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

I think I'll hold off on playing this until it's more developed, simply because I don't want to ruin the experience of playing it completed. :D

Yeah, I think that is a good idea for most folks. You can spoil it for yourself by getting bogged down too much in early development mechanics. It's a sad thing but I don't think I'll ever be able to play my own mod and immerse myself the way I could in FFH.

But getting code out that at least "runs" has been a big milestone for me.
 
I'm just a lurker for ciV...
and no modder for any civ game. (and I'm currently only on page 4 of the forum)
so take my comments with a grain of salt.

for techs : I understand what is wanted and what is proposed.
is it possible to have (additionaly or in place) of a %tech maintenance have a way to enact the cost maintenance by having each tech increase others tech COST by x%

I mean : reduce the "maintenance cost" from 10%per tech to 5% but rise all tech costs by 20% per tech researched (you'll have to redesign the tech cost to do so)

thus a barbs focusing on 10 tech would get the last tech at a 200% increased cost.
a research-focused civ could still research more, but each investment would be more exepensive. with 20 techs, searching the 21st would be +400% !! so reasearching a somewhat early tech (base = 200, is now 1000 (roughly 5 times costlier than the cost the barb civ paid at first...)

or have the cost increase by tier : each tier I techs increase tech costs by 10%, tier 2 by 20%, tier 3 by 30%, tier 4 by 40%...Etc researching 2 lines up to tech 4 will be very costly...

you can balance it so that having the "research focus" techs enables to get roughly 2 lvl 4 + 1/2 level 5 (on top of the lvl 5 in research) (total, at least 400-450%increase in tech cost) at which point, strating on a 4 tech line make it like all techs are at least felt as lvl5 in terms of cost, while benefits are only lvl 1.

while on the other side, the barb-civ would have got bonus for not focusing on research at the begining and when it wants to start toward a new tech line it "only" has an increase of +150% so a new tier I tech is felt like a lvl2-lvl3 tech and that's manageable but you don't have much science to compensate.

The specific mechanics are based on what can be modded. There is no way to change tech costs for specific players as you suggest (at least I don't think so, and I think I got that answer from the mighty Spatz). Even if I could mod it any way I wanted, it's impossible to think of a "limiting mechanic" that isn't frustrating (I'm not sure that tech costs rising to infinity is better than seeing all your research points going toward supporting existing techs). It's funny that no one seems bothered by policy progress slowing and halting (even as your empire produces more and more total culture), but having that happen for techs seems to go against the grain.

as of mercenaries.
It'll depend on how it plays, but maybe "hiring" mercenaries could be more widespread across policies "types" so anyone can get it. However a "merc" policy allows you either to hired merc out (to gain money) or to hire better mercs ? or to allow more merc ? or cheaper ? or without any penalty ? (all other civs get a "weak" or "unloyal" promotion or something when hiring merc).

otherwise I'll think that many hired out merc won't find a buyer as only civs with "mercenaries" policy would be potential buyers ... :/ (however maybe it is balanced.. I won't know)
(and spending a policy in "merc" when you want to buy some but there is no interesting seller would be a waste of opportunity, and maybe damageable).

Maybe GM could open a "mercenary" liaison that allows to buy mercs but with increased cost or with the aformentionned bad promotions without needing the "mercenaries" policy ?
These are all good ideas that I'll have to think about. My idea is that city states will always provide a source of mercenaries (there will be a "Mercenary" type) or a buyer (all the other types). I have mixed feelings about whether all civs should have some access to the mechanism (with Mercenary policy just making it work better) or if it should be only available to those that make the effort to get the policy. There are two kinds of civs that should ultimately get the policy: 1) those like "Hippus" that specialize in making and hiring out some kind of military unit (there is more gold for experienced or promoted units, so building stables and such can really help); and 2) those that are really commerce-focused and have the cash to rely entirely on a mercenary defense (these civs will be completing the policy branch anyway).
 
