Inventions (general aspects)

And to the next ...

Land Units
(I have picked out the ones that are a little bit more special. Specialists to Professions do not need to be taken care of here.)

These are the ones I could imagine to do something with.

Part 1: Units with reduced capabilities

Spoiler :

UNITCLASS_INDENTURED_SERVANT
UNITCLASS_CRIMINAL
UNITCLASS_NATIVE_SLAVE
UNITCLASS_AFRICAN_SLAVE
UNITCLASS_CONVERTED_NATIVE <-- Slight exception to this (no LbD used)


For those I could imagine:

A) Reducing chances to flee (LbD feature)
B) Increasing chances to become free colonist (LbD feature)
C) Increasing chance for the features that provide them

Part 2: Other Units that come with special features

Spoiler :

UNITCLASS_NATIVE_MERCENARY
UNITCLASS_RANGER
UNITCLASS_CONQUISTADOR
UNITCLASS_MOUNTED_CONQUISTADOR
UNITCLASS_NOBLE <-- Not military of course
UNITCLASS_BISHOP <-- Not military of course


For those I could imagine

A) Increasing chance for the features that provide them
B) Giving free promotions (only militar ones of course) <-- With this we can do a lot

Part 3: Other Special Unitclasses

Spoiler :

UNITCLASS_LIGHT_CANNON
UNITCLASS_CANNON
UNITCLASS_VETERAN
UNITCLASS_SCOUT
UNITCLASS_PIONEER <-- Not military of course
UNITCLASS_CHRISTIAN_MISSIONARY <-- Not military of course


For those I could imagine

A) Giving free promotions (only militar ones of course) <-- With this we can do a lot
B) Reducing required Yields to build <-- Cannons only of course

Part 4: Just for completeness ... :)

Spoiler :

UNITCLASS_WAGON_TRAIN <-- Not to be unlocked !
UNITCLASS_TREK
UNITCLASS_STAGECOACH
UNITCLASS_CARRIER


A) Unlocking
A) Giving free promotions <-- With this we can do a lot


Edit:

Everything that could be done by using Traits is green.
 
And to the next ...

Professions

These are the only professions I would touch:

Spoiler :

PROFESSION_MISSIONARY <-- Not military
PROFESSION_PIONEER <-- Not military
PROFESSION_SCOUT
PROFESSION_DRAGOON
PROFESSION_MUSKETMAN
PROFESSION_CUIRASSIER


A) Giving free promotions (only militar ones of course) <-- With this we can do a lot
B) Reducing required Yields to equip


Edit:

Everything that could be done by using Traits is green.
 
And to the last ...

Other Aspects <--- These are only possibilities I am mentioning !

A lot of this could be done by simply having Inventions give Traits !

Maybes:

1. Unlock "Plastered Roads"
2. Unlock "Draining Swamps" <-- When implemented
3. Unlock "Planting Forrest" <-- When implemented
4. Unlock "Digging Riverbeds" <-- When implemented
5. Unlock "Forts" <-- When implemented
6. Unlock "Monasteries" <-- When implemented

Very Useful:

7. Improving Attitudes to Natives <-- This influences a lot of features !!! (Raids, Gifts, Trade, ...)
8. Improving Attitudes to European Colonies <-- Trait function will be implemented for Founding Fathers.
9. Improving Attitudes to Kings (own and others) <-- Trait function will be implemented for Founding Fathers.
10. Giving additional Yield(s) to City
11. Give additional Yield X to Plot with more than Y of Yield X
12. Giving additional Defense to City
13. Giving Free Buildings
14. Giving Free Units <-- Functionality can be copied from Founding Fathers

Interesting:

15. Decreasing Immigration Threshold
16. Increasing Tax-Trade Threshold
17. Decreasing Native Education Threshold
18. Decreasing Growth Threshold
19. Decreasing Education Threshold
20. Decreasing Time to become Expert throuhg LbD
21. Increasing Profits from Domestic Market
22. Increasing Storage Threshold of Storage Buildings
23. Increase Gold from Chiefs
24. Increase Great General Emergence Rate
25. Decrease Prices for Buying Land from Natives
26. Decrease Europe Travel Time
27. General Combat Modifier agains Natives
28. Lower Recruit Prices in Europe

These functionalities we could simply copy from Civics:

29. Increase Workspeed of Pioneers
30. Increase Military Production
31. Increase Father Points generated

Edit:

Everything that could be done by using Traits is green.
 
