(Below is with version
SVN 11560 - v44.BETA.7798 - 2023-08-26, and not
SVN-11562 v44.BETA.7832 - 2023-09-23 that the date might indicate,
due to a current crash when starting on latest SVN.)
From
Using SVN
Any reason there is no "
4. D. Run C2C.bat" ?
EDIT:
4. Okay now you are done!
This is confusing : it makes 1. 2. 3. seem like steps to be done chronologically, rather than alternatives to each other.
Maybe remove that 4., and also rename the others to A. B. C. for good measure ?
Downloading and Installing C2C
[...]
- You should go ahead and use Play Now to start but don't really play that game. Just let it load with all defaults, save that game, then exit.
That seems to be called "Simple Game" now ?
2. Always setup the game you intend to play through Custom Game. There are some scenarios and maps and such you can find here that do work but if you're not using one of them, CUSTOM GAME is your destination.
Now Full Game.
Maps
The only ones I will personally vouch for being tested and functioning well are C2C_PerfectWorld2F, C2C_PlanetGenerator_0_68, and C2C_World. I'm sure the others are valid too but I've not tested much past these three lately. World, in particular, has gotten a number of improvements this version.
Each may have its 'flaws' according to your preferences but the last one is a project from @Toffer90 so if you have feedback on it, he'd appreciate that so he can find ways to improve on it. Its intent is to eventually answer to all of the frustrations we've had for a long time with slightly insufficient maps for the mod.
If C2C_World is the recommended map generator, it should be the default one.
(Rename C2C_World and C2C_World_Remixed to C2C__World and C2C__World_Remixed ??)
It should be noted that the best game experiences seem to be coming from Long and Epic game speeds at the moment, with a lot of players also appreciating Normal if you like to get further into the game faster and longer speeds for those players that enjoy a more gradual game experience.
For sake of completeness I must report this too, though IMHO the default should be Normal (like it already is).
Difficulty-wise, I would STILL expect you to be able to play pretty effectively at one or two levels harder than what you would normally play at with Vanilla BtS (if you know.) Though this has intensified a little bit with this version and I'm hearing feedback suggesting you might need to back down a setting or more if you know where you stand on previous versions of C2C.
There should be a mention of the BUG Flexible Difficulty settings here, especially since
they have been improved recently. (Nice !)
Why is this (as well as the v37, v38, v39) presented separately from the v43, v42, v40 ones ? And in different order ?
It's great that they have been renamed into categories !
The problem is that they are not in the same order as in the Guide, and all these options are already confusing enough for new players !
I'm going to use the in-game order.
EDIT : As a reminder, you can use
Ctrl + Shift + Q once the play-through has started to see all game options, including the BUG ones, as well as a list of shortcuts !
CORE
Advanced Start: No different from the Vanilla option except that I must admit we have not attempted to balance Advanced start costs for buildings and units very well. However, I recently came to understand that the code takes basic values and converts them into something reasonable here so this might not be as 'out of whack' as I have stated previously. Might be worth trying if you are doing a non-prehistoric start.
Now Core - Custom Start.
The in-game help popup says pretty much the opposite : "This is not balanced or polished in any way, as no C2C modder has ever bothered focusing on it". Either this phrase should be removed, or it should be re-categorized into the Unsupported section ?
EDIT : [...] advanced start needs to be the top option as the exe is hardcoded so that the advanced points field only activates when the top option is selected, [...]
Uh, then maybe "Unsupported (hardcoded top spot) - Custom Start" ??
BARBARIAN
No Barbarians: No Barbarians and Neanderthals. There will still be animals. We've split the Barbarian team into many factions of Non-Player Character teams that do not operate according to the normal rules for players. These teams include Barbarians, Neanderthals, 3 animal teams and a team for Insectoids (yes, Earth Insects, but also for an eventual future alien faction in development.) More of these NPC teams are reserved for the future.
Barbarians Always Raze: This option forces all cities captured by barbarians to be razed as soon as they are taken. I've never been sure why anyone wants this but I suppose it could be a great way to freak yourself out a bit.
No Barbarian Civs: This is on by default for those systems that struggle with data. It's probably wise, even for larger systems, to not allow Barbarian cities to unite with neighboring barb cities to become new emerging civilizations, but I love the feature so much I play with it, even though it may cause memory failure errors later by introducing so many new players on larger maps. It can't introduce more players than the total limit though (40 + NPCs.)
Now inverted to
Barbarian - Civ Development (off by default (like all of them)).
(I can see why it would be off by default for new players, but I'll use it anyway, partially for performance beta testing reasons.)
Popup : "[...] If you play with "Start as Minor Civ" then this option will change the rules for becoming a major civ. Achievements and randomness thereof decides when you become a major civ."
(Might this by any chance fix the now Unsupported - Start as minor civs ??)
EDIT : There seems to be a
BUG : RevDCM option that configures the conditions for this ?
Barbarian World: Spawns a Barbarian city for each player that exists in the game at setup. Beyond that no further effects. I don't use this because I prefer to let the spawns deliver the barbs and because I prefer to have a little more open hunting territory to begin with. Once barb cities start emerging, they're pretty aggressive about getting in wherever there's a good opportunity on the map to do so anyhow.
Now Barbarian - Barbaric World.
The popup says it has further effects : ", and the max barb/neander city limit (relative to the number of regular civ cities) is much higher."
Neanderthal Cities: Barbarians sprout cities later in the game. Why shouldn't Neanderthals be able to have their own thriving communities for a while before those pesky Homo Sapiens eventually overwhelm them by killing and breeding them out of existence? This option will give the Neanderthal faction its own cities. Recently a lot of work went into debugging and recalibrating some game damaging factors introduced by these cities so that it shouldn't be a detriment to any games now.
Neanderthal cities is quite interesting because they will never grow up into proper civs but can produce units much more powerful at a base to the Homo Sapien unit comparison and can become quite a potent threat. I admit to some needed AI (and hopefully some eventual art) improvements for these brutes though. Still, should be fun, which is why I play with it on.
Popup : "Neanderthal cities will spawn during the Prehistoric era."
So, why isn't it on by default ?
Raging Barbarians: Doubles the spawn rate for Barbarians and Neanderthals. Has no effect on Animal Spawn rates. Beware though, there's already a lot of barbarians out there without this setting.
Popup : "[...] AI performance may suffer."
LEADER
Unrestricted Leaders: Allows nations to have leaders that are not normally allowed to that civilization. This may have meant more on a Vanilla BtS game than it would here depending on what trait options you select below.
Previously, this was THE way to select a wider array of traits. However, not only are there other ways to go about that in C2C, the Unique Units and Unique Buildings of Vanilla are not affixed to civilization selection here as they were in Vanilla. Thus, the civilization and leader selection is primarily cosmetic in most arrangements. Civilization selections can matter by determining what your cultural basis is and that can shape what cultures you can gain access to. More on that much later.
Developing Leaders: The game default is to have leaders get their traits from their pre-set definitions, just as it is in Vanilla BtS. However, with Developing Leaders ON, you can earn more trait selections by amassing culture nationwide. This adds new value to producing culture even in cities that aren't on a border anywhere. Unless you are playing with No Negative Traits, you'll have to select a negative trait with every second positive trait you receive, though you can select to remove a positive trait rather than selecting a negative trait when you must make that decision. And whenever you select a positive trait, it can be used to instead remove a negative one as well. I HIGHLY recommend this option! It's fun AND it tends to lead to a more balanced game if you also use Start Without Positive Traits.
The popup says "(Beta development so may present some imbalances.)"
Still, shouldn't it be on by default ?
