Probably Improved Gameplay Mod

* March should come from medic I. Because it's the main use of red cross, without this this wonder is really weakened. I know you love drill, but I don't think it's a good idea, even if it increase the power of oromo warrior at the same time.
I agree. Problem is that at the moment it's not possible to give a promo three alternative prereqs - only one or two. Whether to attach March to the drill line at all, or even remove it from the combat line is to be considered.
* woodman on recon unit... I don't understand why such a cheesy change is included. It mean being able to create Woodman III explorer without breaking a sweet, and I find this borderline exploit. An explorer is NOT someone who tend yours wounds. And he gain no other benefit from it, so...
This was an attempt to make explorers and scouts actually useful. It's probably only considered an exploit because it is strong relative to using GG super healers. IMO using GGs as medics is the weirder thing. A couple of options here:
1) Reduce the healing power of W3.
2) Remove W1 from explorer.
3) Disallow W3 again.

By the way, the explorer does still gain the 2 first strikes from the promo - not just the healing ability. Not sure if you realised this.
There is others changesI'm more than skeptical, but I can try them out :
* castle obsolete in steel : It weaken the spanish UB a LOT. I will not play spanish, so I can let this slip, but still I don't like to weaken them that much.
I assume this is because you won't be able to use it to build 10xp cannons anymore? It is a side effect of the change but does it not allow the Spanish UB to be used for longer in other games? Can you suggest an alternative tech where castles should obsolete? Many complain that it obsoletes too fast with Economics.

* Praetorian change seem strange to me. I would say it does not change the balance at all since axeman will not even be cheaper.
Praetorian will be weaker against things other than axemen though. In particular, it'll be slightly weaker against archers which is the main unit it tends to dominate.
Last thing, I don't have the time to read the 9 pages, but I would like to understand the tech req changes. I don't see them as bad, but I don't see why they are here.

Tech req changes are mainly there to reduce the ability to beeline Liberalism. I tried my best to make the new tech prereqs have some element of reality to them, but mainly I wanted to get rid of this idea that you can have the theory of Liberalism before you have core techs like Construction.
 
PieceOfMind said:
It's interesting you think the Serfdom change is interesting. I was thinking about removing it in the next version. At the moment I'm worried it makes Financial a bit too good because riverside farms under Serfdom for them will get the extra commerce bonus. Maybe Financial needed a very small boost anyway, and to run it means you can't exploit slavery.

The way I see it, most FIN leaders are going to want to Cottage that riverside tile anyway in order to make their incoming bling-bling absolutely as high as possible as soon as possible. A notable exception would be cases in which the tile or city in question is sub-optimal (e.g. a plains river tile early in the game with little or no food in the BFC), in which case using Serfdom farms allows for an opportunity cost (no Slavery and reduced GPP, but early-founded river cities with no resources in the BFC are even more viable than usual and thus more immediately lucrative to snatch up).

I started a game today on Emperor hoping to try out Serf'd farms, but the fact of the matter is that for this particular start I cannot afford not to run Caste at this point in time (I had a GP farm up and running before 1 AD with a fish, clam, and sheep in its BFC, plus the pyramids and thus Representation--due to having Stone in my capital's BFC. Yeah, major GS flow is starting). But that's a specific gameplay decision for this specific start, and I do want to make use of that civic soon so I can report on it a bit. I might try it with Elizabeth ... PHI/FIN ... yum. :) The -25% GPP doesn't sound so bad if it is only leaving you at 175% instead of the regular 75%.

Post-biology Serf'd farms could be interesting, too. But not sure how they are in terms of power ratio. Will have to see.

Like you, I'm kind of indifferent about the granary change. It just seems like it maybe hurts non-EXP leaders more than it accomplishes anything else, off-hand, though I'd have to play it some more to get a fuller feel for it.

I adore the changes to the Liberalism race. It slows the pace of the early-middle game down (in a way that actually makes the game more fun to play, imo) and gives everyone a little more time to strategize and specialize cities a bit more before running toward Lib becomes critically important. It also makes a Nationalism --> Constitution semi-beeline through Philosophy more attractive, because you don't have to worry quite as much about some clever AI snatching Lib right away, and can play the trading game a bit longer. Good news for SE players who nevertheless don't like to bulb everything.

