Ideas, Requests, and Feedback

@Cyrusfan: no. Build them. Don't see what the problem is.

Mainly the problem is that Civ 4 isn't very good about announcing all new resources discovered (they don't necessarily always show up in the log) and even when the game does mention them, it's pretty easy if you're busy moving units around to miss said announcement. which leaves reources I ought to be able to use left unused until I happen to notice them.

Moreover I don't get at all why the consolidation in resource discovery was done. Why can't we have +1 food Pastures (with animal wields reduced appropriately) to build on flat tiles. You could even make them fresh water dependant (farms animals do actually need water) to keep their function similar to(and thus balanced with) farms. Quarries are a little more dicey as we're accustomed to seeing them on flat tiles, and maybe you have a reason for not wanting them everywhere, but I just don't see it (again just a +1 production, with their resource yields adjusted, would be fine). Plantations basically already worked like farms, give them +1 commerce only and they're actually less useful than farms.

That won't happen, it's too messy. There's really no need for that many buildable improvements.

It wasn't to messy before. I certainly don't remember anyone complaining that we had too many build improvement options. And certainly "messy" is the wrong term, because it better organized resource discovery efforts. And the improvements are already (!) buildable, you are just arbitrarily wasting our time by making us wait for the farms, mines, and camps to find those resources and then build over the old improvement.

If there is something being gained by the new system, you haven't explained it.

I always let the AI handle the building because there were too many improvements O.o, I never knew what was best.

I've enjoyed the changes for their simplicity.

It's simpler. That what is gained. Mirrored from BTS, which is a good model.

Gewar said:

I've got one neither-so-fresh-nor-original idea.
It is about nomad civ mechanism - it could be new civilization or merged into Clan or Doviello or something.
It would need much work to polish it and I am not a moder - so I won't start new thread until somebody would be interested in doing such a modmod
Main mechanism:
- You build a city -> you have got more food, hammers and coins from raw plots -> you terraform lands inside your cultural borders into something useless after some time (something like Mazatl, FoL, D'tesh - but opposite) -> you are forced to move out so you abbadon city and move somewhere else -> exploited plots will return to their basic usefulness after some time, so you could return there or it would be taken by other civ.

Some other ideas/thoughs about that:
- I have seen mechanism of abadoning city in RoM ar AND.
- When you have no pernament city, you will not be able to build anything in it (buildings, wonders etc.) so maybe you will get some free buildings when you settle (it may depend on techs).
- You should not be able to build improvements - and especially forts.
- Your units should not have prereq - or maybe only resources.
- Your army should be cheaper - you will not have strong economy.
- You should have limited number of settlers and cities.
- You probably won't be able to adopt religion.
- You probably can't win by Altar, culture, towers, religion - you have left military, time (I don't like this one ) and domination (it could be hard).

I am very sorry for my english

I love RifE and thank you for that

Click to expand...

Honestly, this isn't terribly likely. I have plans for one civ to use mobile cities, but you will only be allowed a specific number at once.... And their cities are mobile for a specific reason necessitated by the addition of other civs.

Sarisin said:

Would it be possible to have an option of not including Haunted Lands in your game?

In the prior version you could 'chop' the Haunted Lands tiles with Workers early on. I still haven't figured out how to get rid of this stuff in 1.3.

Arguably, perhaps it should not be in the game if the Scions are not present. Just my opinion.

The reason it drives me a little mad is the effects you get when you just happen to stumble on or through a Haunted Lands tile. The 70% damage is tough, but the worst thing is getting that Estranged promotion which, in my experience, just about has a 100% chance your unit will go barb. I had a 200+ XP Hero of Foxford Ranger go barb on me because he happened to pass through a Haunted Lands tile.

Sometimes, you cannot avoid the tiles. For example, when you have to kill an enemy/barb unit on one. Or the weird thing that happens when a road is involved and the path takes you right over the tile.

It's true that Haunted Lands don't always give you a bad effect, but when they do it can be very bad.