Start Without Positive Traits: This option makes it so that when you begin the game, your leader has no positive traits. With Developing Leaders ON, you also start with no Negative traits. With No Negative Traits and with Developing Leaders OFF, you are choosing to play with No Traits at all throughout the entire game. The point of starting without any traits on Developing Leaders is to allow the selection of leader traits to be entirely organic and not based on preset defines at all. Going about it this way, you do get your first two trait selections much earlier and the third and beyond at the same time they would've been without this option. If you oddly want only one negative trait on all leaders through the game, play with this option On, Developing Leaders Off, and No Negative Traits Off. Could be interesting, right? Anyhow, I play with this option On, along with Developing Leaders, because I feel it creates the best-balanced game since traits can be rather imbalanced between different leaders at the game's opening.
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
Pure Traits: If you look closely at the traits in C2C, you'll see that they have been designed to include both positive and negative qualities within them, whether or not they are generally positive traits or generally negative traits, as a whole. This option purifies the traits so that they are ALL positive or ALL negative. Thus, if you would prefer to have Positive traits ONLY have positive effects on your nation, and to have Negative traits ONLY have negative effects on your nation, then play with Pure Traits ON. This also means IF you would prefer to have ONLY positive effects being given to leaders from their traits at all, play with both No Negative Traits AND Pure Traits. I do not use Pure Traits because I feel that even valuable leader personalities have some downsides and even horrible leader personalities do have their upsides.
No Negative Traits: In C2C, there are positive and negative traits. These negative traits are overall a set of penalties (mostly). By default, leaders are assigned 2 positive traits and 1 negative trait. If you would prefer to play without leaders having negative traits at all in your game, then play with this option on. I keep it off.
Complex Traits: Is found a bit up the list because it's been in development for a long time. Tons of new traits, a system of tiered traits, such as Aggressive I-III, like promotions can often be, NEW trait abilities - some rather impressive, such as getting a golden age every time a particular type of specialist is born, fascinating trait synergies and interactions, all designed with a point-buy system intended to make for a highly balanced, albeit very powerful, trait structure.
(I really like this one, though I understand how they probably shouldn't be enabled for a first game of C2C..?)
AI
Aggressive AI: Makes the AI a little more stupid and aggressive. Not all that advised because it is not necessarily a better AI just because it is a more aggressive one. Successful wars and nation management takes patience and requires a balanced approach.
Ruthless AI: This is the more aggressive cousin to Aggressive AI. It will turn Aggressive AI on as well if you use it. Again, I advise against it for all the same reasons as Aggressive AI.
Random Personalities: Shuffles all leader personality profiles and randomizes which personalities each AI leader in the game will have so you never really can know 'who' you're up against if you've gotten good enough at guessing what certain leader AIs will act like. I don't generally feel I need to do that in C2C because there are SO many leaders here to begin with and most of them really are in need of further diversification in their personality settings in the future anyhow.
ENABLE
United Nations: Turns on the UN world wonder and its voting system for games that are not using the Diplomatic victory setting, which was originally the only way to have the wonder and votes show up. However, if the Diplomacy victory setting is not active, then the vote to unify the world and win the game won't show up even with the UN built. I really like this option because I hate having the Diplomatic victory potential in the game but love having the UN still.
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
Permanent Alliances: Sometime around mid-game the option to merge your team with another civ emerges. This decision links your nations permanently and cannot be undone. I don't bother with this myself.
DISABLE
No Random Events: Keeps Random Events (A Beyond the Sword concept) out of the game. This is important to C2C's proper functioning of the Flammability property. There are also quite a few unique and interesting events. But it can also be a source of infrequent Out of Synch errors on multiplayer games so if you want to minimize those you may want to consider playing with this option on for those games.
Popup : "[...] ALERT : DO enable this option for multiplayer games to increase game stability. [...]"
The popup says : "[...] WARNING : Events are currently unsupported - mayb be buggy and/or unbalanced." Yet, this option is still off (= enabled) by default ?? (And what about Flammability ???)
No Nukes: Keeps all Nuclear units out of the game. Ever feel frustrated that such a long and well-developed game can fall apart in the span of one or two rounds due to the enemy whipping out a bunch of nukes on your cities and troops? This option is for you. This option is not for me because I feel the tension of trying to keep a nuclear war from taking place, at least before you can minimize one's impact, is one of the most brilliant and intricate sides of achieving a game played into the later eras. And how fun is it to blast your major super-powered rival back to the stone-age in one round yourself?
No City Razing: Makes it impossible to raze cities for both player and AI. I don't use it because I like to raze - I often hate where the AI places its cities. But if you fear this being done to cities in your sandbox, feel free to turn this option on.
Unlimited Wonders: Removes the wonder limit per city, both for world wonders and national wonders. This means you can build an unlimited number of them in one city. When off, you are challenged to spread out your wonders and specialize your cities further. In C2C, if wonders ARE limited, then it is limited to a count based on the amount of culture you've obtained so the limits CAN expand, unlike in Vanilla. I still don't play with limits on wonders so I turn this right on for my games. This means I can play a super-city strategy BUT I'm finding new balance factors are making that a bad idea to overfocus your accomplishments into one city lately, with or without this option. Which is good. Means it's now a balanced game either way really.
Now Disable - Wonder Limits.
(Ditto, though I sometimes wonder if this could make culture more interesting to invest into ?)
Still, why isn't this on (= disabled) by default ?
Unlimited National Units: Many units in the game have a unit limit, meaning that a given player can only train and/or control a defined amount of them. This option turns that limit off for most of those units. A few still retain limits when they have been proven to truly require it. I personally play with this on. Not a fan of hard limits when they can be avoided.
Now Disable - National Unit Limits.
(Ditto, though maybe a soft limit of superlinear scaling costs could be a good idea here ?)
Still, why isn't this on (= disabled) by default ?
No Vassal States: Removes vassals (a BtS concept that has not been modded much in C2C) from the game. I turn this on because I find it annoying that a nation I'm about to defeat can simply capitulate to another nation and I'm suddenly in a war with the nation that took them on as a vassal, leading to a domino effect that can make one war end up swallowing up the whole world into it. Ugh. Needs improvements and it was discussed a while back to eventually adopt some modifications here from other mods but it hasn't been a central project yet. Some players on the team really like this option though and I can't blame them.
Now Disable - Vassal States.
Shouldn't this be on (= disabled) by default ?
No Technology Brokering: If [Disable - Technology Trading] is off, this allows you to only trade away those techs you've researched yourself. Techs you get from other nations are not techs you can then trade to other nations. Some players feel this mitigates the game progress problems in the last option but I don't feel its enough.
(IMHO it *is* enough.)
Shouldn't this be on (= disabled) by default ?
No Technology Trading: Keeps civs from being able to trade technologies at all. I prefer this option being on because I feel it too strongly accelerates the game progress to have it on.
The way this is phrased is self-contradictory.
Shouldn't this be on (= disabled) by default ?
TECH
No Tech Diffusion: Tech diffusion gives a research bonus to a player researching a technology that other civs it knows have already discovered. This is intended to help civs that are behind catch up a bit so that there isn't QUITE such a huge steamroll that can take place in most games. I play with it if I expect, by the difficulty level I selected, to be ahead of most other civs. Helps them stay somewhat competitive (hopefully). But if I expect to play a very very challenging game and be behind most of the time, I'm turning it off to make it harder on myself. Of course, NO tech diffusion means that if this option is ON then Tech Diffusion is OFF. Watch out for double negatives getting confusing when considering this option.
Indeed ! [IMG alt="
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https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/crazyeyes.gif[/IMG]
But not any more, since it's now inverted and called Tech - Diffusion !
Still, why isn't this on (= diffusing) by default ?
Win for Losing: This option makes it easier for smaller nations to research. Keeping up with technology counts for a lot, if not everything, in staying competitive.
