Rhye's of Civilization - the fastest loading mod Expanded

[Barak]

Originally Posted by Rhye

Posted patch 2.65, containing a lot of things that were kept in my PC. Now they are posted all together, as this patch is a prerequisite for the beta.
This will be the last patch (unless something's crashing)

What has been changed from 2.62 to 2.65? LOVE the mod.

[Chukchi Husky]

The patch link on the first page is broken.

It should be http://www.civfanatics.net/~rhye/fil...62_TO_v265.zip

[dafiden]

Yes, definitely capitalize "The" in a proper name (my grammar knowledge apparently has escaped me in my pevious posts).

I guess it depends on which "English" you want to use, e.g. British vs. American. I think "The Temple Mount" sounds best, but I would certainly defer judgement to a citizen of the country the place is in.

[dafiden]

Originally Posted by Barak

What has been changed from 2.62 to 2.65? LOVE the mod.

Read the readme included in the zip.

Oh, here!!!

Changes in v2.65:

- Deleted some goody huts near Austrian starting location
- Moved some barbarian camps into better strategic locations (to make access to Siberia more difficult)
- Barbarians removed from Sardinia
- Changed some units in the camps in Asia and Africa
- Deleted the special barbarian warrior. This will re-enable the possibility of obtaining a mercenary from a goody hut
- African spearmen now wheeled
- Legionaries now have 100 worker strength
- Curragh now have the naval transport flag. With no flags, AI never builds them
- Frigate and Man-o-War no longer require iron
- Privateer no longer require resources
- Ironclad now upgrades to Battleship instead of Destroyer
- Fortress cost decreased to 10; barricade cost decreased to 12
- Deleted the 2nd type of wines. Updated luxuryicons.pcx
- Added gold in Wales, oil in Nigeria, whales in New Zealand, aluminium in the Caribbean, uranium in New Zealand
- Added Malta
- Carrack now ignores ocean movement cost, just like Caravels
- Explorer no longer upgradeable
- Tuned victory conditions: 40000 points for Cultural victory; 40% for population and territory dominance
- Corrected a river in Congo
- Tuned many civs' strength
- New camel resource and civilopedia graphics
- New civilopedia icon for Napoleon, David and Menelik
- New graphics for the Holy War
- Updated ntp25.pcx (Ethiopian palette)
- Updated Camel Rider small icon
- New Enlightenment tech icon
- Updated wcso.pcx and deltarivers and floodplains graphics
- New mech. infantry attack animation
- New SDI animation
- New Elephant Archer animation; updated units_32.pcx
- Updated civilopedia

[Rhye]

there seems to be a problem with the discovery of america. Euro civs simply don't go there.

And AI doesn't upgrade the junk to the caravel. Lots of junks around, but no caravels.

The reason of the latter fact is still unknown.
But I'll try to change the galleass role. I fear that AI waits to send a caravel to the sea if it knows that there's a unit that has the naval superiority flag and that should escort it. So I'll try to give the galleass the transport flag.

[Micromegas]

Just signed up to support your application, rhye. Really hope you'll get the job, there's noone more deserving of it.

Not much of a poster but I thought it was high time to utter my appreciation. I've been following and enjoying your mod for quite some time now. Gets better and better. Since I installed it I've actually not started a single game with the standard rule set anymore, the finetuning of the and to the world map are improving the game so much it's incredible. Most astounding to me is the increase in representation of historical probability without getting into boring linearity a bit. Now off to check 2.65 changes and looking forward to things to come. Keep up the brilliantwork, hopefully paid work soon.

[Triple_C]

Hope you do get the part suits you perfectly except the location

[Rhye]

I read that, I really thank you.
Posting in the Firaxis' job thread was the best way to show your appreciation. Thank you again.

[Horton]

I've been testing 0.72 as India and have found a few issues. India is an excellent civ in the mod pack by the way.

Mustangs appear in Australia. Are these supposed to be limited to North America?

Clearing jungle takes far too long. No AI will ever manage to do it effectively. I spent the first 2 eras painstakingly trading for every AI worker I could get and by the time I got electricity I had about 75+. Using them in stacks of 12, having replaceable parts and being in democratic republic for the work rate boost it was still taking at least 10 turns just to clear a patch. This seems excessive. Putting jungle and marsh on the same work value would be a better idea I think.