Comments:

Ok, that is basically it. :)

We do not have to do all of that.
It is just giving a rough outline of the possibilities.

Especially in "Other Aspects" we should really think if we want to do something or not,
because it will probaly not be used very often.
The rest is basically stripped down to the really usefull functions to my opinion. :)

Please let us not go crazy and start planning much more functionality for the feature. :)
(I could even imagine leaving some more things out.)

A lot of features are already strongly influenced by Attitude, so we do not have to touch these in other ways.

"Unlocking Promotions" is pretty much useless to my opinion.
I would rather give Free Promotions.

With giving Free Promotions to Units and Professions, we can already do a lot.
We do not have to code extra capabilities into the feature to do just the same.

With giving Traits, we wil also already have a lot of functionality.

How to Proceed:

@team:
First of all tell me if the outline I have given is ok. :)

The rest will be an enormous amount of work. :(

From the outline I have given, I would suggest to create a long list of each single bonus going topic by topic.
(This will become a gigantic Excel)

Bonus Resources
Improvements
Buildings
Ships
Land Units
Professions
Other Aspects

When this is done, we can start matching them to "Knowledges / Advancements". :thumbsup:

The Question is:

Do I need to spend my time creating this Excel, or could somebody else do this ? :dunno:
(Thus I can use my time for implementing on the mod.)

Summary:

Our goals must be as always:

  • Stability
  • Performance
  • Gameplay / Balance
  • Reasonable Efforts
  • Authenticity
 
Hm, it IS a lot of work!

But...sorry, that I say that, but...at the moment I must say, that I'm totally not interested in this feature and at the moment I would not spent time on doing something for this feature (graphics or something else).

Maybe I will change my mind at a later stage...
 
At the moment we are doing nothing else than trying to finally create a good concept. :)

Everything else, we will see. :thumbsup:
 
ok, I can try to work on an Excel spreadsheet list for planning. Hopefully we would not need to create many graphics for this other than some 2D buttons, of which most could be reused from Civ4 and other mods.
 
ok, I can try to work on an Excel spreadsheet list for planning.

Great. :thumbsup:

Hopefully we would not need to create many graphics for this other than some 2D buttons, of which most could be reused from Civ4 and other mods.

Probably 2D Buttons is all we will need considering graphics. :thumbsup:
 
Hm, it IS a lot of work!

But...sorry, that I say that, but...at the moment I must say, that I'm totally not interested in this feature and at the moment I would not spent time on doing something for this feature (graphics or something else).

Maybe I will change my mind at a later stage...

Ok guys, maybe my approach was a bit harsh. I was overstrained with the dimensions of this feature. ;) Sorry for that.

I just wanted to point out that I have other graphic priorities at the moment. Once I have the time, I will deal with this feature.

Of course I will support the development of this feature, once the team has determined its guidelines.
 
ok, I've constructed an excel planning template as requested and uploaded to transfer/advances . We could obviously use only a small part of those individually so that table is probably far more than needed, but its a good list of the possibilities to select from.
 
I'm a bit confused :crazyeye:
ok, I've constructed an excel planning template as requested and uploaded to transfer/advances . We could obviously use only a small part of those individually so that table is probably far more than needed, but its a good list of the possibilities to select from.
I agree with you Orlanth. For me we should see this as a list of possible entries, not things we have to do.

@orlanth:
My main problem with the current concept:
It is unbalanced. :dunno:

A) If we start improving Yields with Inventions we must do it for all (or almost all) Yields.
B) If we unlock highest level of Production Buildings with Inventions, we must do it for all (or almost all) of them.
C) If we start unlocking 2nd Level Improvements, we must do it for all of (or almost all) 2nd Level Improvements.
...