An option possible?

Click to expand...

It is removable via dispel magic. Could be a good idea to add a chop.

Darksaber1 said:

Ok, thats not in the 'pedia (or wiki). Only High priests say anything about religeon.

Click to expand...

I cloned the unit from the Priest (compared stats, copied over all that it didn't have, etc) so it's how it works in game.

Koravis said:

Well, they can already build Alchemy lab, it's just that it trains arcane units currently.(Gives them experiences, not creating them.) And I just found it odd for them to have alchemy labs(And alchemists for that matter.) which also trains arcane units, presumably through some kind of exchange student programme.

Click to expand...

This is true, but I'd probably block that building before giving them a UB. As it is, it grants a research boost so I ignored it.

JujZe said:

Im happy to say that the turn times are very fast
Currently Im visiting my parents and playing marathon game as amurites, large map and 20 civs.
at turn >900 game is quick even in my busted old laptop

Click to expand...

Glad to hear it's going well!

Randomness said:

Why arn't the Mechanos blocked from getting any arcane tech past the 4 schools. It doesn't really effect players, but is still odd and can make for (minor) exploitation in tech trading with the AI.

Click to expand...

Too much material that they'd need a replacement for. As it is, you aren't encouraged to get it but you are able to.

Jabie said:

Re: Liberation.

There's a large aspect of what's in it for me? Unless I want to swicth and play the Frozen, I don't have any incentive to use the ritual. Possibilities include free Ice Mana and/or the capacity to resurrect heroes from Age of Ice (Epona - Amurites, Lugh - Doviello, Malus - Lanun and The Great Stag - Anyone else)

Of course, what's in it for me could also apply to other rituals. Rites of Oghma should provide the caster with a free Metamagic Mana and Natures Revolt could provide a free Nature Node.

As for requests, Aforess Advanced Diplomacy - which allows you to build Embassies (for a diplomatic boost), trade contact with other nations and gain Right of Passage (but not Open Borders - surely a Sidar tactic) - looks like an interesting one. See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=373463 for more details.

Click to expand...

You actually receive between 3 and 5 Ice Golems for completing the ritual.

I'll take a look at the Afforess modcomp.

Koravis said:

This would be very unfair in my opinion, they'd lose alchemy lab +4 sci +10% sci, Crown of Akhalien +2 sci +100& sci +2 cul +2 great person wonder, scholarship civic
, rites of oghma, birthright, gates(teleportation, trade routers) and much more... Or most importantly, they'd lose future tech. While I fully agree some of these seem strange with a non-magic anti-theistic civ(rites of Oghma), without counterparts or some other additions in other areas, it'd take away a lot of options and cripple them heavily late to very late game.((And without future tech, absolute kill them for endless//peaceful games ...Many of these techs are still useful to Mechanos.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Not encouraged, but hey, you can get something for it.

KrugSmash said:

I believe future tech(+1 health and happiness in all cities) would only be useless for the D'Tesh and Frozen, everyone else is still limited by either the health or happiness cap. Scions and calabim to a lesser extent, though still limited.

Unless the mechanos have changed completely from what they are in orbis.

Click to expand...

They have not changed, no. If anything, the latest version makes them more similar. I removed one hero, added another, changed the Naval line a bit, and added some utility spells for the Techpriest/Adeptus units.

Tschuggi said:

Doviello: the gameplay with the animals is kind of bugging me... I have tons of wolves, bears etc. but the only thing I can do with them is build one cage or give them blood rage (I hope I can do so with animal handling tech) with only one of them or build their special building - but tons of animals are still there and I don't want to send them all in a senseless fight just to sacrifice them... if I'm not getting the point or if I'm doing something completly wrong I think there should be some rethinking. I like the way Orbis handles the doviello + animals. One promo per sacrified animal per unit...
And why can't I build packs anymore when using the worldspell. Was a nice thing...

