New mod beta: WildWeazel's Change Request 1.1 Beta

[WildWeazel]

It has been far too long since I have uploaded anything new but let's see if I still know what I'm doing.

I'm tempted to call it a completed mod, but realistically this is a beta and will probably need some tweaks. I have only smoke tested this, not played a real game, so it should not crash but balance is not guaranteed. Feedback is welcome. Specifically I did not try to adjust tech costs to compensate for fewer techs. I've tried to keep the Civilopedia text as accurate as possible but may have missed references to changes. Please report any issues.

WildWeazel's Change Request is a minimalist mod based on @player1 fanatic 's excellent mod Patch Suggestion - C3C version, just a bit more aggressive.

I thought I had started from a version of the mod that already included Austria in place of Korea, but now I can only find discussion proposing such. I've had this BIQ kicking around for so long now that I can't remember whether I did it myself. In either case, credit to player1 fanatic for the idea. Otherwise, the biggest change is the introduction of the Grenadier (from Napoleonic Europe) in the offense line. Most other changes involve consolidating extraneous techs and redistributing prerequisites in the mid game. Besides further updates to the Civilopedia files, the only new assets are the revised tech tree backgrounds.

Install instructions:

Just unzip the files in your Civ3\Conquests\Scenarios folder to produce WildWeazelChangeRequest.biq and the directory patch_suggestion.

MOD CHANGES

WWCR includes all of the changes in Patch Suggestion - C3C version, which are listed in ps_c3c_readme.txt.

General Changes

- Replaced Korea with Austria: Mil/Ind, UU Hussar replaces Cavalry. Uses C3C assets.
- Worker is a foot unit so that it can be transported by Helicopter.
- Road movement reduced to 2.
- Golden Age increased to 30 turns.
- Each civ has a single unique color for consistency across games. I'm not happy with all of them and neither will you be.
- All map sizes allow 31 civs for convenience. Un-assign players as desired when starting a game. I did NOT change world size settings, so they are still balanced for the standard 4-16 players.

Ancient Times
- Ancient Cavalry attack increased to 3, and bonus HP removed.

Middle Ages

- Conscription requires Feudalism
- Berserker replaces MedInf instead of Longbowman.
- Samurai replaces MedInf instead of Knight: 4/4/1 60 shields.
- Knight and Knight UUs defense reduced to 2.
- Caravel requires Gunpowder and Saltpeter, sinks in Sea (until Astronomy).
- Carrack requires Gunpowder and Saltpeter, sinks in Ocean (until Navigation).
- Added Grenadier: 6/4(3)/1 70 shields, requires Metallurgy and Saltpeter. Upgrade for Longbowman, Crusader, MedInf. Upgrades to Guerilla. Uses C3C assets.
- Combined Free Artistry and Music Theory into Performing Arts, requiring Education.
- Printing Press and Economics are required for era advancement.
- Trade Embargo requires Economics.
- Removed Chemistry. Metallurgy requires Gunpowder.
- Merged Magnetism into Navigation. Required for era advancement.
- Merged Theory of Gravity into Physics. Requires Navigation and Gunpowder.
- Man-o-War no longer enslaves (an apparent bug in the original patch).

Industrial Ages

- Nationalism and Medicine are required for era advancement.
- Merged Sanitation into Medicine. Requires Scientific Method.
- Electricity requires Scientific Method and Steam Power.
- Coal Plant requires Electricity
- Removed Ironclads technology. Ironclad unit requires Steam Power.
- Fascism requires The Corporation
- Police Station requires Industrialization.
- Policeman citizen requires Espionage.
- Removed Steel.
- Removed Atomic Theory. Electronics requires Electricity.

Modern Times
- Internet requires Computers.
- Radartillery range increased to 3.
- Cruise Missile range increased to 6.
- Tactical Nuke range increased to 8.
- Removed Stealth Fighter (or did I?)

 

[Takhisis]

First!

Some of the listed changes surprisingly resemble those on my own list, which I need to dust off from the previous computer's hard drive.

 

[SkipperXIV]

Second! Always interesting to see how other modders approach the same goal, so to speak. I shall watch this mod's development with great interest.

 

[Takhisis]

- Replaced Korea with Austria

Korea!?!?

 

[WildWeazel]

I thought I had started from a version of the mod that already included Austria in place of Korea ... credit to player1 fanatic for the idea.

