Higher Unit Maintenance Minimod for RoM 2.7

Hi guys,

as I promised, here is my first attempt to mod Civ IV and its most beautiful mod, RoM. It's a simple one, basically changing some XML values. My goal here is to harden the managing of large armies, as some of us discussed here. Thanks for the kind support I found there, mainly by vincentz.

Don't be scared, the average of the increase is not 300%, is around 30% to 60%, varying with the difficult level and the civics. But waging a war beyond borders will be much more expensive, so reconsider before invade some neighbour.

Almost forgetting, I have two requests to make to more experienced modders:

- If you like it and want it, make it modular.
- Tell me where to find the "We demand military protection" threshold , in order to enable it only for greater population cities. Or if you desire, do it and share.

Inside the rar file, there's a changelog who tells what parameters I changed and where they are. Look there if you want to understand how the game calculates unit maintenance (thanks for Roland Johansen and his article from 6/21/06, googlable) and if you want change it for the sake of your own taste.

Enjoy!

View attachment Higher Unit Maintenance Minimod.rar

I reformatted it into modular format. It will need to be updated if Zappara messes with the civics or difficulty levels in future patchs/releases. Hopefully it works, I only looked at it from the civilopedia. If anything doesn't work, blame frodo. I was watching Lord of the Rings while formatting it.

View attachment 218744

That was quick! good job! I'll try it out for sure.

One question though off the top of your head, By how much is it raised at immortal (second highest)?

Abraxis said:

One question though off the top of your head, By how much is it raised at immortal (second highest)?

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There are two parameters affected by the difficult level: one that gives free units (at immortal it was 2, I made it only 1 aditional free unit); and a handicap, which is a discount for the total support cost (at immortal was 10%, I made it 0%).

Some feedback:

Having now played an almost full Monarch game with this running, I can say that the effect on the economy in the early game is quite crippling. It made waging war of any kind a really hard decision to make.

This was mostly because stepping a SOD one foot over a border meant a 20-30% hit in the research rate. Those units outside my land cost a fortune!

What it also did was make the civics that provide free units inordinately more worthwhile. I found the sudden relief of "a few free units" was now an absolute necessity to make any headway whatsoever in research. And of course, once on those civics, it was pretty much impossible to shift back.

I had to gear my entire game around making enough to get out of Monarchy/Feudalism


It might be worth reconsidering the values, or taking a look at the civics to see if your mod should/could change things there.

So in summary - it's definitely achieved it's goal. But might maybe want to consider other subtle touches to make it less of a "on/off" switch for research. Having more of an effect when in "Free unit" civics and less of an effect when NOT in free unit civics is probably the direction to head.

Thanks once again for an interesting and cerebral addition to the genre

Sarkyn said:

It made waging war of any kind a really hard decision to make.

This was mostly because stepping a SOD one foot over a border meant a 20-30% hit in the research rate. Those units outside my land cost a fortune!

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I raised the modifier of outside supply from 50% to 200%, because my thought was the logistic necessary to maintain armies in foreign lands should be more costful. Maybe something between 100% and 150% would be more accurate.

Sarkyn said:

What it also did was make the civics that provide free units inordinately more worthwhile. I found the sudden relief of "a few free units" was now an absolute necessity to make any headway whatsoever in research. And of course, once on those civics, it was pretty much impossible to shift back.

I had to gear my entire game around making enough to get out of Monarchy/Feudalism


It might be worth reconsidering the values, or taking a look at the civics to see if your mod should/could change things there.

So in summary - it's definitely achieved it's goal. But might maybe want to consider other subtle touches to make it less of a "on/off" switch for research. Having more of an effect when in "Free unit" civics and less of an effect when NOT in free unit civics is probably the direction to head.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that really was an objective. Some civics were kind of useless, now they are too useful. I'll tweak the values for the next version.

Sarkyn said:

Thanks once again for an interesting and cerebral addition to the genre

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Thank you very much.

