Getting Started

Maintenance is a mechanic that is passive and reduces gold supply. Gold can be used for purchasing tiles, units, buildings, influence and resources. By keeping build cost high but reducing maintenance, you can spend that saved gold on active decision-making ways to improve your empire, instead of a passive drain that becomes just a number on the economy chart...

...The change to Bazaars gives Arabia more specialist potential, encouraging denser city spacing (synergistic with the UA). This works from both gameplay and realism perspectives, as population centers in North Africa and the Middle East are often densely clustered in regions of above-average habitability, surrounded by largely inhospitable stretches of arid land.
Click to expand...

The rationale behind this mod is pretty convincing. :goodjob:
 
Adding iron to modern units seems like an interesting idea, but when you understand how the map scripts generate resource placement, it would make a mess of things.
Basically, it decides whether each strategic resource should be sparse or abundant, and whether it should be focused in one area of the map (civs get "monopolies"), available only through city-states (whether you befriend them or capture them), or spread out for everyone.

This is interesting when strategic resources are only useful in certain eras. Lack of horses at your starting area just means you have to wait until later to wage warfare effectively (when you can build strategic units with another resource you have) or rely heavily on iron units (which favor more defensive play compared to horse units).

Making a strategic resource essential through all stages of the game can basically screw a civ over because the map decided to place all of that resource on another continent.

I had a hard enough time waging modern warfare when there was only one uranium on my continent and 8 uranium on the other continent... If my non-nuclear units started requiring iron as well, it would have been a lot worse.
 
Hey I love the mod so far, just installed it and the changes are great :)

One thing I noticed though, is that the gold per tile bonus of the harbor is not working. I've doubled checked that the mod is properly installed and verified the other bonuses are working, just not the harbor bonus. If you could take a look it would be great, thanks!
 
Is the gold bonus actually not taking effect on the tiles, or is it just not showing in the harbor tooltip?

If you have Unofficial Patch installed, delete the Unofficial Patch - Harbor.xml file from that folder.

In the "compatibility" section of Balance - Terrain Improvements, I mention how I included a fix for the harbor tooltip in the Unofficial Patch, but to also add on the +:commerce: bonus in the tooltip I have to change to same thing.
 
@Kadath

-Specialists et al-

I'm not sure the feel of the game would be altered much if specialists produced more as the era went on. If all specialists produced additional resources depending on the era, then there would be no need to add buildings or anything else.
I would think different specialists would differ from different eras mid to late game.

As for city-Governor AI, I think it does a really good job at choosing what to work. And only in specific circumstances have I had to adjust it manually. The "focus" boxes work as intended, as does the "specialist manual" button. I'm rather impressed with the CITY AI choices, actually.


-Barracks and HP-
I downloaded and play with the "Battle AI" mod i found on here somewhere. The AI's ability to fight is VASTLY improved. It's night and day with that mod.

As for damage, I dont think damage should be increased if HP is - after all, what is being done is sacrificing building two units, to build a barracks and a unit. This effectively allows for "two units (or almost) to be in one tile" This SHOULD take longer to kill.

Even with horsehockey AI, it would mean that THEIR units would be harder to kill as well, which would mean that their "sacrifices" to your fortified units would happen less often. As their units would actually DIE less often. It would be, less death over all.

However, the only units that would benefit from this would be barracks-line produced units. And as far as I can tell, the AI does specialize some. Barracks boosts would help them more than hurt them.

(I really recommend you grab the BATTLE AI, it seems to mesh with Thal's AI adjustment which is about resource valuations.)
 
Thal, one suggestion concerning your version issues on the mod-grabber in civ.

If you had ALL of your mods with the same version (even if no update was applicable), people could always grab the last series of what you were doing.

So for example if you updated wonders and great people to say "version 15," Then it might behoove to you label "everything" version 15, so that people who wanted your whole package could just look for that number.

Then say, at the top of this thread, put "current version is 15".

Just a thought.

Edit/Add: Or perhaps it's time to put up a "Thal's Overhaul" mod which is just the package of everything you have and up-to-date.
 
The biggest problem is simply that I can't remove a lot of outdated mods. If it wasn't for that issue, it'd be easier to keep track of things, I think. Currently there's about a half dozen mods up that are a week out of date but I can't access them to deal with that. :(

When checking for updates, a user can search by author name and sort by date (which is the default sorting). It's relatively easy to see updates in this manner: everything since the last time someone visited.

