NiGHTS: General Discussion

Ok, some new thoughts, after playing a game with Persia on immortal.

The AI acts very different, it almost never attacks, which gets a bit silly. Also the AI can't handle the unrest well, and often end up with -50% strength for it's units. This results in an enemy AI declaring war, moving his horsemen around my cities and me being able to kill them off way too easy (even a scout would win).

The specialist system is interesting, but it feels like it doesn't get used to it's full potential. As it is, you can't sacrifice one city population to work toward a specialist at start, because food is scarce. After a while you can, and build up your first few specs, improving your close grain field or such. All these are built from the capital, most likely. The 6th spec i built was a veteran archer, and after that it felt like too high cost (700+) compared to just letting your city population work the tiles. Ideally, you would have separate specialist timers for every city, so that every new city would start at 100, meaning that all cities had a chance to improve nearby tiles.

Gold income is too high, i had several thousand, even after buying all CS on my continent to allies. The building that gave wine in city radius +5 food and +5 gold (sorry, forgot name of the building) seems overpowered. My capital had 3 wine spots, and i went from really struggling with economy and growth to a powerhouse city.

Few minor direct bugs:
*The farm bonus from Civil Service doesnt affect grain fields (works on regular farms as usual)
*As stated above, you can build fur trapper (and all buildings saying you need a resource nearby) even though you don't have the resource in your city radius. Clearly the mod uses the globally available resources. If you do build that fur trapper and it was your only/last source of fur you would loose the +1 stability bonus. (Even though it's still listed in the stability overview menu, it would for example say +5 stability from resources, but list 6 resources, where fur is one)
*Cobbler's workshop has info saying it gives 3 hammers and 2 of something else, doesnt say what.
*The word "happiness" is still used in the golden age timer and the next policy timer (top of the screen menus). Also in the menu for annexing/puppeting new cities.


Still, very interesting mod! That it needs tweaking isn't a surprise, when you introduce so many new aspects.

I uploaded my last savegame, in case you want to check something.

Thanks again!

ps. Will have a new go at another empire, but might fire up a game of PWM first. Just as a comparison, as it is another great mod :)
pps. I hope you (and Alpaca aswell!) have the time to update your mods for the upcoming patch as soon as possible.
 

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So the passive AI wasn't flaw of my modmix:) I forgot about that buildings are using up the resources so it's may be reason of my constant struggle with unrest. I need to download some nice resource info panel:|
 
So the passive AI wasn't flaw of my modmix:) I forgot about that buildings are using up the resources so it's may be reason of my constant struggle with unrest. I need to download some nice resource info panel:|

Yeah - i'll probably hard mod it so that the Manual Specialist Button is always checked to avoid confusion in the next update.
 
i really enjoy your mod, but since the update from yesterday i cannot play it anymore because i cant see the unit control UI in the bottem left corner (which means i cant found cities...etc).
is this a known bug or am i the only one having that problem?
 
Chances are it means you have 2 mods editing infotooltipinclude.lua
 
Oh, forgot to mention another sideeffect of the missing notifications. Since you don't get any icon about changed CS status (you see the CS flashing on the minimap, but it's easy to miss), you can easily miss when CS's fade from ally into friend status.
 
Oh, forgot to mention another sideeffect of the missing notifications. Since you don't get any icon about changed CS status (you see the CS flashing on the minimap, but it's easy to miss), you can easily miss when CS's fade from ally into friend status.

Good point Toor - I may just re-enable this notification.

i really enjoy your mod, but since the update from yesterday i cannot play it anymore because i cant see the unit control UI in the bottem left corner (which means i cant found cities...etc).
is this a known bug or am i the only one having that problem?

Has the patch been released?

Chances are it means you have 2 mods editing infotooltipinclude.lua

I do have a mod editing infotooltipinclue.lua. It's a modified version of the mod that shows how many moves your units have left. If you have that specific mod enabled, disable it and NiGHTS should work fine again.


Again - the new patch will make NiGHTS virtually unplayable so if you want to keep playing it - set Steam to NOT auto-update your version of Civ:)
 
Ok,

I have some news regarding the decoding of the stupid AI:

I followed your advices (Markus Bueteul and Sneaks) and you were right guys!

I changed values in AI XML Military Strategies.With this way,AI builds now more units,stronger Navy,almost all civilizations.I have decreased values in "minimum turns" that "i need navy" in AI:it was 50,and i changed it to 5.
However,it doens change the way it moves them(i mean smarter ),but that is a first step and i am optimist that i will change it as well.

I f we suppose that without changing XML ,AI at the begging builded for example only 2 frigates,now it builds 5,or more,and a percentage of this might be used by the AI to attack,insted of staying in its waters.
 
Ok,

I have some news regarding the decoding of the stupid AI:

I followed your advices (Markus Bueteul and Sneaks) and you were right guys!

I changed values in AI XML Military Strategies.With this way,AI builds now more units,stronger Navy,almost all civilizations.I have decreased values in "minimum turns" that "i need navy" in AI:it was 50,and i changed it to 5.
However,it doens change the way it moves them(i mean smarter ),but that is a first step and i am optimist that i will change it as well.

I f we suppose that without changing XML ,AI at the begging builded for example only 2 frigates,now it builds 5,or more,and a percentage of this might be used by the AI to attack,insted of staying in its waters.

Try tweaking the data in this XML file: CIV5TacticalMoves. It deals with the order the AI does things in depending on the situation they are in. Also, if you want the AI to build a navy sooner you could change the techs that reveal various ships and make them all revealed sooner.

Good luck:)
 
Yeah,

Thx a lot mate!I ll experiment a while.
However did you edit these values in AI xml,and if yes,what you concluded or see from the results?-i m talking for both AI tactics and Military stategies.
 