TheLazyHase--are you referring to the fact that obsoleting the Citadel with Steel will make it useless for training up new Cannon units? That is a bit of a conundrum, I must admit.... Though, on the other hand, they already make for kick-butt Trebuchets before Gunpowder is even a factor. But I see what you're saying--obsoleting it at Steel functions similarly to a stealth-nerf on Spanish players, because they can no longer forego Economics in order to make their cannons stronger for an early Gunpowder war.
 
Some thoughts:

I am trying out this mod atm, so I'm pleased to finally see some more attention for this thread. I must say I'm quite a purist though so I'm not sure whether I will continue to use it after my current game (I like to be playing the same game as most of our forum posters). On the overall though I find the changes made quite compelling, and certainly with an eye for balance. ;)

You certainly seem to take criticism well PieceOfMind, an excellent quality in a modsman I must say! :goodjob:
My knee jerk reaction would probably be to sock TheLazyHase in his jaw lol :lol:
Really the bottom line is that it is your mod and you can do anything you want! :D

Sorry Hase, just had to get that off my chest. ;)

In reaction to his criticisms to the Praetorian change, I do not find them unbalanced at this time. I think your change to the Praet is rather elegant actually, reducing its strength by 1, yet boosting its build rate at the same time. Coupled with the axe nerf I think the Praet still manages to stand out as a mighty UU.

I was as stoked as Leno about the Serfdom changes, though the purist in me may keep me from using it. (I'm lame I know...)

Finally, I should note that one thing I feel makes your mod stand out is that it brings together a lot of other great mods: Better AI, Unofficial Patch, and BUG for sure. Advanced Combat odds also seems compelling.

TheLazyHase--are you referring to the fact that obsoleting the Citadel with Steel will make it useless for training up new Cannon units? That is a bit of a conundrum, I must admit.... Though, on the other hand, they already make for kick-butt Trebuchets before Gunpowder is even a factor. But I see what you're saying--obsoleting it at Steel functions similarly to a stealth-nerf on Spanish players, because they can no longer forego Economics in order to make their cannons stronger for an early Gunpowder war.

Wouldn't a stealth benefit then be that they can tech Economics sooner?
 
This was an attempt to make explorers and scouts actually useful. It's probably only considered an exploit because it is strong relative to using GG super healers. IMO using GGs as medics is the weirder thing. A couple of options here:
1) Reduce the healing power of W3.
2) Remove W1 from explorer.
3) Disallow W3 again.
GGs as medics does not strike me as too strange, because "healing" is not only "recovering from injury". It's making sure the logistic can heal the injured and add new equipment, avoiding desertion, remotivating troop, etc. I don't think it's just a medic thingie to recover from an hard battle. Just think about one thing : a general that can make sure his troop have the supplies they need (arrow, spare sword, armor), that is charismatic enough to avoid too much desertion does in civ4 term heal his troop, and qualifie as great general, because logistic is just that important.

The main grip against recon unit with WIII is that they are *recon* unit. I should use them to spot ennemy stacks, not to recover from battle. Being able to get Sentry and mobility would please me a lot more than woodsman III, because the latter seem very unnatural.
I assume this is because you won't be able to use it to build 10xp cannons anymore? It is a side effect of the change but does it not allow the Spanish UB to be used for longer in other games? Can you suggest an alternative tech where castles should obsolete? Many complain that it obsoletes too fast with Economics.
Yes, but avoiding economy for some time is not a big problem. You can grab steel, rifling, them go economy, you will have stock up enough cannon (usually). Avoiding steel mean you must make a lot of money to upgrade trebuchet.

Castle are obsolete at economics because it obsolete mainly the +1 trade route and other goodies like that. I would make them obsolete at corporation, or maybe a little later but I have no idea.
Praetorian will be weaker against things other than axemen though. In particular, it'll be slightly weaker against archers which is the main unit it tends to dominate.

