Procylon's Call to Power Project

[adecoy95]

Did you fight any big wars? You will often fall behind if you are fighting wars while other AI are free to build in peace. Also what era?

no, it was them that started the war, i had like 8 spearmen when they declared war and my military advisor was screaming that i was going to get wiped off the face of the earth, next thing i knew i was being overrun.

also, they entered classical era WAY before i could, like.. crazy sooner.

it was the beginning era.

 

[Decimatus]

no, it was them that started the war, i had like 8 spearmen when they declared war and my military advisor was screaming that i was going to get wiped off the face of the earth, next thing i knew i was being overrun.

also, they entered classical era WAY before i could, like.. crazy sooner.

it was the beginning era.

Who started the war is irrelevant. Fighting wars and building lots of units means you aren't building buildings that other AI who are not fighting wars get to build. So if there are AI that are at peace somewhere while you are bogged down in a war, they have an advantage.

Just because the enter classical doesn't mean they are ahead of you. It just means that they went right for it. You probably had more techs than they did. You only need 1 tech in the next era to be in that era. And in my mod, being in the next era isn't as helpful as it is in vanilla.

 

[Decimatus]

V6 is live! See the OP for details!

Btw, longer download this time. We now have 6.6mb of wonder splash images.

 

[Decimatus]

Let me know how the new slave unit works out for your guys. I am not completely sure how the multiplier on it works. I also want to know whether you feel a need to cover your land in slaves just to get to those wonders first....

Right now, turn ~10 or so the slave gives about +20 production. Turn ~20 it seems to be +30. I know the engineer eventually becomes useless on the bigger wonders, so I am hoping that the slave hits that point as well, though much earlier since it's multiplier and base are much lower:

Great Engineer:
Base: 300
Multiplier: 30

Slave:
Base: 10
Multiplier: 5

I will see about expanding the slave system over time, including of course creating invisible slavers that can ransack cities. But yeah that is pretty far off.

Until then, let me know what you think about this system.

Should I add a food requirement when building slaves(similar to settler)?
Increase/decrease their cost?
Increase/decrease their hurry mechanic?
Should I make the slave a unique unit to those civs who take a certain slavery policy(when I implement them)?

 

[Decimatus]

So I am in the shower when I realized I forgot to do something....

Many of the help text strings for the techs for the new nanotech era do not have any info and probably show just the string name. Also, many other tech help lines do not have all of the info for what they give you, mostly pertaining to units, but also some wonders and buildings.

It was one of the last things on my list of things to do since I was still adding units and buildings. Just forgot to go back and sweep through them with everything that I added.

All(or at least most) of the tech quotes and civpedia entries should be there. Also, the units, wonders, and buildings should have all their correct text info.

TL;DR If you see any broken Tech Help strings(IE "This tech lets you build these things") in the NanoTech era, ignore them for now. Please report any other bugged/broken strings that do not fall into that category.

 

[Decimatus]

I have now added a "Known Issues" block to the original post. If you find a bug not listed there, I would love to hear about it. I probably haven't even listed all the bugs that I have heard about(just the ones I remember right now), so please let me know if you see something in V6 that is not on that list.

 

[chicadee987]

V6 crashes when I try to start the game. Tried to download it from alternate place but it didnt help

 

[chrome-rome]

Decimatus, I've said it before and I will say it again: I absolutely love this mod. I have downloaded v6 and will be playing shortly. Thanks for all the hard work!!

EDIT: My version crashes as well

 

[Decimatus]

Gah, I have always wanted to avoid this.

I have a couple hours to work on the issue before I fly out, so I will see what I can do.

 

[Decimatus]

It seems like I can't fix this issue before my flight leaves, so I am de-listing V6 on the mod hub. It should now show V5.

Also, I am going to leave a V7 up on the Source Forge link. So, if it does work for anyone, or better yet, if anyone has any insight as to why it is crashing for some people, it is there for your perusal.

Hopefully when I get to Seattle someone will have found an un-dotted i or uncrossed T and I can quickly get you guys an update.

 

[LordTC]

I think I'd want to be careful about choosing particular countries Brands for Wonders in the modern era. I think it really hurts immersion when I'm playing as say Germany and the wonder I build is Boeing rather than say Messerschmidt. With ancient Era wonders we're careful about this. It's the Labyrinth rather than the Minoan Labyrinth, etc..

In terms of game balance I've noticed the following:

Much of the social policy tree needs rewriting. Things like +1 hammer in every city or +1 food in your capital are practically a joke now.

Golden Ages need something to change +1 of each type per tile doesn't work out so well when you have so many tiles.

You may want to consider returning the scout bonus for terrain, or making it cost comparable to a warrior and have an extra movement or something. The main issue is that forest starts are extremely painful in terms of exploring.

It may be worth exploring start options like guaranteeing every civ starts on a river, since rivers are so absurdly powerful in this version of the game (+1/+1/+1 is absurd).

Horsemen might need to be weakened given that they now require 2 techs to achieve instead of 3 and both of those techs are awesome. Animal Husbandry reveals a strategic resource, and gives your workers something awesome to do, and Horseback Riding has a unit and two buildings one of which gives happiness which is a key thing early.

