mpescatori
Chieftain
Hello All, I used to read this Forum a lot, then lost the link, now I've found it again, so...
LOL...
I have had some fnu playing CIV2, but even more fun editing "rules.txt" and test-playing the mods.
Here is my experience.
================================================== ============================
In "rules.txt" I corrected the "cost" of some units and that of some city improvements... for example, setting up an Industrial Age Stock Market will be expensive, whereas the Marketplace in the Bronze Age was just the village square with stalls, so should cost little to setup and little to maintain.
On the other hand, barracks require a lot of effort to setup and maintain...
I have use a little arithmetic to "correct" the building cost of both improvements and units, so that an item that would cost "50 shields" will now cost either 60 or 40.. much easier to avoid waste of shields and closer to reality.
I also tried to recreate a more historically correct profile of all the military units, giving the Phalanx the credit it deserves... the "pikemen" being a great leap backwards, rather than a single step forwards compared to the Phalanx.
I also recalculated the characteristics of cavalry units, and those of artillery, including the catapult.
- Phalanx were a very capable infantry unit in their days, and I have redesigned them to attack=2, defense=2, (*)star for double defense against mounted units, as they should be. Phalanx do NOT upgrade to Pikemen, only Warriors will; similarly, Phalanx will maintain their status and not upgrade to Musketeers when Gunpowder is discovered, only Pikemen (upgraded Warriors) Archers and Legion will upgrade to Musketeers. All will eventually merge into conscripted Fusiliers (Infantry).
- Horsemen will remain available for more centuries than normal, until Cavalry is discovered; this allows the player to have LightHorsemen, which will move 3 and see 2 hexes per turn (as a good scout unit, they are fast, agile, move a lot but not very powerful) and gradually upgrade the other mounted units from Chariots to Elephant, Crusaders and Knights to Dragoons... LightHorsemen and Dragoons will merge into Cavalry when Tactics is discovered. This also allows for a "trick", creating a ton of cheap (20 shields) LightHorsemen as Tactics are being researched, so that they may be "upgraded and presto! a zillion Cavalry Regiments available.
- Explorers now have diplomatic status just like Diplomats, the real difference being how they exploit terrain; I'd like to find a way to allow Spies to embark on warships (after all, it's just ONE person!) but it seems to be impossible... pity that... imagine a spy disembarking off a submarine 1 square away from an enemy city, and presto! enemy city corrupted and bought!)
- Similarly, I'm testing Settlers=40, Engineers=60 / 80. Partisans being citizens in arms, they have been redesigned as "settlers with guns" and can therefore build roads, irrigate, do mining etc. and of course found a new city.
- Fundamentalists now die when they attack; they self-destruct, just like missiles. Unfortunately, this also means they will sound like missiles, but it's the best I could do.
I have opted away from creating sci-fi military units, they would take the fun out of the bloodshed.
I have created three new units, specifically the Minefield and Coastal Mine (Explosives) and the hot-air balloon (Physics). The two "Mine" units have extremely limited mobility (1) and limited offensive capability (1) but great defensive capability (19) with a Hit Point 1. This means the are breachable, but at great cost to the attacker - just like real minefields.
The hot-air balloon will carry only one unit (to this purpose, I have made Settlers and Engineers air-transportable) in order to allow colonization of remote areas possible; sometimes it is not feasible to walk around a very long and narrow bay (it may take up to 20 turns!) and sea lines of communication may be impassable, but with a blimp? Presto! Incidentally, all military units not Paras are still not air transportable. Partisans have guns,so they are not airtransportable.
Triremes now travel 2, carry 1;
Caravels now travel 3, carry 2;
Galleons now travel 4, carry 3;
Frigates now travel 4, carry 1, but have firepower.
Most units/city improvements will cost 40 or a multiple of 40. That is because 40 is very close to being the universal multiple: whether a city will produce 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14 shields,
"40" is easily within grasp with very little waste; on the contrary, when something will cost 50... 6x8=48+waste; 7x7=49+waste; 8x6=48+waste and so on.
