Probably Improved Gameplay Mod

v0.4 has just been uploaded.

Most notable addition is the optional component Influence Driven War. It is left disabled by default, but can be enabled though GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.
 
I suggest to include Influence Driven War as a default option, not optional! ;)

btw very nice mod, small but balanced ;)
 
Can you just attach the missing files in a .zip here in a reply post? That way I can just install it my self :)

See version 0.4 ;)

Note, in case the new version does not work with your gamesave, backup the mod folder before running the installer. Get the ACO folder out of Art and put it in. You kow the rest I guess. :)
 
Nice work PoM :) Thank you!

I played through my game yesterday so now I can start a new one from scratch!

Any comments yet? You've already played more games with it than I have. :lol:
 
Any comments yet? You've already played more games with it than I have. :lol:


Well, it was very enjoyable. Most changes are subtle (which I like) so the game felt pretty much the same, just slightly improved.

I’m not certain yet but I’m not sure I think the increased cost of Granary is a good one. In cities with lots of food but little production you’ll always prioritize Granary despite of the cost increase. Now with this change all it does it increase the time until granary is online so you can start whipping efficiently in that city. On first glance I feel the change should be removed.

I’m also curious about the airport change, what was the reasoning behind changing it? Maybe you wrote it down somewhere but I’ve missed it. Ultimately however, it’s a change I don’t care much about one way or another.

Other than these minor details I did not experience any game play problems.
 
I'd better mention.

I have been looking into modifying the No Espionage setting and I accidentally left a modification in with the latest version or two. If you start a No Espionage game, espionage points are no longer converted to culture in a city. Note also I have not changed the new culture requirement for No Esp games either, so don't try a culture win in a No Espionage game, please. ;)

I hope to have the No Espionage option fixed in the next release or two.
 
Found a minor bug.

You changes .txt reads:

-Removed GP from divine right and returned its price to before (1200 instead of 1300).

But the cost for Divine Rigth is set to 1000 now, instead of 1200.
 
Found a minor bug.

You changes .txt reads:

-Removed GP from divine right and returned its price to before (1200 instead of 1300).

But the cost for Divine Rigth is set to 1000 now, instead of 1200.

Thanks for that. Now fixed for next release.

Regarding the granary, I did originally hesitate to increase its cost. It doesn't look like it's supposed to be incredibly expensive and the change is not significant enough to have a major impact on strategy. As you said, a city with high food and low hammers is still going to build one very quickly for the more efficient whipping.

In general though, I want to tone down the strength of the whip. IMO high food cities have no drawbacks at the moment, when slavery is permitted. Slavery should be an effective way to convert food to hammers in cities but for it to be more effective than an actual hammer improved tile like a plains hill mine is a bit skewed IMO.

Previously I have tried fiddling with the granary's boost, reducing it to 30% of food stored or somewhere around there. Alternatively, I once tried increasing the whip anger duration by 50%, for 15 turns at normal speed.

What about if I decreased the granary's bonus to 25% of food stored, but gave another 25% to the supermarket?

Or maybe there are better ways to reduce the strength of whipping? For example, would it be a good idea to prevent whipping of any units, and only allow buildings to be whipped? At first I don't like this idea because it would be hard to get used to. Being able to whip an archer on short notice would no longer be possible, for example.

I could increase Slavery from medium to high upkeep, but I wonder if this is likely to have much impact? At the moment I'm feeling this is the best way to go, and reduce the granary's cost back to its original 60:hammers:.


There are of course many other ways to nerf Slavery by giving it more drawbacks, but generally I think most of the civics were designed to give positive effects rather than negative effects. I remember the first time I tried the Final Frontier mod and looked at the leader traits, that many of them have drawbacks as well as bonuses. The drawbacks were enough to make me dislike the trait even if it was still the best.

I am also reconsidering the +1:commerce: on farms for serfdom at the moment. It doesn't seem all that good when the -25% GPP is kicking in as well. By the way, I'm not even sure the -25% GPP actually applies if it starts from 0% anyway. In other words, if you have no great person modifiers you don't get the 25% reduction, but I can't confirm this yet. EDIT... Just checked, the -25% does indeed apply all the time.

I'd probably increase slavery from med to high upkeep and at the same time give a different boost to serfdom than the current +1:commerce: on farms and GPP reduction. What about if I gave +2:) to castles under serfdom? What about +1:hammers: for villages, hamlets and towns (but not cottages)?

+1:hammers: for farms? This one might warrant moving the upkeep from low to medium. My concern with this one is that it would make caste system look a lot worse. I don't use caste system much anyway, but I wonder if it would still get used? If not, I could at least decrease its upkeep to low.
 
Re: Divine Right
Why was the free prophet removed? Was this judged to be too powerful? I've played two games with a free prophet and it didn't seem overpowered.

Re: Granaries and Slavery/Serfdom/Caste
IMO, Granaries are not the reason that Slavery is overpowered. I also don't like the idea of making such a basic building any more expensive.

Far and away the biggest reason Slavery is so powerful is the 2-pop and 3-pop whips. In particular, the fact that there is no extra or extended unhappiness for whipping away more than one population. I don't mind that whipping is as good or even better than mines at producing hammers, but it should not be indefinitely sustainable.