I think settler cost needs to be watched closely, largely because of issues with food turning into production.

I've also noticed that settling on a flood plain turned it into a desert in one of my games (I think this is a bug), and that wheat can be placed on desert tiles, which isn't a big deal but it might effect emersion for some people (It's kind of a WTF moment when you're scouting this inhospitable desert and all of a sudden in the middle of this lifeless terrain there is wheat).

It might be necessary to rewrite some of the civ abilities, China (Gold is much more important than other resources in this version and Paper Maker gets much more powerful) and India get significant boosts IMHO (Big cities are far more achievable with the newer food ratios).

One unfortunate side effect of the huge bonuses to food and production that the tiles get is that the map ends up getting coated in those ugly trading posts.

 

[LordTC]

The Early Game needs a fair amount of tuning, It's almost impossible to have a reasonable happiness level early on because the population growth gets out of control. This can be a potential big issue because the AI gets to ignore happiness, while the human player may end up in a really awkward place because of it.

 

[Buddha2723]

It may be worth exploring start options like guaranteeing every civ starts on a river, since rivers are so absurdly powerful in this version of the game (+1/+1/+1 is absurd).

Not really, the Egyptians placed almost all their cities along the Nile, and all powerful ancient civs had a major river or two. The river gives easy irrigation, or +1 food, the natural road lets you transport more goods with less work, a man could do what a horse would be needed for along a road, freeing up many valuable horses or oxen, or +1 production. These natural advantages would make these areas richer and more populous, giving +1 gold. The vanilla game's lack of significant river advantages other than a single river only building are absurd. And in game, all civs already start on or near a river, and if you don't start on one in this mod, just colonize or conquer the nearest one. The capital doesn't have to be awesome for your civ to win.

 

[LordTC]

Not really, the Egyptians placed almost all their cities along the Nile, and all powerful ancient civs had a major river or two. The river gives easy irrigation, or +1 food, the natural road lets you transport more goods with less work, a man could do what a horse would be needed for along a road, freeing up many valuable horses or oxen, or +1 production. These natural advantages would make these areas richer and more populous, giving +1 gold. The vanilla game's lack of significant river advantages other than a single river only building are absurd. And in game, all civs already start on or near a river, and if you don't start on one in this mod, just colonize or conquer the nearest one. The capital doesn't have to be awesome for your civ to win.

Clarifying on my point. I agree that rivers should be powerful from a historical perspective (It's more true to life), but given that they are so powerful its worth considering having game balance factors in the map generation script. There are lots of map scripts out there that do things like this already, and since every major early civilization built cities on rivers, it also makes historical sense to start every player on a river. Anyways, its not necessary, especially if people aren't planning on using it for multiplayer, it would just be nice. It's really frustrating to see that an AI doesn't get a river start and gets completely blown out.

 

[Cross Cowboy]

In the early game, you need to watch carefully your happiness and monitor your cities. If you spam cities you will be really hurt as happiness buildings arent abundant. That being said, there are a few that help, and you have to just expand slowly and then as you get more and more happy buildings, you grow out or grow your population. Yes you can have really big cities or you can go for lots and lots and lots. Ive noticed the AI likes to build cities as close as possible and in the beginning they get a lead on me. However, in a few ages I catch up as my cities grow bigger and I still continue to expand outward. At times it does get a bit hard, but by the modern era you shouldnt have too many happpiness worries. But ya never know. I would like to see a bit added on the Golden Age as well, but when you have them in the later periods it does make a difference.

 

[danielshannon]

I'd like to see you add the blue mosque wonder from the mod of the same name, because it is awesome.

Here are some other wonders that I'd like to suggest:

Akshardham
1 gold 1 science for every citizen in this city
1 culture 1 Great Artist
tech: industrial processes

Alhambra
10% bonus to all defensive structures
50% culture in this city
3 culture +1 Great Artist
tech:Civil Service

Amphitheatre of El Jem
4 happiness
20% culture in this city
3 culture 3 Great Artist
tech: Construction

Appian Way
faster movements on roads
1 culture 1 great engineer
tech: the wheel

Aristotle's Lyceum
100% science in this city
1 culture 3 great scientist
tech: philosophy

Astrodome
+ 10 Happiness
+ 1 gold for every specialist in this city
1 culture +1 Great Scientist
tech: plastics

Bahá'í Terraces
+ 10% culture in all cities
+ 5 happiness
+1 Culture +1 Great Artist
tech: electronics

Banaue Rice Terraces
+2 food production in every square worked by this city
+1 culture +1 great merchant
city must be within 2 hexes of a mountain
tech: mining

Borobudur
-25% unhappiness for number of citizens
4 culture 1 great artist
tech: civil service

Buddhas of Bamiyan
+1 culture for every 3 citizens in this city
1 culture 1 great artist
city must be built within 2 hexes of a mountain
tech: Currency

(Canadian) Museum of Civilization
+50% culture + 50% science in this city
+1 culture +1 great scientist
tech: nationalism