I'm hesitant to do a "giant conglomeration" package on the browser. The download rates for different parts are very different, and there's several disadvantages to doing a big package, especially if/when they get automated updates working.

For example, to my understanding Lua files must be merged between different mods that use a particular UI element, and it would be inconvenient for people to have to do this every day for some component X, even if it hasn't changed in a while, and I'm working on component Y instead that has nothing to do with Lua. I haven't reached the point of heavy Lua edits yet (currently only the Unofficial Patch uses it), but this is something I'm keeping in mind. In addition, some components have other compatibility concerns. If someone's only using the Unofficial Patch, the harbor edit included there is used, but if you're using Terrain Improvements you delete Unofficial Patch - Harbor.xml. The fewer times people have to do this, the better, I think.

These problems will be amplified if the developers manage to get the automated updates working that Kael said were bugged a few weeks back, and it's the same issues that would arise with updating everything simultaneously (since that's essentially the same effect).

On the topic of mod names, I'm avoiding putting 'thal' in until they get the ModBuddy bug fixed. Any mod names used until then will implicitly be locked out afterwards (unless I use dozens of usernames even after the bug is fixed, which would just be more confusing).
 
Thanks QES, I'll give the Battle AI a try: 'till now I left it on a to try list waiting for it to be better ironed out, as I see some strange behaviour reports, but it can't hurt to give it a shot ;)

As for the HP for units - there's a serious issue you forgot about, if you don't also increase dmg all around: insta-heal promotions. If you increase also the dmg units do, you'll further encourage using units built from a barracks building which grants HP bonuses, as "standard" units would be extremely frail. If you don't, every 4-5 battle turns both the attacking and the defending units will keep magically healing themselves. It already happens very often - as the AI definitely favors that promotion while the unit is engaged - with x2 HP it would be a nightmare, definitely not fun.
Also, the survivability advantage the player already has thanks to his common sense, makes it so that while the AI wastes its units the player tends to grow some very experienced, overpowered units that become pretty much immortal. As the AI would still be suicidal (embarking under the nose of your destroyer, sending a lone unit to be slaughtered by your citadels without first trying to soften you up from afar with ranged units, fortifying a unit instead of retreating it even when you have several ranged ones that are making mincemeat of it, etc), this advantage would be even easier to achieve with 20HP units that would survive even when you make a mistake and advance 'em too hastily into the FOW.

20 HP imho is far too much. I would go for a +1 for each building of the barracks tree that is present in the training city, and maybe another +2 given by the Heroic Epic national wonder, so that you can reach max 13 HP per unit in a "normal" city (which is a 30% increase, quite interesting), 15 HP in your main training facility, that would on the other hand probably be way behind the frontlines in the late game, so you would have to take into account also the time needed to send those elite units where the action takes place. This probably wouldn't require a wide rebalance of DMG all around, maybe just some buffs to city defenses to avoid making conquering too easy both for you and for AIvsAI scenarios. Or using the active city defense mod together with this, which would be just perfect.


___________

Thal, another thing I found myself wondering about after my last game: the GDR is really dull. I mean, I've nothing against it per se (after all I play Japan most of the time :lol:), but I feel it lacks the "holy crap this thing is the big mama of all badasses" feeling when you, aswell as your enemies, can actually have several.
Would it be possible to make it somewhat like a wonder, so that there can be only one in the game? The civ who builds it will have a great unit, but once it dies it is forever (as such it would need some buffing, like enabling defensive bonuses et cetera, so that when the one who built it is an AI it wouldn't go to waste as soon as the AI decides to go on a suicide run): it would make it feel unique as it should, and instead of being an I win button it would actually require you to be careful and keep it under escort (especially while embarked). Aka, more balanced :D
 
Kadath said:
Thanks QES, I'll give the Battle AI a try: 'till now I left it on a to try list waiting for it to be better ironed out, as I see some strange behaviour reports, but it can't hurt to give it a shot ;)

As for the HP for units - there's a serious issue you forgot about, if you don't also increase dmg all around: insta-heal promotions. If you increase also the dmg units do, you'll further encourage using units built from a barracks building which grants HP bonuses, as "standard" units would be extremely frail. If you don't, every 4-5 battle turns both the attacking and the defending units will keep magically healing themselves. It already happens very often - as the AI definitely favors that promotion while the unit is engaged - with x2 HP it would be a nightmare, definitely not fun.
Also, the survivability advantage the player already has thanks to his common sense, makes it so that while the AI wastes its units the player tends to grow some very experienced, overpowered units that become pretty much immortal. As the AI would still be suicidal (embarking under the nose of your destroyer, sending a lone unit to be slaughtered by your citadels without first trying to soften you up from afar with ranged units, fortifying a unit instead of retreating it even when you have several ranged ones that are making mincemeat of it, etc), this advantage would be even easier to achieve with 20HP units that would survive even when you make a mistake and advance 'em too hastily into the FOW.

