[MOD] Ultimate Strategy

naf4ever

Dread Lord
Joined
Feb 8, 2003
Messages
405
Location
Southeast Washington State


Mod – Ultimate Strategy
release version .48 w/ alternative tech trading model

Current Status:
  • Version .48 is out. It contains a few more bug fixes, refinement of the free specialist for creative trait and a few other minor tweaks. - 04/29/06
  • Im starting up grad school soon and wont have a lot of time to keep doing this mod unfortunetly. I've enjoyed it a lot but im putting this mod on hold for the time being. - 04/04/06
  • A better explanation of how some of the new features work along with more pictures have been added below. - 04/04/06

Currently Working on:
  • Adding more variety and differences between the civics and traits.
  • Contemplating how to create and maybe add a cruise missle unit. This isnt for sure though.

Here are some pics and explanations of the new features added:



The new Medicinal Herbs resource gives all your units increased healing and a slight combat bonus from maintaining better health.



Salt is one of the oldest preservatives around. Here it gives an increase to food yield in all your cities.



The Coffee resource does nothing on its own but allows you to build the powerful Coffee House building. As you can see it increases happiness and the caffiene fix helps to boost productivity and commerce.



I added the super-cool PlotList enhancement by 12monkeys. It lets you manage stacks of units much better and apply all sorts of filters to them. Check out the readme on it for details on how to customize it.



I borrowed the slavery model from Kael's Fall from Heaven. You have a 1 in 4 chance to capture slaves when you win a battle in that civic. The slave units can then be used as moderate workers or sac'd to slightly increase production of a building or wonder.



All units will now receive this bonus when you are in the "Nationhood" civic as long as they are in your own territory. Excludes boats and helicopters.



Watermills and workshops have gotten much needed upgrades. They will now give a bonus to your city based on how many of them are being worked within the city radius. This pictures shows an example. Workshops give a bonus to production, watermills to gold. Read the version notes for more information on them.



Standard tech trading (swapping techs) has been disabled in this mod. It is replaced with a unique technology transfer bonus instead that is based on open border treaties. For example in the above picture you can engage in a "technology transfer" by researching any of the techs under the "Has available for trade" section. The catch is you just have to be trading with them, hence have an open borders treaty with that person. They will also get this bonus from you when they are researching the appropriate techs so be cautious to whom you give treaties.



This is the technology transfer bonus you then get if you are researching a tech that someone you have an open borders treaty with already has. This replacement to tech swapping basically symbolizes things like merchants bringing back knowledge from far away lands, trade and commerce that gives exposure to new technologies and ideas, etc...



The new early era scout/spy available at writing.

Additional Changes:
  • A number of the civics have been changed around to become more useful, especially the labor ones.
  • Weak and underused units and buildings have been tweaked and improved.
  • Some of the traits have undergone changes. Industrial now gives +1 hammer on squares already producing 3 or more instead of the wonder bonus. Creative leaders now receive a free artist in all cities size 12 or greater.

Other Features:


The purpose of this mod is to take a very analytical look at vanilla civ and then proceed to balance out numerous issues with the goal of adding strategy, variety and fun to the game especially in regards to competitive multiplayer games. In addition I loved playing the current mods out there already yet most of the time was wishing there was one that combined certain elements from one mod with the unique features of another while maintaining game balance and fun. It is my hope this mod does this. Furthermore every major change or addition to this mod along with the reasoning behind it will be detailed in the Alteration Analysis that you can download and look at. The goal of this is to put these changes to public scrutiny and examination in order to encourage lively debate with the purpose of generating more well thought out ideas for improving the game.

Big thanks to Sevo for letting me borrow some of his python code to get me started with and whose mod is still one of my favorites and inspired me to make this one.

Downloads:
Alteration Analysis - Being re-done
Ultimate Strategy mod v.48 hosted on FileFront - 11 megs (If you're having problems downloading it pick a different download server from their list.)

To install simply extract the .zip file to your Civilization 4\Mods directory. Then in the main menu choose "Advanced" and "Load a Mod" then pick Ultimate Strategy.

To install a patch simply extract the .zip file to you Civilization 4\Mods directory EXACTLY as you did when you installed the mod to begin with.

Version Notes:
Click the spoiler button to see all the changes in the game in relation to basic civilization 4.

Spoiler :

Ultimate Strategy
release version .48

Trait Changes:
Creative now gives a free specialist for large cities size 12 and up instead of a free artist.

Civic Changes:
Slightly increased the amount of production from pop rushing and from sacraficing slave units.

Resource Changes:
Made the new Herbs, Salt and Coffee resources slightly more rare.

Fixed a bug with tech selection and the tech transfer bonus.

_______________________________________________________

Ultimate Strategy
release version .45

Gameplay Changes:
Updated most values to be consistant with civ4 version 1.61. The things I didnt update are:
1) Kremlin still gives -50% hurry discount instead of -33% as in version 1.61
2) SDI cost remains 2000 instead of 1000 as in version 1.61.
3) Nationhood cost remains "Low" instead of "none" as in version 1.61.

