Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[anunknownman]

@anyone
can you please help me, for whatever reason after adding the text for the building i made i still can't figure out how to make it appear in the civpedia....

i uploaded the files so you can check'em out, please help...

 

[strategyonly]

@anyone
can you please help me, for whatever reason after adding the text for the building i made i still can't figure out how to make it appear in the civpedia....

i uploaded the files so you can check'em out, please help...

Actually its pretty easy, if you look at the VERY top of your game texts, what is MISSING??? Each and EVERY file has to have it there for it to work . . . .
figure it out yet??

If not look here, but its better if you find out on your own, makes you feel better that way . . .

Spoiler :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<Civ4GameText xmlns="http://www.firaxis.com">

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@anyone
can you please help me, for whatever reason after adding the text for the building i made i still can't figure out how to make it appear in the civpedia....

i uploaded the files so you can check'em out, please help...

In your art defines you have

<NIF>ART_DEF_BUILDING_CLOCKPUNK_ROBOT_FACTORY.nif</NIF>

not even pointing to a folder. I am surprised that it does not crash Civ at start.

 

[rightfuture]

@Everyone
I am going to organize all of the ideas by going through and organize them as best I can.
This way everyone's ideas have a better chance to get heard and explored.
I am going to try to maintain an updated list, combine similar ideas, and link them to various discussions and appropriate forums. Please continue to keep using this thread as the master location to discuss and suggest ideas for C2C in general.

I have been official given a thread so I can start the process.
This will be a list of the ideas, and discussion for priority.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=464235
I will start today (6-18-2012).

I need all the help I can get, since this will be a monumental task. Anyone who wishes to help, can just go ahead and make suggestions and is invited to contact me.

To help people in placing and discussing their ideas properly, so they get heard, please follow these rules:

This very thread (the one you are reading) is the main place to suggest ideas and discuss them.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=377892
This way everybody has a chance to see them.

Always try to post things in the appropriate thread.

"Please keep things that are wrong in the Caveman2Cosmos thread." -Strategy Only
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=288570
It also has the latest version to download.

Bugs and Crashes should be mentioned in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=460
so please include a saved game and the version of C2C you are playing.

If you have any idea, and want people to see it, please post it 2x,
1st in the appropriate thread. This way those work on similar ideas will have a chance to see it also.
There are many threads in the main C2C forum -http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449
Era discussion threads, Alternate timeline era discussion threads, Terrain, Technology, Units, Features, new version, graphics, Etc.
(This is where I start my day with. So I can see what discussion are recent and new.)

And use the search function to find the most appropriate discussions.
Don't forget that there are pages and pages of past threads for discussions.

If your ideas come from another mod. Please list them (and name/link they come from) in the
Integrating Mods - Incorporating / Exploring Ideas from other mods into C2C thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=439576
so I can organize them.
and also mention them in the appropriate discussion thread.

2nd - Remember to post your idea a 2nd time in the appropriate ongoing discussion thread.
Mods and their ideas in the integrating mods thread, units in the unit thread, era discussion, etc.

This ideas/discussion thread will be a great place to keep suggesting ideas for C2C, and discussing them in general. If you have an idea or have seen something interesting please mention it. Your ideas are what makes C2C and civilization even better! We could always use your help! Please say what you like and dislike about C2C!

It may take time to consider your idea, because the ModTeam is very busy, and has to pick and choose what it will work on. You can help by championing the idea, and keeping the idea fresh in everyone's minds. The ModTeam has even made tutorials so you can learn how to help get the idea into C2C. I will do what I can to help.

Please speak up! This is your chance to contribute to ideas that could make their way into Civ 6. C2C is the ultimate community mod, with more ideas than any other mod! We would love to hear from everybody. For the Love of Civ! Help us make C2C even better! (oh, and tell your friends!)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@anyone
can you please help me, for whatever reason after adding the text for the building i made i still can't figure out how to make it appear in the civpedia....

i uploaded the files so you can check'em out, please help...