The Pyramids expire with Physics. I believe that this small wonder should not expire at all. Egypt is one of the weak civs but the Pyramids give them a chance to compete because of the increased opportunity for pop rushing it affords. With the Pyramids + all that flood plain, Egypt can be fun to play instead of being one of the also ran civs.

I also have a problem with some of the unit progressions. Getting bombers with advanced flight and then immediately getting heavy bombers with rocketry is pointless. By that point in the game any decent player will be on 5 turns per advance so how many regular bombers is anyone going to build? This is a waste. Move bombers back to flight, that would make them appear earlier and be utilized more often.

Same thing with tanks and modern armor. It makes little sense to enable a unit only to have it's successor appear 1 advance later. Move tanks back to armored warfare and perhaps scrap the armored car although I do enjoy the car unit just for the sake of flavor so maybe it should stay too.

All the extra modern era units look pretty in the queue and are cool but are not especially useful. Many games do not even make it into the Modern Era and those that do are bascially decided so why not scrap some of them and replace with units for the medieval and industrial eras where they will get more attention?

Also, just to throw out another idea, wouldn't it be cool to create an imaginary industrial or modern era UU for some of the historically ancient civs? For example, instead of the Ballista for the Roman 2nd UU, we could have a special cavalry or early gunpowder unit to represent something the Romans may have developed had their empire not fallen. Just a suggestion.

[Jaguar]

I think the Pyramids should be dirt cheap. Like 100 shields. That way Egypt will get a GA almost right off the bat. Sometimes it takes them a really long time to get the Pyramids done.

[Enkidu_Warrior]

Noting the request for developing a strategy guide for ROC, I would like to note my early experience.

First, let me preface by saying that I rarely play maps above standard size or more than 8 civs in the standard C3C game. As such, my comments probably have as much to do with my point of reference as with ROC itself.

[I should also add that I've only played one evening as Germany at Regent level.]

My observations:

1) in standard C3C, there's a big panic early to expand. racing out settlers to the best locations, finding your nearest neighbors, growing towards them, establishing cultural borders to control more territory until you can grow into it.

by comparison, in ROC, the slowed growth due to 3-citizens per settler and increased shields per worker (reducing irrigation opportunities), means you actually have time to develop your cities in other ways. there are suddenly strategic considerations: which buildings to develop, tactically timing that development around popping out workers and settlers.

2) related to this is the slowed tech tree (at the beginning anyway). even a moderately good early development in standard C3C will get you at least even, and usually ahead, in science. more importantly, you're almost always ahead in terms of having lots of things to build.

in ROC, tech developments take quite some time, so balancing new opportunities (eg swordsmen or temples, libraries or aqueducts) against the timing of new settlers and workers becomes serious considerations.

in both these cases (growth and tech), it's not just that the game is slowed down, but rather that you cannot have either running out ahead of the others to the point that you no longer have to include it in your strategic considerations.

3) despite the slow growth, with 31 civs, it's a crowded world. this leads to an increased importance on early game diplomacy.

exploration is quickly curtailed by borders, and maintaining decent diplomatic relations whilst trying to learn as much as you can about the world is much more difficult.

and since diplomacy isnt always successful, this leads to an increased likelihood of early wars, usually over the limited resources on such a crowded planet.

4) perhaps the biggest early impact in terms of limited resources is the scarceness of luxuries. with only 7 in the game, despite generous numbers of each, you're lucky to get 2 or 3 early in the game. as such, happiness becomes another serious strategic consideration. (in the standard C3C game, you can usually get around worrying about by building every building or dominating the luxury resources. here, neither of those solutions is possible).

5) although i'm only about 5 or 6 techs into the middle ages, the restrictions on wonders, with regard to resources has meant that, rather than having extreme strategic flexibility, you really have to tailor your strategies around your civs capabilities. germany has been doing well for me primarily because i'm leveraging their great war-making capabilities. it's not my usual style, but i quickly realised that i was going to be swamped if i tried to play my preferred build/expand game.