Civic Changes:
Got rid of the slave specialist. You can still capture slaves when in the slavery civic but now they are actual units. They are basically workers who perform tasks at 50% the normal rate and can also be sacraficed in cities for 15 hammers toward production of a wonder or building.

Resources Added:
Salt - Requires a quarry to make accessible. Will give you +10% to food yield in all your cities.
Coffee - Requires a plantation to make accessible. Allows you to build Coffee Houses (described below).
Medicinal Herbs - Requires a plantation to make accessible. Grants all your non-machine based units (melee, archer, mounted, gunpowder and recon) the Medicinal Herbs promotion (described below).

Buildings Added:
Coffee Houses - Requires Coffee in order to build. Gives +1 happiness, +10% production and +10% commerce as long as you have access to the coffee resource.

Promotions Added:
Medicinal Herbs - Gives +5% heal in friendly/neutral/enemy territory and +5% combat strength.

Mod additions:
PlotList Enhancement - This is a really awesome mod that lets you manage large stacks of units much better. Refer to the readme to see everything it does. The .ini file for it lets you customize quite a bit of how you want unit stacks displayed.

Mod Changes:
Updated Modified Domestic Advisor
Updated Modified Specialist Stacker
removed enhanced military advisor (for the time being at least) because it isnt compatible with civ4 version 1.61.

(Ive also included the readme's for the more complex mods incorporated into this one so you can see more clearly what they are doing and how you can customize them.)

Known issues:
The new civ4 version 1.61 patch has caused a few known issues. So far all are just graphical and dont really affect gameplay:
1) Sometimes you see two research number indicators in the lower left info box when you mouseover the research bar at the top. One is nonsense with erratic numbers.
2) If you switch techs in the middle of researching one and that switch should normally result in the Tech Transfer bonus being applied or unapplied sometimes you won't see it take place instantly or it will get applied inappropriately. This gets resolved correctly though at the end of the turn before research generated so no tech is actually lost or falsely gained.

Im working to fix all of these.
__________________________________________________________________

Ultimate Strategy
release version .40

Gameplay Changes:
The Science Rep has been removed for the time being until i can have fill a better role. Tech trading is now like it was before but with the bonus done via the tech transfer building (this should cause less out-of-sync errors than previously). So if you have open borders with someone and you are researching a tech they already have, you now get the "Tech Transfer" bonus in all your cities (which is equivlant to +100% to research).

Improvement Changes:
Workshops and Watermills - now give a bonus to the city based on how many there are in the city radius fat cross.

1-2 workshops in the city radius will give +5% to production
3-4 workshops in the city radius will give +10% to production
5+ workshops in the city radius will give +15% to production

1-2 watermills in the city radius will give +5% to gold
3-4 watermills in the city radius will give +10% to gold
5+ watermillsin the city radius will give +15% to gold

The tiles with the workshop or watermills MUST be worked to get this bonus.

Promotions added:
Nationalist - +10% strength, +10% city defense. This promotion is automatically given to all non-naval, non-helicopter units that are within their own territory if the player is in the nationhood civic. This promotion goes away if they switch civics or leave their territory.

Promotion Changes:
Exceptional - increased strength bonus from 15 to +20%

Wonder Changes:
Universal Sufferage - great person bonus reduced from 50 to 25%

Unit Changes:
Informant - increased speed from 1 to 2

Civic Changes:
Universal Sufferage - no longer enables rushing production with gold. It now gives +100% cottage/village/etc. growth. Removed the +10% to war weariness.

Emancipation - now enables rushing with gold and doesnt have the growth bonus anymore since universal sufferage has it.

Caste system - no longer allows unlimited specialists. Instead it gives +1 free specialists to all cities.

Free Speech - now allows unlimited artists. Removed the +10% to war weariness.

Free Market - now allows unlimited merchants.

Free Religeon - now allows unlimited scientists.

Slavery - has the new slave/caputure specialist function (already implemented last update)

Serfdom - now gives +1 commerce/farm (seems reasonable, the old bonus was too geographic-specific)

Mercantalism - no longer gives +1 free specialists. Now gives +25% gold to all cities.

Feudalism - increased the amount of free units per/population. Before it gave a base of 5 free units + 1 for every 10 population in your empire. It still gives a base of 5 free units but now gives +1.5 additional free units for every 10 population in your empire.

Nationalism - All units in this civic (except naval and helicopter) receive the Nationalist promotion as long as they remain inside their own territory. This bonus is removed if they leave their territory or if you switch civics.

General:
Ive been trying to clean up the code some and get rid of poorly written functions. This should help those of you experiencing out-of-sync problems. This will be an on-going process but its making progress.

