Legacy epic mod: preview thread

Thanks Weasel Op,

may be this techtree can´t be done like a normal techtree. With these "cross-over-lines" you can only know what are the perequisites, if you klick on the tech in the civilopedia or if you know them by heart.

One quick idea: What´s about naming the tech with a number in front of its name and the number of the perequisite techs after the name of the tech?
Per example: Domestication has in the techbox the name "3 Domestication -" ,
the tech Pottery has the name "4 Pottery -" and Trade has the name "8 Trade 3+4".

It would take some experimentation to get it to look elegant, but another possibility would be to include an arrow in the tech icon indicating the direction of the succeeding tech.

A few of the conceptual trends....

I want infrastructure to be more important. You shouldn't just be able to build units all the time and end up being the most powerful civ without consequences. I think I will make everything cost a lot more in later eras (shields and gold), and include more commerce and production increasing buildings- ones that will be helpful in productive cities, but a waste of maintenance elsewhere. If you want to keep up militarily or scientifically, you will have to spend time building the infrastructure to support your economy.

I'm also adding several more happiness buildings, and more luxuries. To compensate, few buildings besides wonders will give more than 1 content face, and there will be no "increase happiness from luxuries" effect, except maybe for a wonder.

One of the little changes that I appreciate in Civ4 is the maintenance cost for cities that limits the area that can be profitably governed. There is no direct way to do this in Civ3, but I'm thinking of increasing the corruption rate for all difficulty levels, and providing a few corruption reducing improvements with increasing maintenance costs (no more than 3 of them, otherwise corruption could be completely eliminated). Also there will be multiple forbidden palace replacements, including the Empire system taken form MEMII.

Obviously, this mod is going to require a LOT of testing to get everything balanced!

I'm sure glad I decided to use Subversion for mod management, because something ate the Legacy BIQ since the last time I play-tested and I hadn't even modified it.

Some of the city improvements include:

Happiness

Commerce

Productivity

Growth

Government and Military

Naval

Resource in radius

ker-!

Hey, wow, I did start a thread on this project.

After cracking open the old svn repository for my version control tutorial I started poking around at some files. Then I got to looking up some of the old threads that inspired me to start this in the first place, and realized that some of those great ideas have never fully come to fruition in a completed mod. There's so much yet to be done with Civ3. I haven't touched this for about 2 years, but now I'm out of college, have no other personal technical projects going, and I'm itching to mod something.

Not much has changed since my last post here but I'll get things moving again. The tech tree is still as ugly as a Grandraem leaderhead (and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible), I'm still flip-flopping on civ traits like a Congressman on an election year, and there are so many new graphics out there I might as well toss out my unit spreadsheet. But it's all there right where I left it!

This all looks quite interesting. Glad you have decided to work on it again. I mmight have to steal some of your ideas for my own epic mod I've recently started, though mine will be rather more simple than yours since I just really want to improve the existing game with more flavour, extra techs, new concepts etc rather than rebuilding everything from scratch. I also plan to use some of the features from MEM II such as the vassal state system.

An explanation of the new ways to crush your enemies...

There are 3 ways that you can subjugate foreign populations. The first is by conquering another civ's capital and making it a vassal state. The second is by securing minor civilizations and conscripting them into your army. And the third is by enslaving natives.

Vassal states: This is based on the imperial model seen in MEMII. There is a system of buildings that allows a conqueror to build a wonder in a foreign capital symbolizing the establishment of a kingdom/protectorate there. In MEMII each civ built a Great Wonder marking its capital at the beginning of the game. That made for a lot of wonder pop-ups telling you exactly who was in the game. That's not desirable for a random map epic mod so I had to complicate it a little. Now there are 3 buildings for each civilization. First, a Small Wonder "[Civilization] Homeland" that requires the palace, ensuring that it can only be built once and only in the capital. Then, an improvement "[Civilization] Capital" which requires the Small Wonder but no technology, so that it will not be lost when the city is captured (it can, unfortunately, be destroyed in war or unrest, but could be rebuilt). Both will be free and provide some small bonus to encourage the AI to build them as soon as possible. Then, a Great Wonder "Kingdom of [Civilization]" that requires the improvement and made obsolete by the original civ's own unique technology, so that only another civ can built it and only in their original capital. The GW lowers corruption and provides a significant economic boost representing tribute from the vassal state. To really rub it in, the wonder may even spawn the subjugated civ's unique unit or other mercenary. I'm not sure whether the GWs will be available only under Imperialism, an earlier government for warmongers.

