[MOD] Ultimate Strategy

[naf4ever]

Hello there.
Great Mod, and great approach to making it.

But sadly there is a huge problem (the reason why we don't use the mod currently):
My friends and i tried to play it, but were very disappointed because we constantly got out of sync. It seems to happen everytime somebody finishes researching a technology for which he gets the Open-Borders-Bonus.

And as this will probably be the mod i will usually play once you have fixed this, i will ask you for another feature here :
Could you implement the possibility to change the Culture-/Science-Rates in smaller steps as 10% ? I often found i would like to set my Culture-Budget to about 25% and alternating between 30% and 20% is a rather annoying workaround.

Shoot,, I was a little concerned about that happening with the open borders but thought I had avoided using the functions which commonly cause that problem. I'll rexamine it but give me some more info if you can because its a little harder for me to test out unless i got someone else online i can mess around with:

1) Were you playing simotanenous turns or standard?
2) As you notice with the open borders bonus you receive your regular tech points and then the bonus. So if you're watching the tech bar you'll see it increase twice very quickly. If you can remember or if you have the game saved do you know at what point the out of sync error occurred? During the first tech gain at the end of turn (hence your normal research points) or the second one (the bonus points from open borders)?

Thanks for pointing this issue out.. Those will help me track down the problem.

EDIT: Im rewriting how the OpenTech mod bonus works right now. To simplify things the bonus will instead grant a free building in all your cities that gives a +100% research bonus. This will accomplish pretty much the same thing though the bonus will be slightly less than 100% in some cities because of how the additive way % increases to research work. I'll fix this by maybe adding more bonuses at higher levels like after scientific method or something.

-Naf

 

[dh_epic]

hey, naf4ever,

On the tech conquest thing, it sounds to me like you have your head on your shoulders. The fact that you were able to reasonably refute what I had to say has some significant merit. Now the key is finding the right execution.

 

[snv]

I don't think i made a savegame for this, and the autosaves should all have been overwritten, but if you want to, we can make some online test games.

As you are shuffling stuff around anyways right now: wouldn't you agree that it would make sense to associate the bonus to trade routes?
Though i understand that this would make the effect much less predictable and controllable, this would be (IMO) the usual simulationist-gamist-tradeoff. But honestly i'm not sure i would like it this way myself ;-)

 

[naf4ever]

I don't think i made a savegame for this, and the autosaves should all have been overwritten, but if you want to, we can make some online test games.

As you are shuffling stuff around anyways right now: wouldn't you agree that it would make sense to associate the bonus to trade routes?
Though i understand that this would make the effect much less predictable and controllable, this would be (IMO) the usual simulationist-gamist-tradeoff. But honestly i'm not sure i would like it this way myself ;-)

Dont worry about testing it out more since i've decided to re-write how the process works anyways. The problem before i think was that the game isnt use to dealing with completing techs and then choosing new ones on that part of the turn,, so it was messing stuff up. The new method im working on seems to function much better and once i get some bugs worked out ill post it online.

The problem with associating it with trade routes is it will then affect commerce which can be channeled into either gold, research or culture. I just want it to affect research only since the premise for this model is tech trading.

Oh and as for your other idea about the slider bar , im not sure if i can do that. I'll see if its possible to change it to increments of 5%. I got a feeling this is either easy to do, or not possible.

 

[Eusebius]

sounds promising, if it wasn't for "settler religion", which is probably the worse idea the community could come up with. I don't understand why so many mods implement it. I would try this mod if there is a way to get rid of settler religion.

Please say some more about this. I was debating including settler religion in a mod I'm working on. What do you see as the problem with it? What effect was it having, that it was taken out of the latest version?

Thanks,
Eusebius

PS. Looks like a cool mod. Thanks!

 

[Nightravn]

Naf- You can change the slider to 5 increaments... it is in the Realism MOD so I know it can be done just don't ask me how. I am using the Mod with the Realism world map and as of right now all is going good. The tech trading was ok for me at first though I had to change some of my behaviors as I usually don't have open borders with anybody so it took some getting used to. The other issue, which I guess isn't one really, is that once you get ahead of everyone then it doesn't do YOU much good. Any ways I trying to get to the late games to see how everything works out. Right now it is about 1500 AD and I am dominating by controling all of the Europe, The Mediterranean. The Mid-East to just past India... next to go is Russia.....

 

[naf4ever]

Naf- You can change the slider to 5 increaments... it is in the Realism MOD so I know it can be done just don't ask me how.

Cool. I'll take a look at how he did it.

I am using the Mod with the Realism world map and as of right now all is going good. The tech trading was ok for me at first though I had to change so of my behaviors as i usually don't have open borders so it took some getting used to. The other issue, which I guess isn't one really, is that once you get ahead of everyone then it doesn't do YOU much good.

Ya i know the opentech trading model isnt much good if you are ahead of everyone. But then again normal tech trading isnt either when everyone else is behind you...

Any ways I trying to get to the late games to see how everything works out. Right now it is about 1500 AD and I am dominating by control all of the Europe, The Mediterranean. The Mid-East to just past India... next to go is Russia.....

Cool let me know how the flow of things go. I hope to get done re-writing the techtrading code to correct the out-of-sync errors and some other fixes by the end of the week latest.

 

[naf4ever]

Please say some more about this. I was debating including settler religion in a mod I'm working on. What do you see as the problem with it? What effect was it having, that it was taken out of the latest version?

