MOD: Caravans and Supply Trains

Status: This mod is now release version 1.0 (Updated 12/06/2005)

Description: This mod adds three new units, the Caravan, Entertainer, and Freight. As best as I can tell, the AI does know how to produce and use these units. Stats follow:

NOTE: Each of these units is limited to a maximum of 3 each in existence at one time (just like missionaries).

Caravan: Available with Currency and Construction, costs 50 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special abilities: Can perform a trade mission like the Great Merchant but will only produce a base of 50 gold; can hurry the production of the city it resides in by 25 production. Uses the Great Merchant graphic. Upgrades to Freight.

Freight: Available with Railroad, costs 150 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special abilities: can hurry the production of the city it resides in by 100 production; can perform a trade mission like the Great Merchant but will only produce a base of 150 gold. Replaces the Caravan. Uses the Great Merchant graphic.

Entertainer: Available with Drama, costs 40 production, has a move of 2, can be captured, can only defend, 0 power. Special ability: can provide a one-time shot of 15 culture to a city a la the Great Artist ability. Uses the Great Artist graphic.

Version History:
Beta 1
- Initial Release
- Caravan and Supply Train units added

Beta 2
- Freight and Entertainer units added

1.0
- Combined Caravan and Supply Train/Freight units
- Added the readme file


INSTALLATION: Instructions are in the readme.txt file.

NOTE: if you have the previous version you can overwrite that installation with these files HOWEVER: I do NOT recommend loading a saved game that was not started with this build of the mod if you install this mod. In other words, don't change out mods and then reload a saved game... it'll probably corrupt the saved game.


Please provide feedback and thoughts on this mod.

Sounds very cool .

Supply Train with Construction?
Isn't that too early?
I suppose it can only fasten regular buildings, no projects and wonders
- am I right?

I suggest trains coming with Industrialism or Rails...

Otherwise, a fine idea!

Nice idea!

Is the caravan actually worth building though, i.e. what sort of figures are we talking with basic and more extensive caravan journeys? Is it more worthwhile than a city producing wealth?

Love the idea, but agree that the Supply Train might be too early. I'll have to see how the AI actually uses them, but I can see myself using lots of them in cities I don't want to improve or build more units in.

woodelf said:

Love the idea, but agree that the Supply Train might be too early. I'll have to see how the AI actually uses them, but I can see myself using lots of them in cities I don't want to improve or build more units in.

Click to expand...

I wonder if it's not the name that is causing the confusion. Train doesn't have to mean locomotive, it's actually a very old term for a procession of wagons (or camels), as in 'baggage train'

Avernaith said:

I wonder if it's not the name that is causing the confusion. Train doesn't have to mean locomotive, it's actually a very old term for a procession of wagons (or camels), as in 'baggage train'

Click to expand...

Not really a confusion, but it seems that Construction and Currency are researched fairly close together. That's why I felt it was too soon to offer another "caravan" type build. I think they need to be spaced out and have the Supply Train be larger and more expensive.

edit: I guess they aren't really the same thing. My bad. I thought one was just a better version of the other. Maybe a better caravan like Frieght or something later on then?

Just so you know, I had to create them as two separate units so that the AI would understand how to use them. There's a tag in the XML called UnitAIType that defines how the AI should use the unit. It seems possible to add multiple AI's to a single unit type but I felt it would be better to single task the units just to make sure the AI's using them correctly since they would be imbalancing if the AI's don't use them as well. I'm looking at testing a single unit with both functions and both AI tags but like I said, this is a beta and feedback is important.

On the Caravan: I tried to set the funds returned to be just a bit (about 25-50%) better than having the city just produce gold. My rationale on this is that the Caravan is vulnerable and can be lost or captured whereas having the city produce gold has no risk. And yes, if you capture a Caravan, you get a Caravan... not a worker. Longer distances do produce more cash but it's at a slower rate than the Great Merchant so it seems hard to abuse that way. If you folk see that the funds returned are out of line, PLEASE say so. I put this out as a beta because I needed more eyes than just mine to look at this.