I'm into another game as Arabia Immortal and all in all I like the mod cause it keeps me engaged. I'm new to the pyramid tech tree idea but it seems to work fine. I understand most of the specialist worker built buildings but what and how does a "goundskeeper" work?

The unrest idea is interesting and challenging if you don't have enough gold to replace lost units -- but the battle AI I think will always be problematic and it has been in all civ games (I moved a cannon into the open by mistake and the AI never attacked it.)

All in all :goodjob: and I like it:) ; its started me playing Civ V again. Thanks.
 
I'm into another game as Arabia Immortal and all in all I like the mod cause it keeps me engaged. I'm new to the pyramid tech tree idea but it seems to work fine. I understand most of the specialist worker built buildings but what and how does a "goundskeeper" work?

The unrest idea is interesting and challenging if you don't have enough gold to replace lost units -- but the battle AI I think will always be problematic and it has been in all civ games (I moved a cannon into the open by mistake and the AI never attacked it.)

All in all :goodjob: and I like it:) ; its started me playing Civ V again. Thanks.

I'm at work currently and dont have my specialist spec sheet in front of me but it should say where you can build the storage shed in the Groundskeeper's tooltip.

Glad you like the mod so far - if the patch doesn't come out till monday I should have a diplomacy update for the weekend that ADDS ways you can strengthen a relationship with the AI. Also the Tech Pyramid will get its first graphical update as it's pretty bare right now.
 
If you plan quick update please, please try to do something with tactical AI... Or maybe I should play on difficulty higher then Warlord;)
 
If you plan quick update please, please try to do something with tactical AI... Or maybe I should play on difficulty higher then Warlord;)

There is very very little modders can do about tactical AI at this time. We can tweak what is built and how much, but we cannot teach the AI to properly keep its archers behind its warriors, and how to properly navigate mountain passes, and when embarking is a terrible idea.
 
There is very very little modders can do about tactical AI at this time. We can tweak what is built and how much, but we cannot teach the AI to properly keep its archers behind its warriors, and how to properly navigate mountain passes, and when embarking is a terrible idea.

Ok,i have some news.

Sneaks and Markus i want your suggestions please if possible.
I have edited values in AI XML Military tactics plus AI XML Tactical moves.

So far i have achived:
*lots of civilizations are using planes-bombers,mostly.
*Increased number of ships
*Enemy land units like archers,crossbowmen,cannons,catapults,(when i m at war) they bombarding from safe distance without exposed.
*Enemy land units now pillaging frequently.
*Is very hard now to invade enemy sea-cause are guarded heavily.This time,i didnt manage to break their lines-5 ironclads in line.All previous times i was near,and with easy i sink one by one.


The problem however,is that although AI Navy now is powerfull,the AI occasionally attacks(in war time):Just staying and defending.
Another problem is that AI still embarks lots of units that invade without escort.
To these directions i want to hear what you have in mind.

A thought is to increase very much the strength of embarked units,but i dont know if this is possible.

I m optimist that we ll eventually succeed through co-operation.Dont forget something however:We are alone.No one will help us,cause the f@@g patch do nothing to improve the bad AI.I m not interested in a patch that simply adds a hammer or a food if a pig is around the area,is something we can do ourselves.
 
Ok,i have some news.

...

*Enemy land units like archers,crossbowmen,cannons,catapults,(when i m at war) they bombarding from safe distance without exposed

....

Wow this sounds....freaking terrific! I'm blown away that a hobbyist is achieving in his free time what a team of coders should have done ages ago. I mean, I'm sure it isn't perfect, but the very simple fact you have the enemy keeping their ranged units off the front lines is game changing. I rarely finish a game, as below difficult 6 around the Medieval era I begin going to war and it becomes painfully obvious I'm going to steamroll the planet, and above 7 isn't really fun either, as having a hard time simply because the enemy is overwhelming me due to huge resource bonuses is more of an exercise in frustration than rewarding.

Annyyywhooo, I digress.

A thought is to increase very much the strength of embarked units,but i dont know if this is possible.

Isn't one of the Civ powers to allow embarked units to defend themselves? Maybe make this a universal ability, and come up with a different bonus for them.
 
Wow this sounds....freaking terrific! I'm blown away that a hobbyist is achieving in his free time what a team of coders should have done ages ago. I mean, I'm sure it isn't perfect, but the very simple fact you have the enemy keeping their ranged units off the front lines is game changing. I rarely finish a game, as below difficult 6 around the Medieval era I begin going to war and it becomes painfully obvious I'm going to steamroll the planet, and above 7 isn't really fun either, as having a hard time simply because the enemy is overwhelming me due to huge resource bonuses is more of an exercise in frustration than rewarding.

Annyyywhooo, I digress.



Isn't one of the Civ powers to allow embarked units to defend themselves? Maybe make this a universal ability, and come up with a different bonus for them.

We can tweak the AI Tactics to some extent in that we can set a sequence for them to follow. The problem here is that there are not enough AI tactics options/variables in the XML to allow an AI to make proper decisions. Combined with an overabundance of flavors and even a 15% random tactic, everything gets thrown for a loop. Theres probably even more to their tactical decisions in the DLL, but from whats currently available, rock, paper, scissors seems like a system that would work just as well. Variables either need to get way more complex - or simplified to an extreme.
 
Modbuddy seems to no longer like me and crashes upon me attempting to log in. The next update will most likely be available purely on Civfanatics in the Downloads section.
 
If you plan quick update please, please try to do something with tactical AI... Or maybe I should play on difficulty higher then Warlord;)

I'll see what I can do. I'll post the next update here on Civfanatics either Saturday or Sunday regardless of the patch for anyone that's holding off on it. After that there wont be another update until I fix whatever the patch has broken.
 
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