Minor Civilizations: There will be about a dozen minor civilizations represented by a strategic resource which only appears once on the map, in an appropriate terrain type. Securing this resource will allow construction of a Small Wonder in the capital which spawns a unique mercenary unit from that minor civ and grants an economic bonus. The mercenary units may be upgradeable king units, providing better mercenaries over time. I'm also considering having the SWs go obsolete with an enlightenment-era tech which in turn allows corresponding GWs for the minor civ's independence. (I may be coming dangerously close to the 256 building limit.)

Slavery: The resource Natives is found only under Goody Huts. This resource allows the construction of Slave Markets, productivity-boosting improvements that produce unhappiness. With enough slave markets you can build the Slave Trade small wonder which spawns enslaved workers, and certain "epic works" Great Wonders such as the Pyramids and the Great Wall. Beginning in the enlightenment era, many GWs double the unhappiness of Slave Markets, until they eventually become obsolete. A civ with several Slave Markets may choose to build the Emancipation GW before this point.

Sounds great!

I might have to steal the second two ideas. Regarding the minor civ resources, how do you ensure they only spawn once?

EDIT: also how will you get around the problem with the mercenary units upgrading to unbuildable king units that they take the rulers name after the second upgrade? Ie: upgrading once works ok, if I remember rightly but when the king unit upgrades again to another king unit it takes the rulers name instead of it's proper unit name doesn't it? Or will the mercenaries only upgrade once?

I'm very glad you are working on this, you really do have some excellent ideas here.

nick0515 said:

I might have to steal the second two ideas. Regarding the minor civ resources, how do you ensure they only spawn once?

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Appearance ratio: 1

EDIT: also how will you get around the problem with the mercenary units upgrading to unbuildable king units that they take the rulers name after the second upgrade? Ie: upgrading once works ok, if I remember rightly but when the king unit upgrades again to another king unit it takes the rulers name instead of it's proper unit name doesn't it? Or will the mercenaries only upgrade once?

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I wasn't aware of that. Maybe there will just be 1 upgraded mercenary, then they'll merge into the regular infantry line. Thanks for the tip.

In CCM there are two instances of units being named "Ruler" (as all civ leaders are named "ruler") that I know about. It is a simple matter to rename the unit when it appears. And yes, one is a flavor unit for Galleon and they do return to the "normal" upgrade path. I think I have seen another (3rd unit name "Ruler") because of Egyptian Settler auto-production.

Another month, another bump. I'm wrapping up implementation of the first era (Ancient & Classical) with placeholder graphics only. I'll start testing the first quarter of the game while continuing design and implementation of era 2. After that, I may either continue on in the same manner or add in the graphics and release a single-era teaser beta.

One thing I haven't given much attention to is governments. I knew I wanted to add Imperialism to make use of the vassal kingdom model but I didn't have many notes otherwise. Here is what I have come up with recently:

Governments will support one of five types of gameplay: small, peaceful, moderate, warmonger, and expansive. There will be 2-3 forms of government of each type, giving the player the chance to "upgrade" periodically. Small and peaceful governments provide better economic bonuses, while warmonger and expansive governments have better military support.



The starting government, Tribalism, replaces Despotism as the form of tribes which have not yet fully embraced civilization and is an all-around poor government. You should switch out of it as soon as possible.

Small governments are best suited for civs with only a few cities. They provide some free units but little to no additional unit support. Economic bonuses are offset by moderate corruption which will spoil far-flung cities.

Peaceful governments provide economic bonuses as well as low corruption, but very low unit support.

Moderate governments have a good balance of economic and military support.

Warmonger governments suffer high corruption but boast excellent military support.

