Games with increased tech cost (or preventing units become obsolete)?

[gavenkoa]

What are the options to keep units stay relevant a bit longer than in BtS standard speed?

BtS default speed obsoletes units quite fast. There is no time to march to a distant AI, you are obligated to deal only with adjusted AIs (or upgrade units on a march).

The first mod I played is https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Greek_World_(Civ4) from vanilla Civ4.

The cost of tech is ridiculous (Currency ~ 3800B, Feudalism ~ 15000B, Machinery ~ 10000B on Imm) and you are limited by 200T to complete with domination.

With such settings there is no sense in research, bulbing with 1.5kB makes no sense when tech costs ~10kB. In the end in powerplay you should ignore research, thus cottages, commerce, keep research rate at 0% and just seek military superiority.

Are there mods making units relevant for a bit longer without breaking other stuff (like a tech race)?

Marathon slows unit production & workers.

Is there a place where such kind of balance already discussed?

 

[idle]

Well actually, Marathon speed triples the cost for techs and buildings (300%), but only increases unit cost to 240%, so you should have more time for moving your troops.
See this article: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/game-speed-and-map-size.411750/

Building Costs, Whipping, and Research
These also scale to game speed and follow a ratio of Q/N/E/M: 67/100/150/300
A building that costs 100 hammers on normal will cost 300 on marathon.
A tech that cost 1000 beakers on normal will cost 3000 on marathon and so forth.

Units Production
What about military units and workers?
These have a different ratio.

Unit ratio = Q/N/E/M: 67/100/150/240
Notice the ratio is the same except for the marathon value.
A unit that costs 100 hammers to produce on standard will cost only 240 hammers on marathon.
This effectively means that military units and workers are 20% cheaper on marathon then they are on all other game speeds. Note that settlers are the exception they scale with buildings Q/N/E/M: 67/100/150/300 so marathon does not help you found new cities faster.

Why you would want to march on a distant AI is another question. I've never had any problems just warring with my neighbors. The distant AI will be my neighbor soon enough if I conquer my way towards them, even on another continent.

 

[gavenkoa]

Marathon speed triples the cost for techs and buildings (300%), but only increases unit cost to 240%, so you should have more time for moving your troops.

This makes games longer and increases the cost of unit losing.

 

[gavenkoa]

The distant AI will be my neighbor soon enough if I conquer my way towards them

Some distant opponents could be too advanced and you usually eliminate threats.

 

[gavenkoa]

Discussed earlier: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-slow-down-technology-discovery.412587/

Main suggestion is to edit CIV4HandicupInfo.xml (iAITraningPercent & iResearchPercent) or CIV4TechInfos.xml.

 

[comrizen]

I'm trying to edit the pacing/difficulty more to my liking, but it takes so long. I edit one value by 10% then spend a week playing a game then make another small tweak. IRL civilization will have melted all the icecaps by the time i get it where i want it hehe. Or i'll just give up (more likely tbh).

I really want to make research slower relative to production compared to the base game, like you are saying, because i want each 'era' of units to feel more relevant. On the other hand, early production focus already feels pretty strong compared to research. I think maybe increasing settler and/or worker costs might be a good start, but i probably need to play a lot more (and likely games against myself or possibly another human) before i actually know which strategies are best so i can try to make for more strategic diversity.

Anyways, good luck.

 

[gavenkoa]

On the other hand, early production focus already feels pretty strong compared to research. I think maybe increasing settler and/or worker costs might be a good start, but i probably need to play a lot more

I played https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Greek_World_(Civ4) from original game (not BTS) and probably due to a bug the cost of Currency on immortal is so huge that I was only able to get it before the 200 turns limit.

With such settings there is no point in investing into cottages: you only build few to keep zero upkeep balance.

Also the cost of Settlers increased to 200H so a conquest is more efficient than own settlements.

 

[idle]

This makes games longer and increases the cost of unit losing.

Only in absolute terms. You can build 25% more troops in the same timeframe.

You could also increase movement speed for all units, so they'll be quicker to reach the front.

 

[idle]

Some distant opponents could be too advanced and you usually eliminate threats.

Yes, if you're playing a pure wargame. It just doesn't make sense in a through-the-ages historical game. Even Alexanders conquest only reached appr. 4000km or a 10th of the distance around the world with a 1 MP (movement point) army. Even the Mongols only went appr. 6000km, with quicker cavalry (2 MPs).

Once you get to the modern era it isn't much of a problem (at least on marathon speed) to reach an opponent on the other side of the world with transports (8 MPs) and other naval units. Usually around 10-12 turns, and if I declare while in international waters I have perhaps 2 turns at most until landing.

But as I said, increasing MPs might be a solution for you.

 

[Reg Pither]

Technology cost editor released

EDIT 2007/07/27 Reworked the tool (v1.1) to work with all official Civilization 4 expansions (Warlords, Beyond the Sword) and mods. You should still note that the tool defaults to the original Civilization IV Civ4TechInfos.xml file when launched from the main program folder. Navigate manually...

forums.civfanatics.com

There's a Tech Editor here I've been using for many years which may be what you are after. It alters the cost per era of techs, so I usually set it at exponentially longer times. Usually something like 1.5 for Ancient up to 6 or 7 for Modern, which means most games never get to the Modern era - just how I like it

 

[TheBirdMan]

Main suggestion is to edit CIV4HandicupInfo.xml (iAITraningPercent & iResearchPercent) or CIV4TechInfos.xml.

Wrong.

You kind of "upgrade" (I'm sure some would like to kick me in my a$$ for writing so) to the [BtS] R:I mod 3.57 from Dec 2021. And then read a little in my thread ( https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...er-3-5-screenshots-from-my-game.656418/page-4, post from 2nd Nov, the spoiler-part ).....Then you will see, what can be done - and that it works. But - as you can read there - you have to make changes to both the gamespeed.xml and the CvEventManager.py.


P.s.: The tech-penalty isn't "strong enough" in the what I posted the 2nd Nov. But what I'm using now is.

 

[SuperCrumpets]

2 speed for infantry 3 for cav/tanks/recon with nerfed roads/rails makes a huge difference, the attacker can even spread out instead of doomstacking without instantly getting all their units sniped by their hardcounters from 10tiles away.
I even managed to blitz 3 civs at once with a literal explorer rush to choke the enemy by pillaging copper/iron and occupying all the hills/forests before the defenders could