Getting Started

[Thalassicus]

It would be impractical to list all the numbers for every difficulty in an easily readable format, because there's over 250 numbers. You can see them in this file:

Vem/WWGD/WWGD_Handicaps.xml

Warlord's numbers are approximately equal to vanilla's prince difficulty. However, the Vem AI makes more intelligent purchasing decisions than the vanilla AI. That's present at any difficulty level. The human player also has inherent advantages against the AI on every difficulty - pattern recognition, planning, and so on. It's important to recognize these things when we consider the phrase "balanced."

 

[Mustakrakish]

Tried playing on "Warlord" last night focusing on science and the game went much better... Thanks for help.

 

[Txurce]

I had forgotten that Thal widened the mid-range to the degree that he did, and of course you never knew in the first place. So I'm glad this came up, if only as a public-service announcement!

 

[Mustakrakish]

Warlord's numbers are approximately equal to vanilla's prince difficulty. However, the Vem AI makes more intelligent purchasing decisions than the vanilla AI. That's present at any difficulty level. The human player also has inherent advantages against the AI on every difficulty - pattern recognition, planning, and so on. It's important to recognize these things when we consider the phrase "balanced."

Yeah, I shouldn't have used term "balanced". Since it's not exactly balance I'm seeking, but no bonuses, no advantages to the player or AI, except the AI itself (more intelligent purchasing decisions etc). It's just that important for me and I'm sure many other players to be on "equal" terms.

Quite enjoying the mod now, thanks again

 

[Dunkah]

I have been "asking" for this for a very long time. Since the games inception. An AI that plays by the same rules as me. SO things that hurt me would hurt them etc.

Short answer is that since the AI sucks so bad in order to give the AI any chance at all they must start with "bonuses". Because the AI is controlled trough the Game Core that only Firaxis has access to, they cannot change the AI so thus have to compensate by other means.

(You should hear the long answer)

 

[Thalassicus]

It's odd how they gave the vanilla AI triple happiness at all difficulty levels. It's not necessary, and was one of the first things I removed. You can check out details in the AI bonuses thread.

 

[Mustakrakish]

A few observations...

When a city is located on desert, which now gives moving penalty (logical), and when you move a unit from any tile into the said city, unit still gets the penalty. Surely this is not intended?

When mouse is hovered over a city tile to see the tiles information, it lists -20% combat defence effect on open terrain and +10 on rough. Shouldn't the city be a "special tile" (if you may) itself and not be affected by this?

Quite funny, not affecting gameplay in any way, but slightly annoying thing... Units, especially AI units seem to always run... in place, not actually moving, animation seems to go on. As said, not really important.

Why am I always automatically protecting CS? When I check the list of civs it's protected by, "You" among the real protectors is always there...

Also related to CS, in a recent game I suddenly out of nowhere get notifications of 4-5 CS now allied to me coz I fulfilled their requests, weakened their enemy Oda Nobunaga... The thing is, I never went to war with the guy, in fact we were on friendly terms throughout the game...
That's where I changed my approach and went from ignoring the existence of CS to keeping allied to most of them. Quite an unexpected turn of events if anything.

And last, some feedback regarding the Interface... I don't seem to be quite able to track all the bonuses I get from "random events" and so on. Some can be seen in the city screen as addition to certain tile yield or city tile itself, some cannot, some listed as 2 happiness from terrain for example, but I cannot find the tile in question, etc., which creates confusion and it's kinda hard to micromanage and calculate the exact yields (happiness, production, gold, culture etc) I have or will have and so on. Might I suggest an independent "check-list" or something (or an additional line in happiness breakdown list, gold breakdown, city overall production etc.) where all yields from random events and so, would be listed as;
"happiness from events - 2"
"culture from events - 6"
...and so on with corresponding tiles "lightening up" when mouse hovering the lists certain effects... um... like "new tile acquired" or "population growth" do, or like indeed they do when the "random event" itself happens. So one could easily keep track of those.

