[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

To sum up discussions about Forts:

Robert and I agree that for now we will not do an implementation of Forts.

We will reconsider / discuss again if

A) Another modder joins the team, that really wants to do that feature.
B) There is an existing implementation of that feature, which we really like.

If somebody really wants to have more detailled discussions about Forts, we would ask to open up a new thread.

raystuttgart said:

(In the text he will explain that he does you a large favour.
But in TAC there are chances that they become Free Colonists.
(Sub-feature of "Learning By Doing".)

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Ah, ok, yeah I can see the greedy King doing that "large favour" and making me pay for it. Anyway, I was thinking in terms of real life as I wouldn't necessarily want a boat load of criminals coming to join my colony, but game wise it would be a good thing as like you say they can learn by doing.

Someone should ask to get this mod its own forum so we wouldn't be cluttering up the main forum with [Religion and Revolution] threads. I think we got the Wild West mod its own forum before we had a working version to post.

Kailric said:

Someone should ask to get this mod its own forum so we wouldn't be cluttering up the main forum with [Religion and Revolution] threads.

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We already asked for our own forum.
(We did that when we started this project.)

Result:
We should first created many threads and get many posts.
Then it would be considered to give us our own discussion sub-forum.

This is a bit offtopic. But can anyone of you tell me where to change the value which deside how much gold you get in goody huts/treasures and when destroying native settlements? (I really miss the big treasures you could get by destroying inca ect.)

Anyone know?

You could try <iTreasure> in CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml if you want to define separately for every Civ.
(It is a percentual modifier to my knowledge. 200 would mean double amount then.)

Ah. Will try that. But this will only change the treasure when destroying settlements right? How about the goody huts?

This is not a complaint or anything against TAC. But doesnt it seem a bit unbalanced when it comes to getting founding fathers? I am not in year 1560 and 60% of founding fathers is already given to my AI opponents? Is TAC giving the AI huge bonuses here? When playing TAC do I need to create Liberty Bells from day 1 to keep up? I also struggle to keep up with immigrants. :S Not very easy TAC.

Gomer_Pyle said:

Not very easy TAC.

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1. At which difficulty setting do you play ?
2. AI in TAC is much much smarter than in any other CivCol-Mod !
3. AI in TAC has learned to produce and use Bells very well.
4. TAC was not designed for CivCol beginners. It is supposed to be challenging.

-> In TAC it is not very uncommon that you actually loose games against AI at higher difficulty settings.
(That is how we wanted it. I even had many discussions with the team to not make it even more challenging. )

I am playing at Conquistador actually, but thinking about lowering it since my "current" style of gameplay doesnt cope with this AI. Not used to TAC yet. (Played Govenor and above in vanilla).

The problem I got is that if I start building Liberty Bells too early like in vanilla REF is gonna bite my head off? I simply do not understand how it is possible to keep up with the AI. hehe

Gomer_Pyle said:

How about the goody huts?

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CIV4GoodyInfo.xml

I suggest the following:

If you have more general questions about how to modifiy something in the game, please open a new thread.

I will be happy to answer your questions there.
(Please let us not abuse this thread for general modding questions. )

I appologize. I didnt want to spam the forum with lots of different posts. But if I have other questions I will do as you said.

Gomer_Pyle said:

But if I have other questions I will do as you said.

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Great.

Gomer_Pyle said:

Not used to TAC yet.

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Shift down one or two difficulty levels first to get used.

Gomer_Pyle said:

The problem I got is that if I start building Liberty Bells too early like in vanilla REF is gonna bite my head off?

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REF in TAC works very different than in Vanilla or other Mods.
(This is one of the most liked features of TAC.)

There are much more factors to get REF grow:
Military Strength, Weapons and Horses stored, Liberty Bells, Rounds Played, Size of Colonies, ...

So do not worry:
Producing Liberty Bells alone will not cause REF to grow infinitely.

Gomer_Pyle said:

I simply do not understand how it is possible to keep up with the AI.

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You do not have to keep up with AI in every area of gameplay !
At higher difficulty leves in TAC it is simply not possible to be better than AI in every aspect.
You will have to decide and focus (either on FoundingFathers or Economy or Privateers or Military or ...).

If you want to have easy game, then play low difficulty levels.

Updated my post number 94 regarding Native Raiding.

Gomer_Pyle said:

Updated my post number 94 regarding Native Raiding.

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Ok, thanks.
(Saw your remarks about treasures. )

Currently Robert and I are pretty busy.
(Real life / work.)

But also we invest quite some time in this project.

Robert is working on some screens and also wants to check TAC and my old project in detail.

I still have some discussions with other modders, also doing some experiments with implementations and last but not least I try to support TAC at least a little.

Therefore we have decided to slow down brainstorming of new ideas.
(We might discuss a new feature in detail every few days.)

We ask for your understanding and a little patience.
(We know that you are curious and we really still have a lot of things to present.)

To not totally leave you on the dry, I present one more idea in the next post in a few minutes.