The Civ franchise has always struggled with the game giving all the benefits to those nations that capture as much territory and population as it can and converting that to as much research as possible. We've coined this term, 'the Steamroller effect'. The more successful a nation has been, the more likely it is to succeed and pull further ahead, and therefore, the harder it is to resist.
So some balance factors for smaller and less populated nations helps to keep the game competitive after a player begins to pull away from the pack. The more a nation gets ahead, the more his competitors are given a handicap benefit. The more a nation is defeated and pushed back and hedged into smaller territory, the more this option kicks in to give them a benefit that counters this degree of defeat.
Mathematically, with this option, smaller nations, by population count and by city count, gain a percentage bonus towards their research equal to how far they are beneath the city count and population leaders in the game. This now only kicks in after the Prehistoric era because the small variations in population before Ancient were too influencing.
When you play with this option (and not the 'No Tech Handicaps for Humans' option below) you will see the additional research combined with any benefit you're getting from tech diffusion combined in the main display window research string. It is denoted there as 'WFL' - Win for Losing, and TD - Tech Diffusion.
What is the difference between Tech Diffusion and WFL? The benefits derived from Tech Diffusion come from knowing other nations that have technologies you don't, thus Tech Diffusion cannot help you get AHEAD, only help you keep up. WFL actually recognizes that you are at a disadvantage for being a smaller nation and gives you an opportunity to take advantage of that disadvantage - to Win for Losing. You can actually be the tech leader and still get a great bonus to your research, simply for being a smaller nation.
Shouldn't this be on by default ... depending on what your opinion is about Flexible Difficulty (since they are somewhat redundant) ? (Especially if FlexDiff is also set by default to be applied between AIs !)
No Tech Handicaps for Humans: Tech Diffusion and Win For Losing can be powerful handicap factors for researching technologies. If you find you like to select these options just so that the AI players have a better chance at keeping up with you and continue to present a challenge no matter how powerful you become, but you DON'T want to personally benefit from these handicaps because it feels like you're cheating, this option is for you!
The option allows only AI players to benefit from the research bonuses provided by TD and WFL, if they are in the position to benefit according to normal game rules. This can make for a very difficult game. Good luck intrepid players!
Upscaled Research Time: Technology costs have been increased by 40%. Use it when you want a more relaxed game where you can keep your building construction and unit training up with your technology without any strain. Can make for a more combat-intensive game as civs get bored waiting on technological achievements and train more units in the interim as a result.
Beeline Stings: We have new gateway technologies that are the only ways to enter a new era now. Most of them are called the 'Lifestyle' tech for the new era and represent the overall cultural advancement in the way people live, and the accumulation of the previous era's worth of knowledge. That doesn't mean that you must research ALL technologies in the preceding era before you can enter the next, only that these gateway techs are the only way to enter the next era, thus you cannot delay taking them if you want techs in the era to come.\
Gateway technologies will give a free technology to the first player to achieve this point, so you may be tempted to race ahead for one. They also open up more intense Education levels and if you're doing well in Education amounts in your cities, it might be very lucrative to take better advantage of that. And of course, techs in the next era may be VERY beneficial to obtain.
But beware! As soon as you enter a new era through these gateway technologies, all buildings and units get 10% more expensive in production costs. Most eras add more education demand per citizen. AND:
If the Beeline Stings option is on, the techs left behind in the previous era, yet to be researched, become much more expensive than they were (more severe in the earliest eras). So it can actually slow you down considerably to race forward to the gateway tech.
This can make for a very interesting and difficult decision as to when to head for the next era!
CULTURE
No City Flipping From Culture: Cities can't be won by overwhelming them with your culture. But you should know that it also makes cities incapable of going into culturally inspired revolt. I keep it off because cultural warfare is fun.
City Flipping After Conquest: Allows players to liberate cities for other players and for a city to try to reject the new leadership and attempt to rejoin whatever nation it most identifies with. Doesn't usually take that choice away from the player but does this through popups. I turn this on usually.
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
Realistic Culture Spread: (RCS for short) Culture spread was pretty basic in Vanilla BtS. This makes it grow a bit more organically. Jungles, hills, rivers, forests, all can resist the entry of your culture as your culture levels grow. It also adds new culture levels. We've adjusted it in v37 so that resources on the map make it easier for the culture to grow into a plot. I really like how this option works now that it's been a little recalibrated.
Popup : "[...] Further, the city may only claim up to the adjacent 4 tiles rather than all 8 on placement; together, this drastically reduces the rate of border growth of cities.
NOTE : When enabled along "Minimum City Borders" ON and "City starts with 1 tile" OFF, the rate of border growth will be less harsh, falling roughly halfway between vanilla and RCS proper. Use this combination of settings if you find RCS too inhibiting."
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
No Fixed Borders: Turns off the feature that allows some civics to enable players to have fixed borders that no longer adjust due to culture alone and allows for units to 'claim' tiles for the nation if enemy or neutral. IIRC, units need to stay on the tile claiming it to keep it if it's not held by culture. Some players don't like fixed borders. I like them for the sake of realism with more advanced societies mapping out hard borders like they do in the real world, so I keep this off.
Now inverted to Culture - Fixed Borders.
Shouldn't this be on (= with fixed borders civics enabled) by default ?
Culture - Equilibrium
Brand new option (off by default, like all the others) not mentioned anywhere in the Guide ?!? (Because new to v44 ?)
EDIT :
Thread.
Popup : "Culture decays on all tiles, not just unowned. This means culture wars are dependent on the last ~100 turns of culture output (adjusted for gamespeed) rather than all culture ever produced by a city. Tiles that lose cultural input lose control via decay instead of immediately."
(Interesting, going to try it out !)
Minimum City Border: Makes it so that all cities automatically and always culturally claim the tiles adjacent to them. Is another way to turn off cultural takeovers and revolts in cities as well. Not advised unless you really hate it when cities you capture can't feed themselves and often get recaptured by the strength of the original opponent's culture alone in and surrounding the city. I don't use it myself because I feel that's just part of the challenge of invasion warfare.
Popup : "[...], but cities are still allowed to flip from cultural pressure (unless disabled by the corresponding game option).
NOTE : When combined with "Realistic Culture Spread" ON and "1 Tile Founding" OFF, a less harsh version of RCS will be used."
City Starts with 1 Tile: The game default is to have cities, when founded, claim the tiles immediately adjacent to them with the starting culture level. This option makes it so that cities must earn the right to claim more tiles than the city itself. What this means is that, at first, the city can only work its own tile and the population it starts with is immediately limited to being a specialist only until the first culture level is achieved. At that point, the immediately adjacent tiles are claimed.
This has a profound impact on the experience at the beginning of the game and introduces very interesting strategic elements as the game progresses. I would advise anyone to try it to see if they like how it works for them. It's quite innovative, which is what we do here as a team! We'd like to thank JosEPh_II for his contribution of this option and welcome him as a valued new official modding team member!
Well, game default,
except if you're using Realistic Culture Spread (which should be on by default ?), from RCS' popup : "[...] Further, the city may only claim up to the adjacent 4 tiles rather than all 8 on placement; [...]"
Popup : "[...] A small amount of generated culture is required to acquire the adjacent tiles, after which culture progresses normally. Scaled for Game Speeds. [...]"
(Is this just another way of saying that there's a "Level 0" of culture, and now you need to get to "Level 1" first, or is there some extra scaling involved ?)
Popup : "[...] This option will partially override "Minimum City Borders"; if MCB is also enabled, founded cities will not immediately have all adjacent 8 tiles, but nor will they be lost when acquired."