I feel like Serfdom giving +1:hammers: from farms, -25% GPP, and maybe high upkeep works pretty well. This has the effect of making Golden Ages very powerful (all your green farms get +2:hammers:), but there is a negative synergy there, so I think it's okay.

Caste System is still the only way to reliably and quickly produce Artists/Scientists/Merchants in the early game, so I don't think it needs improving.
 
POM, would altering Tokugawa's behavior (making him a little less of a xenophobe) improve gameplay and provide more of a challenge?

Nothing drastic (like turning him into a Mansa); just a step in that direction. One example: instead of "Pleased" as his minimum required attitude for signing open border agreements, it would be "Cautious".

Sure, it's nice to have him on your side when you work towards it. But, most of the time, he's backward and has masses of inferior units later in the game. Even with vassals, and lots of land, he can get steamrolled.

What do you think?
 
Time for a swine game :p

EDIT: Nicely balanced mod so far, pretty low key. The only thing I didn't like was that Rome was in my game (with iron) and I wasn't scared at all... I rather liked that "flavor" of Rome being very strong in the ancient era so I changed praets back to 8 but increased their build time to 60.
 
Hey guys--just tried the mod, and I love it. But I have a question, and I am not sure if it was already addressed. When I try to start a Custom game, it doesn't allow me to pick a leader or civilization--it stays on Random, and is grayed out. I like to play with Unrestricted leaders; is that the source of my trouble? By the way, it only happens when I select the "Full of Resources" map before selecting a leader and civ. Thanks!
 
Hi,

thank you for this 'compilation'. I am missing a few things though:


[Pig V0.4]
production culture
i think it belongs to bug
when i selected culture it would grow culture to the next cultural level and then stop - asking for new production or going for the next item in the production queue
the current PIG will produce culture forever (which i find annoying)

city Adviser screen
again i think this belongs to bug
the city screen is missing a lot of screens i am used to.
Pig:
Buffy:
** e.g. science (listing monasteries, libs, universities, basic beaker, total beaker,...)
** production screen (levee, factories, ...)
** those screens makes it a lot easier to meet quest quest objectives (which city is missing a lib to make it 5x) or specialise cities so you don't forget stuff

Map finder short cut

While trying to figure out the difference between Pig and Buffy i ran over the mapfinder files but i can't find the proper key short cut. <ctrl><alt><g> does not work.


P.S.: Could you add the versions of Better AI, Bug, Advanced Combat odds shipped with 0.4?
P.P.S.: Any E.T.A. for Bull integration ?
 

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Hey guys--just tried the mod, and I love it. But I have a question, and I am not sure if it was already addressed. When I try to start a Custom game, it doesn't allow me to pick a leader or civilization--it stays on Random, and is grayed out. I like to play with Unrestricted leaders; is that the source of my trouble? By the way, it only happens when I select the "Full of Resources" map before selecting a leader and civ. Thanks!

This is unusual. Since it sounds like it is limited to when you are using the FoR mapscript, can you please post a copy of the .py file that you're using? I can't think of any change in PIG that would cause what you're seeing but if you show me what file you're using I might see if I can reproduce it at least.

@essmene,

The production culture change was due to BUG, that's right. I'll put it on my list of things to look at but most likely that change will be reversed in the next version of BUG anyway.

Re the city advisor screen, I'll look into that too.

I don't know much about the map finder, but I can tell you the latest version of PIG was before BUFFY, from memory. Was map finder in BUG 3.6?

Latest versions of Better AI and Advanced Combat Odds are already included. At the moment BULL is the only DLL part yet to be included. For merging BULL I am going to wait until its proper release, as merging takes time and to my knowledge BULL is still being worked on. Technically BULL hasn't been officially released, has it?

Thanks for your comments though. I'll try to get onto them as soon as I can. About a week from now I might have some more spare time to get a few more changes made. But I can't give an ETA for including BULL - just that BULL will be included when it's done. ;)
 
Bull has not been "officially" released yet. I think EmperorFool said all he has to do is make an installer for it.
This is a great "little" mod PieceOfMind.:)
 
I don't know much about the map finder, but I can tell you the latest version of PIG was before BUFFY, from memory. Was map finder in BUG 3.6?

I don't know either. I just had a ditch at Buffy and saw the short cut and tried it and got the impression that it gives better starting positions.

The file i am refering to is 'Beyond the Sword\Mods\PIG Mod\Assets\XML\Text\MapFinder Options.xml'. I am not sure how to start it inside pig.
 
The production culture change was due to BUG.

Actually, it's part of the UP. I can't remember if I put it into BULL yet (it's an SDK change) or not, but you haven't merged BULL yet anyway. I will be removing it from BULL if it is in there as I think people count on the old behavior.

I don't know much about the map finder, but I can tell you the latest version of PIG was before BUFFY, from memory. Was map finder in BUG 3.6?

MapFinder depends on both BUG and BULL, but I ported it from HOF after release BUG 3.6. If you merged BUG's SVN, you have the BUG half. If you merged BUG 3.6, you don't. Either way you still need the BULL half.

Technically BULL hasn't been officially released, has it?

That's correct. I just moved so things should settle down enough for me to release BUG 4.0 and BULL 1.0. *crosses fingers* I hesitate to give ETAs because things change so frequently and people just end up getting disappointed when the release slips.
 
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