Wild Animals, Pirates, Fleeing Crimals / Indentured Servants / Slaves

Idea is to bring a little more life and danger into the gameworld.
However it should not be annoying, not slow down game and not ruin AI.

So the power of these features is limited.
It is just an addition for a little more fun.

These features are not supposed to dominate gameplay.

Wild Animals

1. There are different wild animals like Polar Bear, Bear, Black Bear, Boar, Cougar, Panther, Wolf, ...
(@Robert: In my preview you can find many graphics under ...\Assets\Art\units\Animals)

2. There are 2 Types of (Re-)Spawning possible:

A) By Terrain

Thundra, Permafrost -> Polar Bear, Wolf
Marsh, Light Green Savanna -> Panther, Boar
Prairie -> Cougar, Bear
Savanna -> Black Bear, Boar, Wolf

B) By degree of latitude

Around Equator -> Panther, Boar
Close to Equator -> Cougar, Bear
Further away from Equator -> Black Bear, Boar, Wolf
Far away from Equator -> Polar Bear, Wolf

I personally prefer variant A).
(It is probably easier for me to implement.)

3. There is a maximum limit of wild animals to be (Re-)Spawned defined at the mapsizes. (XML)

4. The frequency / chances of Respawning will be set at Difficulty. (XML)

5. There will be a game option to turn this featue of.

6. Wild Animals cannot enter a field next to a city. (These are save areas)
(Of course they will also not be spawned there.)

7. Wild Animals are generally relatively week and only pose a real thread to non-military units.

8. Natives and Wild Animals will never attack each other.

9. Killing a Wild Animal will give you a little Fur. (Automatically at the next city.)

10. European AI will attack Wild Animals of course.

11. The UnitAI of Wild Animals will attack units that are weaker and run away from units that are stronger.

Pirates

1. Similar to the Wild Animals there will also be spawned Pirateships on the ocean.

• Maximum Limit of Number at Mapsize
• Frequency at Difficulty Level
• Possibility to turn of as Gameoption

2. There are 3 Types of Pirateships

Weak
Normal
Strong

Their chances of creation will be set at GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.
Also there will be settings for minimal rounds to be played berfore spawning of "Normal Pirates" and "Strong Pirates".
(So in the beginning there will be only "Weak Pirates".)

3. Eventually we could even have some kind of diplomacy with Pirates.

For example bribing to not attack own ships for the next 20 rounds.
There could be a button to start diplomacy with pirates at Port Royal Screen.

4. European AI will attack Pirates of course.

5. Pirates will be balanced to generally be weaker than strong military ships.

"Strong Pirates" would be as strong as one of your own Privateers.
They only pose a real threat to non-military ships.

6. Killing Pirateships will gain you a little money.

7. The UnitAI of Pirates is almost the same as the existing one of Privateers.

8. Probably no need to mention: Pirates are no playable Civ.

9. Once a Pirateship destroys another ship, it will head for an "Ocean-Field to Travel to Europe" and disappear.
(They will secure their bounty. Thus also much less danger of totally ruining a player.)

10. In TAC there is a feature of capturing ships.
However it is not possible to capture pirateships.
They can only be destroyed.

11. Pirates do not have any landunits and do not have or found citites.

Fleeing Criminals / Indentured Servants / Slaves

As already mentioned, we will introduce Slaves.

Also in TAC it is possible that Criminals / Indentured Servants run away.
(Currently they will only disappear.)

1. This will change.
There will be units running away.
(New unit graphics and new UnitAI.)

2. These units do not pose a thread to anybody.

3. Natives will ignore them.

4. Wild Animals will kill them.

5. Europeans can (re-)capture them and get back unit Criminal / Indentured Servant / Slave

6. However you should be fast in capturing them.
After a few rounds (random) they will simply disappear.

7. Chances for Fleeing will pretty much be the same as currently in TAC.

8. This feature cannot be turned of in GameOptions.
(There are already possibilities to disable Fleeing in XML.)

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Implementation:

Wild Animals, Pirates and Fleeing will be implemented as own "Barbarian Civ" each.

This has several advantages:
A) It is much easier to control the behaviour of Natives / Europeans towards each fraction.
B) It might allow us to have diplomacy with Pirates.
C) It is much easier to separately deactivate in Gameoptions for example.

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Feedback ?

Love the idea around this feature. Col94 and C4C, both seemed to lack that element of danger around exploring and colonizing. You could send off your units to wherever, and not really worry about them getting into trouble unless you had angered the natives or were a war with another civ. With this feature things might be a bit more interesting! I'm with Ray on prefering variant A for wild animals, and having them determined by terrain.

As for the pirates element, I like the idea of different strengths, that you cannot play as pirates and that they cannot found colonies. Pirate colonies in other mods I always found a little bemusing, as pirates typically did not found colonies but rather took over existing colonies, such as Port Royal in Jamaica, and New Providence on Nassau. With the piracy idea, would the level of piracy increase throughout the game, reaching its peak from the 1650's-1720's with the golden age of piracy, and then decline as most players and AI civs would have sufficient naval strength to deal with pirates, or would the level of piracy stay at a more constant rate throughout the game? - Just curious.

colonialfan said:

With the piracy idea, would the level of piracy increase throughout the game, reaching its peak from the 1650's-1720's with the golden age of piracy, and then decline as most players and AI civs would have sufficient naval strength to deal with pirates, or would the level of piracy stay at a more constant rate throughout the game? - Just curious.