And: I can't explore animal lairs with the doviello anymore. Is really bugging when you have a piece of Cernunnos-Territory in your own lands without having the possibility to get rid of it. Or is it possible?

Greez,

Tschuggi

Click to expand...

They are meant to be used to wage war with, frankly.

I'll think about allowing the Doviello to cast the blood promos; As of now, they are unable to, as their animals do not have the Tame promo (a nerf promo). Aside from Scorpions and Spiders, at least.

Packs have been removed; We have more animal tiers, rather than packs.

Noone explores animal lairs; They are unexplorable. The Doviello are at peace with Cernunnos though, so they can't destroy them.

Cyrusfan said:

The thing with farms, mines, and camps finding resources they can't use is still bugging me. If we can't have (nerfed) quarries, plantations, and pastures available for build more or less anywhere, is there any chance you could add some code to make the farms, mines, and camps "upgrade" to the appropriate improvement when they're on such a resource?

Click to expand...

Probably not. It's easy to set a few workers to "Build Trade Network", however. They'll take care of it.

Cyrusfan said:

Mainly the problem is that Civ 4 isn't very good about announcing all new resources discovered (they don't necessarily always show up in the log) and even when the game does mention them, it's pretty easy if you're busy moving units around to miss said announcement. which leaves reources I ought to be able to use left unused until I happen to notice them.

Moreover I don't get at all why the consolidation in resource discovery was done. Why can't we have +1 food Pastures (with animal wields reduced appropriately) to build on flat tiles. You could even make them fresh water dependant (farms animals do actually need water) to keep their function similar to(and thus balanced with) farms. Quarries are a little more dicey as we're accustomed to seeing them on flat tiles, and maybe you have a reason for not wanting them everywhere, but I just don't see it (again just a +1 production, with their resource yields adjusted, would be fine). Plantations basically already worked like farms, give them +1 commerce only and they're actually less useful than farms.

Click to expand...

I believe I've explained this before, actually.

In short, it is a direct result of reducing improvement yields. When improvements have a base value of 2 yield, you are able to develop a neat little chart, where main improvements have +2 in one yield, and niche have +1 in two.

However, when they have a base value of 1 yield... You have 3 possible improvements. You can work in a few more through unique mechanics (camps, workshops), but ultimately, you become far more limited in your possibilities.

Improvement yields will not go back up, so the majority of improvements will necessarily remain niche improvements only buildable on specific tiles.

Cyrusfan said:

It wasn't to messy before. I certainly don't remember anyone complaining that we had too many build improvement options. And certainly "messy" is the wrong term, because it better organized resource discovery efforts. And the improvements are already (!) buildable, you are just arbitrarily wasting our time by making us wait for the farms, mines, and camps to find those resources and then build over the old improvement.

If there is something being gained by the new system, you haven't explained it.

Click to expand...

Quite a few people did, actually. Including most of the team. I didn't personally mind it too much, but I did mind the OP yields. And like I said, nerfing those yields made it impossible to have that many improvement choices without ending up with multiple improvements serving essentially the same function.

inuyashasama said:

I always let the AI handle the building because there were too many improvement O.o, I never knew what was best.

I've enjoyed the changes for their simplicity.

Click to expand...

Exactly. We're going for simplicity in a big way... Just wait for 2.0, the mechanic planned there will add a vast amount of simplicity unless you choose to disable it. At the same time, though, it adds a lot of complexity and replay value.... And that's about all the hint I'll provide (other than that I'd honestly like to get it in ASAP, rather than wait for 2.0 )

Would it be possible to re-enable the Regenerate Map option for the first turn? It's a real time saver when you get a bad spawn.

stupidnewbie said:

Would it be possible to re-enable the Regenerate Map option for the first turn? It's a real time saver when you get a bad spawn.

Click to expand...

It's not possible to do that without moving lair spawns and assorted similar functions back a few turns... Which I don't like. At all.

