race) Removes the 2 unhappiness from different race.
Forefathers' Statue (requires Tradition policy and city of same race; can build only in puppet or occupied city 100 turns after conquest [standard game speed]) Ends occupation; will auto-annex the city if a puppet builds it.

There are a lot of permutations to run through with this system. Some points:

• You can never end occupation in a city of another race.
• In most cases, conquered cities of other races should be razed to the ground to make room for your own race. This is a Medieval setting after all.
• Even a city of your own race is stuck as puppet or occupied for 100 turns. You can then bring it into your civilization completely with the Forefathers' Statue.
• You can reduce unhappiness of occupation with some combination of buildings (even theoretically to zero). For example, a civilization that has both Militarism and Slavery (not an unlikely combo) can bring occupation unhappiness down to -1 for same-race cities.
• Tradition allows for a more diverse empire with the Tribal Council if you keep cities as puppets (it's just a happiness building so the AI will build it eventually). Occupying cities of other races won't work out for the vast majority of civilizations, though it could be done with an unlikely combo of Tradition, Militarism and Slavery (not impossible).

@Sezneg
They will get some experience for being city resident, though not as much as actively doing stuff. Your leader also gets some extra experience (and this individual can be doing stuff at the same time).

Click to expand...

Some sort of spell/revel for one of the pantheistic cults that basically seduces the occupied city to think a tad better about their new overlords might be interesting...

I do like the idea of having the occupied status be a thorn in your side... force you to choose rebuilding in the area from scratch vs accepting the developed city with penalties.

It may be interesting if there was a civ trait that reduced some of these penalties.

Religious Conversion

I'm adding mechanics for this now. Here's the way it works:

The theistic Devouts (Priests, Paladins and their fallen counterparts) must have the Proselytism 1 promotion to do the Proselytize action (takes 8 turns; no cost). Priests get this promotion for free and Paladins can select it on level gain. There are 6 levels of the Proselytism promotion (see promos here) and each adds +1 individual modifier to religious conversion (see below for exact effect). You can always count on Priests and Paladins to spread Azzandarayasna and their fallen counterparts to spread Aŋra (the base game can be a little ambiguous about who spreads what; not so here).

The pantheistic Devout subclass (Druid) can perform rituals to found or spread a particular cult (see pantheistic cults here; each ritual is an 8 turn action with no cost). The ability to perform a cult's ritual depends on city characteristics. For example, the Ritual of Ægir can be performed only in cities that have at least 70% sea plots in their 3-tile radius. (However, the religion can spread on its own to any city.) Once a Druid performs a cult-specific ritual, she is now a member of that cult and cannot perform founding/spreading rituals for other cults. All Druids can perform rituals (there are other kinds of rituals besides cult founding/spreading), but taking Ritualism promotions (up to 6 levels) add +1 individual modifier each to resulting religious conversion.

In addition to Proselytism and Ritualism promotions, the Prophet promotion (which is gained by any Devout that makes a prophecy) adds +3 modifier to religious conversion.

There is no active spreading for The Weave of Éa. It arises spontaneously in cities of all civilizations that have opened the Pantheism policy branch, no matter how far from other cities, and never spreads to other civilizations. It has no holy city nor founder. It is a bona fide religion from the mod lore perspective (with the pantheistic cults being "sects" within The Weave) and is shown as such in the religion overview panel. However, at a mechanistic level, it is actually a pantheon. Even so, I've added some mechanics to make it behave in many ways like a religion rather than a pantheon. For example, followers are not easily converted to other religions (as is normally the case for pantheon followers).

Keep in mind that passive spreading is unchanged from base Civ5 (except as discussed for The Weave of Éa). It's very possible for Theistic religions to spread into Pantheistic civilizations, or for Pantheistic cults to spread into Theistic civilizations. And the respective Devouts can cross borders to do active spreading too, though diplomatic hits are worse for this than in base Civ5 (see below).

The strength of religious conversion is very different (and easier to understand I hope) than the system used in base Civ5. Remember that a Great Person's "individual modifier" is just 6 + any bonuses from promotions. So a Priest with his free Proselytism 1 promotion has +7 individual modifier. Individual modifier represents the number of non-religious citizens that will be converted. Modifier minus 8 (if greater than zero) represents the number of citizens of another religion that can be converted if there are "left over" points after all non-religious citizens are converted. Our Priest with Proselytism 1 can convert 7 non-religions citizens but can't convert any citizens of another religion. However, once he gains Proselytism 3, he can convert up to 9 non-religious citizens and (assuming there were <9 non-religious citizens) 1 more citizen of another religion. A Priest or Paladin with Proselytism 6 (or a Druid with Ritualism 6) could potentially convert 4 citizens of another religion, and up to 7 if they also have the Prophet promotion.