 

[Txurce]

1. Quite funny, not affecting gameplay in any way, but slightly annoying thing... Units, especially AI units seem to always run... in place, not actually moving, animation seems to go on. As said, not really important.

2. Why am I always automatically protecting CS? When I check the list of civs it's protected by, "You" among the real protectors is always there...

3. Also related to CS, in a recent game I suddenly out of nowhere get notifications of 4-5 CS now allied to me coz I fulfilled their requests, weakened their enemy Oda Nobunaga... The thing is, I never went to war with the guy, in fact we were on friendly terms throughout the game...
That's where I changed my approach and went from ignoring the existence of CS to keeping allied to most of them. Quite an unexpected turn of events if anything.

1. This is a vanilla function, and can't be fixed at the moment.

2. Same.

3. I've noticed this as well, but only since v154.

 

[Zaldron]

A few observations...

When a city is located on desert, which now gives moving penalty (logical), and when you move a unit from any tile into the said city, unit still gets the penalty. Surely this is not intended?

Why am I always automatically protecting CS? When I check the list of civs it's protected by, "You" among the real protectors is always there...

Also related to CS, in a recent game I suddenly out of nowhere get notifications of 4-5 CS now allied to me coz I fulfilled their requests, weakened their enemy Oda Nobunaga... The thing is, I never went to war with the guy, in fact we were on friendly terms throughout the game...
That's where I changed my approach and went from ignoring the existence of CS to keeping allied to most of them. Quite an unexpected turn of events if anything.

The first is not intended but it's a bug in the core game that we can't fix.

The second is because all major civs protect CSes within a certain radius of them.

The third one appears to be a bug I and a few others have observed.

 

[Thalassicus]

1) When mouse is hovered over a city tile to see the tiles information, it lists -20% combat defence effect on open terrain and +10 on rough. Shouldn't the city be a "special tile" (if you may) itself and not be affected by this?

2) Quite funny, not affecting gameplay in any way, but slightly annoying thing... Units, especially AI units seem to always run... in place, not actually moving, animation seems to go on. As said, not really important.

3) Also related to CS, in a recent game I suddenly out of nowhere get notifications of 4-5 CS now allied to me coz I fulfilled their requests...

4) I don't seem to be quite able to track all the bonuses I get from "random events" and so on. Some can be seen in the city screen as addition to certain tile yield or city tile itself, some cannot, some listed as 2 happiness from terrain for example, but I cannot find the tile in question, etc.

1. Units in cities can't be attacked, so your request to hide that line makes sense. I've added this for v156.
2. Can't do anything about that.
3. I don't know why that might happen, but I will investigate.
4. The bonuses apply to the tile it happens on. If the bonuses are not visible, please start a thread for the topic on the bug reports forum.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Just upgraded to v155 and there seems to be some oddities about it.

I started playing as Iroques, and could build "mentor's hall" from the start (not sure if supposed to), which is basically a library (same effect I think). Long house seems to be the UB for Iroques, so I have no idea what's that all about (especially since I could build it on turn 1). Also "mentor's hall" is what was required to build National College, not library, I couldn't even build libraries in my cities. While I did receive free "library" (had a different effect though ) from building "Great library" (which had worse effect of +0,5 beakers per pop than "mentor's hall" with +1). So I had "mentor's hall" and a library in one city, while could not in other cities. Um... I'm confused.

Also trading posts, or "village" as it's conviniently renamed here had +1 science beakers from the start (had only liberty tree done).

Am I missing something here? Should I revert to v154 while waiting for v156?

 

[Txurce]

Everything you mentioned is the way it's supposed to be, except for not being able to build Mentors Halls in your other cities. (You probably can.)

The Mentor's Hall is the new building introduced in v154.1. Check the Science threads if you want to read a lot about it; check the link on Thal's home page if you want to hear only a little.