RELIGION
Divine Prophets: C2C's first unique option (and my first modding effort ever!) Religions are founded by Great Prophets. Furthermore, Great Prophets may spread any tech qualified religion to any city he chooses to go to and spread it and if you are the first to spread a given religion, you are founding that religion (so you may want to check the Religious advisor to see which religions have and have not yet been founded.) When you are first to reach a religious tech, rather than getting a religion, you get a Great Prophet. If Choose Religions is OFF then your Prophets may only found those religions you have the tech for. With Choose Religions ON, earning a Prophet can allow you to found any religion that hasn't been founded yet. The option is compatible with Limited Religions as well.
Some feel this option is great because it allows you to place the Holy City wherever you want it. Others feel it's too exploitable. Even as the designer of the option I can see both sides and eventually plan to provide another option that may help to balance it out more, but I still heavily prefer it to having the city the religion goes into being random, particularly in C2C where not all religions are the same. It helps to enable better city specialization but also does urge a super-city approach, particularly for the AI.
Also, if you use Divine Prophets, don't take it as a bug if the AI doesn't always immediately use a Prophet for founding a religion if possible. It may be trying to hold the Free Prophet so it can use it for the shrine as soon as it gets the religion it really wants (which must be close on the tech tree for this to happen.)
Religious Disabling: There are lots of buildings and wonders that are accessed by having religions. It has been observed that hoarding religions, particularly with so many in the game, can be a little imbalanced. This option makes it so that any buildings dedicated to religions that aren't your state religions are generally not going to function unless you have a civic that enables them all, regardless of state religion. It's a LITTLE deeper than that but this description pretty much covers it. Thus temples and cathedrals and monasteries of religions that aren't your state religion's are disabled until you either change state religion or select the civic(s) that allow all to operate at once. I like the option and usually play with it on in my single player games.
It's disabled by default (like all the others), but then the popup does say : "WARNING : option in Beta Testing phase and under further ongoing development."
So, should or shouldn't it be on (= religious buildings getting disabled) by default ?
No Inquisitions: Keeps the inquisitor unit out of the game. They can be trained under some civics and they are used to remove all religions but your state religion in cities. I like the idea of having them be part of the game personally.
Now inverted to
Religion - Inquisitions.
Popup : "[...] and non-state religions may be purged in order to reduce the threat of rebellion."
(I assume this is referring to a feature from the Unsupported - Revolutions setting ?)
Shouldn't this be on (= Inquisitions enabled) by default ?
EDIT : There's a
BUG : RevDCM option that deepens this.
Limited Religions: In a nutshell, makes it so a player may only found a religion (when the conditions to do so are met) IF and only IF they do NOT have a current Holy City and they haven't founded one previously. The intention is to enforce that access to founding a religion is spread over all players and can't be so easily hoarded, particularly into one super holy city of many religions. Personally, I find it irritating. But some players like it so I've done a lot to debug it.
Now Religion - Limited Founding.
Choose Religions: Whenever you found a religion you get to pick from the religions that haven't been founded yet. This was a cosmetic decision in Vanilla. Not so in C2C. Here, all religions are different by a lot of factors. In fact, we leave this option here purely for players who REALLY like it but the mod team would encourage you NOT to use this option as the abilities of various religions are balanced to the eras in which they come into play. In single player games, I don't play with it myself, but it can be strategically fun to have full choice with all the religions being so different. My wife and I enjoy playing with it on in our team games though.
Now Religion - Choose Upon Founding.
EXPANSION
Expansion - Always Raze Cities
Brand new option (off by default, like all the others) not mentioned anywhere in the Guide ?!? (Because new to v44 ?)
Popup says
"Cities will be auto-razed when they would normally change owner.
Exceptions are made for the Barbarian civ option and the revolution option, city ownership change can occur from these options.
Cities won't be auto-razed when barbs conquer a city because of this option since there's an option called "Barbarians Always Raze"."
Require Complete Kills: Makes you have to take out every single unit a player may have out there on the map if you want to completely remove them (and their lingering culture in their old cities) from the game entirely. Given that some units in C2C can be very difficult to find (particularly spies!) this option is not a personal favorite because I like to get the reward of wiping out the lingering culture from captured cities when I vanquish a foe's last city.
Larger Cities without Metropolitan Administration: C2C allows the third rung of city radius to be worked by the city once you have achieved the right to do so. This option determines what grants that access. With this option ON, the right to work the third tile out is given purely by reaching Influential culture level. With it off, you need to reach the tech that gives you access to the Metropolitan Administration and build it in the city. I find it takes longer to get there and makes culture less valuable VS research without this option so I play with this option ON. But the designer of this option (Koshling) had intended it to be a temporary patch to a disagreement and strongly urges it not be used.
Any news on this disagreement ?
No City Limits from Civics: The limits this is talking about are not hard limits to the amount of cities you can build, but if this option is off and you found cities past a certain number based on the civics you've selected then you'll start to incur happiness penalties in every city for each city past that limit. There used to be an option for scaling this by map size but we made it an automatic factor included in this option rather than an option of its own.
Now Expansion - Happiness Penalties
Shouldn't this be on (= unhappiness from over-expansion) by default ?
Expansion - Strict Vicinity
Brand new option (off by default, like all the others) not mentioned anywhere in the Guide ?!? (Because new to v44 ?)
Popup says
"Buildings and wonders that require a terrain type, feature, or improvement in city vicinity also require that tile to be culturally owned instead of possibly in neutral terrain. Works best when combined with Culture options of 1 Tile Start and/or Realistic Spread."
Wait, why isn't this Culture - Strict Vicinity ??
This is great, *especially* for new players, as otherwise it can be super confusing (not to mention annoying) when you have "access" to a resource, and even buildings unlocked... but cannot actually build them because you need the actual resource too ! (IIRC)
Shouldn't this *really* be on by default ?
MAP
Culturally Linked Starts: This rearranges player starting positions so that they more closely resemble real world starting positions for the civilizations included at the beginning of the game. At least in a relative fashion. This can be a good thing if you want the map to reflect the base cultures coming from similar evolutionary roots geographically. I don't usually play it out of some apathy towards the concept rather than disagreement. Mostly because I play a lot of Team games and I would not advise it for a team game where placement close to your team partner can be disrupted by the option.
More Rivers: Some maps use a default river generation from the core DLL rather than a specially defined method in the mapscript itself. This option only works to enhance rivers on those maps. This is for players that feel there should be a lot more rivers on their maps given how many real world cities are actually positioned on rivers. I use it myself.
The popup says that it has no effect on PerfectWorld, PerfectMongoose, World (and SmartMap if Standard/Great Plains/Oasis).
And C2C_PerfectWorld2F and especially C2C_World are the recommended map generators.
Should or shouldn't this be on by default ??
More Resources: Much the same as More Rivers. If the mapscript doesn't use a unique overriding method of its own to assign resources, this will add a lot more resources to the map. I use it but I'll also warn that it can often feel like there is nowhere to just have a normal farm or mine or lumbermill. It also can diminish a nation's requirement for trading for the really important resources. There are many ways in C2C to add a resource to a plot, events, Great Farmers, and more, and all of these become diminished in value and frequency if the map is already mostly filled with resources. I'm not saying that this option will place resources in every space, but it may constrict these game elements a bit. I believe the C2C_World map may use this option even within it's unique mapscript assignment method.
The popup says that it has no effect on PerfectWorld, PerfectMongoose, World (and SmartMap if "Bonus Placement = Standard").
And C2C_PerfectWorld2F and especially C2C_World are the recommended map generators.
Should or shouldn't this be on by default ??
The popup also says :
"NOTE : This option will largely reduce the efficiency of Realistic Culture Spread on slowing border growth, particularly on smaller mapsizes."
Hmm, how does RCS work with resources not yet discovered by tech / not yet enabled by tech ?
Personalized Map: An interesting option where tiles get named at game setup. My only issue with it is that we have not been able to fully fix a problem with map labels not saving and reloading properly.