The Proselytize action button (or cult ritual button) gives good feedback on the exact effect of conducting the action (based on citizen status at that time). The button is disabled (but still gives feedback) if it would have no effect.

Diplomacy works as follows: Spreading A&#331;ra to any civilization with another dominant religion causes a -4 diplo hit per conversion action, and to a non-religious civilization causes a -2 diplo hit (no one likes these guys). Otherwise, performing religious conversion against "worldview" (i.e., Theism religion in a Pantheistic civilization and visa versa) causes a -2 diplo hit per conversion action. There are no diplomatic penalties for spreading Pantheistic cults in a Pantheistic civilization, even if they differ from the civilization's dominant cult. All accumulated diplomatic penalties from conversion disappear entirely (and instantly) if you succeed in converting a civilization's "dominant religion" to your own. There is also a base "dislike" between civilizations of different religions (and even non-religious against A&#331;ra) that is exactly equivalent to one conversion action as described above. This base dislike will grow a bit as the game progresses.

Edit:
Just some more notes on "civilization religion" (since this is purely a mod concept not present in the base game). This appears prominently in the diplo list and has effects on relationships and other game mechanics. The game checks every turn for a majority religion, counting citizens (not cities) in your non-puppet, non-occupied cities. If there is one, then that becomes your civilization religion. Once you have a civilization religion, it won't go away, even if it slips below majority, unless another religion becomes majority. There are two exceptions where the rules change a bit. First, a fallen civilization can never have Azzandarayasna as civilization religion no matter how many citizens follow it, though it can have any other religion. This is unlikely anyway because all Azzandarayasna citizens flip to A&#331;ra when a civilization falls (other religious citizens are left alone). Second, pantheistic cults can count toward The Weave of Éa for determining majority, since these cults are really sects within The Weave. So, for example, a civilization that has 20 total citizens, 8 of which are Cult of Ægir and 3 of which are The Weave, will have The Weave of Éa as civilization religion. If, however, 11 citizens in this civilization are followers of the Cult of Ægir, then the cult would be civilization religion.

This post has been superseded by this post


I'll be tweaking these a lot, but I thought I'd get my current specs down for Resources and Buildings. Don't try to balance these in your head based on unmodded Civ5 -- it just isn't the same (those of you that have messed around with the early builds know how important food is). Also, I don't feel any strong need to "balance" resources in the sense that they all need to be of equal value. It's more important that they all are different and interesting in some way, or push you in a different development direction. I have not included cost for any buildings yet. It will probably look "high" because I'm devaluing production a bit (so that 1p is roughly 1g in value).

It's important to note that the mod needs a lot of buildings to work right. This is due to the way it forces you to specialize in the tech tree and never lets you finish more than part of it. So there is a danger of running out of things to build. Suggestions are welcome.

Resources (map)
In some cases, the map resource has a different name than the tradeable resource (indicated by ->)
Horses (strategic) 2f1p; +1f2p with pasture
Cattle 3f; +2f1p with pasture
Sheep -> Wool (luxury) 2f1g; +1f1p1g with pasture
Deer 3f; +3f1p with camp
Boars 3f; +3f1p with camp
Small Game -> Fur (luxury) 2f2g; +1f2g with camp
Elephants (strategic) 2f1p; +2f1p with camp & Mounted Elephants
Fish 3f; +3f with fishing boats
Crabs 3f; +3f with fishing boats
Oysters -> Pearls (luxury) 2f1g; 2f2g with fishing boats
Whales 1f1p; +3f1p with whaling boats
Wheat 3f; +4f with farm
Copper -> Bronze (strategic; visible with Mining; tradeable with Bronze W.) 3p; +3p with mine & Bronze W.
Iron (strategic; visible with Mining; tradeable with Iron W.) 3p; +3p with mine & Iron W.
Blasting Powder (strategic; visible & tradeable with Chemistry) 3p; +4p with mine
Mithril (strategic; visible with Alchemy; tradeable with Mithril W.) 2p2s; +4p4s with mine & Mithril W.
Gold (luxury) 3g; +2g with mine
Silver (luxury) 3g; +2g with mine
Gems (luxury) 3g; +2g with mine
Salt (luxury) 2f2g; +2f2g with mine
Grapes -> Wine 2f1g; +1f1g2c with vineyard
Bananas 4f; +4f2g with plantation
Dyes (luxury) 2g2c; +2g2c with plantation
Silkworms -> Silk (luxury) 2g2c; +2g2c with plantation
Cotton Trees -> Cotton (luxury) 3g1c; +3g1c with plantation
Spices (luxury) 1f3g; +1f3g with plantation
Sugarcane -> Sugar (luxury) 3f1g; +3f1g with plantation
Incense (luxury) 3g1c(2 divine favor*); +3g1c(2 divine favor*) with plantation; *Azzandara followers only
Citrus Trees -> Citrus (luxury) 3f1g; +3f1g with plantation; ships can cross ocean without risk of damage from scurvy
Yew (strategic; visible & tradeable with Archery) 2p; +2g2p with sawmill
Reagents (luxury; visible & tradeable with Thaumaturgy) 3s3mana; +3s3mana with gatherer's hut
Stone 4p; +2p1c with quarry; accelerates production of many wonders
Marble (luxury) 3p; +2p1c with quarry; accelerates production of many wonders