Fixed a bug with the creative trait improvement not deleting the free artist when population dropped below the needed amount.

__________________________________________________________

Ultimate Strategy
release version .35

Gameplay Changes:

Technology Trading - Ive totally redone the tech trading model. Its less buggy and more fun now. Tech trading is now done via a unit called the "Science Rep." If you are researching a tech that an ally of yours has AND your science rep is in one of their towns you will now get a bonus in the form of the Tech Exchange building that appears in your cities. In addition if your science rep is in a foreign city you have a 1% chance every turn for him to inspire a foreign great scientist to join your cause (this chance happens regardless if you are getting the tech bonus or not so always try to have your science rep in a foreign city). NOTE: An automated feature has been implemented so that the AI will get the appropriate bonus if they are rearching tradable tech even if their science rep doesnt meet the critera. This basically simulates a player who super optimizes the use of their science rep.

Slavery - When in slavery you have a 25% chance to capture a slave every time you win a battle. This slave then joins one of your cities at random and becomes a slave specialist that gives +1 production. Each town can have a max number of slaves no more than half their population (rounded down). If you are at your max in all your cities you wont generate any more slaves.
If you switch out of the slavery your slaves will be liberated and will dissappear. Because of this upgrade to slavery the bonus for sacraficing people from pop rush has been reduced back down to 30 hammers.

Mod Changes:
TechConquest - now gives the following points for capturing a city: A base amount of tech points equivlant to the 2% (of the tech cost) times the population of the city plus a bonus amount equal to a random amount of 3% times the population of the city. In essence if you take over a city:
#size 5 you will get between 10 and 25 percent of the tech . Or an avg of 17.5% gained
#Size 10 city gives 20 to 50 percent. avg of 35% gained
#size 15 between 30 and 75 % . avg of 52.5% gained
#size 20 between 40 and 100% . avg of 70% gained

Added Mods:
Specialist Stacker by The_Lopez - This lets you see more of the super specialists. This was needed so you can see them all when you have lots of slave specialists.

Added Units:
Science Rep of course! - 2 movement, 60 cost available with writing. National unit (1 max)

______________________________________________________

Ultimate Strategy
release version .25

Gameplay Changes:
New Technology trading model implemented. Technology trading in the form of tech swapping is now gone. Technology trading is now a part of open border agreements. If you have an open border agreement with someone and are researching a tech that they already have you will get a +100% bonus to research at the end of that turn. You will get a bonus of +100% max regardless of how many people you have open borders with possesses that tech. This 100% bonus is based off your total current research points in your empire (the number that appears in the financial screen).

Furthermore once you get Scientific Method this bonus gets increased by an additional amount equivlant to +100% of the total science research from specialists. Example: If your empire is producing 90 research points and 30 of it is coming from specialists then you will get a total bonus of 120.

Note: The technology progress on the main screen and the tech screen are slightly off because they don't capture these bonus reseach points. Im working on interface changes now to correct for this.

Trait Changes:
Creative - Tweaked the free specialist bonus as it was quite powerful before. This trait now functions exactly like it does in vanilla civ except cities size 12 and greater now get a free artist specialist. The bonus 2 culture from the trait is no longer removed when the free artist appears.

Bug fixes:
Fixed the modified industrial trait. It now functions like it should.

Mod Changes:
Removed Settler Religeon mod

******************************************

Ultimate Strategy
release version .17

Trait Changes:
Industrial - altered so now it simply gives +1 hammer on tiles already producing 3 or more. The wonder production bonus has been removed.
Creative - This still gives +2 free culture/city but only to cities size 7 or lower. Once it gets to size 8 this bonus gets replaced with a free artist specialist instead!
Aggressive - Has an increased chance to produce "Exceptional" units which are detailed below.

Game Additions:
There is now a random 1 in 20 chance that any combat unit you build will receive the "Exceptional" promotion. Civs with the Aggressive trait have their chance increased to 1 in 14.

Exceptional promotion gives: +10% withdrawl, +1 first strike, +5% heal in enemy and neutral and +15% strength.


Cleaned up and removed some unit graphics not being used.

*************************************************

Ultimate Strategy
release version .15

(All changes listed here are explained in more detail in the alteration analysis.)