ANIMAL
Animals Stay Out!: Since the benefits of capturing animals does extend far into the later stages of the game and in the real world, many animals do find it possible to share the planet with human presence, while others may get feisty and start hunting Mankind, even in more developed territories, many of us have long wanted to see a more organic approach to how animals interact with national borders than to simply say they should all not be allowed to enter civilized lands.
Thus, many animals may now spawn within borders and although they are uncomfortable in human lands and will exit them quickly if there is the option to do so, as land is eventually overwhelmed by nations laying claim to all of it, animals do continue to be a part of the fabric of the game, particularly where land is less 'improved'.
This disturbs some players who want a more simple game experience where animals are concerned, and don't want to have to worry about the pissed off man-eating tigers who can sometimes come down from the wild-lands to stalk your workers when you least expect it. This option is intended to return the basic game rule that wild animals will never enter your borders. I do not use this option myself.
Popup : "[...] This option will be disabled if Dangerous Wildlife option is selected."
Reckless Animals: A lot of thought has gone into the animal AI settings in v37 and many old complaints about marauding pigeons that plagued the mod in the past should no longer be an issue. Now, many animals cannot attack at all. But even animals that CAN attack, often rarely do, be it out of fear or respect or not feeling a need to prove themselves more often than not. Thus, by game default, animals are given an aggression rating that makes them more or less likely to attack (you can't be too careful though... you often never know if they'll attack or not if they can.)
However, some players missed the game experience of being able to hunt by assumption that animals generally attack whenever they can. This option is for them. It generally returns animals to a universally rabid state of mind where they will almost always attack IF they can attack at all. Pigeons still can't be expected to be able to take down stacks of workers so they really can't attack at all now. Personally, I prefer animals to act a bit more like they do in nature so I don't use this option.
Dangerous Wildlife: Makes all animals liable to cross into your borders. Not having Animals Stay Out on will mean that safer animals tend to enter your lands and spawn within but with this, they are truly menacing to your unguarded workers and trade units.
Popup : "[...] This option is polar opposite of "Keep Animals Out" - Dangerous Wildlife disables it.
Teleport Hunting Awards: Much of the Prehistoric experience in C2C is a matter of getting hunters out to slowly overcome the dangerous wilderness that early man had to contend with. As they do, on occasion they'll subdue animals in the process. These animals can be extremely useful for the civilization by adding unique buildings and being consumable for research and culture and other benefits. By default, once a player has the Sedentary Lifestyle tech, the age of collecting these animals for such benefits is passing and the benefits aren't as profound, therefore when an animal is subdued, it is teleported back to the nearest city. This option makes this teleportation of subdued animals always take place, right from the beginning of the game, so that players don't have to escort the animals they capture back. Sounds like a cheat perhaps, and does diminish some immersion factor, but it makes the collection of animals less laborious (and costly) and can be very helpful for the AI players that are really never going to be as skilled as players at handing off units to other escorts to take back to the proper cities while continuing the hunt. I play with this option on but I can empathize with the players that prefer it off.
So, I guess it should still be off by default (like it already is (like all of them)) for new players for the full experience, until/if it gets annoying ?
Peace Among NPCs: As stated earlier, another major accomplishment for v37 has been to split up the one Barbarian team into numerous factions, animal groups, neanderthals, and paving the way for other types such as aliens and other hominid groups. When all of these factions were considered one Barbarian team, all players were assumed at war with the Barbarian and all Barbarian units were friendly with each other. Now that they are split, they all tend to be in an eternal state of conflict with each other.
Thus, by v37 game default, Barbs and Neanderthals now stalk and hunt animals (and each other) as well as player units. And sometimes a tiger may take down a barbarian brute or a gorilla prove that even a Neanderthal may not be the STRONGEST primate. But much of this happens when you cannot see it taking place.
So if this degree of organic world depth doesn't suit you or you feel that it's slowing down your turn times too much for what it adds to the game experience (as it does introduce some cost there) then the Peace Among NPCs option is for you. We have striven to make spawns adjust appropriately so that whether this option is on or not will be equally balanced to provide a wide variety of wilderness encounters. I do not engage this option in my games.
COMBAT
C2C Combat Mod - Size Matters: See many of my notes on the C2C Combat Mod as a whole in Fight or Flight above. The Vanilla Civ IV Combat Engine asks the player to envision for himself how many people make up an Axeman unit and to assume that the Combat Strength of a War Elephant has been adjusted for the massive size of beasts by having less Elephants in the unit to compensate. Size Matters attempts to allow players to no longer have to wonder if a Hunter means just ONE hunter or a small group of them. It actually defines these things. And it then further adds ways to manipulate and find strengths to take advantage of and weaknesses to exploit based on these size and volume factors units possess.
In Size Matters, almost all units have ratings for three Size Factors, Size (of the individuals that make up the units), Group Volume (the number of entities that make up the unit) and Combat Quality (the natural combat readiness and fighting ferocity of the unit). They are all factors that are considered to balance against one another. For example, Elephants are Huge by size but also have a reduced Group Volume to compensate. Heroes have a very high Combat Quality but the lowest Group Volume (solo) to compensate.
There are numerous ways to improve a unit by improving one of its three factor ranks. You can merge three of the same type of unit to get a higher group volume unit (example: take three Clubman units and merge them so that you have a singular Clubman unit with a higher group volume.) You can earn promotions that increase your base Combat quality, but they do reduce your XP to 0 if you take them, Infinite XP option on or not. And higher Quality units earn XP at a slower rate as well so it's doubly painful.
Increasing any of your Size Factor ranks will increase your base combat strength by 150%. Thus a Spiked Clubman (str 3 when trained) that is merged with 2 other Spiked Clubman units will have a total BASE strength of 4.5. If merged with two other merged Spiked Clubman units (making a group of 9 total Spiked Clubman units) that base of 4.5 gains ANOTHER 150% and becomes 6.75 as a base. Much more impressive when you get higher base strengths than those from Spiked Clubman units of course.
Units can also split, which is often a method to distract and harass, or perhaps to utilize more of a Surround and Destroy strategy. Or to split up to go exploring faster. Of course, they weaken to split.
Size Matters adds a lot of new promotions as well. Generally, the purpose of this option is to introduce whole new layers of the rock-paper-scissors method of strategic design layers in the mod. Size Matters (often referred to in the forum as SM) is likely to present you with challenging unit foes that may seem at first indominable and over powered until you realize that for every way to obtain strength through manipulation of the fact that Size does Matter, there is also a way to undermine that method. Small group volume units can take promotions that make them lethal to high group units. High quality, low group volume units can be undone by massive numbers with Swarm promotions. There's always a way to get under your foe here.
However, I warn that cities are very difficult to defend on this option! And your hunters may not be safe to automate in a world where huge herds of animals can band together to protect themselves. (That last point is new to v37!) But if you're looking for a Civ game that can give you a sense of first person adventure or just much deeper strategy, this option is definitely for you. The AI is still a little weak once you've truly mastered SM but it does have some tricks up its sleeve special to this option.
For much deeper, though in some spots slightly outdated, information and discussion, here's a
Link to the Size Matters Player's Guide
Popup notes : "[...] (Note : AI under development.)
This is such a tent-pole C2C feature, shouldn't this *really* be on by default ?
Surround and Destroy: Units can get advantages in combat by having other friendly units taking positions in OTHER plots adjacent to the units they are attacking. C2C has extended some of the concepts of the original design of this option some, with defensive buildings providing protection from this bonus and some units being able to enhance this bonus when it exists. However, the AI's use of this option is still almost entirely coincidental rather than planned, so some feel it's not a fully graduated option for use yet. I cannot conceive of playing without it myself. See what you think.
Popup notes : "WARNING : AI underutilizes this option, consider it a crutch for the player. [...]"
Still, shouldn't this be on by default ?