The way I see it, most FIN leaders are going to want to Cottage that riverside tile anyway in order to make their incoming bling-bling absolutely as high as possible as soon as possible. A notable exception would be cases in which the tile or city in question is sub-optimal (e.g. a plains river tile early in the game with little or no food in the BFC), in which case using Serfdom farms allows for an opportunity cost (no Slavery and reduced GPP, but early-founded river cities with no resources in the BFC are even more viable than usual and thus more immediately lucrative to snatch up).
For me, the change is very, very good, because it make worthwile to go to serfdom from slavery. Financial make mini-cottage, but they still don't compete with real cottage, especially later in the game. And it help a lot more the full farm strategy than financial who do some farm. It's one of the change that made me try this mod out.
Post-biology Serf'd farms could be interesting, too. But not sure how they are in terms of power ratio. Will have to see.
And by that time, emancipation concern may kick in.
Like you, I'm kind of indifferent about the granary change. It just seems like it maybe hurts non-EXP leaders more than it accomplishes anything else, off-hand, though I'd have to play it some more to get a fuller feel for it.
If you think granary too powerful, I suggest putting them to 25% (or 20%, or 30%) and not 50%. This way, granary would be less powerful and still easy to do. Whatever price they come, they are mandoatory, so if you don't push the price to 120 hammer I will still do one in every city.
I adore the changes to the Liberalism race. It slows the pace of the early-middle game down (in a way that actually makes the game more fun to play, imo) and gives everyone a little more time to strategize and specialize cities a bit more before running toward Lib becomes critically important. It also makes a Nationalism --> Constitution semi-beeline through Philosophy more attractive, because you don't have to worry quite as much about some clever AI snatching Lib right away, and can play the trading game a bit longer. Good news for SE players who nevertheless don't like to bulb everything.
I would say to remove free tech from liberalism and give it to scientific method. It kill two bird with one stone, and would make appear at least one more bird to kill : the slingshot sciMeth->Physics would be mighty good, because Physics boost your military AND give a free scientist.
TheLazyHase--are you referring to the fact that obsoleting the Citadel with Steel will make it useless for training up new Cannon units? That is a bit of a conundrum, I must admit.... Though, on the other hand, they already make for kick-butt Trebuchets before Gunpowder is even a factor. But I see what you're saying--obsoleting it at Steel functions similarly to a stealth-nerf on Spanish players, because they can no longer forego Economics in order to make their cannons stronger for an early Gunpowder war.
Yes. And I believe the spanish UB was designed for cannon, not just trebuchet. I can't recall spanish for trebuchet, but I do remember spanish cannon - for naval battle against piracy or to conquer the america.
You certainly seem to take criticism well PieceOfMind, an excellent quality in a modsman I must say! :goodjob:
My knee jerk reaction would probably be to sock TheLazyHase in his jaw lol :lol:
Really the bottom line is that it is your mod and you can do anything you want! :D

Sorry Hase, just had to get that off my chest. ;)
It's my computer, so I can do the change I want ;)
The main point was it's idiot to change the mod because I have some reasons to think it's wrong and not say anything to the author. Feedback ^^
In reaction to his criticisms to the Praetorian and explorer changes, I do not find them unbalanced at this time. I think your change to the Praet is rather elegant actually, reducing it from the jaw dropping strength of 8, yet lowering its hammer cost at the same time. Coupled with the slight axe nerf I think it has great potential. And let's face it, scouts/explorers suck! Giving them woodsman3 is an interesting change imo.
Note, I have not said that the Praetorian change is unbalanced. I just don't really understand what it make. Regular str 8 praetorian seem far from being overpowered - in any case, not really more than HA rushs.
Wouldn't a stealth benefit then be that they can tech Economics sooner?
But economics is not so important military speaking. Obsoleting on a key military tech a military UB is really bad news.
 
Problem is that at the moment it's not possible to give a promo three alternative prereqs - only one or two.

Then perhaps you should fix this problem and open up new possibilities at the same time. I did a little digging in the code, and I think this will actually be a pretty trivial change.