6) i should also note that the tweaks to the governments (at least, to monarchy and republic) came as a bit of a surprise. so new players ought to read up on the differences. in my opinion, the changes are an improvement, as they are now distinct enough to make choosing either have serious strategic implications. (in my experiences with the standard C3C, you could pretty much choose either on the way to democracy and play only those two the whole game without consideration for style).

i guess what i'm saying is that all-in-all, ROC has fine-tuned the different elements of the game in a way that requires you to constantly be aware of balancing each. this is a great departure from the standard game which was pretty easy to make a few early moves and discount most strategic elements and focus on a couple objectives.

and if i can make one suggestion, the strategy guide needs to explain some of the finer points of the tweaks, (eg republic vs. monarchy), because these have such major implications on strategy.

personally, i'm looking forward to trying some random map games, smaller sized, fewer civs, to see if the balance elements hold up (without such things as LM tiles). that is, once germany conquers the world

(although, the reason i usually dont play large maps is that i hate the workload of managing a large civ. if this game continues to go well in that respect, you just may have changed the way i view Civ!)

again, many thanks for the work, Rhye. I've put in my two cents over on the job thread, and i hope the above comments help pay back you and the community for what you've given me.

EW

[Rhye]

-> Thank you ville, dafiden, Jaguar, gunner, Enkidu, Micromegas, Blasphemous and Vostos for the support. I hope it will be useful.

-> Thank you Enkidu for the part of guide. Currently my request is to update the civ-specific strategy guide to the expansion (after it is out, of course). But your info is useful in any case, as a intro.

[Rhye]

Originally Posted by Horton

Mustangs appear in Australia. Are these supposed to be limited to North America?

Well, in RoC they are "horses " and they represent any later spread. Renaming them Mustangs implies America only. I'll remove them.

Originally Posted by Horton

Clearing jungle takes far too long. No AI will ever manage to do it effectively. I spent the first 2 eras painstakingly trading for every AI worker I could get and by the time I got electricity I had about 75+. Using them in stacks of 12, having replaceable parts and being in democratic republic for the work rate boost it was still taking at least 10 turns just to clear a patch. This seems excessive.

OK I'll reduce it.

Originally Posted by Horton

Putting jungle and marsh on the same work value would be a better idea I think.

?? They are together

Originally Posted by Horton

The Pyramids expire with Physics. I believe that this small wonder should not expire at all. Egypt is one of the weak civs but the Pyramids give them a chance to compete because of the increased opportunity for pop rushing it affords. With the Pyramids + all that flood plain, Egypt can be fun to play instead of being one of the also ran civs.

Egypt should be strong at the beginning, but in case of a good start, they can lead for the rest of the game. Removing the Pyramids effect puts an end to their possible dominance. I only have to make them built it earlier. That's not a matter of costs: it's a matter of when they discover the tech.

Originally Posted by Horton

I also have a problem with some of the unit progressions. Getting bombers with advanced flight and then immediately getting heavy bombers with rocketry is pointless. By that point in the game any decent player will be on 5 turns per advance so how many regular bombers is anyone going to build? This is a waste. Move bombers back to flight, that would make them appear earlier and be utilized more often.

Same thing with tanks and modern armor. It makes little sense to enable a unit only to have it's successor appear 1 advance later. Move tanks back to armored warfare and perhaps scrap the armored car although I do enjoy the car unit just for the sake of flavor so maybe it should stay too.

All the extra modern era units look pretty in the queue and are cool but are not especially useful. Many games do not even make it into the Modern Era and those that do are bascially decided so why not scrap some of them and replace with units for the medieval and industrial eras where they will get more attention?

This is the main problem caused by the pressure everybody made to add more and more modern units.
I'll see what I can do in moving the techs, but it is late now for removing or adding units. I wanted to release the beta today; that will take all my effort.

Originally Posted by Horton

Also, just to throw out another idea, wouldn't it be cool to create an imaginary industrial or modern era UU for some of the historically ancient civs? For example, instead of the Ballista for the Roman 2nd UU, we could have a special cavalry or early gunpowder unit to represent something the Romans may have developed had their empire not fallen. Just a suggestion.

No, I dont like this.

[Lachlan]

The mod will be continued without Rhye ?

Because i would like a specific small wonder for each government like "Auschwitz" for Fascism... Possibility of effects : a concentration camp in each cities of this civ which give + 100 % production but 4 unhappy citizens ...

"Senate" for Oligarchic Republic

"Collective Production" (better name ?) for Communism

"Warrior's Hall" in Chiefdom/Despotism

[karmina]

Originally Posted by Lachlan

...i would like a specific small wonder for each government like "Auschwitz" for Fascism...

Rhye, I hope you won't consider that idea because you not only will lose half of your fans, but the mod and your site will be forbidden in at least Germany, and thus will sooner or later be blocked by numerous providers.