Diplomatic changes:
Tech trading – now requires education (temporary until the new tech trading model detailed in the alteration analysis is complete)
Permanent Alliances – now available with constitution

Trait Changes:
Creative - added +10% bonus to research

Unit Changes:
Bomber - increased range to 10
Stealth Bomber - increased range to 14
Musketman - added +25% city defense
French Musketeer - added +25% city defense, increased strength to 10
Artillery - increased withdraw chance from 25% to 30%
Mongol Keshik - added +1 first strike chance
Arabian Camel Archer – added +25% desert defense
Cannon - Now available with Chemistry
Ironclad - increased power to 14, movement to 3
Aztec Jaguar Warrior - increased power now 6, added +25% to forest defense

Civic Changes:
Slavery - increased production from sacrificed pop to 40
Serfdom – added +2 bonus commerce from plantations
Increased medium and high upkeep costs
Pacifism - upkeep increased to low
Slavery – upkeep increased to low

Religion Changes:
Buddhism - spread factor reduced to 90
Polytheism - spread factor reduced to 90
Judaism - spread factor reduced to 95
Confucianism – remained same at 100
Christianity - spread factor increased to 105
Taoism - spread factor increased to 110
Islam - spread factor increased to 120

Building Changes:
Castles - now available with monarchy
Colosseum - changed to 10% culture/happiness, added +1 culture
Factory - now generates an additional +1 unhealthiness
Recycling center – now gives a flat +2 health bonus

Improvement Changes:
Lumber mill - now available with machinery
Cottages – now require monarchy
Winery – now available with pottery

Project Changes:
SDI - cost increased to 2000

Added World Wonders:
Great Wall - requires construction, free wall in every city
Mausoleum of Mausollos - requires alphabet, +1 happy on continent
Art of War - requires Feudalism, +2 xps
Leonardo's Workship - requires machinery, +1 science/specialist
Tsukiji Fish Market - requires economics, gives tuna resource
Copernicus' Observatory - requires Astronomy, +100% research in city
Universal Suffrage - requires industrialism, +50% great people rate in all cities
Cure for Cancer - requires genetics, +1 happy, +1 health

Added Promotions:
Arctic Combat I
Arctic Combat II
Desert Combat I
Desert Combat II

Added Units:
Cataphract – power 6, 2 moves, +25% vs melee, requires horseback riding and bronze working, requires horses and either copper or iron
Bazooka – power 20, +50% vs armor, -50% versus gunpowder, requires artillery and assembly line
AEGIS cruiser – power 34, 60% intercept, +25% attack vs nuclear sub, requires computers, satellite and plastics
howitzer – power 22, 2 moves (an improved artillery), requires robotics
nuclear sub – power 32, 1 first strike, 50% withdraw (late game sub), requires fusion
Informant – 1 move, early era spy unit, national unit (1 max), no espionage or sabotage, requires writing

Added mods:
settler religion - settler will have a religion based on the religion of the city it was made in
real fort upgrades - improved forts
improved domestic advisor screen
improved foreign advisor screen
small tweaks and improvements to general interface
tech conquest - you now have a chance to gain research points when taking over a city
cultural decay – This mod makes two significant changes to culture. First, any time a city is lost (conquered, destroyed, etc), it sends a "Culture Shock" through the region, resulting in the loss of 50-75% of the culture generated by the city. Note, this culture is NOT the culture visible in the city screen, it is the culture that determines the city boundaries, and which Empire will be able to work a square. The Culture Shock makes it much easier for an Empire to exert control over squares surrounding a city when it is conquered. The second thing it does (which gives it its name) is cause squares outside of an Empire's borders to slowly lose culture over time. This loss (5% of the square's culture every turn, resulting in a half-life of roughly 14 turns) makes it harder for an Empire to regain lands that they lost in the past.
 
FAQ:
Q: What is different about this mod than the others that add new units and wonders?
First off any alterations are made with multiplayer in mind above all else. This is because humans can exploit unbalances with greater efficiency than the AI. Secondly because of all the analysis and public scrutiny implemented changes will undergo I think you'll find that this mod plays very well in terms of game balance and added strategy especially in competitive multiplayer games. Emphasis is being put on adding to the game strategically without obsoleting anything currently in the game.

Q: Why are you posting the entire thought process in the alteration analysis text in regards to the reasoning behind every single alteration or addition to the game?
Because I want your help. Any major changes that I introduce will be posted on the detailed Alteration Analysis along with their justifications. If after playing you feel the new alterations aren't appropriate or don't match up with my stated goals you can then dissect the original reasoning for its change in the first place and challenge it and contribute toward making the mod better.

Q: Why do you have strict written out goals and methodologies for altering or adding new content in this mod?
Because I've found that most mods people create start out wonderfully then fall victim to feature and content creep. Also on some level people have a play style they prefer and whether they realize it or not seem to implement changes which correspond to their preferred style. I myself am guilty of this sometimes without even realizing it. But by having a strict set of written out guidelines and methodology for adding in new units and content it helps prevent this from happening and keeps the game more balanced over time as more features are added or changed.

Q: Why haven't you added more “Lost Units” like all the other mods and/or more wonders/buildings/resources in general?
Because once again adding lots of new units without a specific goal or purpose actually weakens the game in my opinion. Example: Every mod out there I see has added a 5 strength cataphract and a 4 strength hypaspist. These are units which I've never seen a human player build in a multiplayer game because in their current state they are downright useless. The AI will build them though. They will build these instead of building more useful units and as result the game is now easier as you have an AI building gimped units no human would even consider building. Its this sort of situation I'm trying to avoid. I'm more focused on adding new content that is useful and meaningful instead of just large in quanitity.

