Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD]

New 0.67 game I have received 2 Camel Resources from Pastures. But I can not use camel to get Camel Archer. I am playing as America and I have no Horse resource available either. So no National Horse Stud or Horse Archer.

Is the Camel Archer Only for Arabia as a UU?

I did just recently get Elephant when I settled a new island. But that is my only Mounted Unit. And the game is at year 1465 AD.

I have Butchery , Brewery,and Bakery (3 of the B's) but no Tannery? Is Tannery for a later version? Or just not included?

Another Text_Key_x_x Screenie for you.

@HannibalBarka-- What Language are you trying to use? English is the only supported language that I know of. Vincentz can correct me if I'm wrong.

JosEPh

JosEPh_II said:

1)New 0.67 game I have received 2 Camel Resources from Pastures. But I can not use camel to get Camel Archer. I am playing as America and I have no Horse resource available either. So no National Horse Stud or Horse Archer.

Is the Camel Archer Only for Arabia as a UU?

I did just recently get Elephant when I settled a new island. But that is my only Mounted Unit. And the game is at year 1465 AD.

2) I have Butchery , Brewery,and Bakery (3 of the B's) but no Tannery? Is Tannery for a later version? Or just not included?

3) Another Text_Key_x_x Screenie for you.

4) @HannibalBarka-- What Language are you trying to use? English is the only supported language that I know of. Vincentz can correct me if I'm wrong.

JosEPh

Click to expand...

1) For now I just put the resource. Certain things I waited to implement such as the units (except the warlords, guild and corporation units that I already made a long time ago) as I needed the framework or "backbone" of the mod stabilized and functional so I wouldnt have to triple-edit the units. They are on my my list.
Regarding the Horse Stud, then the intention was that you could trade yourself to horses and then use them as a breeding program (hence the tech : horse breeding). After you finishes building the horse stud you can cancel the deal, and vupti, you got horses

2) Not sure if tannery will be included. I would like to add armours the same way as I did weapons, but it require some python that removes Promotions after they go obsolete, and I'm not sure that has been made.

3) Yep, need for corporate and noblility as well. I am actually thinking about doing new ones for all the civics (I did already for Slavery) as the description quickly will be wrong with just a small tweak in the civics. I remember that many if not all the civic descriptions in RoM was wrong, so instead doing a short text about the civic rather than detailing the effects will be optimal.

4) I have made txt keys for all the other languages, even though they are in english, so all languages should be supported. I'll try to install a different language on my other computer and see if that was the problem.

vincentz said:

I always wanted the AI to expand like it does in VIP

Click to expand...

Forget I said that. I had made a typo, that while the game seem to run perfectly fine, it would somehow tell the AI not to expand further than 2 cities (with a few exceptions)

Globaldefines.xml :

This tells that the basic food for a city is 00 and every time it grows it needs 50 more than that. Gonna play around with it. Changing it back to vanilla values encourages cityspam so I need to find a middleground.

I personally have no problem with city spam as long as the AI is doing it too.

I never understood the reasoning some modders had that all cities should have extra space between them. And that while a fully developed city has 21 tiles they wanted the cities to have several layers of culturally dominated tiles around that. (That is fine for cultural Dominance, but then they (RoM and AND in particular) began to kill off the Cultural Win by weakening Culture's influence. I do not believe that in their final state either RoM or AND will allow a Cultural Victory. ) So they tinkered with the amount of tiles that cities had to have between each other to set "limits" on the number and placement of cities by player and AI alike. This in turn caused the AI to build less cities imho.

Basic CIV IV city spacing requirements "made" you be aware of the surrounding tiles and resources and to "guard' the backfill areas or the AI would plop down a city on that not so perfect 9 tile square to get that resource before you did. City spamming has it's own appeal and sense of urgency that has been stultified by current conventions on city placement.

Just some thoughts about it. I Like the "race" to get the "sweet" city spots it adds to the drama and the chase.

JosEPh

I personally have no problem with city spam as long as the AI is doing it too.

That was the main problem. The AI didnt. In my mod it was a balance that got broken. I prefer the cities not being size 20+ before 1000 AD (due to the extra food from terrain) but by doing so I somehow told the AI that building settlers and expanding was wrong resulting in most AI would only build the capital and 2 cities. I've been doing a LOT of AutoAIplays (and remembered why I started my own mod. A 200 turn AutoAI on medium speed/large map to 500AD takes around 6 min.) and I finally got to a point where there was still spots left to discover while the AI would still expand into empires instead of just expanded citystates. Around 500 AD 60-70% of the land is settled, and around 1000 AD most of the accessible lands settled.