Resources (non-map)
Leather (luxury) 1 from Tannery (requires improved cattle, deer or boars)
Ivory (luxury) 1 from Ivory Carver (requires improved elephant or whale)
Ale (luxury) 1 from Brewery (requires farmed wheat)
Spirits (luxury) 1 from Distillery (requires improved sugar)
Porcelain (luxury) 1 from Kiln
Jewelry (luxury) 1 from Jeweller
Timber (strategic) from Timberyard (see below); also gain 3 for 30 turns after forest or jungle chop


Buildings
Heldeofol cities can build only a subset of buildings (indicated by &#8220;H&#8221

--no reqs
Monument +1c
Warrens (Heldeofol only) +3f; +10%f after growth; +2f from jungle

--early specialist
Library (Writing) 1 scribe slot; +1c; +0.5s / pop
Marketplace (Currency) 1 trader slot; +1c; 1g per improved resource
Fair (Tradition) 1 artisan slot; +1h; 1c per improved gold, silver, gems, oysters, grapes, dye, silk
Amphitheater (Drama) 1 artisan slot; +2h2c
Forge (Bronze W.; H) 1 smith slot; +10%p melee; +2p per copper, iron or mithril
Shrine (Polytheism or Theism) 1 mana or divine favor; 1 disciple slot

-- early resource related (all req resource except granary and harbor; timberyard requires sawmill)
Smokehouse (H) +1f per improved deer, cows, boars, horse, fish
Tannery (H) +1p per improved deer, cows, boars; +1 leather
Ivory Carver (Hunting) 1 ivory; +1c per improved elephants or whales
Granary (Agriculture) +2f per improved wheat; +10% f
Saltworks (Mining) +2f per improved salt; +10% f
Stable (Horseback Riding; H) +2p per improved horse; +30% production horse-mounted
Elephant Stockade (Mounted Elephants; H) +2p per improved elephant; +20% production elephant-mounted
Hunting Lodge (Tracking) +1f1c per improved deer, boars, small game and elephants
Abattoir (Domestication) +2f per improved horses, cattle and sheep
Harbor (Sailing; H) +2f per fish or crab; 2g per improved pearl; 2p per whale; allows water trade
Timberyard (Milling; H) +1 timber per sawmill (+1 timber per 4 unimproved forest or jungle for Pantheistic civs)
Cotton Gin (Milling) +1p1g per cotton trees
Winery (Zymurgy) +1f2c per vineyard
Brewery (Zymurgy) +1 ale; 1c per wheat
Apothecary (Thaumaturgy) +1s1mana per reagents; +10% health
Mint (Coinage) +2g from gold, silver, mithril; +1g from copper, iron
Stone works (Masonry) +1p2c per stone, marble

--early policy dep
Mounds (Pantheism; Sídhe only) +2 mana
Gallows (Slavery; H) +2p; +2 happiness in occupied city
Governor&#8217;s Compound (Militarism; H) +2g; +2 happiness in occupied city
Tribal Council (Tradition; different race city only; H) +2 happiness
Forefathers&#8217; Statue (Tradition; only in same-race city 100 turns after conquest) Ends occupation

-- other early (maint: 1g; 150p)
Lighthouse (Sailing and Masonry; coastal) +2g; +20% trade
Water Mill (Milling; river) +1f1p
Windmill (Milling; windy*) +1f1p; *a city plot is windy if at least 5 adjacent plots are flat without forest or jungle (including water)
Floating Gardens (Irrigation; adjacent lake) 2f per lake
Courthouse (Philosophy) +1h; +1h in occupied city
Walls (Masonry; H) +4 defense
Colosseum (Masonry) +2h2c