I have some other ideas to improve this minimod, but I really, really need the help of this community. I still didn't find the parameter responsible for the anger caused by militar absence. For each 3 population you get one if the city has no units on it, so it should a very simple tweak in the files. Just change from 3 to 5 or 7. But WHERE IS IT???

Another thing I wanted to change is that if you have a single warrior in a 30 pop city this totally nullify the anger / fear. If I can, I'll make each unit calm down only X pop. If X=7, in order to make a 28 pop city feel completely safe, it would need 4 military units. We would survive with this additional anger.

My main corcern about this minimod is the AI. I'm playing a game full of revs, probably because of the Revolutions bug caused by city distance calculation. So I couldn't measure very well the impact my mod caused in the reserch rate of the AI. Feedbacks in this area would be extremely welcome.

I've been trying to get Zappara do three things to the unit count/city count/game lag. 10 % tax on each single unit out of the empire's current gold income (5 units = 50 %, settlers/workers are free). Use a check box option in the menu. Add with it -1 population (applies to settlers/workers) per each unit built in a city and 1-5 turns unit production time depending on the size (warrior is always 1, ICBM is 5). Will this be available as an option in Rise of Mankind 2.7 or is it just a small addition to the original BtS? Unless we get the unit count to 10 per empire, I use the World Editor to kill unit masses that I don't want to kill on the expense of everything else.

There is our discussion http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325436

Teemu Ruskeepää;8231045 said:

I've been trying to get Zappara do three things to the unit count/city count/game lag. 10 % tax on each single unit out of the empire's current gold income (5 units = 50 %, settlers/workers are free). Use a check box option in the menu. Add with it -1 population (applies to settlers/workers) per each unit built in a city and 1-5 turns unit production time depending on the size (warrior is always 1, ICBM is 5). Will this be available as an option in Rise of Mankind 2.7 or is it just a small addition to the original BtS? Unless we get the unit count to 10 per empire, I use the World Editor to kill unit masses that I don't want to kill on the expense of everything else.

There is our discussion http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325436

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Bonjour Teemu,

Having now read your request about 10 times (but it feels like 100), I am happy to tell you that:

a) No-one else is interested in such a mod

And, thus, because of (a)

b) No-one will be willing to make it.

It's time to stop asking and start making it yourself, if you are so quite very sure that this and only this will make your game more fun.

I hope this doesn't come across too harsh, but I promise you it's the truth.

Cheers,



Sarkyn

I didn't understand very well your request... Sorry, english is not by native language and I get a little lost in extense texts.

Do you want to set a limit of 10 units for civ? Is that so?
If it is, I'm not interested in (not that I know how do it, of course).

If I'd want a % relation with armies, it'd be with population, not wealth. Even so it wouldn't be a rigid relation, it'd be more alike a limit.

But I disagree with Sarkyn when he says it's time to stop asking for help. It's only necessary one mod-capable person who agrees with you... maybe be difficult to find, not impossible. The alternative is trying to learn for yourself, like I'm trying. Modding sometimes can be more fun than playing, I'm discovering this now!

10 units per empire is the result of 10 % tax on each single unit out of the empire's current gold income (5 units = 50 %, settlers/workers are free). Use a check box option in the menu. Add with it -1 population (applies to settlers/workers) per each unit built in a city and 1-5 turns unit production time depending on the size (warrior is always 1, ICBM is 5). It isn't a ridid relation, but more like a limit. Unless your mod for less units achieves similar unit counts, what's the point? Do you still have unit masses, and does your mod integrate with Zappara's Rise of Mankind? Sarkyn is trying to imply that my request is stupid by treating me badly. Ban this user.

I always said ROM needed higher military maintenance. It'll help with lag in later stages of the game.

But one particular thing I would like to see in this mod as well is special/national units no longer limited to a number but instead a much higher upkeep on them. This will make ROM feel a little less close ended.

10 units per empire could be the practical result from upkeep costs - inevitable rule because nobody can pay more. Like determinist you know. How to install it?