CvInfos

You need to add a third field, m_iPrereqOrPromotion3, a get()/set() pair, and code to read/write it. Parse it with the other two in readpass2().

CvGameCoreUtils.cpp

Check it in isPromotionValid() just after checking the 2nd OR promotion:

Code:
	[I]ePrereq1[/I]
	[I]ePrereq2[/I]
[B]	PromotionTypes ePrereq3 = (PromotionTypes)kPromotion.getPrereqOrPromotion3();[/B]
	if (NO_PROMOTION != ePrereq1 || NO_PROMOTION != ePrereq2 [B]|| NO_PROMOTION != ePrereq3[/B])
	{
		[I]ePrereq1[/I]
		[I]ePrereq2[/I]
		...
		if (!bValid)
		{
			if (NO_PROMOTION != [B]ePrereq3[/B] && isPromotionValid([B]ePrereq3[/B], eUnit, bLeader))
			{
				bValid = true;
			}
		}
		...
	}

CvUnit.cpp

Finally, check it in CvUnit::canAcquirePromotion():

Code:
			if ((GC.getPromotionInfo(ePromotion).getPrereqOrPromotion2() == NO_PROMOTION) || !isHasPromotion((PromotionTypes)(GC.getPromotionInfo(ePromotion).getPrereqOrPromotion2())))
			{
[B]				if ((GC.getPromotionInfo(ePromotion).getPrereqOrPromotion3() == NO_PROMOTION) || !isHasPromotion((PromotionTypes)(GC.getPromotionInfo(ePromotion).getPrereqOrPromotion3())))
				{
					return false;
				}[/B]
			}

CyInfoInterface1.cpp

For completeness, expose it to Python. You should also add checks for it in CvPediaPromotion.py from the original game and SevoPediaPromotion.py and UnitUpgradeGraph.py from BUG. All those changes look to be simple one-or-two-liners.

Can you suggest an alternative tech where castles should obsolete?

Castle are obsolete at economics because it obsolete mainly the +1 trade route and other goodies like that. I would make them obsolete at corporation, or maybe a little later but I have no idea.

Corporation was going to be my suggestion as well. It remains to be seen if having the extra trade routes for longer is too powerful, but I doubt it given how infrequently I build castles in the first place. I think getting those trade routes for longer is the whole point of the initial change, and obsoleting them at Corporation seems like a good compromise.

In my limited historical view, Steel makes the most sense. But for gameplay sake I'd go with Corporation.
 
In my limited historical view, Steel makes the most sense. But for gameplay sake I'd go with Corporation.

Do you think that the invention of steel is what has weakened the role of castle as administrative center ? Because that's what is obsoleted in the game. The defensive effect is already obsolete in that it doesn't apply against gunpowder unit and cannon.
 
Do you think that the invention of steel is what has weakened the role of castle as administrative center ?

No, but I also don't think Economics or Corporation were the cause either. Having a castle in a city increase trade to that city makes sense, and I don't see any of the techs discussed changing that. What I do think is that when the castles usefulness for defense lessened, it became less of a central location for the seat of power, and this is what would decrease its effect on trade.

Again, I wouldn't even consider myself an amateur student of history of this period, so I don't put much weight on my opinion here. I expect that castles were obsolete before the invention of corporations. For one thing, the U.S. never had castles at all, and IIRC it was the expansion of railroads that spurred the invention or acceptance of limited liability corporations in this country.

The defensive effect is already obsolete in that it doesn't apply against gunpowder unit and cannon.

For the attacker, yes. But the defender can have gunpowder-based units and still receive the defensive bonus. Doesn't the defensive bonus also disappear once the defender acquires the obsoleting tech? If so, does that give other ideas as to a better obsoleting tech?
 
AFAIK the defense bonus (vs. non-gunpowder units) from a castle never becomes obsolete, under the current state of things in the official patch. It looks like only the economic/espionage portion is obsoleted.

Which is kind of weird since Walls still only go obsolete when you get Rifling, it looks like. (In Vanilla, castles also obsoleted at Rifling, so it at least made sense that they both obsoleted at the same time.)

