Mega Mod

[Slowpoke]

Well ranged units are still pretty awful long term due to messed up experience. If Im going to nerf them, I'd have to revamp the late game units so they have a ranged attack which is going to take a lot of work to do right.

As far as no healing, you're right I really want to add it, but, well, the people have spoken. I'm pretty stubborn, but if over 80% of people don't like a feature it's going optional. Whenever I learn more advanced modding methods, it'll be tied to handicap. So deity = no healing, immortal = no healing ecept in cities, emperor = no healing in netural, etc. And when I learn very advanced modding, it'll be turned into reinforcements, where you pay gold for "healing"

 

[Slowpoke]

Alright, I've got a lot of tests and projects to do, so v19 won't be out for a while. But as usual for pauses in updates, I'll describe what's going to be coming if anyone wants to comment:

1) Happiness is getting -completely- reverted. (although theatres and stadiums will still provide higher happiness), thanks to alpaca's city maintenance system. After testing it out, I've found it to be remarkably powerful and game changing.

2)Culture is getting revamped some more, although policies will be untouched except for one or two. Culture buildings after monument will now be worth building even for those not going for a cultural victory. Very early game policy costs are increased, and goody hut culture gives only 10 culture, but late game policy costs are reduced. Interestingly, I'm finding I lean towards artist specialists in playtesting.

3)A new strategic resource "Talent" is being added. Non-siege range units are going to be heavily buffed, although they are now tied to this rather limited resource. Furthermore (maybe not in v19, but eventually), recurve bows, sharpshooters, and snipers will be added, all using talent and all on the archer path (yay experienced ranged units will have a purpose past crossbow). This is to further my goal of a combined arms style combat system.

4)Gold is getting reworked yet again (sorry, it fluctuates so much with gameplay changes). Building maintenance will be increased a bit, but not to nearly the level of vanilla. Thanks to city maintenance, bribes and research agreements will cost massively less. You can either expand or get science/CSs, your choice.

5)Starting happiness and luxury happiness are changed. Luxuries give only 3 happiness, and you start with 8 more happiness. Reduces luck in starting areas. Luxury trades are massively reduced (about 120g on average).

6) Pillage gold is buffed. Tile pillage is doubled (would be triple, but would result in farming). City pillage by population is doubled. Songhai is suddenly much more attractive. Due to the new maintenance system , there is not much point in keeping many conquered cities, but going on a raze spree will add a whole lot of gold.

7) Depending on how the new patch does rebellions, I am likely going to completely take out unhappy and very unhappy altogether. So you can conquer all you like, but watch out for that Braveheart coming to screw up your empire...

8) A.I. now expand slightly more faster. The result is EmperorPlus is now about as tough as Deity vanilla, and there is no space left by late medeival.

 

[alpaca]

As for 2) I'm finding the same with 2 culture artist. They are a bit too strong compared to the early culture buildings so maybe one slot should be moved from the Temple to the Opera. Told you I'd like them at 1.5 before

Which values do you change to make the AI expand more? I'd like to give that a whirl, too.

By the way, Thalassicus has a script that replaces the ranged promotions with their melee counterparts on unit upgrade. I'm sure he'd let you use it if you ask him.

 

[Slowpoke]

Whoops, totally forgot about the post, saw it at school. Hold on, I'll get the code. Keep in mind, a modest buff to the settler flavor is probably good enough.

Code:

<GameData>
<AIEconomicStrategies>
<Update>
<Set WeightThreshold="-1000"/>
<Where Type ="ECONOMICAISTRATEGY_EARLY_EXPANSION"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Set WeightThreshold="1000"/>
<Where Type ="ECONOMICAISTRATEGY_ENOUGH_EXPANSION"/>
</Update>
</AIEconomicStrategies>
<AICityStrategies>
<Update>
<Set WeightThreshold="-1000"/>
<Where Type ="AICITYSTRATEGY_CAPITAL_NEED_SETTLER"/>
</Update>
</AICityStrategies>
</GameData>

<GameData>
<Unit_Flavors>
<Update>
<Set Flavor="22"/>
<Where UnitType="UNIT_SETTLER"/>
</Update>
</Unit_Flavors>
</GameData>

Note: While you'd think the stragies thing would make the A.I. go insane with expansion it doesn't. It does double it or so, though. The 2 extra settler flavor evens it out. So on standard map there is an incredibly small standard deviation of cities per empire.

