How I like to play and What I'd like to do

This is a thread for changes I personally would like to make but don't think they ought to be in the "core" mod. I would be interested to hear what people think and also, how other people play in less standard ways and what you would like to see as a personal game experience change or enhancement. Also if anyone has any ideas to make my games more fun, it is your duty to share!

How I like to play:

In addition to traditional gameplay, I like playing an "adventurous world".
Wildlands, Barbarian world, no settlers, living world. Often "No City Razing" too.
Creates a feel of a world of epic adventure with large areas of dangerous wilderness between pockets of civilization.

What I would like to do:

1. Increase number of Lairs (done, changed iAppearanceProbability in CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml)

2. Make lair types act like the Graveyards - you have to actually send someone in to flush them out. (Spawn on bad result would be based on type of lair) Perhaps even make them explorable multiple times - keep going until you get a good result, find the hidden treasure and collapse the lair! This might mean more events which can happen when exploring. Mutated, teleported away, trapped and killed, turned Barbarian, release a powerful evil, rescue a princess, etc)

3. Add variable numbers of barbarian cities (found section in SDK but had compile trouble)

4. Make towers/forts place a temporary culture footprint based on strength of forces garrisonned there.
What I mean by this, if I have too few soldiers in fort, there is no effect. If I have enough, their strength adds my culture to surrounding tiles. A 3x3 area would gain a culture points value calculated based on total current strength.

So a tile might become 51% "me" if I have a fort on my border and loads of soldiers in it. When I move them out, the culture goes away. In this way I could push the borders back, but only while I commit forces to the task. Or, I could build a mine in the wilderness to gather some vital resource, but only have access to it while local fort it manned.

Coupled with this, I would need the AI to see forces in a fort near their border as quite hostile, and, make them want to garrisson forts. Make them treat fort-building in a similar way to city-building.

5. Make settler/city events. Such as, members of a non-state religion present in a city want to leave. If you let them, you gain a settler or they set up a city in target tile... pop drops in city of origin, religion is removed from city, chance new city becomes Barbarian based on relative status of religions and on overall happiness of nation. Or, chance that a fort you control attracts a community and wants to grow into a city (starts with walls perhaps! Or a special "Fort Town" building, so new city is defended)

6. Make cultural growth a bit slower. Make cities wait a bit for the second ring, make them wait a lot for third, then fourth "ring" happens only in highly cultural cities. I suspect this is easy, but I've not looked into it yet.

7. Make King Beasts - Or Boss Monsters, creatures which spawn levelled up a bit, for extra challenge. Maybe some chance that spawned monsters have Mutation. Perhaps based on Armageddon Counter.

8. More magic items. I am sure I can mod these in as rewards for adventuring - items which give some possibly small, but valuable, boost. Various affinity items, spellcasting items, one-shots, weapons which grant marksman, that sort of thing.

I also like the dark and dangerous wild space between civs. The problem that I have is with AI only getting one city though. Even on Deity, the AI can't compete like that. So, I usually go advanced start with ~600 points (if I want the AIs to have 3 cities each) and no_settlers. Sometimes, an AI captures a barb city and rises in power early.

1. I don't know if you need more lairs. Raging barbs does pretty well to keep the barbs flowing.

2. Sounds fun.

3. Why? Too many?

7. YES. I want more monkeys. I would like monkeys of different colors for every civ, buildable via ritual that brings a new barbarian giant monkey into existance. I'm serious, I love the giant monkeys.

8. Definately. We need equipment!

idea 4 also good,

+ lol on monkeyloversd itt

It doesn't have to be monkeys. I've suggested more Barbarian heroes like Orthus and singular beasts and animals like "Andre the Giant" or "Gorilla Grodd" with enhanced abilities.

I love the idea of Lair events.

I'd go for 4, 5, and 6. I get sick of the expansion game every time. These options on the Creation mapscript would be a lot of fun.

Remember in Civ3 how workers could be spent to create colonies to control far-away resources? That should be implemented, and properly fortified colonies and forts on choke points etc. could also become cities after some time. In addition to religious refugees, new cities should also spawn near very large cities.

I say go for it and please share what you come up with!

1. I'd rather increase the variety of lairs, and of the creatures that spawn there.

2. Having some work like graveyards may be good, but others should stay as they are.

3. Could be good. I prefer having more of these cities. More importantly though, I think that the Barbarian world option needs to create cities on more than one continent.

4. I've been suggesting this for a while. Well, I suggested having the puch the borders out, not actually effect the amount of culture. I think this makes more sense, and would be easier to code. I'm starting to think I might be within my abilities to do it in Python, the way that Worldbuilder lets you place culture.. I'm pretty sure that when culture is recalculated at between turns (and maybe whenever a city's borders expand from a great prophet or disciple) that the extended border would recede.