And Lachlan, I hope that was nothing but a bad joke.

[Rhye]

I worked out the modern tech tree any many little tunings, but I haven't managed to obtain a satifying colonization of America yet. I'm going to give you the beta this afternoon, in any case.
Thus, I tried to give a curragh at the beginning to each seafaring civ. But they don't seem to use it.

[Rhye]

shouldn't Crusades have "the"? Chukchi H. didn't write Crusades in the list

[Lachlan]

Originally Posted by karmina

Rhye, I hope you won't consider that idea because you not only will lose half of your fans, but the mod and your site will be forbidden in at least Germany, and thus will sooner or later be blocked by numerous providers.

And Lachlan, I hope that was nothing but a bad joke.

Sorry, you are German, you say ? And i'm fascinated by NPD

[Aeon221]

Why is it always GERMAN facism that we concentrate on? HMM? And the negative aspects of it?

Before the wholesale slaughters and powermad insanity, facism modernized both Italy and Germany's infrastructure... something many players use it for!

Anyway, choosing something like Aushhwitz for governments that did indeed have a decent early existence (can you really condemn their racism (pre-murder) without also condemning half of the other nations in the world during that period *cough* AMERICA *cough*) is simply mean spirited and confrontational.

Besides, governments are intended to embody such things already, so why do we need little wonders for them?

[Micromegas]

Just to confirm that the inclusion of 'auschwitz' will definitely result in a ban in germany and all kinds of legal troubles, besides that it is really bad taste. I think the general character of fascism is represented not so bad the way it is.

[Rhye]

I'm uploading the BETA now.

I've posted the announcement of the release date: 4/12/04
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=106207

[Lachlan]

Too late, i returned to CTP 2, more realist AND fantasy perhaps but more fun

[Asclepius]

Originally Posted by Micromegas

Just to confirm that the inclusion of 'auschwitz' will definitely result in a ban in germany and all kinds of legal troubles, besides that it is really bad taste. I think the general character of fascism is represented not so bad the way it is.

Just to echo that thought, the little graphic for Totalitarianism has a swastika in it. There is no excuse for displaying this symbol in a game in Germany. It is illegal. Rhye, I suggest you edit it to prevent yourself from falling, even accidentaly, into a world of sh*t.

[Blasphemous]

Incidentally, I found the Totalitariansm image quite cool (though I have absolutely no kind of anything even slightly resembling sympathy for the Nazis). But if it can bring legal trouble, hey, I'm not one to stop you replacing it.
About the idea of giving Fascism concentration camps and and "Auschwitz" wonder, I agree this is a very bad idea. It makes me personally uncomfortable (many relatives of mine were murdered in Auschwitz and I recently spoke with a relative of mine who was taken there as a a child and survived [an amazing story but not really relevant to this thread]) and it's also not exactly fair to take Fascism and turn it into Nazism. There is a difference, after all.

[Blasphemous]

Rhye, is the upload actually taking two and a half hours or have you just forgotten to send the link to us? =X
I want to get some testing done tonight and if I can't start soon it will be too late. =\

EDIT: Whoa, nice timing! Better get downloading!

[Rhye]

Uploading was really slow.

In any case, you have 4 days since now. Good work

[Rhye]

BTW I don't see anything wrong with the swastika, as the mod isn't being SOLD in Germany. (And I'm not a nazi )

[Asclepius]

Originally Posted by Rhye

BTW I don't see anything wrong with the swastika, as the mod isn't being SOLD in Germany. (And I'm not a nazi )

It doesn't matter if you don't mind, you (and CFC) are making it available for download in Germany. That is enough to break the law. I would suggest changing the centre of the flag to the three "fasces" symbol. As an Italian you should understand that. I personaly like the graphic as it is, but I understand the law in Germany and there are no exceptions. Alternatively you could warn people in Germany not to DL your mod!

[Blasphemous]

Or you could make the swastika icon a seperate download for people outside Germany. Not sure it's worth the bother tho. =X
Speaking of Germany, beta part 2 is now downloading, should be done soon and then I get to have my fun playing as Germany again (I only hope the Dutch and French go at eachother again like last time so I can prey on them once they're too exhausted to continue [again]. ^^)

[Blasphemous]

Is the folder in part 2 of the beta supposed to be called "Rhye's Of Civ XF"? oO
EDIT: Okay, apparently it is, never mind this post. =X