Edit: As for the ranged promos, I'm actually going to get sharpshooters/snipers pretty quickly. v19 won't have them probably, but they'll be the first item of v20 to be coded. They're gonna have reused art, but they should be recognizable pretty easily. E.g., for talent resource, I use iron resource graphics, with fish for the icon, so there is no doubt that the resource is talent since it's on land, and on the top panel there is no fish strat resource so it's obviously talent. Temporary sure, but good enough for the moment.

Edit: Whoops, forgot this code, too. Although with city maintenance, I should probably change the second bit back to the default of 8. Unfortunately, there is no way that I know of to make the A.I. expand more on larger maps.

<GameData>
<Defines>
<Update>
<Set Value="0"/>
<Where Name="AI_STRATEGY_EARLY_EXPANSION_NUM_UNOWNED_TILES_REQUIRED"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Set Value="20"/>
<Where Name="AI_STRATEGY_EARLY_EXPANSION_NUM_CITIES_LIMIT"/>
</Update>
</Defines>
</GameData>

 

[alpaca]

Actually I noticed (still have to verify it) something interesting with the guaranteed food resource. It seems to also make the AI turn to expansion more. I played a Prince game and the AI expansion was on par with me until I hit 6 cities or so, and after that I only got the edge because I chose liberty and had aggressively settled outward before, leaving me a few choice positions closer to home. Later on, the AI built a lot more cities even, which may not actually be such a good thing in PWM on lower difficulties due to city maintenance, but will be kick-ass on higher diffs because the AI gets a maintenance discount.

 

[Slowpoke]

Alright, v19 is out! Changes (Will add these to the front post in a moment):

-Starting happiness is now 17 (8 higher). Luxuries are now only 3 happiness. They sell for only about 120 gold, and open borders are only worth 29

-Vanilla happiness system is back (Theatre and stadiums however still give more happiness, and burial tombs still give only 1, but their culture is buffed (see below))! In it's place is city maintenance. Here's the total maintenance based on how many cities you have:

1 (capital only):0
2:1
3:5
4:9
5:14
6:21
7:28
8:37
9:46
10:57
etc.

-culture buildings give more culture:
monument:same
temple/burialtomb/thatother one:4 (mud pyramids are still 5). So +1
museum:7 (+2)
Opera hourse:9 (+4)
Broadcast tower: same

-Strategic resource, Talent, is added. I didn't know how to do the art changes, so it is recognizable on the map as looking like iron, but having fish for an icon. Unlocked via archery. Required now for archer, crossbows, longbows, and chukonu. All are buffed as a result. However, the resource is fairly rare. Additionally, iron is now always 4, down from 10, but doubled in frequency on the map.

-City states bribes are again decreased, almost to vanilla level. However, large empires obviously cannot afford them.

-Tile pillage, and city population pillage is doubled

-Fixed a bug where republic got the extra gold rather than representation. Meritocracy nerfed to +2 gold

-Artist culture bomb radius tripled. If I can add a variant where id doesn't flip enemy tiles, I will quintuple it.

-Longe term culture costs reduced, short term increased, goody huts give only 10 culture.

-Scouts cost a mere 15 production and have a single strength. They are now actually scouts: Expendable, worthless in war. They go obselete with horseback riding.

-In a golden age, tiles with 3+food produce one extra food.

-New golden age system: 800 starting happiness and +200 each time.

-Fixed a bug where great generals still gave 8 golden age turns

-Iron revealed with mining (If I forget something obvious like this, remind me )

-Units do not get disbanded until you are losing 100 gold per turn. So you can expand at the cost of science.

