Caveman 2 Cosmos

[BlueGenie]

Here's a few things I've noticed about the game, and a suggestion for the Good system.

* When Landmarks get an extra Commerce they don't get a commerce bonus when in a Golden Age.

* Animals that can only defend "delete" themselves if they have nowhere to move, either if surrendered or cornered.

* Several early wonders and buildings get a bonus from resources either as global or in City Vicinity way before one can gain access to said resources.
- Best example would be Lascaux Painting that builds twice as fast with access to Dye but to get Dye as a resource one needs Calendar. To get Calendar one HAS to go through Mysticism which obsoletes the wonder and the cave paintings.
- Another example is the Neanderthal Caves that get +1 Culture with Petroglyphs, but to get to Petroglyphs one has to go through Ritualism which in turn obsoletes the Neanderthal Caves.
(Edit: )- Oh, and the Cave Dwelling wonder gives +1 Trade Route which is redundant as you need Tribalism to get another city or Writing to enable trade routes with other nations. Both require Ritualism (obsoleting the wonder) to get to.

* Culture gained on a plot from combat (taking over someones city and razing it after for instance) doesn't follow the "realistic Culture" spread. The culture points count and one gets control of the plot when the city culture would have reached it if "Realistic Culture" spread wasn't on.

* Asatru is really Asatro though the followers of the religion didn't actually have a name for their beliefs. For them it just was. Once Christianity spread in the countries where the Nordic Mythology was followed they started refering to their old beliefs as (roughly translated) "the old ways", or "hinn forni siðr" (pronounced as "hin fourni sidr"). Today the religion has few followers but a group in Denmark that follow the same (roughly) old beliefs call their church ""Forn Siðr - Asa- og Vanetrosamfundet i Danmark".
- Suggestion is either change the name to Asatro (easiest for most players I suppose) or to Forn Siðr.

* At least on Eternity Game Speed the Early Merchants and subsequent caravan units are overpowered as they give more hammers than they cost to build. Using them to hurry production makes everything build that much faster, at least halving the turns needed, even closer to 2/3s reduction. Just place a Merchant unit on top of queue, end turn, use him to hurry production, set another on top of queue again, end turn, hurry production, and so on and on. Maybe they should give a little less bonus to hammers when hurrying...

* Love the system with the Goods, great idea to help newer cities grow faster via an influx of extra hammers, food, and culture. I do have some slight objections to the added gold and science though, especially since that is basically the main reason to the very high amounts of income and gold people have been mentioning as well as very high science output, something people haven't mentioned. Industrial Age and 7500 beakers per turn before year 0 is a lot.
- My suggestion would be to set those Goods that give gold and science have that removed and instead give a small percent increase to Trade Routes. That way the early gold influx will be curbed until cities get Trade Routes as well as making smaller cities not get as much out from having the Goods as bigger cities with higher base Trade Route income.

Cheers

[BlueGenie]

Uggh; check that you don't have Bare Map toggled. If you don't know where to find it the key shortcut is CTRL+B.

[Uggh]

Originally Posted by BlueGenie

Uggh; check that you don't have Bare Map toggled. If you don't know where to find it the key shortcut is CTRL+B.

Just realized it myself, but thank you nevertheless. I must have been too tired when I had to stop playing yesterday.

[misterhamtastic]

... then again, maybe it was some buildings I missed...doh!

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by BlueGenie

Here's a few things I've noticed about the game, and a suggestion for the Good system.

...

* Animals that can only defend "delete" themselves if they have nowhere to move, either if surrendered or cornered.

Interesting, I have seen subdued animals captured by both barbarians and other players. I have also captured them. However the chance of capturing a subdued animal is the same as the chance of capturing a wild animal. So I expect it is a failure to capture that is happening. The defend only part is handled by the same bit of code as any other defend only unit.

Originally Posted by BlueGenie

* Several early wonders and buildings get a bonus from resources either as global or in City Vicinity way before one can gain access to said resources.
- Best example would be Lascaux Painting that builds twice as fast with access to Dye but to get Dye as a resource one needs Calendar. To get Calendar one HAS to go through Mysticism which obsoletes the wonder and the cave paintings.
- Another example is the Neanderthal Caves that get +1 Culture with Petroglyphs, but to get to Petroglyphs one has to go through Ritualism which in turn obsoletes the Neanderthal Caves.
(Edit: )- Oh, and the Cave Dwelling wonder gives +1 Trade Route which is redundant as you need Tribalism to get another city or Writing to enable trade routes with other nations. Both require Ritualism (obsoleting the wonder) to get to.