-- advanced specialist
Workshop (Iron Working; H) +6p; +10%p; 1p per copper, iron, mithril, blasting pwdr; 1 smith slot
Factory (Machinery; H) +25%p; 1 smith slot
Bank (Mercantilism) +30%g; 1 trader slot
Port (Navigation) +25%g; 2g per improved fish, crabs, oysters, whales; 1 trader slot
University (Academic Tradition) +6s; +20%s; 1 scribe slot
Laboratory (Alchemy) +8s; +10%s; 1 scribe slot
Theater (Music) +2h4c; 1 artisan slot
Opera Hall (Aesthetics) +6c2h; 1 artisan slot
Monastery (Monastic Tradition) +2c; +2 divine favor; 1c per wine, incense; 1 disciple slot

-- advanced resource related
Bowyer (Bowyers; H) 1p1g1c per yew; +20%p and +5xp archer units
Distillery (Chemistry) 1 spirits and 1c per sugar
Whalery (Whaling) +2f2p per whale
Armory (Metal Casting) +1p per copper, iron, mithril; +5xp melee units
Textile Mill (Machinery) +1p1g1c per improved sheep, cotton, silk, dye

-- advanced policy dep
Smiths' Guild (Guilds) +1p; +1p per smith
Traders' Guild (Guilds) +1g; +1g per trader
Scribes' Guild (Guilds) +1s; +1s per scribe
Artisans' Guild (Guilds) +1c; +1c per artisan
Disciples' Guild (Guilds) +1 mana or divine favor; +1 mana or divine favor per disciple
Adepts' Guild (Guilds) +1 mana; +1 mana per adept
Monastic School (Monastic Tradition) +2s
Slave Market (Slave Trade; H) +2g; Can sell slaves for 25g
Slave Stockade (Slave Raiding; H) +2p
Slave Knackery (Slave Breeding) Can render slaves for 20 production
Slave Beedery (Slave Breeding) Counteracts growth penalty for unhappiness by 50%; allows production of settlers regardless of unhappiness
Reeducation Camp (Servi Aeternam) Revolting units are eliminated or converted to slaves; a percentage of unhappiness points are converted to production points (if all cities have this, then total production gained = total unhappiness)
Barracks (Discipline; H) +5xp all land units
Jeweller (Crafting) +1g1c; +1 Jewelry; +1g1c per gold, silver, gems
Kiln (Crafting) +1g1c; +1 Porcelain


-- other advanced
Castle (Construction) +1g1c; +4 defence
Stronghold (Construction; Heldeofol only replacement for castle) +6 defence
Papermill (Literature and Milling) +2 science
Aqueduct (Construction) +20% health*
Public Baths (Construction; requires aqueduct) +1h; +10% health
Sewers (Engineering; requires aqueduct) +20% health
Printing Press (Machinery) +4 science
Observatory (Astronomy; adjacent mountain) +6s; +10%s
Shipyard (Shipbuilding) +20%p and +5xp ships
Hospital (Medicine) +40% health
Deep Farms (Knowledge of the Underdark) +3f from mines; +3f2p from mountains

-- constructed by Great People (Minor Works)
Foundry (Iron W.; Engineer, 8 turns, 160p) +3 production
Academy (Philosophy; Sage, 8 turns, 160p) +3 science
Festival (Calendar; Artist, 8 turns, 160g) +3 culture
Temple (Pantheism or Theism; Devout, 8 turns, 160p) +1c; +2 mana or divine favor

-- constructed by Great People (Great Works)
Cathedral (Architecture; Priest, 25 turns, 200p) +2c1h; +mod divine favor
Trade House (Mercantilism policy; Merchant, 25 turns, 200g) +mod% gold for foreign trade routes to this city
Military Academy (Professional Army policy; Warrior, 25 turns, 200p) +mod xp for land units produced in this city
Naval Academy (Ship Building; Sea Warrior, 25 turns, 200p) +mod xp for naval units produced in this city


*Health reduces the chance of disease or plague in very large cities; it has no effect on small to mid-sized cities (< 10 population)

A couple of thoughts:

1. No matter what you plan on doing the rest of the game, you have to absolutely max your food potential in your first cities as quickly as you can. You simply will NOT grow without a food source, and you WILL be building any building that increases food output that you can access. If you don't have a lot of food, you will remain a small civ with less great people (since your workers will have to stay in field instead of specializing).

2. This mod is about civilization specialization. You start out a blank slate, and you will based on your starting resources go down a tech line that will define your civ. A lot of the strategy early is going to be picking the "right" direction to take your civ.

This will naturally cause civs to make the choice between agrarianism and pantheism. You'll open one of those two policy branches first in almost all cases. The exceptions would be in high food starts (where you can afford to perhaps go for a different branch first), or Heldeofol who will generally want to start out aggressive and go military branch.