There is also an error in your building class file. the building there is not the same one as in your building infos file. I am testing out all these fixes now and will post the result when I get it working.

Edit I have checked and changed everything obvious and it is still not working. I have an appointment soon so will give it a fresh look when I get back.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Ok here is a working version. I did a whole lot of desperation changes so I am not sure they are all needed. It is possible that it was always working but you had the text key wrong and just happened to point to an existing building.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

I'm playtesting some new changes to Gamespeeds, which is mostly increasing every modifier by 25%. I will add them before the freeze, but I'd like to have some more time testing them to make sure nothing is too screwed with them.

Do you think you could post your revised Gamespeed file? I'd be interested in using it, and would promise to give some feedback in exchange.

 

[Sgtslick]

I'm playtesting some new changes to Gamespeeds, which is mostly increasing every modifier by 25%. I will add them before the freeze, but I'd like to have some more time testing them to make sure nothing is too screwed with them.

I've fiddled with the modifier a lot and increasing the modifiers is good but I think the ratio between iconstuct, itrain compared to iresearch should be reduced. Its the ratio that is kinda the problem. If new research comes in, but you haven't managed to finish your old buildings - This is good.

 

[CIVPlayer8]

You know I've been thinking... A great menu song to have would be "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. It's a good song, and a bit of a history lesson. What do you guys think?

 

[SouthernKing]

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before (I haven't played C2C since V21) but I saw that "Progenitor Cultures" idea that was floating around, and I had a thought.

What if some religions required the presence of other religions to be founded?
For example, to found Christianity you would need to have Judaism in your country or in a city. To found Buddhism, you'd need to have Hinduism. Those two are off the top of my head, I can think of several more.

 

[God-Emperor]

Thats why I feel increasing the iconstruct is good for game balance, not having time to build all the building is a good thing. Using strategy for your build order in cities, having to carefully weigh up what to build, and what to fore go adds to the game. So yes, epic impacts it in this way, although not as much as increasing the iconstuct in gamespeed xml.

I have to disagree.

Low priority buildings already rarely get built - the buildings that have a small benefit compared to their cost. If it is made even worse by increasing the build cost for everything so you really can't build everything in any city then they will really never get built, except by people who are just randomly picking something to build with no concept of what things actually do. If you make it so that those buildings will never be built, you should just remove them from the game entirely so that they will stop clogging up the build lists and civilopedia, and taking up memory, for no purpose. This is not supposed to be a game within a game of "hide and seek" where the useful buildings go and hide amongst the useless buildings in the build list and civilopeda and you have to try to find them. Once you build the more important buildings, whatever you consider them to be at that time, you should be able to go back and fill in the others that you want to build in at least some of your cities, assuming you are at peace and don't have to churn out large numbers of units just then.

There are some buildings you might not want to build outside of specialized cities (like the buildings that give crime, or those that produce research but at relatively a high money cost - you shouldn't want to build these in a money specialized city, and perhaps not outside of research specialized cities). You can exclude most of them from consideration, although you may want to build one or more of them in any given city.

A city that has a reasonably high production output should be able to build every building that it is possible, or at least desirable, to build at that location, over time. There should be times where you fall behind for a while when your tech path reveals some relevant buildings quicker than you can build them, but you should also hit some time periods when you research techs that allow few or no new buildings, giving you time to catch up. Doing this sort of thing has its own costs, specifically opportunity costs. All those hammers you spend building every building were not spent on units or money or research or whatever. A dozen extra low value buildings may give you a few extra points of production (but take bunch of turns for each to pay for the cost of the building before you get an actual benefit) and a few extra gold and research per turn (again, it is should take a while to add up to the amount of research or gold you could have gotten by directly building those for the same number of turns it took to build the buildings) - but that will be of little comfort if your army is too small and the city is taken because you didn't build units with those hammers. (If the AI is insufficiently competent to take advantage of this, it is an AI issue, not a building issue.) You are taking a short term risk (smaller army) for a long term advantage (higher production and better economy, eventually). Sometimes the risk's danger should happen and cost you the game.