Teemu Ruskeepää;8232738 said:

10 units per empire is the result of 10 % tax on each single unit out of the empire's current gold income (5 units = 50 %, settlers/workers are free). Use a check box option in the menu. Add with it -1 population (applies to settlers/workers) per each unit built in a city and 1-5 turns unit production time depending on the size (warrior is always 1, ICBM is 5). It isn't a ridid relation, but more like a limit. Unless your mod for less units achieves similar unit counts, what's the point? Do you still have unit masses, and does your mod integrate with Zappara's Rise of Mankind? Sarkyn is trying to imply that my request is stupid by treating me badly. Ban this user.

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I'll reply more clearly in your own thread, Teemu.

Sorry to muddy this thread.

cr0ws said:

I always said ROM needed higher military maintenance. It'll help with lag in later stages of the game.

But one particular thing I would like to see in this mod as well is special/national units no longer limited to a number but instead a much higher upkeep on them. This will make ROM feel a little less close ended.

Click to expand...

I think I could do it for the RoM 2.71 version, if the forum wants to see it updated... there's a variable in the CIV4UnitInfos.xml called "iExtraCost", I could tweak it in the file, as Zap did that for some units. Could you compile a list with all national units? It would be a great help.

Teemu Ruskeepää;8232767 said:

10 units per empire could be the practical result from upkeep costs - inevitable rule because nobody can pay more. Like determinist you know. How to install it?

Click to expand...

Indeed, but I still don't understand why you are obsessed with the number 10...

If you downloaded my version, which is not modular, overwrite the folder in "...\Beyond The Sword\Mods\Rise of Mankind". There's a changelog that explains what parameters I changed and where they are. In order to achieve a order of 10 units you must be much more agressive with the variables than I was. But beware, you may confuse the dreadful AI.

If you downloaded the modular version made by Afforess, just copy it to "...\Beyond The Sword\Mods\Rise of Mankind\Assets\Modules".

In time, I want to thank Afforess for the conversion. I appreciate it.

Does this work with 2.71?

Should, although you may have to add a MLF entry for it. There is a tutorial on how to do it around here on the RoM forums if you don't know how.

Alright, but if the MLF entry is needed for modmodding, shouldn't be the tutorial for it be available in a sticky thread here in the modmod-subforum? Gonna have a look for it now.

DRJ said:

Alright, but if the MLF entry is needed for modmodding, shouldn't be the tutorial for it be available in a sticky thread here in the modmod-subforum? Gonna have a look for it now.

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That would be a good idea, but the Moderators almost never check these forums.

Just quick question - Has anyone played with this on some of the higher difficulty settings?

I currently don't have it installed - I reinstalled ROM and didn't check MLF files properly and so I'm now hours and hours into a game and missing some of my "must-have" addons. What I'm finding now (at Emperor) is that the computer players have been sending stacks of forces to me which number in the 10's.

Seriously, boats are arriving off my coast with 40+ heavy swordsman and knights on board, and one by one these plow into my coastal cities straight off the boat, all dying to now ridiculously well defended cities full of longbowmen and heavy pikemen who are now so promoted they're also heroes.

And they do this - every 4-5 turns. New galleys, new meat for the grinder.

I was thinking - "This isn't fun. It's the same stack of doom repeated for hours and hours while I desperately try to tech myself up to a point beyond them." I may not even manage to do so, as I am far from the ladder leader, and with Aggressive AI, pretty much everyone in the game is sending a stack of doom from one direction or another.

I was thinking - I must reinstall this addon for my next game. It will make sending 40+ land units (guarded by 30+ ships) every 4-5 turns a very expensive decision for the AI to make...

Any experiences of this on higher difficulty, folks?

My time is very scarce these days... do you guys believe I still didn't start a 2.71 game? Damn obligation of working every day!!!

I will update HUMM for 2.71 eventually, and I intend to use the iExtraCost modifier for earlier units, for instance the Knight. I would do a revision of that modifier for all units in the game. What do you guys think about it?