The specific mechanics are based on what can be modded. There is no way to change tech costs for specific players as you suggest (at least I don't think so, and I think I got that answer from the mighty Spatz). Even if I could mod it any way I wanted, it's impossible to think of a "limiting mechanic" that isn't frustrating (I'm not sure that tech costs rising to infinity is better than seeing all your research points going toward supporting existing techs). It's funny that no one seems bothered by policy progress slowing and halting (even as your empire produces more and more total culture), but having that happen for techs seems to go against the grain.
You can't modify tech costs, but you can do the same thing by modifying beaker output.

I really think that the linear tech maintenance penalty is going to be horrible. The first tech you get reduces your effective income by 5% (100->95), the 10th tech reduces your income by 10% (50->45%), the 15th tech reduces your effective income by 25% (25->20), the 17th by 33% (15->10), the 18th by 1/2 (10->5).

I think that if you really do want to have this kind of mechanic, a logarithmic functional form that asymptotes towards 100% penalty but never completely halts research would be far prefereable to a linear form.
 
It's a sad thing but I don't think I'll ever be able to play my own mod and immerse myself the way I could in FFH.
Obviously, it's different for everyone but I used to play the Warhammer mod that Ahriman and I (and others) worked on all the time. It was the coolest thing in the world for me to do all the code in the XML SDK and then see it in the game. (I was the XML slave, hehe.) The units and the promotions & such...that was so cool. But anyway, it can be satisfying to know that you did the coding & then it's right there -- in the game. Like I said though, it's different for everyone.
 
I think that if you really do want to have this kind of mechanic, a logarithmic functional form that asymptotes towards 100% penalty but never completely halts research would be far prefereable to a linear form.
I was actually just thinking this. You never want to get so close to zero, after all that those last few techs are basically a grind. You may want to reduce it, however, such that, if the player does not have 1 or 2 cities that specialize in research, it may be a grind. For instance, (numbers being arbitrary in the following example), without a city that contains many "beaker" buildings/improvements/sages, it may take 1.5 times as long to research tech18 as it would if the player had a city with said enhancements to beaker acquisition. So, naturally, it would be advantageous for all players to have at least one city focused mostly on research.
 
I think that if you really do want to have this kind of mechanic, a logarithmic functional form that asymptotes towards 100% penalty but never completely halts research would be far prefereable to a linear form.

That's a very appealing alternative. The complication is that I'm working with a system where all of these "percent modifiers" are additive (this is just by far the easier way to implement). So you might have -110% research maintenance (applied at all cities), but then you have +15% from several Academies (applied at all cities), +10% research from your Sage King (applied at all cities), another +10% for a Sage-in-residence (applied at a particular city), and then another +?% for university or this or that (applied at at each city) (and don't forget that they will be running at 5% maintenance per tech rather than the base 10%). Obviously I'm describing a very research-focused civ here, but that's the point: only these civs will be contemplating 20 techs or getting more than one of the high-tier techs.

As a technical note, Civ5 modding tools make it a real serious pain in the butt to deduct research points. Not impossible. But very hard because the dll applies the tech advance before you can deduct the points. It's very easy though to apply a global negative %modifier (that acts additively with other %modifiers).

I do like your idea of an asymptotic approach to total stagnation rather than a flat out halt (even for low tech civs), but I'd have to have a way to do it using simple additive %modifiers (at least for now as my tolerance for difficult modding mechanisms is rather low).
 
I've been working on a new system for barb camps. I just added this to post#3 documentation:

Barbarian and Humanoid Settlements
These will come in a variety of flavors, including Barbarian Settlements that produce barbarians of the race of Man and act exactly as base Civ5 Barb Camps. There will also be Orc Settlements, Hill Giant Settlements, Ogre Settlements, and so on (as unit art becomes available) that produce various humanoids of other races, many of which are quite tough. Units produced by these settlements are "barbs" and hostile to all civs, including Heldeofol. But:
  1. Heldeofol civs "convert" these units when they beat them in combat.
  2. If the feature is within 3-tiles of a Heldeofol city, then that city is enabled to produce the "special" unit types (Ogre, Hill Giant, etc.) if they also have the appropriate tech (these will mostly be techs down the mining, hunting or animal husbandry branches). This works by "city race" rather than "civ race", so it is possible in a Heldeofol city conquered by Man.
  3. Heldeofol civs can't destroy these features. They get the normal 25 gold the first time they enter the tile, but no more for doing it again. Also, if the feature is within Heldeofol cultural borders, then the feature is "protected" from Man (who can get 25 gold from it once, but don't destroy the feature).