The conundrum here really is in finding a tech that it actually makes sense for the things to go fully obsolete at. The fact that even rudimentary musket bullets in Civ4 are all-penetrating laser pointers that can shoot through walls and castles with no problem doesn't help in this conundrum either. :)

If no one's mentioned it yet in this topic, I'd like to add that incorporating some aspect of the food trading mod (assuming it can be incorporated in such a way that the AI can use it) might be worth doing at some point down the line. It just makes sense that such a thing would occur, particularly later on in history. Though it's also a more significant gameplay alteration than most.
 
Apologies for the double post, but this is sufficiently different from my previous post that I wanted it to stand out:

The time is 1330 AD, Emperor Difficulty, Sitting Bull. Hannibal is to my north, and is my buddy. No one else is adjacent. I was running Caste and Pacifism for insane GS-producing goodness. Now that I have won the Lib race and have an academy everywhere I want one, I revolt to Serfdom. My BPT jumps from 270 to 332 as the massive numbers of farms feed the behemoth monster of my specialist economy.

Be afraid, cottages, for the era of the farm is upon you. :)
 
Castle and walls obsolete with differents tech because different thing cause people to stop build them Walls obsolete at rifling presumably because no one want to do new city wall when they are rifles around, it's just too much effort for few result. Maybe it should instead be obsolete when city growth become too hard to make a wall without a lot of money, so biology or medicine.

Castles in civ4 obsolete when the power, especially commercial, shift from noble to merchants. At least it's what seem logical to me. Economics work for that, and corporation too. Heck, even banking or guild should stop the commercial bonus in fact, but it would be way too soon.

Rifleman (and musketman) does not fire round that ignore wall BTW in civ4. But the advantage of a castle or wall is a lot lessened when your opponent can rather easily shoot you when you are on the top of a wall. Bow usually have not the power to shoot that high, musket and rifle can. Musket still lack the precision to do that, and crossbow IIRC can possibly shoot high enough, so it's not eprfect explanation, but it's not simply "they shoot throught the wall".

If no one's mentioned it yet in this topic, I'd like to add that incorporating some aspect of the food trading mod (assuming it can be incorporated in such a way that the AI can use it) might be worth doing at some point down the line. It just makes sense that such a thing would occur, particularly later on in history. Though it's also a more significant gameplay alteration than most.

I don't like to have way to add food to a city. It may create very unhistorical cities, since big agglomerations even now tend really to be on fertile ground, so I think there is more important things.
 
Game finished. UN Diplomatic victory in the 1800s. I discovered you can get away without researching Steel for a loooong time in a peacemongering game.... :)

I eventually received Steel in a favorable trade, but made up for the lost trade route by getting Single Currency active through the UN.

Conclusion? The synergy of large population sizes + more trade routes + PHI + Pacifism + new Serfdom = woot.

I've attached the save; feel free to glance at the setup. I had quite good land for this.
 

Attachments

  • Lenowill AD-1836 PIG Mod 04 Serf Test.CivBeyondSwordSave
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Thanks EF. I'll add that in when I have a working compiler again.

Lenowill, the gamesave is really appreciated. To anyone else who has played some way into a game feel free to post saves.

Regarding castles, I guess the current best suggestion is to obsolete them at Corporation?
 
And it would keep you from having quuuuiite soooo maaaaany trade routes like I did. *nods* (For the longest time I had 1 by default + 1 from Currency + 1 from Castle + 1 from Free Market and + 1 from Corporation for a total of five. Corp would have been a harder choice at least if I hadn't gotten beaten to the GLH, but I was. Soooo.... *laugh*) As it stands, avoiding Steel for a while made a lot of sense for me in my situation there: I was getting 5 foreign trade routes of +10 commerce each much earlier than I normally would, in my capital, driving its commerce through the roof in ways that competed very well with (at the very least) a Bureau Cottage economic model. My BPT dropped by 30 to 50 if memory serves when I finally bit the bullet and took Steel, heheh.