I have noted this also, in part it is because we inherited some of them another mod and did not change them. they will probably stay the way they are until someone can come up with something better. I have been toying with an early improvement to get access to some of the resources like dye but it will probably break other stuff. Do you have any ideas on what to do with the wonders instead?

Originally Posted by BlueGenie

* Asatru is really Asatro though the followers of the religion didn't actually have a name for their beliefs. For them it just was. Once Christianity spread in the countries where the Nordic Mythology was followed they started refering to their old beliefs as (roughly translated) "the old ways", or "hinn forni siðr" (pronounced as "hin fourni sidr"). Today the religion has few followers but a group in Denmark that follow the same (roughly) old beliefs call their church ""Forn Siðr - Asa- og Vanetrosamfundet i Danmark".
- Suggestion is either change the name to Asatro (easiest for most players I suppose) or to Forn Siðr.

Personaly I would like to change the name to Aseir, even if they did loose the war with the Wanes. Even though it is a trivial fix, just change a string in a text file, it seems cosmetic. and I probably wont do it.

Originally Posted by BlueGenie

* At least on Eternity Game Speed the Early Merchants and subsequent caravan units are overpowered as they give more hammers than they cost to build. Using them to hurry production makes everything build that much faster, at least halving the turns needed, even closer to 2/3s reduction. Just place a Merchant unit on top of queue, end turn, use him to hurry production, set another on top of queue again, end turn, hurry production, and so on and on. Maybe they should give a little less bonus to hammers when hurrying...

The problem here is that they are about right on snail speed and a bit low on epic. Which means it is something to do with the game speed scaling. I don't know how to fix that.

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by BlueGenie

* Love the system with the Goods, great idea to help newer cities grow faster via an influx of extra hammers, food, and culture. I do have some slight objections to the added gold and science though, especially since that is basically the main reason to the very high amounts of income and gold people have been mentioning as well as very high science output, something people haven't mentioned. Industrial Age and 7500 beakers per turn before year 0 is a lot.
- My suggestion would be to set those Goods that give gold and science have that removed and instead give a small percent increase to Trade Routes. That way the early gold influx will be curbed until cities get Trade Routes as well as making smaller cities not get as much out from having the Goods as bigger cities with higher base Trade Route income.

Cheers

In the current unofficial patches all goods had their bonuses taken out. FYI

Originally Posted by Dancing Hoskuld

I have noted this also, in part it is because we inherited some of them another mod and did not change them. they will probably stay the way they are until someone can come up with something better. I have been toying with an early improvement to get access to some of the resources like dye but it will probably break other stuff. Do you have any ideas on what to do with the wonders instead?

Yeah I have been thinking that perhaps some resources should be available earlier. The main culprit is how late calendar comes around. Perhaps Calendar should just give a boost to them but not necessarily enable some of these resources. Dye in particular.

EDIT: I think dye should be revealed by Herbalism and Enabled by Natural Pigments. However the problem is Dye need a plantation improvement. Could you possibly allow for Seed Camp for it?

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

In the current unofficial patches all goods had their bonuses taken out. FYI



Yeah I have been thinking that perhaps some resources should be available earlier. The main culprit is how late calendar comes around. Perhaps Calendar should just give a boost to them but not necessarily enable some of these resources. Dye in particular.

EDIT: I think dye should be revealed by Herbalism and Enabled by Natural Pigments. However the problem is Dye need a plantation improvement. Could you possibly allow for Seed Camp for it?

We would need a variation on a seed camp because seed camps upgrade to farms. I was thinking "special plant camp" for some of those that would upgrade to plantations. Maybe 'seasonal fruit camp' for apples? but we would need one per upgrade improvement if we are going that way.. or maybe not... I should be able to program it to upgrade correctly. Once I get the current process working - it is not upgrading "wood gatherer" to "lumber jack" correctly at the moment.

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by Dancing Hoskuld

We would need a variation on a seed camp because seed camps upgrade to farms. I was thinking "special plant camp" for some of those that would upgrade to plantations. Maybe 'seasonal fruit camp' for apples? but we would need one per upgrade improvement if we are going that way.. or maybe not... I should be able to program it to upgrade correctly. Once I get the current process working - it is not upgrading "wood gatherer" to "lumber jack" correctly at the moment.

I just sent you and SO a PM about this. I am not sure about fruit trees like apples, but dye would defiantly be useful if it was enabled earlier. I was thinking of making a series of dye linked bonus buildings. Here are some examples ...