Obviously this is going to encourage a bit of xp and unit "farming" by Heldeofol, but you sort of have to like that anyway if you play this race.

Help! Artists Wanted!

Need Ogres, Hill Giants, Trolls, Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and so on...
 
regarding mercs... I think that buying mercs should be available to a research heavy civ that comprises mainly savant... (or cultural wannabees... or even sidhe fluffleheads) that fearfully need/accept in their city some barb warriors to help them. but.. maybe, as they don't know their business with mercs, they can lose some things, or they take risks, or the cost is heavy in maintenance/lost buildings...Etc

I just thought of something else.
it seems that you proposed to unlock some units UB by policies..
I think it very nice as all development and evolution is not linked to science.

However I think it can be pushed farther : more units/buildings/wonders unlocked only through policies ? or even through some traits ? (some traits that are hard to get to science-heavy civs)

ONe needs to ask the question of what does one forgoe if one goes for science ?
by identifying one or 2 elements (randomly : wilderness, culture, gold, faith? ...Etc) you can have one or two other foci for your developpement that would may somehow counter the science and propose alternative evolution.

like : increased culture (and not GPP) increases GP apparition.(but culture increase policies so ...)

increased... wilderness ==> increase events that open "un-researchable tech".
increased... faith ==> faith tech tree that is researched by investing faith and not by investing :science: (see MoM for FFH).

increased... gold : enable some buildings/units that need to have respectively 1000gold, 5000 gold, 10000 gold, 25000 gold, 50000gold in treasury and cost from 100 to 500 gold.(the numbers are random)

you have somehow done this with the secondary traits but maybe you could push it farther ;
have some traits unlock big promotions (+2 or +4 or +6 strength for units)... but getting those traits needs some behaviour that is hard to obtain if you focus toward science.(but as said before, the first step would be to decide what an illiterate could/would do much more than an empire focusing on research ... and that it could/would still do twice better than even a big empire focusing on research...

here the ball is on your side:D

Maybe have secondary traits possibilities being reduced when teching too much (each tech reduces chance of having a 3rd/4th trait slot by 5%? by 10% ? (is that even possible ?)

well, those are all random thoughts... tell me if you are "feature locked" on this :D
 
The complication is that I'm working with a system where all of these "percent modifiers" are additive (this is just by far the easier way to implement). So you might have -110% research maintenance (applied at all cities), but then you have +15% from several Academies (applied at all cities), +10% research from your Sage King (applied at all cities), another +10% for a Sage-in-residence (applied at a particular city), and then another +?% for university or this or that (applied at at each city) (and don't forget that they will be running at 5% maintenance per tech rather than the base 10%). Obviously I'm describing a very research-focused civ here, but that's the point: only these civs will be contemplating 20 techs or getting more than one of the high-tier techs.
One possibility; could you fix all the various individual effects so that they all work at the city level, so that the global modifier is the only one that works at the global level?

Even if not, you can still have the core modifier work logarithimically rather than linearly, just specify the appropriate values for 1, 2, 3,.... 20, 21, ....30, 31, ...max techs individually so as to keep a constant proportional reduction. eg if it is 7.5% reduction per tech, then you have a tech penalty of -7.5% after 1 tech, -14.44% after 2 techs, -20.85% after 3 techs, -26.79% after 4 techs.... etc down to -80.55% after 20 techs, and -90.36% after 30 techs.
ie from penalty = 100(1-(0.925)^n)
If you want 8.5% penalty per tech, then do the same but with 0.915, and you get -83.08% modifier after 20 techs, going to -93% by 30 techs.
10% per tech gives -87.84% after 20 techs, and -95.76% after 30 techs.
etc.
 
i think he is saying that assigning to each tech a "+5% tech maintenance" is easier than doing "1 tech total is 7.5%, 2 techs is 14.44%...etc". Indeed, each tag is calculated once per tech and added to a global value .. and then it calculates the global multiplier.
if ciV is like cIV, the engine adds multipliers of a same type before applying them (eg, -10% and -10% and -10% and -10% and -10% = -50% instead of it being 0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9=-41%). so adding multipliers is "easy" to mod... but making multiplier multiply would be harder to code (or even impossible).. am I wrong?
 
