City State Diplomacy Mod (Updated)

[PR0927]

Please tell me you'll be adding this to Steam Workshop?

 

[Gazebo]

Yes, though I have yet to gain beta access (put in request last week). Hopefully I can have everything ready by launch day.

 

[PR0927]

Yes, though I have yet to gain beta access (put in request last week). Hopefully I can have everything ready by launch day.

It was just launched today for everyone - it's out of beta mode. Many mods are put up already, including tons by whoward69 and Gedemon.

 

[Gazebo]

Indeed! Seems I should pull my head out of the sand every now and again. In any case, CSD is now on the workshop. Go and download it, friends! Don't forget to give me a thumbs up!
G

 

[thadian]

thumbs up and favorited! sweet.

 

[PR0927]

Indeed! Seems I should pull my head out of the sand every now and again. In any case, CSD is now on the workshop. Go and download it, friends! Don't forget to give me a thumbs up!
G

Excellent! Subscribed and thumbed-up! Thanks!

 

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

Quick update for CSD incoming. The patch broke the old unit art system, so I made CSD compliant with the SQL method outlined by Gedemon (brilliant modder, by the way). v30 (on the workshop, and here) has the new files, and should be good to go.

Off to bed....
G

 

[Seek]

While I agree with the latter aspect of your brainstorming, I'm wary of abandoning the unit-system. All of the game's non-combat mechanics are already relegated to menus (science, production, espionage, policies, etc.), thus making CSD do this would add yet another menu and would take away from a peaceful player's on-screen actions.

Hopefully the new 'missionary' units (with icons eerily similar to CSDs, mind you) will open up a few more actions that I can tweak to improve the actions of diplomats (such as the leave-a-diplomat-in-a-city-state-to-reduce-influence-decay idea)



Indeed– my thought was that diplomats, when expended in a city-state, might either a.) give a temporary boost to the chances of an espionage action succeeding in said city-state or b.) give active spies an incremental boost to xp (more diplomatic information from city-states=better spies).

Good point re: many menus in civ5. Not a big deal to me, and keeping the units does keep with the design philosophy CSD has maintained. I think many of the missions available in the espionage window should be able to be "borrowed" for the diplomat unit anyway (at least I hope). Staying along these lines, perhaps you can move some of the menu-driven diplomacy to the diplo unit (see below). I also noticed in a recent preview video that Missionaries can physically enter a city's hex, so theoretically a diplomat can be "stationed" in a city as discussed above.

Regarding the last paragraph in the quote above, I like a) better personally, and would extend it to include religion (diplomat mission would increase chance/lower reluctance/increase pressure [whatever the mechanic is] of one's religion spreading to the city) and it would be great if this was available against major civs as well. In fact, could a diplomat's mission be necessary for the ability to "establish embassy"? That would make diplomats truly invaluable, thus increasing the value of CSD's added buildings and wonders! Taking this further, I'd love it if Embassies could a requirement in CSs and major civ capitals before allowing direct diplomatic discussion if these cities are outside a certain range of one's cities (say 15 hexes) - within that limit it would be always available. This would fix many immersion-breaking, unrealistic issues with early game diplomacy - instantaneously being able to call leaders, trade goods and make treaties across thousands of miles without even knowing where the other civ is located! (How different history would have been if England could have been able to contact and trade with China for the last 3000 years.. A mechanic like this would increase the mystery and fun of being in the dark about faraway civs - my favorite part about the Civ series!)

Well, I had planned for a more structured response this time, but it was again a brainstorming session! Hope these ideas are useful!

 

[Gazebo]

Quick update on CSD:

I've got everything back up and running, though my wonderful Options.sql has taken a heavy beating and will be retired for the time being (until I get a chance to figure everything out). I've been fiddling with most of these changes for some time now, and it feels pretty balanced.

Mostly small changes, some cosmetic, others gameplay related:

1. Removed emissaries from game. Diplo units will 'upgrade' every two eras (to compensate for added atomic age).

2.) Villas (now the 'school of scribes' - don't ask me why I changed it) moved to Mathematics, cost 100 and give a +1 production bonus (on top of +50% diplo unit production). New art as well.

3.) Summer Palace moved to Acoustics.

4.) Embassies (now called 'Post Office' - again, don't ask) moved to Steam Power and given a +2 production bonus & +50% diplo unit production (cost ~300, IIRC). New art as well.

5.) Foreign Office moved to Electronics.

6.) New World Wonder (WiP): Warsaw Pact: +70 influence boost to all city-states. Unlocked at Nuclear Fission.

7.) Diplomatic unit costs bumped up a bit. Limited to 1 Messenger, 2 Envoys, 3 Diplomats and 4 Ambassadors.

8.) Messenger at writing, envoy at civil service, diplomat at scientific theory and ambassador at atomic theory.

9.) Promotions and Policies remain the same except science boost for Post Offices boosted to 10%.

Full compatibility for G&K included...AI seems even better with diplo unit pathfinding than before (no doubt influenced by improved pathfinding for missionary units).

All in all, CSD lives on! Here's the beta version - give it a go and let me know what you think of the changes and/or any bugs you encounter.