Pigments
Dye + Obsidian = Hematite Pit
Dye + Stone = Chalk Pit

Flowers
Dye + Incense = Rose Farm
Dye + Apple = Tulip Farm

You get the idea.

[VineFynn]

I'm thinking of writing the entries for the civic of GST in XML:
1. I'd love to contribute, but do you guys want this? I assume yes, as per the more is more philosophy
2. Can you guys tell me where the file with the civic data is? I've located RoM_GameText_Civics.xml, but I can't find the actual practical data that runs the civic.
Thanks

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by VineFynn

I'm thinking of writing the entries for the civic of GST in XML:
1. I'd love to contribute, but do you guys want this? I assume yes, as per the more is more philosophy
2. Can you guys tell me where the file with the civic data is? I've located RoM_GameText_Civics.xml, but I can't find the actual practical data that runs the civic.
Thanks

If you would like to see how modular civics work go to Assets/Modules/Hydro and then look at one of the 3 modular civics; Education, Garbage or Immigration. They should give you an idea on how they work. If you want to see the core Civics file go to Assets/XML/GameInfo/CIV4CivicInfos. Note that this file is scrambled in Notepad so you will need a program like Notepad++ to read it.

Overall Civics are actually one of the more simplistic parts to mod. They just take a bit to get use to. In fact i would still like to get to some of the other Afforess' Re-Written Civics sometime. The Education and Garbage ones seem to have been working out nicely. The "Department of Housing" or "Department of Agriculture" might be interesting to make into civics sometime.

[Thunderbrd]

Originally Posted by VineFynn

I'm thinking of writing the entries for the civic of GST in XML:
1. I'd love to contribute, but do you guys want this? I assume yes, as per the more is more philosophy
2. Can you guys tell me where the file with the civic data is? I've located RoM_GameText_Civics.xml, but I can't find the actual practical data that runs the civic.
Thanks

What do you mean by GST? (note: I'm asking without having read much above your post yet...) I've thought we could do for some open discussion on civics too - and possibly some overall rebalancing in that department that really considers real world cause and effect to such policies on a deeper level. Possibly some additional categories could come into consideration too. (Perhaps a matter worth a whole 'nother thread... lol)

[VineFynn]

Originally Posted by Thunderbrd

What do you mean by GST?

GST means Goods and Services Tax, something that the Australian and some other governments use. Heres what I mean when I want to implement it:

Spoiler:

Why don't we implement GST rates as a civic category? Instead of the static income (commerce) we could make it a percentage increase in tax income, an increase in anger, a decrease in production, an increase in sick (unless you have socialised civic?) and a small increase in empire based instability.
The category could consist of:

Spoiler:

No GST (+2 Happy (when it is avaliable to choose as a civic {is that possible?}, No increase in taxes)
5% Rate (+5% tax increase)
10% Rate (+1 Anger, 10% tax increase,)
20% Rate (+2 Anger 20% tax increase, -1 Productivity)
30% Rate (+3 Anger 30% tax increase, -1 Productivity)
40% Rate (+4 Anger, 40% tax increase, -2 Productivity)
50% Rate (+5 Anger, 50% tax increase, -2 Productivity, small increase in instability)
60% Rate (+6 Anger, 60% tax increase, -2 Productivity, small increase in instability, +1 sick {unless you have socialised civic?}]
70% Rate (+7 Anger, 70% tax increase, -2 Productivity, small increase in instability, +1 sick {unless you have socialised civic?})
80% Rate (+8 Anger, 80% tax increase, -2 Productivity, increase in instability, +1 sick {unless you have socialised civic?})
90% Rate (+9 Anger, 90% tax increase, -2 Productivity, moderately large increase in instability, +2 sick {unless you have socialised civic?})
100% Rate (+10 Anger, 100% tax increase, -3 Productivity, large increase in instability, +3 sick {unless you have socialised civic?})

This civic category might be avaliable only in Advanced Economy custom option? (They probably should be all unlocked by the same tech aswell).
I can understand if this needs some tweaking, but to me this seems like a good idea, even if just to give people the upper hand in the economy for a short time (or to give them that tyrannical feel of evil despotism).

I think of it as another way of controlling your economy and adding complexity (more is more), and giving the Advanced Economy option some beef. Anyway, I've always wanted more civics (the more the merrier) and this one seems like a good option, as none of the civics currently focus on tax, though I've just realised it may not be possible to change the tax rate.
Anyway, if someone else wants to do the XML, python etc, then I'm be happy to supply the icons (already 64 x 64 .dss format) in the zip in the link below. I'm not that proficient in XML, but I'd be happy to learn, after all I've got a 3 day weekend coming up.