It was at least proposed in PSC3C and part of my baseline before I started putting this together. Korea isn't the first civ I'd axe, but it makes sense: they're already one of the 3 duplicated trait combos, they have a strange and forcibly imbalanced UU, and the Asian culture group isn't particularly sparse.

 

[WildWeazel]

Added some screenshots to visualize the tech changes

 

[WildWeazel]

Any takers? I do intend to play through and document a game, as soon as I can wrap up another one in progress. IYKYK

 

[Ozymandias]

I would happily dive in, but for my immersion in Terra Fantasia.

 

[timerover51]

This looks a lot like Theov's mod, Expanding Civ3. I will have to look at it.

 

[timerover51]

It does look interesting. You have reduced the required techs for advancement to the Industrial and Modern Ages, which is a great plus. I generally add Steel to the resources to give the Steel Advance some meaning, but taking it out makes sense as well. I like the Ironclad back with Steam Power, as the separate advance was annoying.

One immediate suggestion would be move the Coal Plant to Steam Power, as coal-fired steam plants driving reciprocating steam engines supplied a lot of power to the early factories and large iron foundries. Through a series of drive shafts and belts, they could power 100 ton cranes for moving large iron ingots.

I will play around with it and make some changes. Would you be interested in seeing what I come up with? One word of warning, I do not allow Wonders to go obsolete.

 

[Theov]

- Road movement reduced to 2.
- Carrack requires Gunpowder and Saltpeter, sinks in Ocean (until Navigation).

Why change roads to 2?
But the Portuguese have the Carrack to be ahead of everyone else finding new continents!

This looks a lot like Theov's mod, Expanding Civ3. I will have to look at it.

... without the added stuff.

This resembles how I once started.

I like many of your changes, especially the Berserker and moving some things around.
You also merged some techs, which is good, bc the AI likes to spend a lot of time researching stuff it doesn't need, giving players an easy advantage. (I'm talking printing press and music etc)

 

[timerover51]

Theov, I still love your mod. You have a lot of good things in there, one of the being the Blacksmith, along with the Brewery and the Winery.

 

[WildWeazel]

One immediate suggestion would be move the Coal Plant to Steam Power, as coal-fired steam plants driving reciprocating steam engines supplied a lot of power to the early factories and large iron foundries.

That's true. I interpret it as a coal power plant since the others are all clearly electrical, but coal-steam plants did predate the electric grid. But, since the plants all require a factory, you wouldn't be able to build it yet at Steam Power anyway. This way you have to do more research to take advantage of both buildings.

I will play around with it and make some changes. Would you be interested in seeing what I come up with?

By all means, feel free. This is after all just my own expansion to someone else's mod.

Why change roads to 2?

It just feels more realistic to me. Always been my preference.

But the Portuguese have the Carrack to be ahead of everyone else finding new continents!

It's still the better explorer, as everyone else needs both Gunpowder and Astronomy to sail Caravels over Sea. Now there's a tradeoff between getting better ships first or enhancing your Galleys.

... without the added stuff.

I avoided adding anything new other than filling the obvious gap in the infantry line, since the idea is to clean up the game as-is.

 

[timerover51]

That's true. I interpret it as a coal power plant since the others are all clearly electrical, but coal-steam plants did predate the electric grid. But, since the plants all require a factory, you wouldn't be able to build it yet at Steam Power anyway. This way you have to do more research to take advantage of both buildings.

There were plenty of factories prior to the use of electricity, among them the Whitworth and Armstrong armament factories in England, the Krupp works in Germany, the French armament works, and the factories producing steam locomotives and railroad iron. You might want to take a lot at the Report of the Gun Foundry in 1884, which can be found here: https://archive.org/details/cu31924030759785

 

[WildWeazel]

I went ahead and added this to the database: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/wildweazels-change-request.31209/ There are some threads like C3X that are directly associated with the download page, but I don't see how to do that.

I've started a game as Japan that's going pretty okay, and already noted a few things to fix:

• Revert the reference to the Minuteman UU from America's pedia entry.
• Remove the Hwacha unit
• Extract my changes to a different mod folder, in case you also have Patch Suggestion installed

 

[WildWeazel]

Unsurprisingly, issues have been found.

My war against England was going well until I found that units cannot join armies. The army unit was left in an unusable state after tinkering with the idea of giving it an HP bonus instead of holding multiple units, which I'm still considering.