5. Not bad. I think that the religion removed from the city needs to automatically spread to the new one. Perhaps you could make all cities founded by settlers that have a religion start with that religion? It might be better (easier to code) for the settler itself have a chance to go to you, the barbarian state, or a rival civilization. It would start outside your borders in the latter 2 cases, of course.

6. Agreed. If forts can extend borders, this is a must.

7 Agreed. We need more beasts. For starters, we can have a giant beast version of every animal in the game, and maybe give them a spell to summon the normal version of their kind. That would also make Beastmasters more useful, and the Grand Menagerie easier to get.

8. Agreed. More equipment is a must. In my modmod, I'm adding several new items, but these tend to be more powerful than I assume you want most of them to be:

I really want something like the Starbases in Final Frontier....

MagisterCultuum said:

8. Agreed. More equipment is a must. In my modmod, I'm adding several new items, but these tend to be more powerful than I assume you want most of them to be:

Spoiler :

The Arma Justitiae -- Junil's sword and shield, which Sphenor starts with. Grants law affinity and a 100% combat bonus verses Hidden Nationality (Sphener himself will be weaker),

The Ring of Ceridwen -- Increases damage dealt by spells and grants the Warcry promotion to all summons,

The Visor of Truth -- +5 line of sight, autocasts Revelation every turn),

Laroth's Longsword -- +1 Spirit affinity, causes Fear,

The Forlorn Horn -- allows a spell that removes courage, loyalty, valor, spirit1-3, spirit guide, and hero from nearby rival units.

Spellstaffs -- now equipment, still allow break spellstaff but also boost damage from attack spells,

(Gela's +2 unholy damage changed to +2 entropy affinity. Allows a domination-like spell that works on any demon except those with hero)

Pieces of the Mithril Golem -- I'm letting this Avatar be rebuilt like Barnaxus,

Phylactery -- +1 death affinity. I'm making Liches powerful immortal national units with a limit of 1 per civ. The equipment can't be captured, but kills the otherwise immoral lich when destroyed

Pelian's Panacea -- allows a spell that removes burning blood, enraged, crazed, enervated, diseased, plague, frostbite (which I'm also adding), and gives courage. Damage of all the units on the stack is redistributed entirely to the caster, likely killing it.

The Tome of Oghama - extra caster xp and likelihood of spells working.

Tome of Toxicology -- as a wonder it gives +1 health in all cities, free poison blade promotion to units in the city. As a promotion it gives 2 Reagent affinity (poison), allows healing while moving, and heals units in the stack more than medic 3 would.

The Tan'elyn (elven crown) - allows a spell that has a chance to convert elves and dark elves to your side. Can be gifted to either the Ljosalfer or Svartalfar for a huge diplomatic boost.


If Kael will add <PythonPostCombatWon> and <PythonPostCombatWon> to promotions instead of just units then I'll add:

Malleus Vindex -- Basium's war hammer, Basium starts with it. Grants warcry to all units in the stack when its wielder kills a demon),

Odio's Dagger (+1 body affinity, +1 attack strength every time the unit wins a battle. 80% chance of the unit turning barbarian each turn),

The Shroud of Supplantation -- The unit becomes whatever unit it defeats

Click to expand...

With that much special equipment there should also be an Artifact Museum national wonder giving a player extra rewards for collecting the artifacts.

If you download and tinker with the JFortZoC mod, it's easy to see how to give forts the ability to spread culture. Unfortunately, it's a system hog when in python and converting it to SDK means recompiling the dll every patch.

With that much special equipment there should also be an Artifact Museum national wonder giving a player extra rewards for collecting the artifacts.

Click to expand...

I'd have to disagree with that because having the artifacts has its own rewards. It would, in effect, reward people for getting more powerful and hurting everyone who did not. More artifacts on the other hand are a must.

I dunno, I kind of like the artifact scarcity the way it is. That makes them rare and, almost by definition, increases their value. The other day I declared war on the Sidar solely to kill Rathus and take the nether blade. (Do you know how awesome Alakazam is with the Nether blade? Buwhahahahahaha)

loocas said:

With that much special equipment there should also be an Artifact Museum national wonder giving a player extra rewards for collecting the artifacts.

Click to expand...

Well, that would require either a really complicated and probably processor intensive python block (or SDK change), or require adding a buildings for every piece of equipment. I don't think I could come up with good building forms of most of them, so most of these would do nothing but allow the Wonder. You would be deprived of the Equipment while you build the wonder. It might also be odd for the wonder to stick around when you pick up the equipment again.

Although interesting, I don't think I like the idea of an Artifact Museum national wonder. That said, it could be nice to add wonders that require a specific set of equipment. Hmm..I just starting thinking it might be cool if gathering 1 artifact sacred to each of the Evil gods would allow you to build a wonder similar to the Final Altar, providing an Evil builder victory condition.