Q: Your fanatic preoccupation with all these rules and analysis seems a bit obsessive. What gives?
Well, thats just me. I understand this mod might not be for everyone but I think those seeking a more balanced and more strategic game especially in multiplayer or at higher AI levels will enjoy it greatly.


Goals of this mod in order of importance:
  1. To improve balance, strategy, variety and fun by altering current content in the game.
  2. To improve balance, strategy, variety and fun by adding new content to the game.
  3. To add new content to the game in order to increase strategy, variety and enjoyment provided it is in harmony and doesn't conflict with goals 1 or 2.

General methodology followed for altering or adding new content to this mod:
  1. A logical line of reasoning should be used to justify the changes or additions such as how the change will fix a current imbalance or add more strategy and variety.
  2. Game balance issues will then be considered above all else.
    • Game balance in multiplayer will take precedent over single player.
    • Following multiplayer the A.I. levels of monarch and/or emperor will then be used as a base for the rest of the changes.
  3. Historical accuracy will be used where applicable to back up logical justifications but will always take a back seat to game balance issues.

Special methodology followed for altering or adding new units:
  1. Alterations or additions should not drastically diminish the value of, obsolete or significantly speed up the obsolescence of current units. Example: I originally wanted to add the Mark V world war I tank (power 20, pincher promotion, at assembly line) in this mod. But it violates this goal as it ends up being more powerful than regular tanks versus infantry (with the pincher promotion) and results in greatly devaluing the regular tank at industrialism. This is the same reason why I left out many of the other units from the Lost Units mod such as the ship-of-the-line, bi-plane, etc...
  2. Major alterations or additions should have a specific purpose. In essence no new units will be added simply because they can. The purpose should be to either:
    • Correct current imbalances in the game or,
    • To increase strategy by adding more variety to combat.
  3. Unit power and abilities should be balanced in relation to required resources, existing units of the same level and tech requirements.
    • Units made available at a dead end tech can be made slightly more powerful than those made available on a required tech of approximately the same level.
    • When increasing unit strength emphasis should first be put on specific areas (such as city defense or bonuses against a certain type of unit) because raw increases in power tend to cause imbalances more.
    • Units requiring resources should be noticeably more powerful than those without. Unique units are an exception.

Methodology followed for altering or adding new buildings, wonders, civics, religions and everything else:

This area is more open and while I don't have a set structure as guidelines that I follow I tend to abide by the general methodology for altering or adding new content to the game listed above. Furthermore I tend to follow this main assumption: Everything is related to everything.

Example: Increasing or decreasing happiness in one area inevitably increases or decreases the value of everything else in the game which also affects happiness such as civics, resources, other buildings, the culture slider etc.. The same for health. Another example is yields. I have not added a third tier production building after the factory in this mod even though every other one out there does. I didn't do this because keeping this assumption in mind adding more production capability diminishes the usefulness of the police state and organized religion civic. It makes workshops pointless and allows people to maintain high commerce in universal suffrage while also maintaining high production. It in essence allows them to have their cake and eat it to. This takes away strategy I believe as it takes away the hard decisions from the game.

I try to apply this thinking and line of reasoning to all major changes or additions I make in the game and please try to keep it in mind when suggesting changes or alterations yourself: Everything is related to everything.

Enjoy the mod and please post any feedback about the game play or bugs.

-Naf

__________________________________

Credits:

Naf4ever (me!):
  • Creative trait enhancement
  • OpenTech technology trading model
  • Implemention of the workshop watermill improvement
  • Nationalist/Nationhood promotion
  • Unique resource effects
Sevo: For loaning me his python and helping me out some with it.
  • Sevolopedia
  • City Screen Commerce Display
  • Python merging
Frontbrecher:
  • Lost Wonders
  • Lost Units
Bhruic:
  • CulturalDecay
  • RealFort
  • TechConquest
SupremeOverlord:
  • Enhanced Foreign Advisor
  • Enhanced Military Advisor
12Monkeys:
  • Modified Domestic Advisor
  • Intercept Reinitialization
  • Plotlist Enhancement
Zuul:
  • New Promotions
  • Random unit upgrade chance (Exceptional units)
  • Inspiration for workshop and watermill improvement
Kael:
  • Slavery feature and inspiration for some of the civic changes
  • Informant skin and slave button and model

talchas: Promotions Pedia Info
MasterLexx: New resources
Ploepe: Fantasy buttons
The_Lopez: Specialist Stacker
seZereth: Great Doctor skin
Aussie_Lurker: Free specialist for creative trait inspiration and code
MerakSpeilman: Commerce Icon Change
Anhu: 5-Formations (modified)
Snaitf: Show Attitude Mod
snv: for help with testing

Also thanks goes out to those who have answered numerous question of mine related to python editing:
Sevo, The Great Apple, The Lopez, Bhruic, Kael, talchas, Locutus and 12monkeys.