If you're serious about simplicity, then why not go all the way with it? Get rid of Plantations, Quarries, and Pastures entirely. If the tooltip for a resource can be coded to tell me that I need a certain tech in order to get the resource into my trade network, then surely you could make all food resources that a farm currently discovers also be 'farmable' at the appropriate tech level for the resource. You'd probably have to move the farm animals from camps over to farms, but that would at least make sense (Pasture was basically just a name they used originally because they felt like haiving one more improvement).

I really shouldn't be required to automate workers in order to play this game.

Cyrusfan said:

I really shouldn't be required to automate workers in order to play this game.

Click to expand...

You are not required, you can make your live easier by dong so. I never use automation and I don't have any problems with resource spawning, it's not like there's a new resource every two turns or so, it's something which happens 4 or 5 times in most games.

Cyrusfan said:

If you're serious about simplicity, then why not go all the way with it? Get rid of Plantations, Quarries, and Pastures entirely. If the tooltip for a resource can be coded to tell me that I need a certain tech in order to get the resource into my trade network, then surely you could make all food resources that a farm currently discovers also be 'farmable' at the appropriate tech level for the resource. You'd probably have to move the farm animals from camps over to farms, but that would at least make sense (Pasture was basically just a name they used originally because they felt like haiving one more improvement).

I really shouldn't be required to automate workers in order to play this game.

Click to expand...

People always answer that. The improvement design is set, period. That's really not so much you're talking about; and I don't remember having any issue with civ not telling me that I got a resource.

Opera said:

People always answer that. The improvement design is set, period. That's really not so much you're talking about; and I don't remember having any issue with civ not telling me that I got a resource.

Click to expand...

People "always" answer what exactly? I have tried to offer a constructive suggestion as to how to modify the current system in a way that addresses my concern and falls within the goal of simplification that you have claimed. If you are consolidating the spawning of new resources to three improvements, then what is the benefit of continuing to include the special case improvements, unless you think forcing us to waste time overbuilding the three useful improvements is the benefit?

In 1.23 I have had instances when new resources would show up due to research, but not get mentioned in the event log. It's happened in other mods, too, so I figured it's something Civ 4 is doing rather than any of the modders. But even if you want to believe that's all in my head, surely you can accept that a person might be distracted when the announcement occurs and miss it, particularly since in 1.23 we got accustomed to not having to worry about those announcements except the few turns where they were the result of tech advancing. I mean, when you're playing, do you stop each turn and read all the announcements before doing anything?

Cyrusfan said:

If you're serious about simplicity, then why not go all the way with it? Get rid of Plantations, Quarries, and Pastures entirely. If the tooltip for a resource can be coded to tell me that I need a certain tech in order to get the resource into my trade network, then surely you could make all food resources that a farm currently discovers also be 'farmable' at the appropriate tech level for the resource. You'd probably have to move the farm animals from camps over to farms, but that would at least make sense (Pasture was basically just a name they used originally because they felt like haiving one more improvement).

I really shouldn't be required to automate workers in order to play this game.

Click to expand...

I feel that goes a bit too far.

Honestly, this is a 1 / 1750 chance at MAX. It is something that will happen 5-6 times a game, and that's about it. I really do not see the issue here; It is being blown far out of proportion.

Torugu said:

You are not required, you can make your live easier by dong so. I never use automation and I don't have any problems with resource spawning, it's not like there's a new resource every two turns or so, it's something which happens 4 or 5 times in most games.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I have never once failed to see a notice about a resource spawning.

Cyrusfan said:

People "always" answer what exactly? I have tried to offer a constructive suggestion as to how to modify the current system in a way that addresses my concern and falls within the goal of simplification that you have claimed. If you are consolidating the spawning of new resources to three improvements, then what is the benefit of continuing to include the special case improvements, unless you think forcing us to waste time overbuilding the three useful improvements is the benefit?

Click to expand...

Fairly sure Opera was under the impression that you were being sarcastic, and taking the mechanic to extremes in an attempt to be derisive about it.