Caravans cost 40, freight (trucks) cost 60, if there were "trains" they'd cost 80.
I have read of Engineers creating dry land from coastal waters, apparently by "mining" a coastal hex while on a ship. I have tried this, but it won't work; maybe I need a specific tech advance?
On the other hand, I'd like to know if anybody has found a way to dig out a canal (like the Panama Canal) and create a waterway between two contiguous Oceans; to this day, the only solution I have is to create a city, however small.
I have edited the obsolescence for a few Wonders; Leonardo's Laboratory should never become obsolete, because once you learn to update, you can't just "forget"; similarly, the Great Library does not become obsolescent with Electricity but with Computers, because a new Wonder "the Internet" should be available (funny how nobody seems to have thought about such a Wonder).
Sun Tzu's Academy should be replaced by a more modern version for Manoeuvre Warfare (with Armor) to be called "Napoleon's War College" (Napoleon was the first to exploit manoeuvre to outflank and outwind his opponents, much before his Civil War or WW2 successors) If the name should not go well, it could be called "Rommel's War College" or "Liddel Hart's Staff College" or even "The Blackadder's War Rooms" in homage to the famous TV Comedy...LOL...
Magellan's Wonder allows for faster cruising of the seas (more hexes per turn) but as Magellan also mapped his journeys, it should also allow for more hexes visibility per turn... alas this seems not to be possible... although it IS possible to determine 2-hex visibility to more modern ships.
There are two "Research Wonders", one being "Newton" and the other being "Galileo's Observatory"; unfortunately, the two scientists were almost contemporary, so they really seem redundant to me, what one does, so will the other. I haven't figured out how to move one to a more recent historical time (imagine "Einstein's Lab" or "The Internet"!) to make modern research more attractive than all-out war.
There is Pollution... and "Global Warming"... but nobody seems to have created an "Economic Crisis" when somebody's stocks grow too fast and balloon out of proportions i.e., the player is getting too rich too fast... suddenly all Stock Markets, Banks and Marketplaces are sold off by some obscure rule and the player risks bankruptcy!!!LOL but true!!!
LOL...
I have had some fnu playing CIV2, but even more fun editing "rules.txt" and test-playing the mods.
Here is my experience.
================================================== ============================
In "rules.txt" I corrected the "cost" of some units and that of some city improvements... for example, setting up an Industrial Age Stock Market will be expensive, whereas the Marketplace in the Bronze Age was just the village square with stalls, so should cost little to setup and little to maintain.
On the other hand, barracks require a lot of effort to setup and maintain...
I have use a little arithmetic to "correct" the building cost of both improvements and units, so that an item that would cost "50 shields" will now cost either 60 or 40.. much easier to avoid waste of shields and closer to reality.
I also tried to recreate a more historically correct profile of all the military units, giving the Phalanx the credit it deserves... the "pikemen" being a great leap backwards, rather than a single step forwards compared to the Phalanx.
I also recalculated the characteristics of cavalry units, and those of artillery, including the catapult.
- Phalanx were a very capable infantry unit in their days, and I have redesigned them to attack=2, defense=2, (*)star for double defense against mounted units, as they should be. Phalanx do NOT upgrade to Pikemen, only Warriors will; similarly, Phalanx will maintain their status and not upgrade to Musketeers when Gunpowder is discovered, only Pikemen (upgraded Warriors) Archers and Legion will upgrade to Musketeers. All will eventually merge into conscripted Fusiliers (Infantry).
- Horsemen will remain available for more centuries than normal, until Cavalry is discovered; this allows the player to have LightHorsemen, which will move 3 and see 2 hexes per turn (as a good scout unit, they are fast, agile, move a lot but not very powerful) and gradually upgrade the other mounted units from Chariots to Elephant, Crusaders and Knights to Dragoons... LightHorsemen and Dragoons will merge into Cavalry when Tactics is discovered. This also allows for a "trick", creating a ton of cheap (20 shields) LightHorsemen as Tactics are being researched, so that they may be "upgraded and presto! a zillion Cavalry Regiments available.