-Trade route gold is now just 1 + 1 gold per population.

-The first four techs now cost less.

There were a lot of changes, so someone tell me if I missed any please

Edit: Crap, I probably forgot to change the meritocracy text. AAAAARG

 

[alpaca]

Slowpoke, you'll have to download my current v3 build and take the city maintenance from there. The old version didn't save correctly because I misunderstood how SaveUtils work and forgot to change the script once I understood it.

 

[Slowpoke]

oh bum. Alright I'll get to work on it

 

[Terrance888]

Maybe make talent resource a flat plainish area with bushes on the edge. For desert bases and archary ranges! A developed resource will have a target on it.

 

[Slowpoke]

Heh, well artwork is going to be a while in the making if ever. If anything is going to change soon, it'll just be the icon. Not sure what kind of image conjures up the idea of talent.

 

[Terrance888]

Icon Image: A bulls-eye? A smashing hammer? Or go Art deco with the infamous arrow that slips an arrow that is a bulls-eye for the icon.

Terrain, please think my suggestion of a training field with/without target when developed/undeveloped since as far as I can see, it is a ranged resource.

 

[Slowpoke]

Icon Image: A bulls-eye? A smashing hammer? Or go Art deco with the infamous arrow that slips an arrow that is a bulls-eye for the icon.

Terrain, please think my suggestion of a training field with/without target when developed/undeveloped since as far as I can see, it is a ranged resource.

Heh, the art deco version sounds cool. Now to find out if there's any free software that makes .dds files.

 

[alpaca]

Heh, the art deco version sounds cool. Now to find out if there's any free software that makes .dds files.

The GIMP

Edit: By the way, arrow splitting arrow is a patently stupid idea for an icon. Way too much detail, as in many of the vanilla icons.

 

[Slowpoke]

Ah, gimp really? Awesome. GIMP is great.

 

[alpaca]

Ah, gimp really? Awesome. GIMP is great.

As you probably didn't see the edit I just made: I think arrow splitting arrow is a stupid idea. Way too much detail for an icon. This is exactly what many of the vanilla icons suffer from

 

[Slowpoke]

Hrm. So cool idea, bad practicality. Well, what would you suggest? Bullseye is pretty simple.

 

[alpaca]

Hrm. So cool idea, bad practicality. Well, what would you suggest? Bullseye is pretty simple.

Well it's just my opinion, if you think arrow slices arrow will work well, don't let me keep you from doing it. I just think that for icons it's more important to have something that you can easily recognize and remember. A target would work well in my opinion (one of those red and white ones maybe?) - you can even have an arrow sticking in, but arrow slicing arrow would not be recognizable from the front, and if you do it from the side nobody will know what it is.

 

[Valkrionn]

Just so you know, Paint.net works just as well. I far prefer it to Gimp.

 

[Slowpoke]

v20 is out!

Sorry about the rushed state of this mod, but the saves weren't working so I need to release a version that's more stable. Admittedly, the patch is going to mess it up in like 4 days, but meh.

New stuff:

-Saves fixed

-3 new units, composite bowman, sharpshooter, and sniper are added. There is no art support for these yet, as getting their icons is a pain in the butt.


Composite bowman are the middle ground for bowman and crossbows. They are available with mathematics. There is so little difference between the two that they have no art differences.

Sharpshooter is the next upgrade up from crossbows, available with rifling. They have weakened city attack and they start with drill level 3 and one extra range, to represent how difficult it is to take them down in a forest. They are pretty weak generally, though. They have the art of a crossbow, and the unit flag of a warrior, to make them recognizable.

Snipers are basically better sharpshooters available with replaceable parts. They are stronger and have 4 range. Also use crossbowman art, but have the swordsman icon to make them recognizable.

Don't worry, icon support is coming soon

Edit: Meh, falling behind on updating front post. Will get it updated for v21, which will come after patch.

Coming up next: Icons and food caravans if I can figure it out.

 

[Clement]

Sounds awesome, thank you Slowpoke