There was also a distinct lack of Ancient Cavalry from the Statue of Zeus that I was trying to capture. I checked and indeed, the produced units from both the Statue and the Knights Templar had been shifted by changes to the unit lineup. From what, I can't say as both Wang Kon and the Hwacha were still there.

I should have started from a fresh copy of Patch Suggestion when I started putting together a formal mod. I wonder if I should still go back and do that, as I have a detailed list of changes to follow. Unfortunately there's no easy way to "diff" a BIQ and see what is changed.

 

[Quintillus]

Looks like a nice set of changes. Streamlining the techs that don't do anything, moving Ironclads back to Steam Power (like it properly was in Vanilla), that conscription-on-feudalism change could be an interesting one. Also curious to take it for a spin to see how the Grenadier affects things. Overall, the "Conquests+" style appeals to me; a low learning curve but some changes nonetheless.

I went ahead and added this to the database: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/wildweazels-change-request.31209/ There are some threads like C3X that are directly associated with the download page, but I don't see how to do that.

That is the "..." menu and then "Change Discussion Thread". I'm 97% sure you can do this to your own resources (moderators can also do it to other resources):

I can do it if you'd like, but as I'm trying to encourage this linkage in general, I'm also advocating self-linking as taking the action is the best way to remember how to do it in the future.

I should have started from a fresh copy of Patch Suggestion when I started putting together a formal mod. I wonder if I should still go back and do that, as I have a detailed list of changes to follow. Unfortunately there's no easy way to "diff" a BIQ and see what is changed.

Ah, but there is. That was the initial feature of my editor (link in sig), way back in 2009 (but use the editor instead, various small improvements have been made over the years). Open two BIQs (ignoring the warning that opening two BIQs isn't recommended), choose the section(s) you'd like to compare, make sure the "English" box is selected, and export it to a file. It'll show the differences between e.g. units with the same name, but also the new units such as the Grenadier. ("English" means where possible it will say things like "Upgrades to Knight" rather than "Upgrades to 42" if 42 is the index of the Knight)

 

[WildWeazel]

That is the "..." menu and then "Change Discussion Thread". I'm 97% sure you can do this to your own resources (moderators can also do it to other resources):

Nope! All I have are Edit Resource, Edit Resource Icon, and Change Resource Type. I entered this thread as Additional Discussion URL when I created it, but now I don't see a link anywhere.

Ah, but there is. That was the initial feature of my editor (link in sig), way back in 2009 (but use the editor instead, various small improvements have been made over the years). Open two BIQs (ignoring the warning that opening two BIQs isn't recommended), choose the section(s) you'd like to compare, make sure the "English" box is selected, and export it to a file. It'll show the differences between e.g. units with the same name, but also the new units such as the Grenadier. ("English" means where possible it will say things like "Upgrades to Knight" rather than "Upgrades to 42" if 42 is the index of the Knight)

Now you tell me! I never bothered to set up Java or anything in my VM, which as of today is broken again. And sadly even with Liberica 8 I'm unable to get past the first-time setup prompt on Linux.

 

[Quintillus]

Nope! All I have are Edit Resource, Edit Resource Icon, and Change Resource Type. I entered this thread as Additional Discussion URL when I created it, but now I don't see a link anywhere.

Huh, that's odd. I'm almost certain I could do this before becoming a moderator. The "Additional Discussion URL" thing is confusing, it is the "More Information" link on the resource page. I think it's intended if there's like a separate web site for the resource, but it's a one-way link. At any rate, I've added the two-way link so now this thread and the Downloads Database entry point to each other.

Now you tell me! I never bothered to set up Java or anything in my VM, which as of today is broken again. And sadly even with Liberica 8 I'm unable to get past the first-time setup prompt on Linux.

Hmm... that is the "Full" Liberica 8, not the default "Standard" one? That would be consistent with the expected behavior if the "Standard" one were installed. It's unfortunately become a lot harder to make it easy to run Java desktop programs since 2009, as Oracle stopped aiming for perfect backwards compatibility sometime around 2016, and the amount of effort to bring things up to post-2016 standards is more work than is justified for the frequency with which I mod Civ these days.

That said, the "1.24 Legacy" version should work smoothly as it lacks the features that cause issues with mainstream modern Java distributions, and like all the versions ever, it also has the BIQ Compare functionality.

 

[Ozymandias]

@Quintillus - I get all sorts of malware warnings (which I bypass) yet there's no file to be found on your "1.24 Legacy" link.