Otherwise we will completely unbalance the productionlines and the mod.
And that is a real nogo for me. :(
I strongly disagree with you :eek: :(
Sorry if what I say is harsh, but I'd rather say what I have in mind.
It looks as though you're trying to make this so difficult to do so you're sure it won't be done :(
Of course everyone (including Orlanth and me of course) wants the feature to be balanced. :eek:
The opposite doesn't make any sense...
But no. I don't see why we would have to do the same thing for every yield, every improvement or every building.
In my opinion this is the best way to make this impossible. :cry:
Ok, you're right, I might be exaggerating. Let's be frank. It could be done the way you suggest but our modding team would have to grow ten times (or it will take decades).

You're implicitly (or is it explicitly?) saying that our mod will only be balanced when every yield is treated the same way. You're wrong. I mean, yes! It is probably the easiest way, but it isn't the only way. We could imagine yields that don't evolve much during games (or throughout inventions or knowledge) and other yields that evolve, having lower output in early games and higher outputs afterwards.

In my opinion we would have more chances to have an interesting feature if we start with a relatively modest knowledge tree. Which would actually suggest some asymmetrical approach (such as the one Orlanth and Colonialfan suggested... more or less ;))

I'm not saying this is easy, and you are right to point out the difficulties, but I must say I disagree with your post (the one I quoted of course)
 
It looks as though you're trying to make this so difficult to do so you're sure it won't be done :(

That is definitely not my intention. :thumbsup:
I simply want to have a good and balanced feature.

Well, it seems as if we have quite different opinions on how such a good and balanced feature should look like. :dunno:

We could imagine yields that don't evolve much during games (or throughout inventions or knowledge) and other yields that evolve, having lower output in early games and higher outputs afterwards.

So you want to destroy the complete current balancing and unbalance the yields, to later on balance it out with "Inventions" again ? :confused:

But no. I don't see why we would have to do the same thing for every yield, every improvement or every building.

I am simply afraid to totally unbalance the production lines / economy.
(Which is a real nogo for me.)

Well, I will think about this again. :thumbsup:

But at the moment (so short before Relase 1.2) this is not my main priority.
 
Thinking about it further: is it really needed for all yields / productionlines to be relatively identical to each other in all game behaviors in order to achieve a balanced game? Actually not. In fact, what's really needed is simply that each player faces the same set of opportunities and challenges. Yields, terrains, and productionlines can still have some significant strategic differences between each other; as long as players all face a similar set of opportunities, having some differences between yields actually creates more strategic interest to the game.

As others have pointed out, a main danger with adding so many Yields to the game is that they can all become "just different kinds of cash equivalents"; i.e. they are not really interesting or unique unless we make an effort to add some real strategic differences for them. This advancement system could help differentiate them a bit since there is now another use for yields other than converting to cash.

I think what Robert is pointing out, is that it can still be a fair and balanced game if some yields are relatively more rare than others, or require more advancements to fully exploit. For example, it could be balanced and historically accurate for some of the more intensively cultivated Yields like Tobacco or Cotton to start out relatively difficult to harvest in high volumes as the colonists were initially unfamiliar with large scale farming of them, but allow you to achieve gradual but significant advances in production capacity as the colonists become more familiar with them and develop a more advanced plantation economy. For many other Yields like livestock, advances/techs might not be as important. E.g. for Gems, it could be nice to have a few Prospecting techs that can discovers Gem Deposits or Pearls or enhance their yield, but it wouldn't make sense to have many discoveries that can develop a huge Gem or Pearl industry.

Still, I'm not really that satisfied with my initial tree plan. I was being too hesitant about unlocking anything in the game, so there was not much interesting for most techs to do. Also I was constraining it to the list of names we had at the time, so there ended up being effects for only a very small set of yields. On the other hand, the total list of possible entries is obviously way too much to implement (and way more than we should want to have in the game); I'm sure there's a middle ground for a much smaller set of advances/bonuses that could still be balanced/interesting. Having the list of possible bonuses, maybe you could piece together a general outline of what you feel is balanced?
 