20 HP imho is far too much. I would go for a +1 for each building of the barracks tree that is present in the training city, and maybe another +2 given by the Heroic Epic national wonder, so that you can reach max 13 HP per unit in a "normal" city (which is a 30% increase, quite interesting), 15 HP in your main training facility, that would on the other hand probably be way behind the frontlines in the late game, so you would have to take into account also the time needed to send those elite units where the action takes place. This probably wouldn't require a wide rebalance of DMG all around, maybe just some buffs to city defenses to avoid making conquering too easy both for you and for AIvsAI scenarios. Or using the active city defense mod together with this, which would be just perfect.


___________

Thal, another thing I found myself wondering about after my last game: the GDR is really dull. I mean, I've nothing against it per se (after all I play Japan most of the time :lol:), but I feel it lacks the "holy crap this thing is the big mama of all badasses" feeling when you, aswell as your enemies, can actually have several.
Would it be possible to make it somewhat like a wonder, so that there can be only one in the game? The civ who builds it will have a great unit, but once it dies it is forever (as such it would need some buffing, like enabling defensive bonuses et cetera, so that when the one who built it is an AI it wouldn't go to waste as soon as the AI decides to go on a suicide run): it would make it feel unique as it should, and instead of being an I win button it would actually require you to be careful and keep it under escort (especially while embarked). Aka, more balanced :D
Click to expand...

Instaheal promotions should likely be removed from the game.
I was abusing it as is with the double-exp from the honor tree. Nearly every battle (or every important battle) allowed a promotion that I constantly abused. And that's without modifying anything as is.

Id rather "siting and waiting" healing be increased by one, and insta heals removed entirely.


EDIT/ADD: I think that extra damage could be experimented with. I'm only slightly against damage increases. But I'm sure playtesting could reveal how problematic or not having "just" HP bonuses are. I Do think that units should be able to get upwards of 25 HP, but perhaps this is the purpose of artillery?

What if bombards did LOTS more damage? Maybe not melee combat, but artillery based weapons, if doing lots of damage, would be the very specific counter to "Huge HP units" (and cities, unlike now when it's more advantageous to make more melee units). Perhaps more damage should be in the game, but perhaps it could be given to just one sector to create a counter-recounter system.
 
QES said:
EDIT/ADD: I think that extra damage could be experimented with. I'm only slightly against damage increases. But I'm sure playtesting could reveal how problematic or not having "just" HP bonuses are. I Do think that units should be able to get upwards of 25 HP, but perhaps this is the purpose of artillery?

What if bombards did LOTS more damage? Maybe not melee combat, but artillery based weapons, if doing lots of damage, would be the very specific counter to "Huge HP units" (and cities, unlike now when it's more advantageous to make more melee units). Perhaps more damage should be in the game, but perhaps it could be given to just one sector to create a counter-recounter system.
Click to expand...

Maybe. And especially in that case it could also be nice to tweak the artillery hit chances to be dependant on the kind of target. Right now it always hits, it just rolls to see how much damage you deal, and the damage is the same to everything (proportional to the target combat strength). However, while an artillery barrage would likely never miss at least some of those advancing tanks, forced to be exposed in the open, a fortified infrantry unit should represent trenched soldiers: minimal losses. This (without dll access which is the only way, I suppose, to edit hit % chances) could already be somewhat achieved by rebalancing units starting promotions, giving some free ranged resistance to late infrantry units (since riflemen I guess, while tanks and mech infrantry would further differentiate givin' em bonuses on something else). With a beefed up artillery, this system would give infrantry and paratroopers an important role, still very useful even in modern era, as it should be, so just spamming the unit with more strength isn't anymore the only viable tactic, you would have to differentiate your armies.
 
Hi Thal,

Loving your mod pack, it's making such a great improvement to the game!