- Explorers now have diplomatic status just like Diplomats, the real difference being how they exploit terrain; I'd like to find a way to allow Spies to embark on warships (after all, it's just ONE person!) but it seems to be impossible... pity that... imagine a spy disembarking off a submarine 1 square away from an enemy city, and presto! enemy city corrupted and bought!)
- Similarly, I'm testing Settlers=40, Engineers=60 / 80. Partisans being citizens in arms, they have been redesigned as "settlers with guns" and can therefore build roads, irrigate, do mining etc. and of course found a new city.
- Fundamentalists now die when they attack; they self-destruct, just like missiles. Unfortunately, this also means they will sound like missiles, but it's the best I could do.
I have opted away from creating sci-fi military units, they would take the fun out of the bloodshed.
I have created three new units, specifically the Minefield and Coastal Mine (Explosives) and the hot-air balloon (Physics). The two "Mine" units have extremely limited mobility (1) and limited offensive capability (1) but great defensive capability (19) with a Hit Point 1. This means the are breachable, but at great cost to the attacker - just like real minefields.
The hot-air balloon will carry only one unit (to this purpose, I have made Settlers and Engineers air-transportable) in order to allow colonization of remote areas possible; sometimes it is not feasible to walk around a very long and narrow bay (it may take up to 20 turns!) and sea lines of communication may be impassable, but with a blimp? Presto! Incidentally, all military units not Paras are still not air transportable. Partisans have guns,so they are not airtransportable.
Triremes now travel 2, carry 1;
Caravels now travel 3, carry 2;
Galleons now travel 4, carry 3;
Frigates now travel 4, carry 1, but have firepower.
Most units/city improvements will cost 40 or a multiple of 40. That is because 40 is very close to being the universal multiple: whether a city will produce 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14 shields,
"40" is easily within grasp with very little waste; on the contrary, when something will cost 50... 6x8=48+waste; 7x7=49+waste; 8x6=48+waste and so on.
Caravans cost 40, freight (trucks) cost 60, if there were "trains" they'd cost 80.
I have read of Engineers creating dry land from coastal waters, apparently by "mining" a coastal hex while on a ship. I have tried this, but it won't work; maybe I need a specific tech advance?
On the other hand, I'd like to know if anybody has found a way to dig out a canal (like the Panama Canal) and create a waterway between two contiguous Oceans; to this day, the only solution I have is to create a city, however small.
I have edited the obsolescence for a few Wonders; Leonardo's Laboratory should never become obsolete, because once you learn to update, you can't just "forget"; similarly, the Great Library does not become obsolescent with Electricity but with Computers, because a new Wonder "the Internet" should be available (funny how nobody seems to have thought about such a Wonder).
Sun Tzu's Academy should be replaced by a more modern version for Manoeuvre Warfare (with Armor) to be called "Napoleon's War College" (Napoleon was the first to exploit manoeuvre to outflank and outwind his opponents, much before his Civil War or WW2 successors) If the name should not go well, it could be called "Rommel's War College" or "Liddel Hart's Staff College" or even "The Blackadder's War Rooms" in homage to the famous TV Comedy...LOL...
Magellan's Wonder allows for faster cruising of the seas (more hexes per turn) but as Magellan also mapped his journeys, it should also allow for more hexes visibility per turn... alas this seems not to be possible... although it IS possible to determine 2-hex visibility to more modern ships.
There are two "Research Wonders", one being "Newton" and the other being "Galileo's Observatory"; unfortunately, the two scientists were almost contemporary, so they really seem redundant to me, what one does, so will the other. I haven't figured out how to move one to a more recent historical time (imagine "Einstein's Lab" or "The Internet"!) to make modern research more attractive than all-out war.
There is Pollution... and "Global Warming"... but nobody seems to have created an "Economic Crisis" when somebody's stocks grow too fast and balloon out of proportions i.e., the player is getting too rich too fast... suddenly all Stock Markets, Banks and Marketplaces are sold off by some obscure rule and the player risks bankruptcy!!!LOL but true!!!