Expansive governments have communal corruption, ideal for large empires. They also provide good military support, and Imperialism allows conquerors to establish vassal kingdoms.

One thing I'm debating before I start playtesting is whether to start the game as Civ3 does, with the fundamentals of civilization already discovered ("the secrets of farming, road-building, and irrigation") or to push the start time back and include another tier of fairly cheap primitive techs.

This would essentially start the player out in the late stone age. I think that would make for a more authentic "dawn of civilization" feel in the first turns, and I am after all trying to stretch out the game. The first techs would include the following:
Agricultural Revolution: provides Irrigation and crop resources
Road-building: provides Road
Exploration: provides Scout
Hunting: provides animal resources
Mining: provides Mine and mineral resources

But I fear that it might be boring until you're past those first techs because there will be so little to do. Workers will be useless without at least one of those first-tier techs. I have only 1 improvement, Monument, that doesn't require tech. Each civ will have a start tech depending on their main trait, but that still leaves only the Monument, Tribesman (warrior), and Settler to be built besides whatever that one tech grants.

A good compromise may be to keep Agricultural Revolution and Mining, since they are very important and best represent the transition to civilization, and drop the others so that you can at least build roads and scouts and make use of some resources. This would result in the following first tier:

Oral Tradition: provides Heroic Epic, leads to Ceremonial Burial and Writing
Boat-building: provides Boat and Port, leads to Fishing
The Wheel: provides Chariot, leads to Riding and Mathematics
Agricultural Revolution: provides Irrigation, Granary, Stonehenge, and several crop resources, leads to Domestication, Brewery, and Trade
Pottery: provides Dyes and Wines, leads to Brewing and Metalworking
Warfare: provides Footman, leads to Skirmishing, Metalworking, and Slavery
Mining: provides Mine and mineral resources, leads to Metalworking and Masonry
No tech required: Tribesman, Settler, Scout, Worker, Road, Monument, animal resources

You could have all needed to be discovered, but each civ starts out with one discovered?

wild weazel, where could i download the pikeman for the medieval times ??

Regarding the minor civ resources, how do you ensure they only spawn once?

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WildWeazel said:

Appearance ratio: 1

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Last time I've checked, that was impossible. You can put the lower ratio you want, there are always at least 2 instances of each resources on a generated map.

WildWeazel said:

One thing I'm debating before I start playtesting is whether to start the game as Civ3 does, with the fundamentals of civilization already discovered ("the secrets of farming, road-building, and irrigation") or to push the start time back and include another tier of fairly cheap primitive techs.

Click to expand...

I agree with on the aspect of learning the beginning techs; but without workers, for me, there is a lost sense of civilization; since you cannot 'improve' nothing at all; and it becomes a grind sometimes waiting to discover techs to feel you are doing something.

Perhaps though as an in-between alternative; you could have 'nothing discovered', but let road-building; farming; irrigation; be discovered fairly quickly (not the 40 turns it sometimes takes). Perhaps let road building tech cost very little; and make the others cost a bit more (like 20 turns e.g.). So it flows well, and doesn't make the player feel like they are being held back for too long.

Quinzy said:

You could have all needed to be discovered, but each civ starts out with one discovered?

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Yes, that's what I'm doing:

Each civ will have a start tech depending on their main trait, but that still leaves only the Monument, Tribesman (warrior), and Settler to be built besides whatever that one tech grants.

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That means the Scout, one worker action, and/or one type of natural resource would be available per civ. I just don't know if that's enough to keep you busy/alive for the first 50 or so turns.

wild weazel, where could i download the pikeman for the medieval times ??

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I believe that was made by utahjazz7. If it's any help, the files appear to have been made in December 2005.

Last time I've checked, that was impossible. You can put the lower ratio you want, there are always at least 2 instances of each resources on a generated map.

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Works for me We did it in LotM and nobody ever noticed otherwise. If it does happen under certain circumstances, oh well- they migrated or something.

i searched and did not find it, the spearman.

This seems to be the one. Listed on utah's profile. http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1447

thanks man, u are really nice, scuse me for interrupting, but i could not refrain from asking.

ps it can be used as a turkish spearman, or a frankish guard.................