I wanted to ask if it's OK to update the mods mid-game or would I need to start a new game every time I update?

Thanks!
 
@QES and Kadath
I like the idea of exploring ways to increase unit hitpoints and damage. This is actually one thing I was slightly disappointed in, that you're always stuck with the same amount. :)

@Panda_Power
You shouldn't have any trouble updating the mods mid-game, I don't believe I do anything that should cause problems.
 
I think you should make the nuclear weapons much easier to build. They are currently so hard to build that one is lucky to get a handful built. It makes the threat of MAD virtually non-existent and it would be interesting to see players avoid all out war among the nuclear powers.
 
meznaric said:
I think you should make the nuclear weapons much easier to build. They are currently so hard to build that one is lucky to get a handful built. It makes the threat of MAD virtually non-existent and it would be interesting to see players avoid all out war among the nuclear powers.
Click to expand...

I agree, nuclear missiles should be end-gamers. At the moment the GDr's do this (which is lame and unrealistic). I'd love to see GDR get nerfed and nukes becoming somewhat easier to build.
 
@Thal and Kadath
Do we know if it's actually possible with .xml? If we can raise HP or damage I think we should try.
Say, 5 HP per barracks-line building. And maybe Artillery attacks at double it's strength? (Like cities do damage at half of their strength.) (This should be mentioned in the tool tip if adjusted.)

The "quick and dirty" way of making artillery attack at double strength is just to give them a promotion that says "+100% on attack." But the larger question becomes one for HP growth. (Edit: or simply increasing artillery line units "ranged attack" to double would also work.)
 
the combined zip file contains v13 of the unofficial patch mod, but the latest version is v14. the combined zip file also includes v2 of the specialists mod, while its own thread is only updated to show v1's info
 
QES said:
Instaheal promotions should likely be removed from the game.
I was abusing it as is with the double-exp from the honor tree. Nearly every battle (or every important battle) allowed a promotion that I constantly abused. And that's without modifying anything as is.
Click to expand...

What if the insta heal promotions were replaced with a series of fast healing promotions?

Level 1 -> +1 HP healed per turn.
Level 2 -> Existing Medic Promotion
Level 3 -> Instantly heal 1 HP after surviving a battle.
 
@meznaric, CYZ
I'll put it on my todo list of future possibilities, though I've been avoiding unit modifications for now, because the combat AI is so poor it's hard to know what's truly good and what's just abusing the AI.

@RedTrotsky
Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to play mods in multiplayer. Firaxis is working on just how that will happen.

@QES
I doubt HP mechanics can be altered with XML alone, I don't see anything in the buildings, units or promotions files that might allow it.

@vawrswpbfv
Thank you for pointing that out, I'll get those up to date.

@Stalker0
I really like that idea. Keeps the extra healing, but also avoids it being abuseable. I'll see what I can do.
 
Thalassicus said:
Is the gold bonus actually not taking effect on the tiles, or is it just not showing in the harbor tooltip?

If you have Unofficial Patch installed, delete the Unofficial Patch - Harbor.xml file from that folder.

In the "compatibility" section of Balance - Terrain Improvements, I mention how I included a fix for the harbor tooltip in the Unofficial Patch, but to also add on the +:commerce: bonus in the tooltip I have to change to same thing.
Click to expand...

I don't have any unofficial patch or anything installed, just vanilla with official patch and your mods. I'm also using a mod that shows your luxuries and one that shows your great person progress and thats it.

It was mentioned in the tooltip, but I don't see the added gold on the tiles. The added cost per turn is there and active though.

edit: actually come to think of it I think the unofficial patch was a part of the complete mods pack that you posted. I'll check it out when I get home and see for sure if it's enabled. The first time I noticed this I did not have this enabled (the fix for the tooltip for trading posts is what I'm talking about).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

techumseh
Old project getting started.
2
Replies
20
Views
693
gapetit
gapetit
rsc2a
(7a) VP Events Overhaul (Expansion Pack system)
2
Replies
27
Views
3K
APLion
A
Gavran
[Fciv] LT83 - Next Freeciv Longturn game starting in a few weeks
Replies
2
Views
844
Gavran
Gavran
C
[BNW] Unlock existing UU & UB for an existing civ ( especially shoshone pathfinder )
Replies
4
Views
293
Caocao84
C
Blake00
Kings and Emperors (Civ5 like 4X browser game)
Replies
0
Views
785
Blake00
Blake00
Top Bottom