Click to expand...

There will be a lot of randoms in that feature.
(No determinism. Spawning is based on chances.)

There will be many xml-settings to balance this feature.
(We will do a general balancing of course but everybody could tune the feature to his liking ...)

The "middle" and the "strong" pirates would not be spawned from the beginning, thus also limiting total frequency of spawning at that point.
(Meaning, that if random would decide to spawn a "strong" pirate and minimum round for them is not yet reached, nothing will happen.)

1. In the beginning, low frequency of spawning and only "weak" pirates.
2. In the middle, middle frequency but no "strong".
3. In the lategame, higher frequeny and also "strong".

While the maximum possible amount of pirates will stay the same througout the game, the frequency and strength will rise.
There will be no decline of spawning after a certain point of time.

However since in Lategame most players will have larger and stronger fleets, the "lifetime" and thus the total number of pirates will probably drastically go down by itself.
Spawning frequency of pirates is only affected by the number of existing pirates if maximum number is reached.

For me it is very important, that this feature will not totally crash game balance.
(It is supposed to add a little fun and danger.)

Of course, I love this idea. I told you already in a private message Ray (I think...)

I prefer option A. Wild animals are spawned on a specific Terrain.
If the map generator is correct, it will automatically be the right latitude.

[By the way I say "If the map generator is correct" because the standard map generator isn't perfect. I've changed it a little. (e.g. now some bonuses can appear on peaks, that is silver and ore). I'll like to correct the map generator if TAC hasn't already done that of course!
I've also corrected a few French texts (e.g. "Sell all goods" instead of "See all goods") . I would like to integrate these modifications, of course!]

Could we add a "Raging barbarians" or "Raging animals" too?
Instead of waiting let's say 50 turns to see pirate, could the trigger be a little more complex. Maybe the first treasure would trigger pirates, or the first privateer bought by someone etc... It's just an idea...

[Off topic again: I think you're wrong about treasures...

Gomer_Pyle said:

This is a bit offtopic. But can anyone of you tell me where to change the value which deside how much gold you get in goody huts/treasures and when destroying native settlements? (I really miss the big treasures you could get by destroying inca ect.)

Anyone know?

Click to expand...

I'd rather say you have to edit GlobalDefines.xml.
I'll open a new topic, if you want specifics ASAP. In the meantime you can download my Storm and Light mod. I've highly increased treasures. So try attacking incas or Aztecs. And look for "Default:" comments in GlobalDefines.xml
]

Robert Surcouf said:

I'd rather say you have to edit GlobalDefines.xml.

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In GlobalDefines it is:
(But this is the general setting. It will increase for all nations.)

SETTLEMENT_TREASURE_YIELD

In CivilizationInfos:
(Here you can tune for specific nations, like Inka, Aztec ...)

iTreasure

Both is possible.

(There even is a third possiblity at Traits.)

Robert Surcouf said:

Of course, I love this idea.

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Great.

Robert Surcouf said:

I told you already in a private message Ray (I think...)

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Yes but we only talked about it in general.
(I was interested about your feedback to the specific concepts.)

Robert Surcouf said:

I prefer option A. Wild animals are spawned on a specific Terrain.

Click to expand...

It is also easier to implement.

Robert Surcouf said:

By the way I say "If the map generator is correct" because the standard map generator isn't perfect. I've changed it a little. (e.g. now some bonuses can appear on peaks, that is silver and ore). I'll like to correct the map generator if TAC hasn't already done that of course!

Click to expand...

I am not sure.
Just generate a large map and you will probably see.

But sure, if there is a problem, we can definitely integrate your changes.

Robert Surcouf said:

I've also corrected a few French texts (e.g. "Sell all goods" instead of "See all goods") . I would like to integrate these modifications, of course!

Click to expand...

Of course.

Robert Surcouf said:

Could we add a "Raging barbarians" or "Raging animals" too?

Click to expand...

I do not understand what you mean by that ?
(I am not sure if it would be a good idea to add even more "barbarians", as "Wild Animals" and "Pirates" will do ...)

Robert Surcouf said:

Instead of waiting let's say 50 turns to see pirate,

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No, it does not work like that.
There is no certain number to wait.

It is chances of randoms.
(You can only set the average chances per round.)

So if you set chances to 2% then you will get a pirate per average every 50 rounds.
(Not knowing if the actual spawning will be round 1 or X.)

If you take a look at my implementation of "Learning By Doing", you will know what I mean.
(I have implemented many features like that, because I hate determinism.)

You will never know before, when things will actually happen.
(That would be very boring ...)

It is not like a clock where every one hour a bell will ring.
It is more like roulette or a wheel of fortune.