Some of the python code I borrowed already had additional merging of mods within it so I'm not sure if I got everyone here on the credits section. If I appear to be missing someone and it's bothering you let me know and I'll add them.
 
Seems very promising. I'll be sure to test this mod the next time I have a bit of free-time. Maybe this weekend.
 
As Drakonik said: Looks very promising! I'll test it as well on my next MP session.

-- John
 
Not bad at all. Only thing I see is that you are mostly picking ideas you like and justifying them :p Lets see some counter arguments!

Mostly I agree, these changes aren't too major and seem fairly handy. I would like to see more promotion types available though.

Have you thought about adding a base +5 exp to all units built in order to have some instant early decisions to make with them? I've always thought that unit specialization should come a little bit sooner than after the first four or five battles, since that is a new feature that really adds a lot to the series.

... but that was a little off topic.

In general, V. good stuff, but not really what I was expecting from the title.
 
Aeon221 said:
Not bad at all. Only thing I see is that you are mostly picking ideas you like and justifying them :p Lets see some counter arguments!

Thats because Ive had little public feedback until now. This is exactly what Im looking for though :) . By releasing it here I hope other people will provide these counter arguments to help me flush out certain aspects and balance out things that I may have missed or unbalanced.

Mostly I agree, these changes aren't too major and seem fairly handy. I would like to see more promotion types available though.

I havent done this because im not 100% convinced yet on the AI's ability to really utilize additional promotions properly. Multiplayer considerations are first but I dont want to introduce something that weakens the AI in single player. Furthermore getting too specialized such as Shock or Cover promotions levels 2 or 3 can make certain units a little too dominant in an era where most people have only one type of unit as their main defense. You bring up a good point though,, I also want to see new promotions but I'd like to see something totally new, not just higher levels of existing ones. I have all of Zuul's additional promotions in this mod, but commented out. I will probably re-examine a few over time and add them in.

Have you thought about adding a base +5 exp to all units built in order to have some instant early decisions to make with them? I've always thought that unit specialization should come a little bit sooner than after the first four or five battles, since that is a new feature that really adds a lot to the series.

... but that was a little off topic.
This is a good idea and some mods are going that route. I dont think it would be in theme with what i have planned though and would also make the aggressive trait pointless.

In general, V. good stuff, but not really what I was expecting from the title.

Patience my friend. This was just released today and the mod is still very young....
 
Fantastic to hear that a mod is being designed with the sole purpose of increasing and changing the strategical elements of the game. Keep up the good work, I can see this being a very promising mod!
 
Congratulations on taking this on. I disagree with your assessment of a lot of game balance. All in all, I think conquest is too easy and too profitable. The culture shock and the new units seem to make that easier.

But who am I to say that? The thing about balance is you play it from all angles until you really have a game where every single strategy works. Any technology at any time can possibly be a smart choice, aggression and defense are both overall successful strategies, you can make a case for any unit being the best, and so on.
 
This looks preety good. I'll play it and try to give you some feedback as soon as possible. I especially like the thought I have seen put into this.
 
dh_epic said:
Congratulations on taking this on. I disagree with your assessment of a lot of game balance. All in all, I think conquest is too easy and too profitable. The culture shock and the new units seem to make that easier.

But who am I to say that? The thing about balance is you play it from all angles until you really have a game where every single strategy works. Any technology at any time can possibly be a smart choice, aggression and defense are both overall successful strategies, you can make a case for any unit being the best, and so on.

When you have time please reply back on some specific areas you feel need rexamining. This is what i want. If conquest starts to become too profitable with this mod I can alter or tweak things like the techconquest addition. Also i guess i should point it out but techconquest doesnt grant a whole tech when capturing a city, just a percentage of the research points of a tech. The culture decay i think makes culture even that more important now and more useful during endgame. I've been looking at the formula for it though and can tweak it some if needed.

I know what you mean about conquest being too easy sometimes though, especially against a player who's behind. Thats why I did things like add the castles earlier, the informant and the bazooka. Each of these help resource poor empires mount a much better defense against would be aggressors. In addition the only units I added that can actually help capture cities are the cataphract which still gets owned by spearmen (and is actually worse against archers than horse archers) and the howitzer which isnt much more powerful than an artillery. Furthermore I think that right now conquest is very easy against the AI but thats not necessarily the case vs a human. A skilled player is very hard to take down. As for the former, I dont know what can be done about the AI except gearing new changes toward helping it but thats not what I'm aiming for. At some point I will probably just accept that the changes Im making will add to the game in multiplayer but maybe take a bit away from the single player experience.

I will add techconquest to the alteration analysis though to be looked at more thoroughly on the impact its having.
 
Why not give all units a base 2 or 3 experience? That'll open the shock promotion and others I can't recall at this time to aggressive civs instantly but will also weaken the aggressive trait in the way you stated above.
Not sure how it will affect the barracks and other experience giving buildings though.
 