I didn't get far enough for the 10% foreign trade boost on Airports to be a factor for me. I wonder if that's a high enough modifier though? It seems almost like they ought to get +15% trade route yield in general or +15% yield "to other cities with airport" (if that's even possible to code without blowing something up). On the other hand, they already add a trade route in themselves (something Walls didn't do before) so there's that to consider as well.

I should mention too that Mercantilism was a darn good civic to run in my game for a certain period. Mostly when Hannibal decided to go Mercantile as well, but before Astronomy, such that my foreign trade routes got limited. Hooray for having the rare island colonies on a Continents script.

p.s.: At the height of my empire's trade-routed glory I was clearing 1000-1100 BPT depending on sliders and exact build priorities at the time. I might load up an earlier autosave in a bit and see if I can get you an example of what that looked like.

p.p.s.:

Other random idea. Considering that in the modern era of the real world there's been an explosion of tourism in coastal waters, oceans, and major lakes, would it be feasible at all to give all water tiles a +1 commerce with some particular civic or technology? Or possibly have it split so that Ocean gets +1 from one thing and Coast/Freshwater Lake gets +1 from another thing. Or something like that. I was thinking that Environmentalism might add +1 commerce for one of them, possibly the Coast (people are highly interested in sightseeing tours to see dolphins, fishes, and rare marine life, coral diving tours, etc.) while just getting to Industrialism or Plastics might add +1 to the other (people start having the means to build marinas and do recreational cruises and the like). This would give people the ability to get back some or all of the benefits of a Colossus. It would also stack with a Colossus if a person played his or her cards exactly right, but would be balanced against the fact that the person is missing out on the yummy +25% research Observatories from not going ahead and taking Astronomy, so the tradeoff would be stiff and very real.

As the game stands, water tiles (particularly non-financial Coast, and Ocean) are some of the least-desirable late-game tiles around. It could be interesting if it's possible to do something to help them out. Some of it being tied to a Civic like Environmentalism makes sense to me as well.

p.p.p.s.:

Heheh, thinking about all of that almost makes me want to add another national wonder, "Resort." +2 commerce from Water Tiles and Forest Preserve in this city. +4 Commerce from Oasis in this city. Happiness +3 in this city. +50% to all trade route yield in this city. Beakers -50% in this city (or maybe maintenance costs +50% or 100% in this city, or simply "research percentage bonuses have no effect in this city"). Can turn 3 citizens into Merchant (or maybe +2 Free Merchant). Wild idea, but there you go with a rough draft. :)
 
One thing that I think can be without modding too much : make Cereal mill, the concurrent to Suhsi corp, worthwhile to do and not just an inferior Sid's sushi. I would not dabble with map script to make cereal as common as seafood, so I believe the best way would be a mix of increasing the food bonus per ressource and adding ressources (sugar, spice, maybe. Or add cows, pigs, sheep, because a cereal corp usually dabble in thoses too, if only to feed them)
 
Sugar helping Cereal Mills would make an extremely large amount of sense, actually.... Spices too, maybe, but definitely Sugar.
 
Sugar helping Cereal Mills would make an extremely large amount of sense, actually.... Spices too, maybe, but definitely Sugar.

Cows also make some sense. What do you pour on your cereal?
 
Oh. Duh! LOL. Yeah, that would make a good deal of sense.

Anyone else find it kind of baffling that it's possible to build a cryogenic stasis chamber in BTS without having knowledge of Refrigeration, btw? *laughs* That tech should seriously do a little bit more than it does....

Anyway, I looked through my saves and don't have one that really showcases the power of my economy prior to switching off Free Market and getting Steel. Though, I realized I actually wasn't running at my best possible serfdom BPT (that would have been 1250 BPT or so with 80% research and 20% culture and just eating the unhappiness as needed). If I had swapped off serf though I could have had around 1380 BPT due to not needing to run the Culture Slider at all, and around 1550 BPT in the end if I used some strategic Wealth-Building and Bureau/Paci to keep commerce up and upkeep down. Go figure.

So it does indeed look like Serfdom does best as a mid-game civic prior to Emancipation, unless you truly have Happy resources running out your ears. But for what it's best at, it's a darn good civic.
 
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