This requires some balancing. A low production city should not be able to build everything, not even most of the best ones in some cases. A high production city should be able to eventually build everything you want to, but not have very much left over for other things, and if you prioritized production increasing buildings too low it will make it harder. Too far in either direction and you have problems. All of the game speeds should fall into some "good" range for this, but not necessarily exactly the same. by the way, the game speed modifier is not the only consideration - the actual building costs themselves may be off in some cases (I can't say that any specific building is, but there may be some): a given building's cost may be high in the late stone age but if the same building were to show up in the late classical era it will be cheaper at that time because the same cities will almost certainly have higher production. The concern for an individual building is therefore not just "build cost" vs. "benefit", it is "build cost relative to the typical production of a reasonably well developed city at the time it is introduced" vs. "benefit", as well as the total build cost of all buildings a city could build (since no city has all possible requirements) introduced up to time X vs. expected total available production a city could have produced up to time X. The total cost should not exceed the total possible production, but it also should not be too much lower. This is made even more complicated by some buildings increasing production... But this is individual building cost issue is a side issue from the perspective of the game speed settings.

Also, you should support multiple styles of play. Some people are builders. They like to build up their cities more then they like to build up their armies. More often than not, they'd rather build up their own cities than build up an army and go take a bunch of AI cities. Builders want to build everything that is desirable to build, at least in some of their cities (including some wonders; building a few of those along with everything else is good too which is one reason why your top production cities need some production above the cost to build all the regular buildings). If there is a building you can never build anywhere only because there is never enough time (or, equivalently, production) to do so then that will annoy the builders.

Here's an idea: A pair of game options. "Cheap Buildings" and "Expensive Buildings". Cheap Buildings makes buildings cost 10% (or 15%, or 20% - pick a value) less production. Expensive Buildings makes buildings cost 10% (or whatever) more production. If you turn both on they cancel out and do nothing. You could do the same with units. They would affect both the human and the AIs. This would allow people to shift the balance in the direction they prefer for each game. Want a more war-like game? Pick expensive buildings and cheap units. Want a more builder-friendly game? Cheap buildings and expensive units. More of everything? Both cheap. Less of everything? Both expensive.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@God-Emperor

We have some long term buildings that either don't go obsolete or go obsolete much later. If you build them too early they are way too expensive for the time, but if you build them later in the game they are much cheaper since you have more production by then.

There are also short term buildings that will give you a boost for the time you are in. The cost varies depending upon what it is. For instance Berry Bushes and Stone Tool Workshop are short term buildings that give you a boost for the Prehistoric Era and then go obsolete as you reach the Ancient Era.

Also once you get the civics you can always "buy" buildings with all your extra gold to get your slower production cities caught up. Likewise you could send out Merchants and Trade Caravans from your productive cities and help boost your lesser productive cities. Or even use them to build wonders faster.

The best strategy is to build and buildings early in your cities so they can start producing more buildings (and units). The order you build your buildings can mean all the difference.

And no wonder so many ppl are crying too much gold. They're playing on Snail and slower and you have soooo much more time in game to accumulate a treasury. It's Whacked! And no wonder ppl can't understand what I'm seeing too.

I think this is the closest I have ever heard Joe say that there was too much gold.

 

[dusckr87]

You know I've been thinking... A great menu song to have would be "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. It's a good song, and a bit of a history lesson. What do you guys think?

I disagree (because I hate Billy Joel, but I digress), but if someone doesn't like the current song they can replace with one they prefer; just rename it.