Thinking about it further: is it really needed for all yields / productionlines to be relatively identical to each other in all game behaviors in order to achieve a balanced game ?

They don't need to be identical but they need to be balanced.

What balances these are usually:

1. Price
2. Amounts
3. Availability

Yields, terrains, and productionlines can have some significant strategic differences between each other; that's still balanced and actually creates more strategic interest to the game.

Well yes. :)

I am really looking forward to a good concept.

1. Implementable with reasonable efforts
2. Understood by AI
3. Fun
...

Currently all I have seen about Inventions was really unbalancing the production lines / economy in a way I did not like at all.

As others have pointed out, a main danger with adding so many Yields to the game is that they can all become "just different kinds of cash equivalents"; i.e. they are not really interesting or unique unless we make an effort to add some real strategic differences for them. This advancement system could help differentiate them a bit since there is now another use for yields other than converting to cash.

The main point, why I think this was interesting is:
Specialised Cities with well managed Transport Routes.

As I said:
We cannot only think about the Human Player.
We must also think about AI.

It is really simple:
We need to find a concept that we can agree to.
Until now, this concept does not exist.

We have been turning in circles again and again.
Thus I suggested to use a systematic approach. :dunno:

Having the list of possible bonuses, maybe you could piece together a general outline of what you feel is balanced?

Please understand that I am currently rotating to get our next release out. :)
I cannot do a thousand things and must set priorities.

At the moment, the todos for Release 1.2 simply have the highest priority.

In a few weeks, I might have time to really think into this and bring up a concept. :thumbsup:
 
At the moment, the todos for Release 1.2 simply have the highest priority.

In a few weeks, I might have time to really think into this and bring up a concept

I think this is a good approach! Lets finish all open points and todo's for the next release.

After that all team member have enough time and leisure to find a fitting concept which is accepted by all team members for this big feature.
 
Thinking about it further: is it really needed for all yields / productionlines to be relatively identical to each other in all game behaviors in order to achieve a balanced game? Actually not.
Thank you Orlanth. I knew it ;)
We understand each other quite well. :worship:
That is definitely not my intention. :thumbsup:
I simply want to have a good and balanced feature.
I know. I shouldn't have said that. Please accept my apologies :(
I should have simply said that you seemed to be jumping to conclusions and implying that balancing and having identical productionlines/yields was more or less the same thing.
Well, it seems as if we have quite different opinions on how such a good and balanced feature should look like. :dunno:
Yes. Never mind...I'll take some time to think this trough :mischief:
 
I've been working on technology buttons, so I thought I'd share them here, in case they are useful later on, when the invention feature gets added.

Navigation


Printing Press


Both are adaptations of Civilization V buttons to Colonization II format.
 
Ayy, I don't know if you guys are still into creating new features, but I just wanted to throw a few ideas bouncing in my head out here:
How about using the existing military points to "simulate" inventions. For eg. a civ that has earned x number of points in a category would have a probability of "unlocking" a tech-bonus or the buildings themselves. Progressive achievements would require exponentially more points (similar to the logic in founding fathers).
For instance, economic points could unlock "types of factories" or reduction in "max tax rate", military points could unlock magazine\arsenal buildings, fortress\citadels or "auto promotions" (but i guess founding fathers already do this), similarly religious points for cathedral\grand cathedral, political points for newspaper etc, exploration points for random immigrant waves who are eager for rumours of fresh land, with progressive unlocks sending more qualified waves of immigrants.
This feature could be partly enabled\disabled for the AI just to give the player a handicap. (all buildings will be unlocked for the AI whereas positive events will be allowed)

Another idea I had was to disable musketmen until 1700 for the european civs and replace them with settler militias or a unit similar to it. This is to reflect the relative weakness of arquebuses that were used initially until they were replaced by better and lighter muskets around that time. (maybe give them a 2.5 strength to get an edge over braves) I have no idea if this is easy to implement, but i guess it should allow settler militias as a profession until that date before they are toggled off and musketmen are toggled on.
 
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