C2C Combat Mod - Hide and Seek: See the general notes on the C2C Combat Mod in the Fight or Flight description above. Hide and Seek is intended to make unit invisibility and the ability to see units a much deeper strategic structure as a whole. The original Vanilla Civ IV rules on unit invisibility are incredibly basic and are plagued with an 'all or nothing' element.
Hide and Seek makes stealth a contestable skill. It opens up new means (and promotions) by which units can become more or less invisible and new rules as to how they can be detected.
It's an effort to make the play experience based on fixed numbers but so complex to compute all factors that it can lead to the tactical uncertainty you get with random variables. I believe it achieves this feel. Some, understandably, just find it frustrating.
If you play with this option, you should at least scan through the thread dedicated to this option:
The Hide and Seek Guide and Discussion Thread
I personally feel this is a major breakthrough for the mod and encapsulates the central theme of the v37 effort. Many new core rule dynamics in v37 operate somewhat differently if Hide and Seek is active or not.
Popup : "[...] (Forces Without Warning ON)"
This is such a tent-pole C2C feature, shouldn't this *really* be on by default, especially since a recentish update has made available the player to know what are their visibility intensities on plot details popup ?
C2C Combat Mod - Without Warning: For much of v37's design cycle this was in place as a core part of the mod, but I feel that it's distinct enough that it really warranted it's own option, particularly once I started seeing how frustrated some folks were getting over some of the dynamics here. (See the generic notes on the C2C Combat Mod in Fight or Flight.)
The Without Warning option gives players the ability to Ambush and Assassinate, as well as Surprise Defend. It currently assumes you'll want to play with Hide and Seek and thus automatically turns that option on, but I may eventually disconnect this prerequisite.
It also turns on Stealth Strikes and Stealth Combat Modifiers and lots of promos that give units the opportunity to develop these abilities.
An Ambush is an attack against a unit that is on the same tile as your unit, usually because he didn't see you unit there when he moved in or because you moved onto that tile without attacking (more on this in a discussion of Statuses to come.) With this option on, any enemy sharing your tile can be ambushed by any unit type. However, some units make better use of this element of surprise than others. Ambush cannot be performed inside a city.
An Assassination is also an attack against a unit on the same tile but it can only be made against units that your unit considers among its special target types. As an example, Hunters consider Animals to be their special targets. Unlike Ambush, Assassinations can be made against units within a city plot and can only be performed by units that HAVE special targets defined.
The core C2C has had this special targets feature for a while now - its what allows some units to target special unit types inside stacks when they attack stacks, rather than having to deal with the best defender first - thus how Assassins can take out Healers in military stacks first.
It should also be noted that with this option on, Arrests count as Stealth Combat where BOTH the arresting unit and unit to be arrested gets the benefits of Stealth Strikes and Stealth Combat Modifiers. This means that the Criminal stealth benefits can be countered, or even overwhelmed, by those of the arresting Law Enforcement unit.
Stealth Strikes completely act as First Strikes in effect, and replace all First Strikes for attacker and defender in a Stealth Combat. This is because First Strikes are now officially to be taken as a result of range and rate of fire and the ability to strike at foes as they approach to engage in close combat, while in a Stealth Combat, the combat begins at close range immediately.
Stealth Combat modifiers are cumulative with all other combat modifiers but only apply during Stealth Combat.
Stealth Combats take place when:
1) A unit attacks a unit in the same tile by using Ambush OR Assassinate OR Arrest (Arrest is available to the core mod now regardless of this option.) ONLY if the defender also sees the attacker in these cases will the defender also get his Stealth Strikes and Stealth Combat Modifiers to battle (representing an attempt to counter ambush an expected ambush attempt.)
2) A unit attacks another unit that cannot see it by moving in to attack as it normally would.
3) A unit 'Stealth Defends' its position. Units can be set by Statuses or Buildups to be ready to defend their position against units that cannot see them rather than allowing those units to just walk onto the same tile. When they do, they're technically defending but they've taken the 'attacker' by surprise so only the defender gets the benefits of any stealth combat modifiers and both lose any normal First Strikes.
When Stealth Combat factors apply, they will show in the combat help hover.
(The links for pictures are now broken. It's better to use the forum's own storage for multimedia as much as possible. And it's good netiquette.)
This is such a tent-pole C2C feature, shouldn't this *really* be on by default ?
C2C Combat Mod - Fight or Flight: Any time you see the C2C Combat Mod label on an option, you are being informed that the option falls within a group of options that are intended for use all together for the deepest possible strategic game experience. Call it my own personal 'brand' if you will but it's more than that - it's an overall project. One which will lead, I hope, to the most fascinating ultimate expression of both the Caveman side and Cosmos sides of the mod, as well as everything in between. The goal of the C2C Combat Mod is to transform the Civ IV base stack combat system into something that will make you wonder why Civ V and VI EVER thought it would be a good idea to introduce 1 Unit Per Tile when there was still so much we could do with Stack Combat.
Each Combat Mod introduces new game dynamics. Fight or Flight deepens the Withdrawal system from Vanilla Civ IV. It adds two new unit abilities: Early Withdrawal and Pursuit.
In the original system, withdrawal is checked once when the unit that may withdrawal has just taken the last bit of damage that would destroy it. If the withdrawal is successful (which is a % check - basically a 100 sided die roll and if it comes up less than the withdrawal probability rating for the unit then the unit successfully withdraws) then that last bit of damage is never applied and the unit flees the battle.
C2C also inherited a Defensive Withdrawal BUG option that makes it possible for units that are defending to also potentially withdraw under the same circumstances, IF there is a plot they can flee to that is not threatened by another enemy unit adjacent to or in that plot. Fight or Flight enforces Defensive Withdrawal to be always ON in this game.
Early Withdrawal makes it so that the unit with this ability starts making withdrawal checks much earlier than the last possible minute before being otherwise destroyed. If my unit has, for example, 25 on Early Withdrawal, my unit will begin to attempt Withdrawal once it reaches 25% of its overall Hit Points total (has lost 75% or more.) It will continue to attempt withdrawal every round it remains in combat thereafter so it can lead to a lot of attempts to withdraw before it comes down to that last all or nothing ditch bid to escape the battle. On the downside, such units may not be given much time to do damage before they're trying to escape. A unit with 90 Early Withdrawal, for example, is trying to escape battle as soon as it's taken just 10% of its Hit Points in damage. If it succeeds on the first check, then it hasn't had much time to deal damage to its enemy before it has left the fight.
Pursuit is a value that directly counters the Withdrawal value of the opponent the unit is fighting. Thus if the attacker has 50 Pursuit and the defender has 60 Withdrawal in total, then when the defender goes to make a withdrawal check, it does so at just a 10% total withdrawal likelihood. Pursuit is usually applied to faster, often weaker units, very few of which have the capacity to utilize defensive tile benefits but are very good at cleaning up strong withdrawal units that have just hit and run in a previous fight. Those that CAN combine the two abilities are highly valuable for defending against the strong withdraw attackers that are sent in to wear down tough to attack positions.
With Fight or Flight ON, Withdrawal values are allowed to exceed 100% because pursuit values can counter them. Without Fight or Flight, Withdraw values in the core mod are diminished more and more the higher the total goes and thus reaching 100% withdrawal is actually impossible.
Fight or Flight also adds a new world of promotions that accompany the pursuit and early withdrawal capabilities.
Suffice it to say, I always play with all Combat Mod options, except for one, which is meant to adjust the way one of the Combat Mod options works. I advise players to add one into their game at a time and get familiar and comfortable with the option before adding the next one to the next game or you may get overwhelmed. But if you love that noobish feeling of having lots new to learn and explore, go for all of them of course.
Oh.
Hmm, but shouldn't Without Warning be placed before Hide and Seek then ?