 

[anunknownman]

Ok here is a working version. I did a whole lot of desperation changes so I am not sure they are all needed. It is possible that it was always working but you had the text key wrong and just happened to point to an existing building.

oh god thank you!!!!!!!!! you rock

but i see you deleted a ton of lines from the buldinginfos file, is there a way for it to work with all those lines inside the file?????

edit: do you know where i can edit the strategy text so it isn't txt_strategy_i forgot the rest

 

[Sgtslick]

A city that has a reasonably high production output should be able to build every building that it is possible, or at least desirable, to build at that location, over time. There should be times where you fall behind for a while when your tech path reveals some relevant buildings quicker than you can build them, but you should also hit some time periods when you research techs that allow few or no new buildings, giving you time to catch up. Doing this sort of thing has its own costs, specifically opportunity costs. All those hammers you spend building every building were not spent on units or money or research or whatever. A dozen extra low value buildings may give you a few extra points of production (but take bunch of turns for each to pay for the cost of the building before you get an actual benefit) and a few extra gold and research per turn (again, it is should take a while to add up to the amount of research or gold you could have gotten by directly building those for the same number of turns it took to build the buildings) - but that will be of little comfort if your army is too small and the city is taken because you didn't build units with those hammers.

Mostly I agree with your argument, the thing is I think you've fundamentally misjudged how cheap buildings actually are.

A city that has a reasonably high production output should be able to build every building that it is possible

This sentence in particular. The thing is, pretty much every city can build every building. Well 80%. This to me isn't a good thing. The only real strategy revolving around what to build in your cities regarding the majority of buildings is what order to build them all in. When it should be, which does this city need- and which can I build without neglecting my overall civs strategy.

Builders want to build everything that is desirable to build, at least in some of their cities (including some wonders; building a few of those along with everything else is good too which is one reason why your top production cities need some production above the cost to build all the regular buildings). If there is a building you can never build anywhere only because there is never enough time (or, equivalently, production) to do so then that will annoy the builders.

I consider myself a hybrid player (from smacx days) and I found c2c way to easy to build everything including every wonder available to me, and 80% of ALL buildings, I could build 100% but choose not for optimizing my civ reasons. Anyway I think I said somewhere b4 that I would just keep quiet about this opinion and happily continue editing the xml after each update and enjoying this great mod

 

[Johnny Canuck]

I consider myself a hybrid player (from smacx days) and I found c2c way to easy to build everything including every wonder available to me, and 80% of ALL buildings, I could build 100% but choose not for optimizing my civ reasons. Anyway I think I said somewhere b4 that I would just keep quiet about this opinion and happily continue editing the xml after each update and enjoying this great mod

FWIW, I tend to agree with you. If I build the + buildings first (and why not, when many of them give + too), I can then build pretty much build everything else afterwards (note: I play on Epic). I would suggest a 25% increase in build/train costs, as compared to tech costs - not too drastic, but just enough so that you have to make real choices about what to build and where.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

oh god thank you!!!!!!!!! you rock

You are welcome.

but i see you deleted a ton of lines from the buldinginfos file, is there a way for it to work with all those lines inside the file?????

We use an improved WoC system. With the WoC system you only need the lines which have values differing from the default values. With the improvements added in C2C to the reading of the XML it may be even faster on load not to have the extra lines in there.

edit: do you know where i can edit the strategy text so it isn't txt_strategy_i forgot the rest

Same place as the other text files. Don't forget the strategy text must be short and the pedia long. If the strategy is long it will push the important stuff off screen in the hover over.

 

[rightfuture]

You know I've been thinking... A great menu song to have would be "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. It's a good song, and a bit of a history lesson. What do you guys think?

I think the song should be optional. Like most ideas that some people like and some people don't. I like it myself.

 

[rightfuture]

With the new tribal defenders (they're great!) minor start lost one of the biggest appeals (early empire growth). Having stumbled upon a wikipedia article on egypt-hittite relations I was thinking that the early game (prehistoric,ancient) diplomacy could be spiced up and made a bit more interesting. I'm aware those are some rather big changes and probably won't be easily implemented via XML editing alone and maybe they aren't even possible at all but I just want to get the ideas out here. It's just a first idea and open to critique.