On the Supply Train: It can hurry any building but not projects or units. So yes, it can hurry a wonder. Keep in mind though that you only get half of the production you put into it... i.e. it costs 50 production to make one but only contributes 25 production. And it's vulnerable to destruction or capture like the Caravan. Oh, and the name was simply because I couldn't come up with anything else that made sense to describe its function.

And lastly, availability: Yeah, I did set both units to be available fairly early in the game. The Caravan was deliberately put at Currency because I felt there needed to be something to help with early game expansion given the lack of any early game Economy civics. I went from there with the Supply Train looking for a reasonable counterpart tech. And while yes, they are pretty early game units, keep in mind that these cost almost as much production as a settler and in the early game that can take a while. Of course if you folk think that one or both should be moved to later in the game, please make suggestions!

Have you considered doing something similar with food? For instance, a unit that consumes extra food as part of its production cost, like a settler, that can be used in another city for a quick population boost. Though I suppose this is a little more difficult since there isn't already a unit that does something similar.

I'd really love to do a unit that transports food but from what I can see in the XML file for units, there aren't any tags to work with. Perhaps something can be done at a later date using Python or the SDK.

Oddly enough, just about everything else can be transported... Science, Production, Gold, and Culture via the following tags:


Science transport doesn't make much sense as a unit although the culture code is somewhat tempting. Wouldn't be as useful as a Great Artist but maybe enough to get a city from a 1 tile radius to a 2 tile radius without having to build an obelisk or Stonehenge. Literally, I'm thinking only about 10-20 culture to a unit like this. Any interest in an "Entertainer" unit like this?

Entertainer, food shipments, production assistance, it's all a good idea....if the AI uses it too. I don't remember how well the AI used this stuff in SMAC, but I know that the player could.

Well, given that the AI knows how to use a Great Artist, it should be able to use an Entertainer/Troubadour/Chronicler/whatever it'll be called just fine. My initial thoughts are to make it cost around 40 production and produce 15 culture. This makes it just a little more expensive than an obelisk but not unbalancing in the amount of culture it generates. Again this is just a gut reaction but I'm thinking of making it available with either Drama or Music... probably Drama.

Love the idea of this mod, the entertainer and food moving versions sound great too.

Maybe set a cap on max one use Supply Train per city and turn, so you can't rush wonders with like 10 Supply Trains at a single turn.

Zuul said:

Maybe set a cap on max one use Supply Train per city and turn, so you can't rush wonders with like 10 Supply Trains at a single turn.

Click to expand...

Sadly you could conceivably chop down 10 forests in 1 turn, but I see the point on trying to limit the overuse of this.

Would a food transport work in this way: Make a caravan or whatever in City A, move it to City B, and now City A donates 1 food per turn to City B? This would be great if possible for those coastal cities with high food and no hammers. This could be real trade.

Sounds like an awesome mod. How do I instal it to make it a permanent part of my game. I think that if caravans produced permanent trade routes like in civ2 that would be a lot better than the current setup of having them set up automatically for you. But that kind of mod would be harder to make

Mirrored this file at http://civilization4.filefront.com/ Looks like a useful file indeed Hastur!

MattJek: Just follow the installation instructions in the first post. Copy the files into the folders already present in My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CustomAssets and start up the game. That's all there is to it.

As for the various units, I've done the Caravan and Supply Train as gold and production. I'm 99% sure I can do the entertainer for culture.

Food though is one I just don't see a way to do using what I've got available. I'd REALLY love to make that unit because it drives me nuts to have a city that's stalled in growth while there's another city nearby that has plenty of food and could ship extra to the stalled city if there was just a mechanism to do so. New York City is a huge city but they don't get much food from their immediate area as a perfect real-life example.

As for limiting use of the units, the only cap the game will let me set is a maximum number of active units per player at one time. For instance, I could set that you can only have five Caravans active at once. I don't see too much problem with having plenty of Caravans running if that's your choice but after the discussion here, I am considering capping Supply Trains. Thoughts?

Thanks JamieCiv4Files!

for food it should be "immigrants" it should cost vary little production like 20 or something but the same food as a pop increase and you should be able to put that pop in any city