Realistic Siege: Adds a Minimum Defense level factor to many defensive buildings, which establishes that the city defenses cannot be reduced past a certain point without destroying those buildings entirely, which is often not possible with siege weapons alone.
Also brings a Minimum Defense to Enter the city game dynamic, which many defensive buildings add to the city, which force you to reduce the city to at least this defined level or lower (or to the minimum defense completely) to be able to attack the city with conventional units like swordsmen or riflemen, etc...
Players from previous versions may recognize that these effects were, for a long time here, core mod elements that were not options at all. But not all players preferred having these effects in their games so the option to keep them from being on has been introduced. I absolutely play with this option ON, but if you're really used to Vanilla BtS combat or really prefer it, you may want this option OFF for your games.
This one used to be the first combat option (at least according to the guide ?) - shouldn't it be moved there if this is still the first one that should be tried ?
Popup says : "[...] More developments to come." ?
Amnesty for Units using Rite of Passage: Some complain that our stealth units are fouling up diplomatic agreements such as Rite of Passage (from the Advanced Diplomacy option) because you can just use such an agreement to invite merchants and missionaries from a neighbor to enter under friendly premises, then have your Criminals take them out as they come into your lands. This option makes it impossible for YOUR stealth units to attack any units that are in YOUR lands as a result of being allowed there by Rite of Passage. You can always send such units into a neighbor's lands (at risk of course) to attack those that have entered HIS lands by means of a rite of passage. I like to keep things devious so I don't use this option myself. The way I see it, if you are going to send units in by Rite of Passage, you should protect them with one or more powerful escorts, because it's dangerous to travel no matter where you are.
Vanilla Combat Engine: When I began working on the Combat Mod, I made some interesting core changes to the Civ IV combat engine here. These changes are not so obvious on the surface but would be profoundly interesting to those who understand classic RPG combat systems, such as that of Dungeons and Dragons for example.
The combat engine of Civ has always utilized a round by round contest between units where one or the other would win based on the ratio between them and the 100 sided die roll (actually it's a 1000 sided die roll but let's not get too technical here.) Thus if the ratio of power between unit A and unit B presented a 60% odds for unit A, it would automatically have a 40% odds for unit B. This check would happen once per round and the winner would get to do their damage to the loser (damage is also defined in part by that initial ratio.) Every round these odds would stay fixed as they were and eventually one unit would come out victorious as the other ran out of HP.
This option returns the combat engine to this original basis. This means you will see combat results more like you can assume from the original Civ IV BtS game experiences.
However, if you leave it off, the following was changed:
1) Both units make independent checks so both units can damage each other in a given round or both units can miss and deal no damage to the other in a round. This means on rare occasion both units can die in the end round of the battle.
2) The odds are recalculated every round of combat, so as a unit is damaged and it weakens throughout the conflict, it gets harder and harder for it to expect to succeed in the fight overall. This means that first strikes are FAR more powerful than they were in Vanilla. If you're half dead by the time you can really engage your enemy, you're probably not going to do all that well once you do. It also makes a higher odds carry more weight, so units with less power don't usually make as large a dent or any dent at all in a much more powerful foe. Thus large numbers of lesser quality units aren't as strong against lesser numbers of higher quality foes.
For a long time now, this has been the non-optional method of resolving combat in C2C. Now, the Vanilla Combat Engine is provided for original Civ IV combat purists who prefer the original design. Can't blame 'em. Civ IV is a popular game for a reason, right? I don't use this option myself, of course.
UNIT
Great Commanders: Some Great Military People, such as Great Generals, can be turned into Field Commanders, which although they have no strength of their own, can add bonuses to nearby or same plot units you control when they enter combat. They can get promotions that make the bonuses they give even more powerful and they can expand to influence more and more units (the amount of units they influence in combat each round is limited.) I'll talk more about them later on. I think these guys are pretty cool BUT they CAN cause a significant end of turn slowdown so if you're being driven nuts by long turn times, consider turning this off.
Is this slowdown still the case ?
This is such a tent-pole RoM ( : aND (?)) feature, shouldn't this *really* be on by default ?
Assigned Specialists XP: This option adds a new dimension to specialists where nearly all of them will add experience points to units of particular combat class definitions that are trained in the city. Thus, Doctor specialists will add +1 XP each to Health Care units like healers for example. Some feedback has expressed the feeling that this option is not yet well balanced but I think it depends on how many promotions a player feels units should be capable of starting off with that determines this opinion. We also have another option that can make this seem more balanced, More XP to Level. I play with this on. I just think it's cool and gives new things to consider when choosing your specialist assignments in your cities.
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
Infinite XP: Without this option, when you upgrade a unit that has a high amount of XP, it will lose XP down to a particular point (25 or 40 or something like that.) Doesn't lose LEVELS or promotions but it does set back well developed units when they upgrade. Additionally, without this option on, there is a limit of 10 XP that may be earned by a unit fighting barbarians and animals, but there are promotions that may be selected that can enable the unit to continue to earn XP from either animal combats or barbarian combats. In this case, Neanderthals count as barbarians. I play with this option on because I've never liked this design element of vanilla Civ IV where there is a penalty to the unit's progress if you upgrade it.
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
More XP to Level: Doubles the amount of XP units need to gain a level (which is the point at which they can select a new promotion.) C2C has really proliferated with methods to enhance XP gain and assignment to units when they are trained. For some, this disrupts the feel of the original Civ IV experience too much or makes the game unbalanced. This option can help to make skill based promotions a lot harder to obtain and can make each selection mean more. It makes for an interesting alternative experience in my opinion, but I like hoarding promotions on my units so I play with it off.
Popup : "[...] (Adjustable in the Assets/XML/GlobalDefines.xml file)
Downsizing is Profitable: The original game rule on disbanding units was that they were simply disbanded and you get no benefit for doing so aside from minimizing your upkeep expenses. Some time back in the development of C2C, I believe during Afforess's work on A New Dawn, before we branched off from that project, disbanding units were made to give some gold back to the player, which in essence made it possible to use unit production to convert production to gold, sometimes at a better rate than the gold process option. There were often some interesting loopholes some players were able to exploit with this.
Knowing some players would really enjoy still having this option, but recognizing the original wisdom of not having gold be given for disbanding units, and not seeing a lot of justification for such gold being returned, this option has been added to allow players to continue getting the benefit of getting gold from disbanding, while the normal default core game lost the gold benefit for disbanding units.
To make it clear, because negatives and positives in wording can sometimes be hard to follow: Option ON - you GET gold for disbanding. Option OFF - you do NOT get gold out of disbanding units
ADVANCED
Advanced Diplomacy: Opens up some additional diplomacy options such as embassies and Rites of Passage. I don't remember what it's like to not play with this, to be honest.
Also trading units !
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
Advanced Espionage: Adds some further espionage mission options and gives spies the opportunity to gain experience and level up. Also opens up some additional spy units. This is just flat out cool in my opinion. Very satisfying to suitcase nuke a city later in the game.
Popup also says : "[...] Also, espionage effects, like poisoning water [shouldn't this be "sabotage" or am I thinking of a different game ?], will correctly scale for gamespeeds."
Shouldn't this be on by default ?
Advanced Nukes: Adds new Nuclear units. We accidentally disrupted some of the function of this option a while back, since it was hardcoded to a particular civic, which we removed, and I haven't had the opportunity to fix it yet. This factor added a new defcon screen when using that civic. Furthermore, not all the Nukes are well designed to really show the additional power they were meant to and some of the effects were found buggy and disconnected. The option isn't fully what it should be right now but I still play with it and intend to fix it and flesh it out down the road.