I've decided my first goal of your next alpha release is going to be to try and get as far as I can as a backwards, illiterate pantheistic civ.

Minor correction for this part:

Sezneg said:

If you don't have a lot of food, you will remain a small civ with less great people (since your workers will have to stay in field instead of specializing).

Click to expand...

Specialists are mostly important for determining what class of GP appears. They have minimal impact on number.

The probability of generating a great person each turn varies between 0% and 15% in a logistic function (never quite reaches either limit). Where you are at in this probability curve is a function of both GP points and current number of living GPs. If you have less than about 3 GPs, it only takes a few GP points to drive that probability up to 7% or so. Conversely, once you have 4 - 5 GPs, that probability starts to become vanishingly small no matter how many GP points you have.

GP points are coming from specialists, from unit experience (toward Warriors), and (for most civs) from a small intrinsic generation toward the civ's favored GP class. So, this is a case where small civs are not disadvantaged.

Sezneg said:

I've decided my first goal of your next alpha release is going to be to try and get as far as I can as a backwards, illiterate pantheistic civ.

Click to expand...

This should work. Just focus on getting your culture/pop as high as possible to get through the Pantheism policy branch. The branch itself has some culture-generating opportunities, and you may want to consider Tradition (for Folklore and Folk Art). Illiteracy cuts you off from Drama, but you still have two other "culture generating" techs that are only 2nd tier: Zymurgy and Masonry (the usefulness of these depends on resources).

Pazyryk said:

Minor correction for this part:



Specialists are mostly important for determining what class of GP appears. They have minimal impact on number.

The probability of generating a great person each turn varies between 0% and 15% in a logistic function (never quite reaches either limit). Where you are at in this probability curve is a function of both GP points and current number of living GPs. If you have less than about 3 GPs, it only takes a few GP points to drive that probability up to 7% or so. Conversely, once you have 4 - 5 GPs, that probability starts to become vanishingly small no matter how many GP points you have.

GP points are coming from specialists, from unit experience (toward Warriors), and (for most civs) from a small intrinsic generation toward the civ's favored GP class. So, this is a case where small civs are not disadvantaged.

Click to expand...

I went ahead and reread that section of the initial post. One bit of feedback I would give is that avoiding warriors is VERY difficult in the early game. The barbarians need killing, and that means exp is going to accumulate. I ended up basically hiding in my borders and trying to avoid as much violence as possible.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing. What you seem to be creating here is not like anything I've played before. Your environment and resources clearly shape your civilization... but so do your actions; if you want to be the scholarly type/cultural type you have to spend the early game sequestered in your borders being scholarly/cultural. Getting the *right* GP early makes a huge difference. The way your cultural levels work, when you're pushing to get those policies out ASAP you WANT an artist... or a low pop (two low pop cities with a monument will advance your policies much faster than one medium pop city with a single monument).

Pazyryk said:

This should work. Just focus on getting your culture/pop as high as possible to get through the Pantheism policy branch. The branch itself has some culture-generating opportunities, and you may want to consider Tradition (for Folklore and Folk Art). Illiteracy cuts you off from Drama, but you still have two other "culture generating" techs that are only 2nd tier: Zymurgy and Masonry (the usefulness of these depends on resources).

Click to expand...

Tradition/Pantheism have some good plays off eachother early.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the next build.

Intrigued by your repurposing of health (preventing plague events), and I have to say... having scurvey in the game, wow.

Sezneg said:

, and I have to say... having scurvey in the game, wow.

Click to expand...

Why have Citrus if you don't deal with its importance in naval exploration? It will probably take a while, but eventually I want exploration to be kind of a challenge. You should at least have to make an effort and investment in it. In the base game, you can easily explore the local continent or continent cluster (equivalent to Europe/Asia/Africa) by 1000 BC, if not sooner. Then the entire world is fully mapped soon after your first caravel. This is one of my biggest gripes with the base game. Not because it is unrealistic (which it is) but because my interest in the game always fades as the map becomes fully known.

Pazyryk said:

Why have Citrus if you don't deal with its importance in naval exploration? It will probably take a while, but eventually I want exploration to be kind of a challenge. You should at least have to make an effort and investment in it. In the base game, you can easily explore the local continent or continent cluster (equivalent to Europe/Asia/Africa) by 1000 BC, if not sooner. Then the entire world is fully mapped soon after your first caravel. This is one of my biggest gripes with the base game. Not because it is unrealistic (which it is) but because my interest in the game always fades as the map becomes fully known.

Click to expand...