Or include my mod that has some small chance of giving promotions to new units.
 
Sorry, not sure of the etique....

So let me know where am I to ask...

I am trying out the mod but I keep getting an error when loading the mod "Failed to load python module CvEventInterface".

OKAY!

Fix the problem... apparently I thought the mod is suppose to go into my documents\...\... as this is where I placed all the customised map scripts...
Once i place it into the <installaion>\mod... Viola the problem goes away!
 
naf4ever said:
I know what you mean about conquest being too easy sometimes though, especially against a player who's behind. Thats why I did things like add the castles earlier, the informant and the bazooka.

The current game balance makes it so you can't possibly wage a successful war AND build the wonders you want unless you're already miles ahead, usually on a low difficulty level. Sometimes building that wonder should be huge, and sometimes ignoring the wonder and starting a war right then and there should be huge. You should seldom be able to pull of both successfully.

The key is this: you can't always put the killer units on the military branches. If chasing the peaceful techs means that you're a sitting duck, it's too weak. If chasing the peaceful branches mean you get killer units AND wonders, it's too strong.

Finding that sweet spot is hard, but if you're flexible enough to do whatever it takes, and you're patient enough, you can do it.
 
kevjm said:
Why not give all units a base 2 or 3 experience? That'll open the shock promotion and others I can't recall at this time to aggressive civs instantly but will also weaken the aggressive trait in the way you stated above.
Not sure how it will affect the barracks and other experience giving buildings though.

Well you can just build a barracks then aggressive civs can get that level 3 promotion right off the bat. I purposely didnt include anything that gave more xps in this mod this way there remains a distinct difference between playing an aggressive and non-aggressive civ.

Zuul said:
Or include my mod that has some small chance of giving promotions to new units.

Ya i saw that in a mod i played once, i forget which one though. It was kind of cool I thought and it added some chance without screwing anything else up. I will need to look at the python code again because im concerned about how it generates the chance. Ive played many multiplayer games and have noticed certain implementations of a random chance generator will cause out of sync errors more. In addition mods like the Random Events one causes problems sometimes with the ntdll.dll file in windows preventing you from even starting a multiplayer game.

I'm going to add it to my list though since i liked how it worked in the other mods and try to implement it here.

dh_epic said:
The key is this: you can't always put the killer units on the military branches. If chasing the peaceful techs means that you're a sitting duck, it's too weak. If chasing the peaceful branches mean you get killer units AND wonders, it's too strong.

Ya thats the hard part. This is something that takes lots of time and testing to really iron out. I will watch how people respond to how it is now and monitor what they are saying. In addition Im going to update my alteration analysis sometime this week on why i added the techconquest and culturedecay mod in the first place.
 
This looks like a very good mod (based on the spoilers) and its definetly a good idea to consider balance in the game like you have. Good job.
 
naf- in your notes it said you we rethinking the industrious trait. How bout making the change like it is in the SevoMOD were it adds one to production like the finical trait does for commerce? I think that is a much more balanced trait then the 50% wonders as it helps with all production instead of just wonders.
 
Nightravn said:
naf- in your notes it said you we rethinking the industrious trait. How bout making the change like it is in the SevoMOD were it adds one to production like the finical trait does for commerce? I think that is a much more balanced trait then the 50% wonders as it helps with all production instead of just wonders.

Ya i was thinking about that, i like how its done in his mod. I'd like to try something different though. I notice its limited what you can customize with the civ traits, but there seems to be more flexibility in what im able to change for the leaders. I can do things like give industrial leaders unique buildings or even free buildings at the start i think. I can also make a hidden tech just for the purposes of customizing certain leaders and have them start with that tech for free, then I have all the flexibility of tech options to customize an industrial leader with. Im going to look at this more. Im also still pondering over creative.

In the meantime though I probably will change it so its like financial, but for production.
 
This is an epic undertaking, but I'm sure you understand that ;) I wish you lots of endurance.

A couple of things you mention in your document I've been thinking about as well; tech trading especially, and the forests. I'd like to add that I think lumber mills ought to become more efficient with some techs. Iirc right now there's at least two techs that give water/windmills additional usefulness; but nothing really improves lumber mills, does it? If there was a tech at some point down the line that further improved lumber mills, I think that would be additional incentive to keep those forests around for a bit. On the other hand, (and I'm aware of the awkward balance between authenticity and game-balance one must aim to reach in modding) from an authenticity point of view the current state of affairs *is* realistic. It's simply a fact that at some point in human history we started chopping down forests aggressively; also, forests can be replanted (especially for things like paper production). We should look into what reasons there are today in real life for replanting forests and then translate that into a set of advantages/disadvantages that work for the game.