I am very interested by the idea of Workers (Workers & Engineers, I should say) construct Wonders as uber-tile improvements! This is a great idea, and much more realistic than having it in a city, but I am unsure how you could change the outputs to still make them worth building. This is a great idea, and some very original stuff in here! Keep up the good work! :goodjob:
 
One possibility; could you fix all the various individual effects so that they all work at the city level, so that the global modifier is the only one that works at the global level?

Even if not, you can still have the core modifier work logarithimically rather than linearly, just specify the appropriate values for 1, 2, 3,.... 20, 21, ....30, 31, ...max techs individually so as to keep a constant proportional reduction. eg if it is 7.5% reduction per tech, then you have a tech penalty of -7.5% after 1 tech, -14.44% after 2 techs, -20.85% after 3 techs, -26.79% after 4 techs.... etc down to -80.55% after 20 techs, and -90.36% after 30 techs.
ie from penalty = 100(1-(0.925)^n)
If you want 8.5% penalty per tech, then do the same but with 0.915, and you get -83.08% modifier after 20 techs, going to -93% by 30 techs.
10% per tech gives -87.84% after 20 techs, and -95.76% after 30 techs.
etc.

What I mean is that Civ5 +/- percent modifiers are additive. So "100% research maintenance" doesn't mean zero research if you have some +% modifiers in a city. You might have to have 150% or even 200% research maintenance to really shut it down (especially with all the +% modifiers that a research-focused civ might have).

I could use an asymptotic function that takes into account any +/- percent modifiers you already have in a particular city, but that seems annoyingly complicated. Also, I kind of like the current effect where maintenance wipes out research in all your peripheral cities first, leaving you with only research from your core cities that have some +% modifiers (from universities or whathaveyou). It may be that my existing system gives you an "asymptotic gameplay effect" even though the equation is simple linear. What I mean is that no matter whether you are high- or low-tech oriented, you will never actually reach 100% "effective" research maintenance. (My testing is too limited to know how it really plays out in the long run, however.)
 
regarding mercs... I think that buying mercs should be available to a research heavy civ that comprises mainly savant... (or cultural wannabees... or even sidhe fluffleheads) that fearfully need/accept in their city some barb warriors to help them. but.. maybe, as they don't know their business with mercs, they can lose some things, or they take risks, or the cost is heavy in maintenance/lost buildings...Etc
Research focused civs are going to be able to pick up a high-tier "military tech" pretty easily, so they are probably going to put out some of their own elite units. It's the commerce focused civs that will need this (and have the cash to use it).

I just thought of something else.
it seems that you proposed to unlock some units UB by policies..
I think it very nice as all development and evolution is not linked to science.

However I think it can be pushed farther : more units/buildings/wonders unlocked only through policies ?
I have some of this but not too much. I don't want the policy tree to feel just like another tech tree.

or even through some traits ? (some traits that are hard to get to science-heavy civs)
It's very easy for me to add "UUs" or "UBs" linked to your "civ" (i.e., your tier 1 "naming" trait) or any subsequent (tier 2, 3, 4,..) traits. But I don't have any of these at the moment.

ONe needs to ask the question of what does one forgoe if one goes for science ?
by identifying one or 2 elements (randomly : wilderness, culture, gold, faith? ...Etc) you can have one or two other foci for your developpement that would may somehow counter the science and propose alternative evolution.

like : increased culture (and not GPP) increases GP apparition.(but culture increase policies so ...)

increased... wilderness ==> increase events that open "un-researchable tech".
increased... faith ==> faith tech tree that is researched by investing faith and not by investing :science: (see MoM for FFH).