Edit: Contructing XML now, could I ask, what is the scale of the instability numbers, ie what is a small increase, what is moderate and what is large?
GST Civic Icons

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by VineFynn

Edit: Contructing XML now, could I ask, what is the scale of the instability numbers, ie what is a small increase, what is moderate and what is large?
GST Civic Icons

Take a look at existing civics and you can see the difference between them. Personally I think they need to be increased a bit for more revolutions.

[rwglaub]

Anybody ever load a save game and have the map basically black, with the cities and some surrounding land in color? And is there a way to fix it? I've got a lot of time invested in this game.

[strategyonly]

Originally Posted by rwglaub

Anybody ever load a save game and have the map basically black, with the cities and some surrounding land in color? And is there a way to fix it? I've got a lot of time invested in this game.

Yeah, i just had that happen to me yesterday infact, thx for bringing this up, i forgot to put down what i did to solve it, all depends on what really is going on, here what you need to do FIRST: Go in modules/Custom Leaderheads and delete completely the folder Wu Zetian. see if that solves the problem, if not write again, and we will proceed from there.

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

Take a look at existing civics and you can see the difference between them. Personally I think they need to be increased a bit for more revolutions.

I changed almost all the civics around a LITTLE, so see what happens.

[Ghundio]

Just a quick question about great commanders, specifically about two promotions: Initiative IV and Strategic Command.

I haven't played civ III in forever so I'm a bit fuzzy on what a zone of control is. I've searched around and the best I could gather is that enemy units may enter a zone of control but upon entering the may only attack or move out of the zone of control. If this is the case does that mean a enemy unit could attack other units within the zone of control because it is attacking or that the great commander itself is not part of the zone of control?

The description of Initiative IV says that it continues the attack while at full strength but when I've attacked enemy stacks with more than 1 unit it doesn't appear to do anything even though my attacker is at full strength after its attack. Is this a bug or am I misunderstanding what the promotion does?

Also I completely agree about the need for early access to resources that normally require calender.

Thanks for the great mod!

[rwglaub]

Sorry if I missed this earlier, but I am playing the latest build, England with Churchill as leader, and I am getting access to buildings I shouldn't. I can build Stele and Mausoleum and I can build the Assyrian equivalent to the barracks. This is weird...

[geh4th]

Regarding Dyes and other so-called 'early resources', can you not just do what you've done with the various "gathering" actions (such as gather grains or gather stone) which - as I understand it - gives the civilization access to the resource even though the later (full) mine/quarry/farm won't appear until it's tech is researched?

Logically, as soon as a resource like Dye is revealed on the map, it should be useful in at least SOME limited way, presumably reflected in it's intended use for things like Lascaux Paints and the Tatoo technology.

I can see the same sort of idea extended to the other "Calendar enables plantation" resources (not including Silk, which has it's own requisite technology). Incense, for example, was certainly in use LONG before a civilization gains the ability to create an incense plantation. Same for Spices, Sugar, and Bananas. These should all be contributory in some way even in prehistoric times.

[geh4th]

Originally Posted by rwglaub

Sorry if I missed this earlier, but I am playing the latest build, England with Churchill as leader, and I am getting access to buildings I shouldn't. I can build Stele and Mausoleum and I can build the Assyrian equivalent to the barracks. This is weird...

The experts can answer better, but the short version is that all Unique Buildings have been removed from their individual civilizations. Some have been deleted but most of them have been converted into wonders or available-to-everyone buildings.

The mention of the Mausoleum reminds me to comment that in v12 it has the OPPOSITE effect that it had in vanilla BTS - it actually increases war weariness. This doesn't see right.

[strategyonly]

Originally Posted by rwglaub

Sorry if I missed this earlier, but I am playing the latest build, England with Churchill as leader, and I am getting access to buildings I shouldn't. I can build Stele and Mausoleum and I can build the Assyrian equivalent to the barracks. This is weird...

Here is alot more on the subjects, check out all the other C2C threads in that area also, if you want to be kept uptodate

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=421514

More or less, this is an evolved Civ IV mod, taking it to better heights than the normal basic Civ IV, if you want same ole same ole, then you can just play normal BtS, but this is way better IMHO. And getting better. Just got to think OUTSIDE the BOX is all.