SDI I very much agree with as well; right now it practically makes nukes useless. There were games where I fired ten nukes on one city just to see them all shot down. I think next to making it more expensive, one should make it a little less effective (and maybe boost the efficiency of nukes as well, because as they are right now, they're just a little annoying (and even less so once you got scrubbing abilities); they ought to be game deciding, I think) (both in their destructive potential and in the disadvantages there are to using them) (now that I'm on a parenthetical rant, let me look at the possible disadvantages. Global warming due to nuking is a little lame and not very authentic at all--nuclear winter, maybe, but nuclear summer doesn't seem likely at all. Clearly the problem inherent in nukes is different: MAD, for once, and general global isolation. If Iran was to use nukes on, say, Israel, and if Israel really doesn't have nukes to answer with (that's the official version, remember! ;p), then Iran would still go down some way for sure: Russia, Europe, and the US at the very least would gang up on Iran. We need to reproduce this disadvantage to nukes. While it might be feasible to just make AIs attack a certain player, we're clearly looking at MP here. So how about this: using nukes creates unhappiness: not only in the people living in the state that used nukes, but also in the people living in states allied with the bad guys. For instance, it might create unhappiness in your cities if you kept trading with bad states; technology/resource trading. Also it might come to the point where your people would be mad at you if you DON'T go to war with one of those bad states (especially if they attacked one of your close allies). I don't know if this isn't too extreme a modification though)
 
Bringa said:
This is an epic undertaking, but I'm sure you understand that ;) I wish you lots of endurance.

A couple of things you mention in your document I've been thinking about as well; tech trading especially, and the forests. I'd like to add that I think lumber mills ought to become more efficient with some techs. Iirc right now there's at least two techs that give water/windmills additional usefulness; but nothing really improves lumber mills, does it? If there was a tech at some point down the line that further improved lumber mills, I think that would be additional incentive to keep those forests around for a bit. On the other hand, (and I'm aware of the awkward balance between authenticity and game-balance one must aim to reach in modding) from an authenticity point of view the current state of affairs *is* realistic. It's simply a fact that at some point in human history we started chopping down forests aggressively; also, forests can be replanted (especially for things like paper production). We should look into what reasons there are today in real life for replanting forests and then translate that into a set of advantages/disadvantages that work for the game.

I probably wont increase mill production because at the moment they are the best production tiles in the game. A plains/hill produces 4 production with a mine, or 5 with the bonus from railroad. The same tile forested with a lumbermill also produces 4, or again 5 with the rail bonus. But on top of that its netting you the .5 health bonus per square. In addition I dont want to render useless workshops. They aren't used much currently but do fill a specialty role for someone whose chopped down all thier forests in a town with no hills that needs production tiles. This was also one of my reaons for not putting forest replanting in. I might as well remove the workshop improvement if i do because who would use them over mills? What I could do which came to mine once was allow forest replanting,, but make the new forest inferior somehow. Also i think the idea of good forest management through replanting is already modeled in the game. This is what working a forest tile is i think. While chopping it is like clear cutting.

SDI I very much agree with as well; right now it practically makes nukes useless. There were games where I fired ten nukes on one city just to see them all shot down. I think next to making it more expensive, one should make it a little less effective (and maybe boost the efficiency of nukes as well, because as they are right now, they're just a little annoying (and even less so once you got scrubbing abilities); they ought to be game deciding, I think) (both in their destructive potential and in the disadvantages there are to using them) (now that I'm on a parenthetical rant, let me look at the possible disadvantages. Global warming due to nuking is a little lame and not very authentic at all--nuclear winter, maybe, but nuclear summer doesn't seem likely at all. Clearly the problem inherent in nukes is different: MAD, for once, and general global isolation. If Iran was to use nukes on, say, Israel, and if Israel really doesn't have nukes to answer with (that's the official version, remember! ;p), then Iran would still go down some way for sure: Russia, Europe, and the US at the very least would gang up on Iran. We need to reproduce this disadvantage to nukes. While it might be feasible to just make AIs attack a certain player, we're clearly looking at MP here. So how about this: using nukes creates unhappiness: not only in the people living in the state that used nukes, but also in the people living in states allied with the bad guys. For instance, it might create unhappiness in your cities if you kept trading with bad states; technology/resource trading. Also it might come to the point where your people would be mad at you if you DON'T go to war with one of those bad states (especially if they attacked one of your close allies). I don't know if this isn't too extreme a modification though)

You got a point there. The AI responds badly to people using nukes but again this isnt a concern at all in multiplayer. I think you could model this into a multiplayer game somehow by having your empire suffer some unhappiness like you said if you are currently allied with someone who's going nuke crazy. I will definitely add this to my analysis. Im a bit behind my estimated date though for my tech trading model so I wont be able to really try to figure how to code it until after thats done first. As for the mechanics of how nukes work this will be in something to look into in the long run simply because the technical aspects of modding it right now are kind of difficult.

Good ideas though, keep em coming.
 
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