A simple way to make exploration less easy is to have some map tiles hidden again if not in a unit's/city's line of sight or beside a road that the civ has access to.
It could be immediate, time delayed or based on a probability linked to distance from the capital.
This could keep happening until the civ learns Cartography or some equivalent tech.
Sea exploration could be made even more difficult by continuing to apply this hiding of explored tiles if they are longitudinally separated from a civ's cities by one or more ocean tiles until they master some means of determining longitude.

@Lplate, That's an interesting idea. Have you seen it done in another mod? Would players just get out pen & paper? And if so, would that be a bad thing? Would it add to a feeling of mystery? Or would it just be an annoyance? I can't really say, but I'm open to daring concepts like that.

(If you don't like this idea, don't worry too much. I have much too much on my plate right now for the alpha...)

I don't like the "unexploration" effects in other games (they appear in HoMM3 and the Age of Wonders series), but in case of Civ I think it's not a bad idea. Exploration is too easy indeed, especially on slower game speeds (which I like to play) you can explore too much land early. Perhaps there should be a radius around the civilization's borders (depending on things like techs and policies) that can be explored permanently. Another idea would be "supply radius", where units outside of this radius would lose health each turn.

Also there is a Civ4 mod (I don't remember which one), where you can lose contact with other civs if they are far away from you. I like this idea as well.

I might try it out at some later stage of development. It would be fairly involved, with techs (or something) determining how far out or what kind of tiles become permanently revealed (it could plug in with various other favored terrain/feature systems).

Ultimately, it will be up to barbs, animals and beasts of various sorts to make exploration harder and require some effort and investment. For the time being, I'm slowing down scouts a bit by removing the ignore terrain promotion (substituting Civ5's weak invisibility which makes them invisible to non-adjacent plots). There will be a smaller number of city states in the alpha, which tends to have the same effect as setting the "raging barbarians" option. I also slowed ships a little, and they are going to take occasional damage hits at sea (scurvy damage, which citrus will stop).

The contact idea is interesting, especially since I'm already mucking around with that (you can't make contact until both civs have a leader, which always comes with or after civ naming).

PawelS said:

I don't like the "unexploration" effects in other games (they appear in HoMM3 and the Age of Wonders series), but in case of Civ I think it's not a bad idea. Exploration is too easy indeed, especially on slower game speeds (which I like to play) you can explore too much land early. Perhaps there should be a radius around the civilization's borders (depending on things like techs and policies) that can be explored permanently. Another idea would be "supply radius", where units outside of this radius would lose health each turn.

Also there is a Civ4 mod (I don't remember which one), where you can lose contact with other civs if they are far away from you. I like this idea as well.

Click to expand...

The one thing you have to be careful of, is having limited unit range vs a victory condition like destroyer could be very frustrating.

You can destroy the world without exploring it. The harder one would be the Protector victory where you need to hunt down the fallen civs (and some remnants that may remain after the civ is gone). I'll come up with different ways to do this that don't involve looking at every plot: perhaps "finder" spells or rituals for magic or religious civs and some other ways (involving wonders or items or somesuch) for non-magic/non-religious civs.

Love the idea of exploration being limited, and the fact that you can lose contact with civs that you're a long way from seems reasonable. I can imagine many players getting frustrated with explored tiles disappearing though. Limiting the ease with which players can send their early ships and scouts to the other side of the world seems the better option IMHO (in other words, what you're already doing sounds great to me).

How about a greater movement cost for units revealing unknown tiles? Is that possible without too much lua work? It's a mechanism in Europa Universalis that works very well. Entering unexplored areas (Terra Incognita) takes a lot longer than normal, and also requires an explorer or navigator (think Great Person) to do so.

Pazyryk said:

You can destroy the world without exploring it. The harder one would be the Protector victory where you need to hunt down the fallen civs (and some remnants that may remain after the civ is gone). I'll come up with different ways to do this that don't involve looking at every plot: perhaps "finder" spells or rituals for magic or religious civs and some other ways (involving wonders or items or somesuch) for non-magic/non-religious civs.

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This is what I meant. You have to be careful because the dangerous wild-lands full of monsters serve as extra defenses for someone going for destroyer where as they can win simply by playing defensive.

It can be very tricky to get the feel you want without making one victory condition especially easy.

This could just be me talking as the current FFH2 mod I'm playing places 22 str monsters in the "wild lands"... it's a little much ;p

Keroro said:

Limiting the ease with which players can send their early ships and scouts to the other side of the world seems the better option IMHO

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I agree that this is the thing to try first. We can revisit other ideas down the road if needed.

Sezneg said:

It can be very tricky to get the feel you want without making one victory condition especially easy.

