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FexFX--Bigger-Longer-Deeper-Harder
For Vanilla, Warlords & Beyond the Sword
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DESCRIPTION:
Adds the FX-Mammoth map size option. Replaces the original Game Speeds with rebalanced custom game speeds which are all longer than Epic. Adds turn number display For Vanilla and Warlords. Adds 20 new Unique names for each category of Great Person.
DETAILS:
The FX-Mammoth map defaults to 40x25 Plots which is a grid of 160x100, or 16,000 map squares. The Great Plains, Highlands, Hub, Ice Age, Inland Sea, Lakes, Maze, Mirror, Oasis, Pangea, Ring, Team Battleground, Terra, Tilted Axis and Wheel maps each have their own grid sizes for FX_Mammoth.
The Four Available Gamespeeds in this MOD are:
FX-Marathon(1200)
FX-Grand(1000)
FX-Endurance(875)
FX-Extended(750)
Each of these four Game Speeds have been carefully tweaked to maximize addictiveness, and FexFX-Marathon(1200) bears little resemblance to the Marathon mode introduced in the 1.52 patch for Vanilla Civilization IV, and it bears even less resemblance to the Marathon Mode introduced in Beyond the Sword. For Beyond the Sword, Firaxis chose to extend the Marathon game out to 1500 turns from 1200 turns without changing any of the relevant formulas or goal numbers from the numbers they used for 1200. I have reduced this number back to 1200 and retrofitted my numbers to match their new date scheme.
The Main Interface screen For Vanilla and Warlords has been changed to display the turn constantly in this manner when the clock is on:
Turn 1 4000 BC 7:25 PM
And in this manner when the clock is off:
Turn 1 4000 BC
Current versions of Civilization IV's Python scripting for this section should avoid the lag in displaying this interface seen in prior versions.
The Main Interface screen for Beyond The Sword no longer needs to be adjusted to add a turn timer! Beyond The Sword has added the turn number as part of the standard display!
NOTES:
The reason that all of the original game speeds were removed was that there was no easy way to balance short games without throwing off the long games, and vice-versa. Further, if someone is choosing to run FexFX--Bigger-Longer-Harder-Deeper they are probably not going to be running one of the standard game speeds!
INSTALLATION:
Extract the contents of both archives into the appropriate MOD folder, most likely located:
Program Files\Firaxis\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\MODS
Program Files\Firaxis\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Warlords\MODS
Program Files\Firaxis\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond The Sword\MODS
TO PLAY:
Launch Civilization 4, go to the Advanced Menu.
Select Load a MOD.
Choose “FexFX--Bigger-Longer-Deeper-Harder” from the listed MODs.
You will be notified that the game will restart to utilize the MOD.
COMPATABILITY: (is being tested)
This MOD was developed under:
Version 1.74 of Sid Meier's Civilization IV
and...
Version 3.02 & 3.03 of Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword.
and...
version 2.13 of Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Warlords.
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EXTREME DETAILS (For those who really want to know):
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In all Four Game Speeds the math has been balanced in a much more detail oriented way. Culture, Training, Research and Contruction each use four separate numbers which are then used as the basis for all of the other speed options except for Barbarians, Hurry gains, Golden Ages and Inflation which use completely unique numbers.
Here is the rough Schema I used:
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Flat% - This number represents the relationship between the Normal number of turns (460) and the number of turns in the selected speed and is calculated as (460/target speed)%. This is used for Culture or anything else which should closely match the overall length of the game.
Rsrch% - This number is used for research and is slightly different for each of the game speeds: FX-Marathon(1200) it's (Flat%+20%), for FX-Grand(1000) it's (Flat%+16%), for FX-Endurance(875) it's (Flat%+14%) and for FX-Extended(750) it's (Flat%+12%).
Train% - This number has two versions, for FX-Marathon(1200) and FX-Grand(1000) the number is (Flat%-20%), and for FX-Endurance(875) and FX-Extended(750) it is (Flat%-16%). This results in 1/5th and 1/6th faster unit production, respectively, relative to the timeline.
Build% - This number has two versions as well, for FX-Marathon(1200) and FX-Grand(1000) the number is (Flat%-10%), and for FX-Endurance(875) and FX-Extended(750) it is (Flat%-8%). This results in 1/10th and 1/12th faster building construction, respectively, relative to the timeline.
Barb% - The formula I used for this was ((50%*(turns/660))+100%). This results in a gradual increase in Barbarian production and agression with a direct relation to the 150% figure used on the original Epic mode. The result is also a lot less harh than the straight multiplication of 150% which resulted in the original Marathon mode having barbarians set to 300%.
Golden% - Used to calculate the Golden Age duration, this number is reached by (Flat%/1.2).
Hurry% - Based on the numbers in the default gamespeeds this number is reached by (100/Flat%).
Inflate% - Based on the numbers in the default gamespeeds this number is reached by (30/Flat%).