I also changed the Workshop and Tradepost back so they no longer upgrades into Hamlets. I love the concept, but the AI started to spam them too much, and I need to look at camels as when I tested them with Tectonics there was too little but with Archipelago they are overwhelming. I also tweaked Monarchy and Despotism a bit as Monarchy was way to popular.

I await the next version then. And will play on.

JosEPh

I changed the food consumption from 3 to 4 per capita and lowered the values for growth. seem to be going a bit better now, but have to run extensive test before putting next version up.
Also fixed the salt and camel resource placement issues.

I also changed the Workshop and Tradepost back so they no longer upgrades into Hamlets. I love the concept, but the AI started to spam them too much, ...

Click to expand...

Wen zappara started to change cottage values he ran into similar issues. You would find AI cities completely surrounded by the cottage chain. No farms, mines, etc., it seemed as though the AI was perfectly happy to get 3 food, 1-2 hammer, and 2-3 gold per tile. Only certain important resources would get normal (in the players way of thinking) development.

The way I looked at it was, is the AI presenting a sufficient challenge by doing this type of behavior? And the answer was usually mixed. Some AI fared well with this approach but others could've done better (at least thru my eyes and way of playing). Many variables to the weighting of features like cottage chain.

JosEPh

Next update will contain a couple of units* and then I'll focus on post gunpowder as ancient, classical and medieval are "finished".

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Can't wait to see what Ideas and benefits the upper Era Techs will give. Have reached Renaissance Era and noticing more seemingly empty Tech.

JosEPh

It might take a while, coz first priority right now is to make sure there is an AI worth playing against in Renaissance . It does look a lot better and I might upload a new version soon, but with nothing new added. Just tweaked, tweaked and tweaked

I'll take whatever you got. 2 sets of eyes catch more than a single pair.

JosEPh

Uploading 0.68

not much except tweaking.
How is resource placement, era flow, timeline, AI development, AI expansion.

I\m planning to put in Buildable Espionage Process, and move back science process, to put more weight on espionage (its a lot easier to steal others ideas than to come up with own.)

The Mali Skirmisher did a Michael Jackson in 35 secs :

On Epic speed the early Eras and Tech research speed could be adjusted. I'm hitting Classical Era around 200BC to 200AD. Once I hit Medieval Era (around 1400AD) the game speed and tech research speed seems better matched.

City growth is slow for me (but I always was a fan of RoM's faster growth and bigger cities).

Food and Gold, I'm still learning the trade offs. Seems that even though I have Farms producing 5 food I still have food shortages. And unless I get heavy on the tradeposts I run low on Gold and then my research % starts dropping. I can usually maintain about 60% and have a +2 to + 10 Gold per turn. But if I Need to Expand to claim some vital Early resources (like Bronze or Iron) then I take a - 10 to -13 gold hit for each new city.

And the AI LOVES to crowd me, even on an Archi map. Suryvarman plopped 2 new colonies on my island while his island has more "open" area than I do. Plus he has early vital resources (like Gold, Olives, Jewels, etc) not utilized by placing a city around them. Unfortunately for him I had Swordsmen waiting and those 2 cities are now mine, but at a harsh financial burden for me.

I have Horse and Camel resources showing up now so that balance seems better with this version.

Early this game I did have a strange negative happy reaction from my citizens in my 3 cities. And I couldn't figure out why. Things seemed to be under control at that time and then I get Angry citizens refusing to work with msgs like, "We remember your harsh treatment". ??? So I start a Monument in the 2nd city (gonna take 12 turns to finish) and 4 turns into it all my cities return to Normal. ??? I also did not have a Religion yet but was getting close to researching and founding Judaism. 2 turns before I got the religion is when all the Angry citizens became "normal" again. I never did figure out why they reacted that way.

Just some observation and feedback from this new 0.68 game.

JosEPh

I think the gamespeed is fairly ok. Classical IRL started IMO around 700BC and Medieval around 500-700AD but if I recall correctly, then you play noble, and on higher levels the AI will research faster and then hit more correctly while the highest levels will "overshoot". The latest game I had was on Emperor/Huge Archipelago and the AI was getting Medieval around 300-400AD (while I, the Zulu, was stuck alone on a small continent bordering the north pole and hopelessly behind the teching while getting invaded by hordes of barbarians.
I think the unhappiness was due to an event or a slave whipping.