1. Opt-in open borders, opt-in NAP aka loose Diplomacy.
The idea is that once you have first contact with another civ you recognize each other but don't sign on any initial (currently baseline) diplomatic agreements, meaning
- you can openly enter enemy territory
- you can openly attack enemy units
This obviously also means you have a rather bad relationship with those civilizations. Alternatively you could also just start AT WAR with everyone at first. But the key then is that your base relation with other civs should be as negative as it needs to be to not allow peace treaties.

2. Region specific Languages
The negative base relation would be named "We don't speak the same language" - because your 'native culture' (american, european, african etc.) should provide you with a distinct language (obviously only once you researched language). This language gives you a boost to all other civs with the same language, allowing for early negotiations, but nothing more than "don't just kill our guys" treaties.
The twist on this is that after a certain amount of time (whatever is appropriate for the gamespeed you play at) you will be able to learn the language of the other civ, probably by building a specific building, increasing relation due to "same language". This would allow simple treaties with non-native civs (e.g. egypt-hittite).
Some ideas to interact with that design: reduce turns it takes to be able to learn the language when exposed by either:
- Militaric action (low % chance on victory "taking slaves/POW", not as actual units just as a explaination for the mechanic)
- Capturing civilians like Gatherers (should always reduce the time by a few turns)
- Mixed culture, when there is foreign culture of the civ you want to learn the language from that should reduce the time too - or just give a production bonus on the language building once you are able to build it.
- Also an Ancient Rosetta Stone, unlocked with Writing, requires Stone or Marble halves the time it takes to be able to learn a foreign language (obsoletes late ancient, before medieval) for you and any civ you have contact with.
- Diplomatic/Religious leaders should have a higher chance for "learning" (building) foreign languages once available while more war-mongering leaders will just do it when they feel like it.

3. Further advanced foreign relations
I think religions already give a relation bonus and if nothing changed I think other leaders will automatically get their favorite religion in their capital once they are founded. This would simulate cultural proximity which usually expresses itself in similar religious choice (well 'choice' *cough*) and allow for further improvements in relation and more diplomacy once state religions are available (should be mid-late prehistoric, right?) Maybe the numbers need a tweak here.

The next step should be at Writing, School of Scribes should increase the relation with all leaders whose language you're capable of speaking. Either at that point or with research of alphabet (increasing the +relation of school of scribes) you should be able to do diplomacy with other civs as usual, obviously influenced by all the normal factors like different civics, military history, religion etc the normal stuff.

I think religious civics should also play into those relations, pagan/religionless or more free religious civs should care less about different religions (i.e. a Divine Cult Druidic civ would have +relation to another Druidic civ even when they have Free Church. but would have strong -relation to a civ who has Kemetism as state religion even when they have Divine Cult active too. The Free Church Druidic civ would still have a bit -relation with the Kemetism civ but not as much, but the Kemetism civ would hate the Druidic civ even though they have Free Religion - sorry if I'm rambling here)

Possibly have a further +relation with "known language civs" with Education/School(Building) but not to the point where +relation is abundant and too easy to come by.


Feel free to instantly shoot me down should this be impossible with the engine or add/improve on this idea

I posted your ideas in the Idea Organization Thread. It was the 1st one I added, congratulations. People have already voted for one of your ideas. Check it out!

C2C-Idea Inspiration and Organization
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=464235

That thread will be for organizing and further discussion of ideas. Please keep adding your new ideas here.

 

[anunknownman]

We use an improved WoC system. With the WoC system you only need the lines which have values differing from the default values. With the improvements added in C2C to the reading of the XML it may be even faster on load not to have the extra lines in there.

well thanks for the quick response but what does WOC mean?? and how can i tell the differance between the added files and the default ones???