 

[PR0927]

Quick update on CSD:

I've got everything back up and running, though my wonderful Options.sql has taken a heavy beating and will be retired for the time being (until I get a chance to figure everything out). I've been fiddling with most of these changes for some time now, and it feels pretty balanced.

Mostly small changes, some cosmetic, others gameplay related:

1. Removed emissaries from game. Diplo units will 'upgrade' every two eras (to compensate for added atomic age).

2.) Villas (now the 'school of scribes' - don't ask me why I changed it) moved to Mathematics, cost 100 and give a +1 production bonus (on top of +50% diplo unit production). New art as well.

3.) Summer Palace moved to Acoustics.

4.) Embassies (now called 'Post Office' - again, don't ask) moved to Steam Power and given a +2 production bonus & +50% diplo unit production (cost ~300, IIRC). New art as well.

5.) Foreign Office moved to Electronics.

6.) New World Wonder (WiP): Warsaw Pact: +70 influence boost to all city-states. Unlocked at Nuclear Fission.

7.) Diplomatic unit costs bumped up a bit. Limited to 1 Messenger, 2 Envoys, 3 Diplomats and 4 Ambassadors.

8.) Messenger at writing, envoy at civil service, diplomat at scientific theory and ambassador at atomic theory.

9.) Promotions and Policies remain the same except science boost for Post Offices boosted to 10%.

Full compatibility for G&K included...AI seems even better with diplo unit pathfinding than before (no doubt influenced by improved pathfinding for missionary units).

All in all, CSD lives on! Here's the beta version - give it a go and let me know what you think of the changes and/or any bugs you encounter.

Holy crap, that was fast! I was wondering what your plan was going to be because of the missionary stuff and the new diplomacy system for city-states.

 

[Gazebo]

Holy crap, that was fast! I was wondering what your plan was going to be because of the missionary stuff and the new diplomacy system for city-states.

Its been less than a day since G&K came out, however my preliminary experiments show that, in spite of the new city-state quests, there is still room (and a need) for the diplomatic units. Gold-gifts aren't quite as critical as they used to be, but the AI (and players) still have to use them from time to time to keep city-states allied. CSD's primary objective has always been to remove the need for gold-gifts, so as long as there are still gold-gifts, CSD will remain.

That said, I will be monitoring the costs and benefits of CSDs units and buildings to keep them in line with the added quests/buildings/bonuses etc. of G&K.

 

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

Version 31, Beta 2 details (in a hurry- see mod for more details on changes):

- Rearranged building locations on tech-tree

- Added three new world wonders (classical, medieval and atomic eras)

- Normal influence from diplo unit now 35

-Options.sql file back up and running.

 

[Gazebo]

Ok, version 32 (In v31 Sweden is horribly overpowered- this is corrected in v32) is officially go for launch. It is now in the Steam Workshop and (shortly) will be on Civfanatics. Everything is working quite well- see the front page of the threat for the full list of updates.
G

 

[Seek]

So, any chance we'll see Diplo units gain more influence as they upgrade?

 

[Gazebo]

So, any chance we'll see Diplo units gain more influence as they upgrade?

I'm still not sure it is is possible. Perhaps through a LUA event we could do it, however the value for the diplomatic mission is hard-coded into the XML defines when the mod is loaded (not on a unit-by-unit basis), so it may not be possible without the DLL.

If someone would like to correct me on this, please do so- I am not skilled in LUA and would appreciate the help.
G

 

[Torvald]

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that V32 is not installing properly from the Workshop.

After subscribing, it does download the applicable .civ5mod file, but then does not create the required mod folder or show up in the list of available mods.

I even tried deleting the cache folder and the moduser data folders, but no good.

Hopefully, this will be an easy glitch for you to fix, as I'd really like to try out your mod with the new G&K expansion.

P.S. I've also downloaded the v32 file from here in Civfanatics and copied it to my Mods folder, but the game is not recognizing it. How do I manually convert the v32 file into a regular mod folder?

 

[Gazebo]

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that V32 is not installing properly from the Workshop.

After subscribing, it does download the applicable .civ5mod file, but then does not create the required mod folder or show up in the list of available mods.

I even tried deleting the cache folder and the moduser data folders, but no good.

Hopefully, this will be an easy glitch for you to fix, as I'd really like to try out your mod with the new G&K expansion.

P.S. I've also downloaded the v32 file from here in Civfanatics and copied it to my Mods folder, but the game is not recognizing it. How do I manually convert the v32 file into a regular mod folder?

Huh. I'll reupload it when I get home. Sorry about that! The civ5mod file should automatically unpack when you go into the mod part of Civ5. If it isn't, the build from ModBuddy might be bad.

 

[Gazebo]

Reuploaded v32. It should be okay now. If not let me know.

 

[esvath]

P.S. I've also downloaded the v32 file from here in Civfanatics and copied it to my Mods folder, but the game is not recognizing it. How do I manually convert the v32 file into a regular mod folder?

I use 7zip to extract the file, then rename the folder exactly like the name of modinfo.

 

[Torvald]

Thanks for the tip about using 7zip.

I just tried that, and it seems to work. (I haven't used the mod in-game yet, though, as I just got home from work.)

All I had to do after 7zipping was to edit the folder name slightly, such as replacing the underlines between words with spaces, etc.

Hooray!!!!!