Like I said... Resource discovery happens rarely. It's not a constant thing, you will not constantly be replacing improvements more than a few times a game.

Cyrusfan said:

In 1.23 I have had instances when new resources would show up due to research, but not get mentioned in the event log. It's happened in other mods, too, so I figured it's something Civ 4 is doing rather than any of the modders. But even if you want to believe that's all in my head, surely you can accept that a person might be distracted when the announcement occurs and miss it, particularly since in 1.23 we got accustomed to not having to worry about those announcements except the few turns where they were the result of tech advancing. I mean, when you're playing, do you stop each turn and read all the announcements before doing anything?

Click to expand...

I have never once missed an announcement about it.

And yes, I stop and read all announcements each turn.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I just strenuously disagree with the medium position you have chosen.

I thought the discovery rate in 1.23 was something like 1 in 1000, and those made discoveries all the time towards the late game, possibly because of the mechanic that "spread" resources of a given type, and the influence of refined and earth mana. Have those all been removed? And if you're really only talking about 5 or 6 per game, what's the point of the discovery mechanic? Or are you playing mainly non-conquest/domination victory games?

If discovery wasn't gamespeed specific, the fact that I generally play on marathon may have skewed my past experience.

Cyrusfan said:

I wasn't being sarcastic. I just strenuously disagree with the medium position you have chosen.

I thought the discovery rate in 1.23 was something like 1 in 1000, and those made discoveries all the time towards the late game, possibly because of the mechanic that "spread" resources of a given type, and the influence of refined and earth mana. Have those all been removed? And if you're really only talking about 5 or 6 per game, what's the point of the discovery mechanic? Or are you playing mainly non-conquest/domination victory games?

If discovery wasn't gamespeed specific, the fact that I generally play on marathon may have skewed my past experience.

Click to expand...

It was 1 in 1000. It is now as follows:

• Farm - 1 in 1750 chance to Spread resources.
• Mine - 1 in 2500 chance to Discover resources.
• Camp - 1 in 3000 chance to Discover resources.

So the majority of resources are 2.5 - 3 times less likely to be found (though Earth mana does still affect it). It is simply a nice bonus, it is not something to plan for in your game.

It should be weighted by gamespeed already, as it's a base BtS mechanic.

Not that I really want to enter into this debate, but I could use some clarification.

What's the difference between spreading and discovering? And where does the appearance of resources revealed by a technology enter that?

KrugSmash said:

Not that I really want to enter into this debate, but I could use some clarification.

What's the difference between spreading and discovering? And where does the appearance of resources revealed by a technology enter that?

Click to expand...

Spreading requires a preexisting instance of the resource; You must already have Corn to spread Corn, for example. Discovery does not.

If a resource is not valid for a plot, or you cannot see it yet, it will not be allowed to be discovered.

Quote Valk:

"They are meant to be used to wage war with, frankly." I don't agree... here I feel too over-directed.

"I'll think about allowing the Doviello to cast the blood promos; As of now, they are unable to, as their animals do not have the Tame promo (a nerf promo). Aside from Scorpions and Spiders, at least." Here I think Orbis has the better solutions for Doviello. Orbis also has the feature to challenge an animal... also very good one.

"Packs have been removed; We have more animal tiers, rather than packs." ok.

"Noone explores animal lairs; They are unexplorable. The Doviello are at peace with Cernunnos though, so they can't destroy them." That really sucks. In my current game I have about three spider-dens, one lion-den and two bear-den around my capital which means it's not growing any more...

Greez,

Tschuggi

Cyrusfan said:

I wasn't being sarcastic. I just strenuously disagree with the medium position you have chosen.

Click to expand...

Sorry I thought you were, as some others did at times.

Our 'medium' position is nothing but vanilla BTS' one, which apparently works very well. There's no need for that many regular improvements; food: farm / production: mine / commerce: cottage, then you have the more specialized mills & workshops. The link improvements will not be removed.