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No doubt there will be some easy exploits (or loopholes or whatever you want to call them) in early alpha. We'll get them hammered out eventually.

Added our first actual "spell":

Heal (Divine) This spell will heal one damaged living unit on the same or an adjacent plot (prioritizes same plot first if it has a damaged living unit, then most damaged living unit on an adjacent plot). It can heal up to mod hit points. The spell is altered to Hurt for the fallen, which damages an adjacent living unit by up to mod hit points (also prioritizes the most damaged). The spell uses an amount of mana or divine favor that is equal to the hit points changed.

mod = (5 + level/3) + promotion bonues, rounded down
The promotion bonus that matters here is from the Devotion series (because this is a divine spell).

Because this is a divine spell, it can be learned by any Devout class GP (includes Paladins, Druids). Priests already have it as a free spell.

AI is working (mostly)! The GP actually calculates a value for each nearby plot based on the effect the spell would have if cast from that plot (that's how AI works in general for GP actions). In this case, value is hp that will change times cost of the affected unit (which is proxy for how valuable the unit is), with a 3x bonus for outright kills. Combat spells like this have a more extreme Time Discount where value is discounted 50% if the GP has to use up a move to get to the plot (i.e., cast the spell next turn versus this turn) and 25% reduction for each turn after that. So healing priests are zipping around healing your most valuable units, and fallen priests are zipping around hurting the enemy's most valuable units or knocking off those on the threshold of death.

I'm still working on AI because I need to get the GP to the scene of the battle. Not easy because I don't have access to AI processes that are happening in the dll, so I can't really know where an AI plans an attack. What I'm going to try to do is give them the Great General AI from base and then "disengage" my own AI control. I think that will get them to go to the scene of the battle (once there, my own AI takes over again).

I also have to add some UI to allow human player GPs to opt for learning a spell at level up (in lieu of taking a promotion). The internal logic is in place and even some AI, just no UI.

First of all : nice to see so much updates here
I hope your summer was great !

Pazyryk said:

Which spelling do you prefer?

Spoiler :

1. Níðh&#491;ggr (--original Old Norse text as preserved in the Poetic Edda from Iceland)
2. Níðhöggr (--current Icelandic spelling; older &#491; updated to modern Icelandic ö)
3. Níthhöggr or Nídhöggr (--Old Norse "eth" (Ðð) anglicized to th or d)
4. Nithhogg or Nidhogg (--fully anglicized version)

1. Þórr
2. Þórr
3. Thórr (--Old Norse "thorn" (Þþ) anglicized to th)
4. Thor

The longstanding tradition in English/American scholarship and fiction is to fully anglicize as you see in #4. Tolkien did this with "Gandalf" and the dwarf names. In fact, it's hard to find translations that are not fully anglicized. The Wiki is inconsistent, using the current Icelandic spelling (style #2) as the main entry for Níðhöggr, but the fully anglicised spelling for Thor (I'm not sure but perhaps this is also the modern Norwegian spelling since they have lost the Þ).

My general approach has been to try to get close to the original. As it happens, much of the lore and names in Éa (most everything except the Theism stuff) comes from Celtic (including Irish) and Old Norse tradition. It&#8217;s possible for me to use version #2 above for many names because the Civ5 font set includes many of these letters (e.g., Ðð, Þþ, Øø, Ææ, &#338;&#339;; but not the older &#491.

I don&#8217;t see any reason to use fully anglicized versions. I think the accents, umlauts and so on make the language look interesting and exotic, at least to the eye of an English speaker. Letters like Æ, &#338; and Ø are fine because most folks can at least imagine what these might sound like (accuracy is not so important; it's the aesthetics that we want). The question is, should I use the two Icelandic letters (Ðð and Þþ) that are common in Old Norse names (style #2)? Or should I anglicize these (style #3)? What are folks preferences?

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If I'm not speaking too late, I prefer version 3... the "purely norse" letters are unreadable. (more precisely : Ð (capital letter) is readable and ok but the "ð, Þ and þ" are not (at least for me) and &#491; .. is hard because it looks so much like a small Q ... while being a "ö-like sound" ;


For promotions "numbers" ... is it possible to add "stackable promotions " without creating more than 1 new promotion ?
I'm thinking of the way the "maogata" worked in FFH : a promotion (hunter or something), stackable without limit. IIRC (but I know next to nothing in coding so I may be wrong) it took only 1 promotion slot in the promotion "map".. however it could act as many promotions. (once I stacked 21 of them on a unit... and I don't think the modmodmodder added 21 different promotions)

the only drawbacks are that it was in cIV and not ciV ... and that it is an unlimited promotion (so if it could be implemented you could always choose it ) (one solution would be to make a lvl6 or 10 requirement)


On promotions for non-gp.
I counted 30 available promotions for infantry
24 for archers
20 for horse-mounted
20 for recon (they are not infantry, are they?)
18 for elephant mounted
19/20 for siege
19 for naval..
and of those ... 12 are a the combat promotions.
IMO there is a real lack of promotions for all all mounted and recon (naval might be ok). (I might be wrong if horse-archers have access to both horse-mounted AND archer promotions, and elephant to elephant AND archer...)