Just adding more Equipment does not necessarily make it more common, it just makes there be more variety from game to game. Although a few would be appropriate as starting promotions of heroes, I was thinking that most of the new equipment would be obtained the same way as most current equipment, by being randomly given by the Adventure event. I was also thinking it might be cool to have the odds of getting any one piece of equipment be tied to how much of a thematically appropriate mana you possess.

4. Make towers/forts place a temporary culture footprint based on strength of forces garrisonned there.
What I mean by this, if I have too few soldiers in fort, there is no effect. If I have enough, their strength adds my culture to surrounding tiles. A 3x3 area would gain a culture points value calculated based on total current strength.

So a tile might become 51% "me" if I have a fort on my border and loads of soldiers in it. When I move them out, the culture goes away. In this way I could push the borders back, but only while I commit forces to the task. Or, I could build a mine in the wilderness to gather some vital resource, but only have access to it while local fort it manned.

Coupled with this, I would need the AI to see forces in a fort near their border as quite hostile, and, make them want to garrisson forts. Make them treat fort-building in a similar way to city-building.

Click to expand...

I like that idea. Can forts be built outside your territory? If so, it will make no settlers a much more fun option. Not being able to make land grabs for resources you're missing sucks, but being able to expand culture with forts solves that problem.

Final Frontier has 'fort-like' starbases that expand a culture around them. It would be super nice that forts would do the same, even better if you would have to have some troops there.

I like also #5.

Number 6 was addressed in the latest version but yea, it grows to quickly to the forth ring.

The Shroud of Supplantation -- The unit becomes whatever unit it defeats

Click to expand...

That sounds really cool. Would it work with heroes?

(and is there any word on when this mod will come out?)

Yeah, it would work with heroes--but be careful to have someone take the shroud from him before his next fight. You don't want to your new of Eurabatres the Golden Dragon to defeat a Goblin next. Also, be careful when defeating heroes that will abandon you.

Not soon. I'm really far behind on a group project, and have some other homework to do and tests to study for. Although I have gone ahead and fooled around with it a little, I probably won't really start modding in earnest until after I finish my final exams. I finish on the last day of this month. I'm taking summer classes this year, so I may only really have a 2 week break. I'll probably work a lot on it then, but since we still have dial-up at home I may not be able to release it until the summer term starts, on May 12.

MagisterCultuum said:

Yeah, it would work with heroes--but be careful to have someone take the shroud from him before his next fight. You don't want to your new of Eurabatres the Golden Dragon to defeat a Goblin next. Also, be careful when defeating heroes that will abandon you.

Not soon. I'm really far behind on a group project, and have some other homework to do and tests to study for. Although I have gone ahead and fooled around with it a little, I probably won't really start modding in earnest until after I finish my final exams. I finish on the last day of this month. I'm taking summer classes this year, so I may only really have a 2 week break. I'll probably work a lot on it then, but since we still have dial-up at home I may not be able to release it until the summer term starts, on May 12.

Click to expand...

lol, or even the other way around, having some lowly unit like say a champion defeating a dragon while having that on and transforming into a majestic dragon. You could even have a ranger turning into a bear or some other animal.

While that does sound fun, I could see how it could be abused, or simply lead to chaos. Also, how is the AI going to handle this? it can't plan in the same way that we can and it can't adapt easily to new situations, just what was programmed into it. It wouid be all too easy for a human player to send a warrior or some other weak unit at it and then defeat the whatever turned warrior with some strong unit to ensure defeat.

I think it sounds cool, but since it would be something very powerful, there should be built in disadvantages to it or a limit to how many times you can transform.

What if you can't take the shroud from another unit, so your dragon will always have that special weakness to goblins. I could also make the shroud "wear out" with use (i.e., the promotion has a chance to expire)

Thanks for all your replies, everybody.

I decided to start simple and play with idea 2 : the barrows/ruins/graveyards. I found CVSpellInterface.py and altered a couple of lines, which is one step:

line 1779 on: changes with >>


I also see the next few lines allow me to make a table to roll up results, which I'll look into later.

Ideas:


Thing is, I'm missing the bit where these improvements get "stomped" as soon as a unit moves onto them. I need the improvements to remain pending looting. Can anyone tell me where this happens? Thanks.

we can have a giant beast version of every animal in the game

Click to expand...

Giant polar bear for Svartalfar etc.. like in the Golden Compass.

I dunno, I kind of like the artifact scarcity the way it is. That makes them rare and, almost by definition, increases their value.

Click to expand...

You could have many more items, just allow a limited number of random ones in each game. That would protect the rarity but also allow for more diversity.