increased... gold : enable some buildings/units that need to have respectively 1000gold, 5000 gold, 10000 gold, 25000 gold, 50000gold in treasury and cost from 100 to 500 gold.(the numbers are random)

you have somehow done this with the secondary traits but maybe you could push it farther ;
have some traits unlock big promotions (+2 or +4 or +6 strength for units)... but getting those traits needs some behaviour that is hard to obtain if you focus toward science.(but as said before, the first step would be to decide what an illiterate could/would do much more than an empire focusing on research ... and that it could/would still do twice better than even a big empire focusing on research...

here the ball is on your side:D

Maybe have secondary traits possibilities being reduced when teching too much (each tech reduces chance of having a 3rd/4th trait slot by 5%? by 10% ? (is that even possible ?)

well, those are all random thoughts... tell me if you are "feature locked" on this :D
Going heavy research-focus is powerful because it is the only way (ever) to get >18 or so techs total, or >1 of the mid- to high-tier techs (which have high reward). However, I'm trying to balance this with other equally rewarding approaches like commerce, cultural or (eventually) religious or magic focus. The basic principles are:
  • I want to balance with opportunity cost rather than creating any explicit punishments.
  • I want different approaches to really play different (so no RAs or similar mechanisms that simply convert one yield type into another).
 
I thought about your call for art... won't some of the "Myth" creatures of Age of Mythology from Spatzimaus look like trolls, giants and so on ?
 
I thought about your call for art... won't some of the "Myth" creatures of Age of Mythology from Spatzimaus look like trolls, giants and so on ?

The last time I played (a very early version) there was no new 3D unit art. Does he have good units now? Can you point me to any existing screen shots? (I don't see any in the first page.) I'll certainly ask Spatz if I can "borrow" some if they look appropriate.

Please point me to any other mods where I might find some units. I know about Skajaquada's WH mod, and his art looks wonderful, but it seems to be mostly orcs with machine guns. But I haven't loaded it to see if there are some that would work for Éa.

(Eventually, it will be nice to have some uniformity of style. But for now I'll just use anything that looks even close to what I need.)

Edit: I dug around in the Age of Mythology thread and I'm quite sure that there are no new 3D unit art yet. There really are only a few fantasy units for Civ5 (dragon, wolf, assassin) which is not nearly enough for a mod. There are so many already made for Civ4. It's too bad that the few folks that have learned how to convert units are more interested in WWII.
 
no.. I didn't see any screenshots :(

well I lost an hour worth of writing... lucky you :D

in short :
I think that my proposal, while wrong or badly design are also opportunity costs. and that your design seems, for the moment, to be punishing.
INdeed "science focus" seems to have no real opportunity cost, unless I'm missing something. :more techs, more versatile/better, better civ improvements...Etc
So I was thinking about ways to have a developpement in one or two other directions that one will have to forgoe if one focus on techs. But I don't know how.

A way would be through the policies trees.

Have the "completion bonus" of each tree give very important bonus that can act as improvement.

make it so that tech-focus is really possible only through the science policy tree. (eg : one gets elephants + crossbows)
and then have another policies tree (elit) unlocking big +strength promotion at end of tree (eg: one ends with boosted elephants that have +4 strenght OR boosted crossbows that have +4 ranged strenght)
and another unlocking big organisational boni (imperialist) that enable to dominate very big areas
and another enabling to develop your territory to the upmost (territorial),
and another that enable to build many more units (efficiency). (eg: one ivory ressource enables 8 elephants instead of the normal 5. SO you have more elephants than through other policy trees, but they are weaker than through the "elite" tree, and you won't have the crossbows that the "science" tree enables through teching.)
a another policy tree that enable stronger version of spells (magi) (you have to chose between many adaptative spell using the science tree OR few spell but more powerful).

...Etc

Policy is thus one way to compensate.

And even if one is able to complete 2 policies trees, they cost opportunity would still be there.... especially as policiies are independant from tech rate.
(But I would have preferred if teching somehow limited the options for some policies or reduces the number of policies that one can get.... not hardcoded, but maybe if getting culture means focusing on things a science focus has to reduce or sacrify.


BUt I think that secondary traits could be used if having more techs reduces the opportunity to get more traits. The opporunity cost is "do I use a strategy that will give me more techs or one that will lead me to have more traits?"
 