You can build libraries in all your cities. You got a free one in the city where you built the Great Library.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Everything you mentioned is the way it's supposed to be, except for not being able to build Mentors Halls in your other cities. (You probably can.)

The Mentor's Hall is the new building introduced in v154.1. Check the Science threads if you want to read a lot about it; check the link on Thal's home page if you want to hear only a little.

You can build libraries in all your cities. You got a free one in the city where you built the Great Library.

Oh I see... so Mentors Hall is available from start to every civ then? And trading posts with science is intended too? And I could build Mentors halls, I couldn't libraries, although I had the tech. Maybe Mentors Hall is prerequisite?

 

[Thalassicus]

The library and national college should require those buildings. If they don't, check if you have multiple versions of the mod installed. Make sure to delete old versions after installing a new one. The game incorrectly scans all installed mods, even the disabled ones.

If that's not the problem, try the other things on the common checklist.

(Ignore the library's % and per-pop bonuses, those will change in a later version.)

 

[Mustakrakish]

Also related to CS, in a recent game I suddenly out of nowhere get notifications of 4-5 CS now allied to me coz I fulfilled their requests, weakened their enemy Oda Nobunaga... The thing is, I never went to war with the guy, in fact we were on friendly terms throughout the game...
That's where I changed my approach and went from ignoring the existence of CS to keeping allied to most of them. Quite an unexpected turn of events if anything.

Related; Genghis Khan showed up with modifier: "We fought a common enemy", when I never went to war with anyone yet, not a single barbarian even.

EDIT: Sorry, should prbly post this in bug reports...

 

[pba]

Is there any document/post with the research tree changes from vanilla? E.g. I have not found out how i could know before the game that aluminium needs electricity(for actual usage). The first time I found out was when trying to build a fighter, and then only by reeading the info of the tile tooltip, which stated that trade (of Aluminium) is only possible with electricity.

I think "trade" is actually wrong, as you can not use it at all (it's just revealed).

Also i did not know that Fighter need aluminium, although that one's in the civilopedia.

Still a changes post would help.In this regard, has anyone yet written something up?


PS:Couldn't find anything with google, and I think the forum search (although i used it to find any aluminium/electricity connection) is not everybody's darling.

 

[Seek]

Check out Thal's website: http://civmodding.wordpress.com/

 

[ifinnem]

Amazing effort all this!

Where is the best documentation to get a list of all the changes in the latest version vs vanilla.
Thw wordpress site appears to refer to changes from the previous VEM verson rather than compared to vanilla...

 

[Seek]

I should have time to update it late this week (it takes 4-5 hours and I've been pretty busy recently). Generally it's updated about once a month. In the meantime, going ingame and checking the civilopedia is your best bet (or you can use the search function on the site if you have specific queries). I'd say at least 80% of the documented changes on the VEM component pages are still up to date though.

 

[ifinnem]

I should have time to update it late this week (it takes 4-5 hours and I've been pretty busy recently). Generally it's updated about once a month. In the meantime, going ingame and checking the civilopedia is your best bet (or you can use the search function on the site if you have specific queries). I'd say at least 80% of the documented changes on the VEM component pages are still up to date though.

When you say update it - where do you mean?

I have browsed the civilopedia / tech tree and that is certainly good for seeing what techs unlock, wonder bonuses, building yields, unit abilities, specialist slots.

I think the some of the key ones that are harder to find are things like
a) Tech cost comparison
b) SP costs
c) XP thresholds
d) Building & unit purchase and unit upgrade formulas
e) GS / GE bulb formula
f) City growth foodbox thresholds
g) RA formula
h) CS relationship management changes

Thanks!

EDIT: I see the sub headings on the wordpress site do have changes vs vanilla listed, the main page is the confusing part which sites updates from previous versions of VEM
Once I've played around a bit I'll update my list of questions - might be an opportunity for us to create a new thread of all the key posts / threads for a newbie (e.g. city growth curve etc.)