BTW, I added two new VERY early techs. Here are the quotes

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left." - Bertrand Russell (was considering this instead : Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato)

"The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star." - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Also added Javelineer and Horseman and tweaked the unitstrengths (Added in Unit section in first posts)

EDIT > Regarding growth : I changed it so the type of terrain excluding features (forest, oasis, floodplains etc) the city is founded on matters. The formula is basically this :
Food +1 (min 3), Production +1, Commerce 1
So a city founded on grassland will have more food while a city founded on hills will have more production. Cities founded on swamp and desert will be the worst.
EDITEDIT > Just changed to Food +2 (min 3), Production +1, Commerce +1 (min 2)

Wasn't slave whipping because I Never use Slavery. Nor have I ever used "whipping" of any kind. Just not my style of play and a personal preference. Just like I don't use Revolutions in RoM or AND. Picky ain't I!

Honestly with the 10,000BC start I expected to hit Classical by at least 1500BC, not 100AD.

My biggest city , my Capital, is a size 11 at 1200AD. I hit Medieval Era this game at 1100AD.

Something else that I'm chafing at is worker speed. It seems to take too long for 1 worker to build a pasture or farm (16 turns) and up to 36 turns for a Mine, Quarry, and Plantation (I'm not sure about the plantation though). Now if I get Haggai Sophia (sp?) then things seem more reasonable. But if I dont then I have to work the workers in groups of 3 or more (this means building a lot more workers than I normally do and takes away from city production and Mil units. I know it's a trade off and you have to deal with it but that's my impression so far.

Well back to playing.

JosEPh

What time did the AI hit Medieval?
The worker speed is slowed down at the first Civic, but will get better with slavery or caste.
Also the gamespeed normal is slower than vanilla epic, and the epic is slower than marathon, but Ill have a look. The games I played was opposite. I had only a few workers who could take care of all my cities. Im uploading a new verison. I removed the Colonization terrain textures as I kinda like vanillas and its easier to spot swamps vs grassland (plus it takes a lot of the size and memory), so everything except the music can be in 1 file now. Im going to make some ethnic units later for the 3rd part, but for now its not necessary.

Rameses II the games Leader hit Medieval Era before I did. I just got contact with him 100 years ago and he has 17 cities to my 9. So I have no real time frame for when he reached it.

Currently I'm 2nd on the leader list but Suryvarman is pushing hard to get past me (even losing 2 cities to me) I don't think he has hit Med Era yet, but he has to be close.

I just met Isabella and I've have bordered Tokugawa almost the entire game, they are bottom of the list of Empires I've met so far, and I havn't made contact with everyone yet. Havn't reached caravels yet.

One thing that I would hope you would take from RoM is the "limit" on using Fishing Boats to explore with. The AI uses them way beyond what they were meant for. And it's really frustrating to have AI Empires met you this way. Basically cause you have no way of knowing where they came from. I don't use FB's as scouts so I consider this an AI exploit (actually a Firaxis code oversight).

I would have to look into WB to see how many AI are up to Medieval Era besides the ones I mentioned.

I suppose I could upload the save game if you want it?

JosEPh

Yes. Please upload savegames. It would be very helpfull, and I actually wanted to ask you, but forgot

17 cities!!! That is good news

I actually thought about putting in an early "discovery" boat and do as in RoM, as I was anoyed about the workboats, but then I thought it would only replace workboats, and if you look at them as scouting vehicles they fit the role quite good. Maybe renaming them and give them a new look will be better.

Im currently #2 as Khmer on Huge Tectonics/Noble/Epic in Classical Era at 320BC. The strange part is that #1 with 168 points had a really really bad starting position in a huge swampy forest, but has somehow settled most of his island with cities that are bigger than his capital. He has 7 cities against my 3 and is building 2 more settlers, but by keeping the cities small he keeps his expenses down. The last 10 civs is very close to each other with 100-120 points (with the exception of the Vikings who had a really bad starting location) and all researching iron working or bronzeworking.
My biggest issue is the vast amount of deadly barbarians that spawns in the souther regions. Guess I have to make a mining colony so I can get hold of some metals for the swords and spears of a Warlord.

Here's the save.

It's been a good challenge so far. Ramses is gonna be a bear to tackle with double the cities I now have.

This save is on Epic speed, Noble level.

Now you get to see how badly I really play.

JosEPh