I don't know how many levels a unit can really get but even if no unit ever get to more than level 15, I think there are still too few promotions :
I think this impression is mostly due to the fact that there are only 2 branches to chose from).


you might be able to "open/free" 6 promotions slots (maybe) by fusing "military engineering" and "fortification" ... and giving (as you've done with combat) different functions for GP and for "normal" units. and it would work thematically ; "fortifications" being an "on-the-field" application of "military engineering" ... without the skill of a genius GE /


About exploration ... I've an idea... but maybe undoable... :

you could have "barbs units" randomly transforming "un-seen explored tiles" into "unexplored tile" randomely in one of their surrounding tiles. + same for barb camps, but stronger.
and give an increased effect for sea/ocean and coast (land) tiles? (because no barb camps in ocean) (and/or : reduced effect on coast (sea) tile)

so killing barbs would increase your chances of keeping the map accurate.
(however the mechanics might help you locate new barb camps... )

To help counter this fading of the map, you could unable an action to recon and naval :
-recon units could build temporary "forts/camp" improvements that help keep the map accurate in a radius (negate the barb effect)... until razed/pillaged by other civs or barbs.
-naval could build a "port /haven" on sea-coast
those improvement could either render the tile (and maybe next tiles) visible or (maybe better) could stay non-visible.
you would be aware of the razing of the improvement when the tile and surrounding tiles becomes unexplored.


well.. sorry for the long post... but I was away for a month and there were a lot of updates I wanted to react to.

and I've had some more refinement on "how to render exploration more long /fun" :

1)
enable ressources (resp plant / animal / mineral) to "stick" on the explored but un-seen tiles only after a given tech :
early exploration get the terrain but not memory of the ressources... only later exploration can do this... (or respectively : animal husbandry / mining and farming / or hunting / writing and cartography....

(maybe do the same for city-borders (not city themselves which are un-forgettable but the cultural borders)
maybe have the ressource stick in a 2-5 tiles from cultural borders.

2)
when an unit die in the wilds (not-owned tile or non-friendly tile), the surrounding explored tiles have a chances to become unexplored for this civ: (for 2-3 rings around the unit) : it shows that the one that have had the knowledge might have died. Like : 20% in the tile, 15% in first ring, 10% in second ring (total : 20% + 6*15 + 10*18 : roughly 3 tiles turns to unexplored... if all 2 rings were explored). Maybe higher tier recon have less chances to lose tiles. (no chance for tiles that are 2 tiles from a friendly unit or closer)

3)
every 5-10 turns (or every time an event with 7-15% chances happens) an "explored become unexplored" computation happens (maybe only for human players): (every 5-10 turns or so.. so the computation is not too hard on the gameplay).
here are ideas :
-increased chances to turn per immediatly surrounding unexplored tiles.
-increased chances to turn if sea /ocean
-increased chances to turn if peak / desert / marsh / ice / wildlands
-increased chances to turn if tundra / forest / hills
-increased chances if surrounded by any of the former.
(idealy, a forest surrounded by 6 forests / hills turns to unexplored every 10-20 turns early game)
- chance get to 0 if : 2(3) tiles from cultural borders OR if 1tile from a seen tile (so that puts a ring of un-changing map around your units).

-chance is 0 if 1-2 tiles from the above-mentionned improvement.
-chance is reduced depending on available tech to show an improvement in exploration (exemple : exploration, writting, cartography, mathematics, astronomy...etc other ones) .
-chance is capped (or 0) for any world wonder (scenic places are easier to remember).
-chance to "forget" is reduced if there is a ressource or oasis on tile
-chance to "forget" is reduced if there is a river near tile

-you may limit the "surrounding" effect to act only if the tile has that characteristic : surrounding forests increases the chances forgetting a nearby forest but not of a desert. (but might be hard to code... and forested hills are hidden by both forest and hill)



some tentative values (remember I've done the math with the event appearing roughly every 10 turns):

thoses ideas may be still interesting "alone" or in combination with any of the other ones or even the ones in my previous post.
Or they may be un-interesting or un-moddable or un-coddable...(but I had fun thinking them and writting them )