OffSet% - Representing the number of turns before Inflation Kicks in, this number is now based on -(120*Flat%).
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These number resulted in these percentages for each gamespeed by number of turns:
PHP:
Turns Flat% Rsrch% Train% Build% Barb% Golden% Hurry% Inflate% OffSet%
1200 260% 313% 208% 234% 190% 216% 38% 12% 312%
1000 217% 252% 173% 195% 175% 180% 46% 14% 260%
875 190% 216% 158% 174% 166% 158% 52% 16% 228%
750 163% 182% 135% 149% 156% 135% 61% 18% 196%
And these numbers are then applied like this:
PHP:
<iGrowthPercent> Flat%
<iTrainPercent> Train%
<iConstructPercent> Build%
<iCreatePercent> Build%
<iResearchPercent> Rsrch%
<iBuildPercent> Build%
<iImprovementPercent> Flat%
<iGreatPeoplePercent> Build%
<iCulturePercent> Flat%
<iAnarchyPercent> Build%
<iBarbPercent> Barb%
<iFeatureProductionPercent> Build%
<iUnitDiscoverPercent> Rsrch%
<iUnitHurryPercent> Build%
<iUnitTradePercent> Flat%
<iUnitGreatWorkPercent> Flat%
<iGoldenAgePercent> Golden%
<iHurryPercent> Hurry%
<iHurryConscriptAngerPercent> Build%
<iInflationPercent> Inflate%
<iInflationOffset> -(OffSet%)
<iVictoryDelayPercent> Flat%
You may notice that I have changed the iBuildPercent from Train% to Build% which is a change from previous incarnations of this MOD. This is to slow things down a little bit in the early game so that players will have something to do if they dont want to jump into a war just yet.
For the purpose of Cultural Expansion, I took the base numbers from the Vanilla game at Normal speed(0, 0, 10, 100, 500, 5000, 50000) and multiplied thenm by Flat%. For Warlords I adjusted them to account for the additional Culture production possible thanks to additions made in Warlords(0, 0, 10, 102, 512, 5120, 51200). For Beyond the Sword, I adjusted them to account for the additional Culture production possible thanks to additions made in Beyond The Sword(0, 0, 11, 109, 545, 5450, 54500) and then multiplied them by the Flat%. This should provide a seamless progression from the old game speeds to the new game speeds, and unlike the default Marathon speed in Beyond the Sword, you are no longer asked to produce only 3x the culture in 3.26x the turns while being given extra culture producing buildings and assets to do so.
The research advantages previously available in lower difficulty levels has been reduced to improve the gameflow.
Anarchy duration has been bumped up in all eras other than future, in which is was actually reduced. The increases are more severe in the early eras because changes came much more slowly and with much more tumult in early civilizations. This is also done in compensation for the extended game lengths.
Further changes were made to the ResearchPercent modifiers for each difficulty level found in CIV4HandicapInfo.xml, and for each map size as found in CIV4WorldInfo.xml.
Minor changes were made to the ResearchPercent modifiers for the eras as found in CIV4EraInfos.xml to make the Ancient, Modern and Future era researches take just a hair longer. In the case of Ancient, this is because ancient was the era most stretched in its average length, and for Modern and Future it was to slow down the end-game.
The number of iFreeUnits has been increased by 18% which is the median between the 20% and 16% used for the various game speeds in increasing the Train rates. This should make large armies a tiny bit more affordable. At Chieftan this gives you 4 more units without an upkeep, and at Imortal it gives you 1.
You will see that in FX-Marathon(1200) mode, Research and training both have been slowed down a bit form the default version of Marathon, while Building has been sped up. This should prevent games from ending in 1400AD by winning the Space Race!
The reasearch percentages for all maps has been altered to a non-linear progression based on the relative map sizes rather than an arbitrary progression as previosuly offered. This results in an increase in research times across the board, but should result in a more even match between the various map sizes with Smaller maps no longer progressing at a completely different rate from larger maps.
All of the numbers for the FX-Mammoth map size have been fabricated using the same sort of relational non-linear numbers with deferenece to the linear progressions found in the smaller maps. Some of the numbers were left the same as the Huge map type just because the larger numbers seems somewhat ridiculous and would have hampered fun.
Attempting to use the FX-Mammoth map size with the Great Plains, Highlands, Hub, Ice Age, Inland Sea, Lakes, Maze, Mirror, Oasis, Pangea, Ring, Team_Battleground, Terra, Tilted Axis and Wheel map types will result in an unusual map type. You will get a 40x25 Plots map with no oceans or lakes. The terrain will gradiate from Tundra at the edges to junlge at the Equator smoothly passing through each terrain type along the way. While this map type may be an accident, some may find it interesting to play. Because of this I have provided modified versions of these maps as part of this package All of these begin with FX and should be easy to identify.