So "100% research maintenance" doesn't mean zero research if you have some +% modifiers in a city.
Now I'm a bit confused. I thought there were city-based modifiers, and then empire-based modifiers, and the latter were applied after the former.

So for example, if I have two cities with beaker incomes of 10 and 20, each with a +50% research building, then:
a) With no other modifiers, my research would be 15 + 30 = 45.
b) With only a +33% global modifier, would be (15 + 30)*1.33 = 60
c) With only a -100% global modifier, would be (15 + 30)*0 = 0

And I assumed that research maintenance was a global modifier.

No?
 
So I was thinking about ways to have a developpement in one or two other directions that one will have to forgoe if one focus on techs. But I don't know how.
My intention is to have ten or eleven other directions, not just one or two. Ultimately, you should be able to play as Merchant Princes, Pirates, Magi, Raging Barbarians, Religious Fanatics, and so on... Each of these will have more or less need for tech advancement. Magi will be high. Raging Barbarians will be low. Quite a few directions will have minimal need for tech advancement. (And the same statement can be made for Policy Advancement.)

The opportunity cost is simple: you built a library instead of (or before) a marketplace, or adopted Scholastisim instead of Folklore, or used your specialists to generate a Sage instead of an Engineer. You are forgoing opportunities every time you make a choice (that is the nature of "opportunity cost").

The existing and future policy branches are pretty much locked in. However, I'm taking your bolded items as possible traits that a civ might gain.
 
Now I'm a bit confused. I thought there were city-based modifiers, and then empire-based modifiers, and the latter were applied after the former.

So for example, if I have two cities with beaker incomes of 10 and 20, each with a +50% research building, then:
a) With no other modifiers, my research would be 15 + 30 = 45.
b) With only a +33% global modifier, would be (15 + 30)*1.33 = 60
c) With only a -100% global modifier, would be (15 + 30)*0 = 0

And I assumed that research maintenance was a global modifier.

No?

No. It doesn't work like that. All those modifiers (global or city) just add up to one modifier that is applied to base yield in each city. Don't blame me this is Civ5 math. In your example:

a) 10 * 1.5 + 20 * 1.5 = 45
b) 10 * (1 + 0.5 + 0.33) + 20 * (1 + 0.5 + 0.33) = 54.9 [possibly rounded in each city before summed, but I'm not sure]
c) 10 * (1 + 0.5 - 1) + 20 * (1 + 0.5 - 1) = 15

In the last one, if you only had the +50% in one city but not the other, then you would have wiped out research from the crappy city (goes to zero but never negative) but not the better one. This is an effect that I like because it pushes research-focused civs toward larger more developed cities since small outlying cities will be contributing nothing as Maintenance approaches 100%. On the other hand, a less research focused civ will never get to maintenance of 100% so they can rely on science from small cities.
 
but I'm thinking you explain in terms of "playing" and not in terms of "developing". And that is frustrating.
for me, expanding (just increasing the size of army/building more units/more cities) is not "developing" my civilization.
And it seems to me that the only paths of development you propose is through teching.

It seems to me that (what I understand of what you say), is that you will allow many "playing" styles.. some that need only a bit of developing and some that will need a lot of developping. BUT it doesn't seems that you will enable many developing paths. The only cost opportunity would be "do I build a library now for some more science and to gain more futur production" or do I build directly my units.

but that is vanilla civ. It seems you just amplify the inherent mechanics while I thought that you would propose alternative way to teching that may be used to IMPROVE your civ.

I would like to "develop/grow" whatever the path I take. I could grow/develop my civ through gaining new knowledge or through other means.
It seems to me that you don't talk about those other means and just say "you can play otherwise"... I don't want only to play differently I want to "develop" differently.

Otherwise, since mid-game a raging barb that has teched all his tree and can't really tech anymore will only try to "build unit", attack, build sames units attack again... it will be repetitive if there is no "growth".


EDIT:; I have to add a comment : I am really in favor of your tech maintenance mechanics. It seems interesting. It is just that I'm looking desperatly to the alternative growth paths...
 
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