Is this still the case ? (For the rare souls that managed to get to the postmodern era xD)
It's off by default (like all of them) - should or shouldn't this be on by default ?
v41 with half a year of more fixes and a new game option for Advanced Routes. This will be detailed further in the v42 full explanation.
Narrator : it had not been detailed further.
Popup : "Requires more technology than the minimum normal route qualifying techs to construct routes on more difficult terrain/feature plots. Intended to give a more realistic feel to tougher terrains throughout the game."
It's off by default (like all of them) - should or shouldn't this be on by default ?
(Will try it on...)
Realistic Corporations: More to come Changes the manner in which corporations are founded. Originally, corps are founded by using the proper Great Person in the city when the corporation has yet to be founded. But with this option, they randomly found themselves. Since the key to profiting from corporations is to found them in cities you focus all your +gold/commerce% national wonders in, and I greatly enjoy the challenge of birthing and saving up just the right collection of GPs to found the corporations you want in your nation, I don't use this option. Might be a little better balanced for the AI, though, who were never prepared to handle corporations all that well, even in BtS.
Popup : "[...] ALERT : This game option needs multiple players to meet requirements for corporations to spawn. Both you and AIs must be in Industrial era, as corporation requirements are unlocked in this era. If you are ahead of AI, then you should sell techs to AI, so corporations would spawn."
CHALLENGE
Final Five: Every 50 turns, the bottom player is destroyed until only 5 remain. I don't play with this as I find it gamey and I like a more historical immersive feel to the game. Could be fun for a game or two to try it though.
Popup : "[...] Not meant for use with BarbarianCiv or Revolutions !"
High to Low: Carefull... this one has caused a bug report or two from players who set it not reading very carefully what it does in the help hover tip. It changes which player you are playing periodically so that you are having to play catch up from the bottom with each shift. I don't use it myself.
Popup : "[...] That third civilization will be the one you have to win the game with. Single player only."
Increasing Difficulty: Every so often your difficulty level goes up one until it maxes out at Deity. There's another option in the BUG options (we'll discuss those later) that can cover this AND give you some more definitive controls to how it operates.
Popup : "Every 100 turns (on Normal Speed) the game[']s difficulty is increased by 1 until it reaches Nightmare. [Which indeed now is the highest difficulty level.]
Challenge - One City Challenge
Not sure why it wasn't listed, even though AFAIK dating back to vanilla ??
Popup : "The human player can never control more than one city."
UNSUPPORTED
Start as Minor Civs: Basically, this puts all civs in an eternal state of war until they reach the Writing tech. I'm not personally happy with how this makes the AI behave less optimally up to that point. But some swear by this option.
Now Unsupported.
Popup : "[...] The AI performs badly in such a scenario!!"
No Zones of Control: Zones of Control can be created by forts and cities (some buildings generate these zones) when this option is off. Enemy units cannot move from one plot adjacent to a source of a Zone of Control to another plot adjacent to a source of a Zone of Control. The point of this is to model that the unit would come under heavy fire and be destroyed if it were to try such a move. Thus usually the city and/or fort must be manned for it to generate the Zone of Control.
Having Zones of Control on can cause some undue slowdown in tun processing and I personally feel that I'd often like to have the choice to let my unit come under fire instead of assuming it would be destroyed if it did so. Thus the option for turning off Zones of Control was introduced. I use it myself but I have to admit that ZoCs do add something to the strategy layer of the game that I do want to eventually replicate with a solution that answers to my complaint regarding the premise.
Now Unsupported.
Popup : "[...] Not recommended at the moment as there is a known bug it creates for pathing"
Which bug ? Does it still exist ?
"and some players may find it terribly frustrating with the current forts."
What was specific to those ? Did they already have the limitation of only being able to build a fort if it's more than 2 (?) tiles away from an already existing fort ?
"The author of this option also believes that it does not represent a fair combat scenario in many cases where you'd prefer to take the hit they threaten and would like to eventually make a form of ZoC that instead generates a free Ranged Assault on the offending unit rather than keep it from moving at all (as that's the concept behind the effect anyhow.)"
Maybe, but that is not in the game
yet, so this alone shouldn't make it Unsupported ?
Also, isn't there already a BUG setting that does something like this, but only for (ranged ?) artillery ?
(Also, why Ranged Assaults only, pretty sure that this should work with fast units too ?)
(I'm going to play with this on, even as an inferior version of the ZoC available in Alpha Centauri - where ALL units exert ZoCs (even flying ones !), but you can still move them by moving Probes (= spies) in that tile first, which IMHO is brilliant design/bug, considering how fragile Probes are !)
No Revolutions: The Revolutions mod from this forum is a part of C2C but while we have taken regular action to keep it balanced, it's still not a mod we created nor one we are all that great at balancing. I don't think I'm alone on the team to say: Play only if it's a must have for you.
Now inverted to
Unsupported - Revolutions.
Popup : "Enables the Revolution mod component. New rebel civs will attempt to breakaway from an empire if their needs are not being met. WARNING : This option makes AI less challenging. Revolution mod hasn't been properly maintained and updated in C2C."
OPTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN REMOVED
No Espionage: Very heavily advised to play with this OFF for C2C. However, if you are finding some of the criminal and spy stuff to be annoying or unmanageable, you can probably turn a lot of that off with this option. But I warn that a LOT of the work we've done, particularly in this version, will be eliminated with this option.
Usable Mountains: Allows peaks to be worked and moved through under special conditions. At first, special units can do it or earn the ability to use peaks. Later, a tech opens them all up for your units and for your cities to work for yields. I've advocated removing this option and making it mandatory for C2C. That's how favorable I believe it to be.
Now always on ?
Barbarian Generals: Has 2 effects: 1) Barbarians can get Great Generals and turn them into Great Commanders if that option is on later. And 2) Combat with NPC teams gives your nation points towards Great Military People, such as Great Generals (they aren't the only Great Military People anymore in C2C - more on that later.) I believe this option is critical to a few things we've done in C2C that are pretty cool and I have no problem letting barbs use Great Commanders either.
So, is it on, for Barbarians and Neanderthals, but not Animal teams, which use the Great Hunter mechanic instead (and don't get them) ?
Advanced Economy: Allows for inflation and some decimalized values in the economy, as well as some deeper stuff with trade. I like it.
Now always on ?
Religion Decay: Religions that aren't your state religion will fall from use in your cities now and then. This is intended to represent the evolving religious adherence among the people Personally I find it makes the game a little bit more like playing 'whack-a-mole' so it's not a favorite for me, but it's certainly been improved as a system since it's first iterations.
EDIT : this one has just been moved from the pre-game settings into game settings : BUG : Caveman2Cosmos : Game Settings.
Nightmare Mode: Makes the game more difficult. In general, a Nightmare Mode game can be comparable to a game two difficulty settings harder, but there are other factors that are even more severe than that. What it's doing is replacing the difficulty settings with definitions that are just a lot more tough. Don't bother playing with this option if you're going to play on Noble level or below anyhow. It's for those of you out there who are REALLY advanced players.
The Nightmare dificulty level used to be a checkbox game option instead ?
Size Matters Uncut: This is NOT a director's cut of Size Matters, but rather, it removes some of the rebalancing efforts I introduced with Size Matters and enforces that ALL units start with the same combat strengths they start with in the core mod without Size Matters. This option is for those who want to play with some Size Matters game dynamics, but have been playing the core mod for a while and don't like how SM changes some starting values on some unit types in an effort to further refine the roles of those units. It requires Size Matters also be set or you'll get some severe errors in the game. I don't use it but I was happy to provide it for those who disagree with some of my adjustments in SM.
P.S.: Sadly, it looks like Thunderbrd never got around to doing the guide section for the BUG options, and specifically those which are not just interface / quality of life options, but also have an impact on gameplay, so would have been amongst the above ones in another game !
I will try doing at least a list of them in a next post.
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