Thanks,
Eusebius

PS. Looks like a cool mod. Thanks!

Mainly because if you found a religeon early on in your capital it means you will never need to build a missionary for the entire game yet your whole empire will have your religeon. Its a little unbalancing, makes missionaries kind of pointless once you get a religeon and sort of negates the creative culture bonus if someone can get the same effect from founding a religeon early on and having it automatically in every city they settle.

 

[Aeon221]

I like it for the convenience factor. Plus its not like my people have suddenly forgotten their religion just because they moved a few miles away from home.

Maybe you could increase the likelihood of secondary and tertiary religions spreading into cities? At the current rate, I have only seen an automatic secondary religion spread into a city once. I was bloody shocked!

So now, if you have open borders with one civ you get massive +100% research buildings in all your cities?

Isnt that just a tad unbalancing?

The first mod gave every civilization an equivalent bonus for open borders. The second unfairly benefits more commercial civs.

The effects are even more marked in a scientific powerhouse.

All I am saying is that there is probably a more elegant way to deal with the situation (like maybe changing the time of check or something)

 

[naf4ever]

I like it for the convenience factor. Plus its not like my people have suddenly forgotten their religion just because they moved a few miles away from home.

Maybe you could increase the likelihood of secondary and tertiary religions spreading into cities? At the current rate, I have only seen an automatic secondary religion spread into a city once. I was bloody shocked!

Im going to take a look at some factors involving religeon. They arent on the top of the list at the moment. But they are on the list...

So now, if you have open borders with one civ you get massive +100% research buildings in all your cities?

Isnt that just a tad unbalancing?

The first mod gave every civilization an equivalent bonus for open borders. The second unfairly benefits more commercial civs.

The effects are even more marked in a scientific powerhouse.

All I am saying is that there is probably a more elegant way to deal with the situation (like maybe changing the time of check or something)

The original bonus was always based on your current research. If you were producing 10 rp's you'd get a 10 rp bonus, if you were making a 100, then youd get a 100 bonus. The new system would in essence keep this same balance. Also remember there is no tech swapping at all in the game. If you want to stay up on tech you need to do it the old fashioned way and research it or utilize this bonus. Furthermore this bonus is only prevelant when you are researching tech that's "tradable". This isnt a flat permanent bonus.

On another note im going to be releasing a new version probably in a day or less now i think... The tech trading model is quite different than the original, but more fun i think.

 

[ilteroi]

have you thought about making the research bonus "fade-in" over the course of a few turns? maybe ten or so, to simulate the time it takes to get the cooperation really going. and it would also discourage people from signing and canceling treaties for short term goals ...

 

[interwurm]

About tech conquest.

It might be a nice counterbalance to have the civ losing the city gain a tech boost. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but think about it this way - when Alexander the Great's armies swept across the world, they brought with them a lot of Greek culture and achievments which stuck in those places.

Even if it isn't realistic, it's a nice way to balance out the benefits of conquest.

 

[naf4ever]

About tech conquest.

It might be a nice counterbalance to have the civ losing the city gain a tech boost. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but think about it this way - when Alexander the Great's armies swept across the world, they brought with them a lot of Greek culture and achievments which stuck in those places.

Even if it isn't realistic, it's a nice way to balance out the benefits of conquest.

Techconquest has been dimmed down a lot in the latest update. It now gives very little poitns for wiping out small cities. You'll have to take over cities of size 20+ to even get the chance at a whole tech and even then it isnt guaranteed.

 

[naf4ever]

New version is up. This guy is the new Science Representative unit at the heart of it:

 

[snv]

I think it is not necessary to implement a fading in to avoid short term whipping around, because in the new version you first have to get your science rep into the right city, depending on where he is this might take quite some time.

 

[naf4ever]

I think it is not necessary to implement a fading in to avoid short term whipping around, because in the new version you first have to get your science rep into the right city, depending on where he is this might take quite some time.

What do you mean "fading in"?

 

[Aeon221]

He is referring to a prior post, in which the author brought up the concern of players signing short term treaties in order to grab a quick research boost.

I like the new tech rep idea, but could you spell out a tad more clearly what he does? I'm about to go check it out in game, but I feel totally confused man

 

[naf4ever]

I like the new tech rep idea, but could you spell out a tad more clearly what he does? I'm about to go check it out in game, but I feel totally confused man

Sure:

1) If you are allied with someone (open borders) and they have tech that is tradeable (meaning they have it and you dont) in the foreign advisor screen you can then get a significant bonus when researching these techs.

2) To get the bonus you simply need to move your science rep to one of their cities.

He is referring to a prior post, in which the author brought up the concern of players signing short term treaties in order to grab a quick research boost.

Remember you DONT GET a bonus just for being allied. Just having open borders does nothing unless you are researching a tradeable tech.

 

[Landmonitor]

New version is up. This guy is the new Science Representative unit at the heart of it:

This is a little off topic, although I've been following what you guys are saying and come summer time, I'm definetely going to check out whatever stage this mod is at.

Anyway, what I wanted to know: How do you zoom in that much? Can you also rotate past where (ctrl)-left/right goes? When I found out this was 3D I assumed you could do any level of map rotation and was disappointed when I saw you couldn't.

 

[naf4ever]

In your civilizationiv.ini look for this line:

; Allow Camera Flying
AllowFlying = 0

Change the 1 to a zero. then when your in the game type ctrl-alt-f to enter camera flying mode and the same to exit it.