Church of Saint George (Lalibela)
+2 culture for each temple
+3 culture +1 great artist
tech: theology

Disneyworld
-25% Unhappiness for number of cities in the empire
1 culture 1 great merchant
tech: Mass media

Eden Project
10% food in this city
25% research in this city
1 culture 3 great scientist
tech: biotech industry

Gateway Arch
immediately enter a golden age
2 culture + 2 great engineer
tech: combustion

Hadrian's Wall
+50% combat bonus vs barbarians
1 culture 1 great engineer
tech: Masonry

Hanseatic League
+20% gold from trade routes
1 culture 3 great merchant
city must be built on the Coast
tech: Guilds

Harmandir Sahib
100% Great People growth in this city
3 culture 3 Great artist
tech: military tradition

Iwami Ginzan
+1 production for every citizen in this city
1 culture 3 great engineer
city must have a source of silver within its radius
tech:metallurgy

Jantar Mantar
+1 Science for every specialist in the city
1 culture 1 great scientist
tech: astronomy

King Ezana's Stele
+20% culture in every city in your empire
+2 culture +1 Great Artist
tech: monotheism

Kiyomizu-dera
10 Happiness
3 culture 1 Great Artist
City must be built on a river
tech: Meditation

Lumbinī
+20% Culture in this city
10 Happiness
4 culture 1 great artist
tech: Mysticism

Masada
+100 great General emergence
3 culture 1 great engineer
tech: monotheism

Moai Statues
+1 gold, +1 production, and +1 food in all ocean tiles in this city
+ 10% culture in all coastal cities
3 culture 1 Great Artist
city must be built on the coast
techriesthood

Mount Rushmore
culture cost of acquiring new tiles reduced by 75% in every city
3 culture 3 great engineer
tech: dynamite

Nalanda University
+10% Science for every city
1 culture 1 great scientist
tech: Calender

Neuschwanstein Castle
10 Happiness
3 culture 3 Great Artist
tech: Nationalism

Palm Islands
+ 10 Happiness
+ 100% Culture in this city
+3 Culture +2 Great Engineer
tech: Biotech industry

Pont du Gard
+1 food in every tile worked by this city
1 culture 1 great engineer
city must be built on a river
tech: Mathematics

Saint Catherine Monastery
5 happiness
+ 1 culture for every 3 citizens in this city
3 culture 1 Great Atist
techriesthood

Saint Sophia Cathedral (Kiev)
-25% Unhappiness for number of cities in the empire
5 culture 3 great artist
tech: feudalism

SETI project
+100% Science in this city
+1 culture + 5 Great Scientist
tech: computers

Sigiriya
+5 Happiness
+ 50% culture in this city
+ 1 culture +1 great artist
city must be within 2 hexes of a mountain
tech: engineering

The University of Sankoré
+1 Science for every 3 Citizens in this city
+25% Culture in this City
+1 culture +1 Great Scientist
tech: Education

The White City (of Tel Aviv)
+20% production of all buildings in this city
3 culture 3 great artist
city must be within 2 hexes of a desert tile
tech: electricity

Wieliczka Salt Mine
+1 production +1 Gold in every square worked by this city
+1 culture + 2 Great Engineer
tech: Metallurgy

Yellowstone National Park
+ 10 happiness
+10 gold on Old Faithful
1 culture 1 great merchant
Old Faithful must be in the city's radius
tech: Nationalism


Furthermore you may wish to consider adding some of Alpha Centauri's wonders, techs, and buildings for the diamond age
http://everything2.com/title/Secret+Projects+in+Sid+Meier%27s+Alpha+Centauri

 

[darkedone02]

So many wonder's... after playing this game, I like how you expand the tech tree so much like it be Rise of Mankind, however I wish there was more improvement's to make and I wish we can somehow make the improvement's to upgrade in a number of turns like in Civ 4. Since we have lua, I guess it's possible, because lua is a powerful system which help make gmod look good.

 

[Decimatus]

Curious, has anyone been able to download V6 or V7 and not have it crash when the start a game up?

I am definitely trying to work the issue, but I am not at home and so may not be able to troubleshoot as well as I could have on my desktop. Also, I will likely be on a 56k connection and not have much time anyway, so... Doing what I can, for the next 2.5 weeks.

If I can find someone who has been able to run V7 without crashing it would be nice. It works perfectly fine for me(both desktop and laptop), but many had CtD's.

I know the CtD problem exists somewhere in the Building.XML but it is going to be tough for me to narrow it down without lots of help.

I think I'd want to be careful about choosing particular countries Brands for Wonders in the modern era. I think it really hurts immersion when I'm playing as say Germany and the wonder I build is Boeing rather than say Messerschmidt. With ancient Era wonders we're careful about this. It's the Labyrinth rather than the Minoan Labyrinth, etc..

In terms of game balance I've noticed the following:

Much of the social policy tree needs rewriting. Things like +1 hammer in every city or +1 food in your capital are practically a joke now.

Golden Ages need something to change +1 of each type per tile doesn't work out so well when you have so many tiles.

You may want to consider returning the scout bonus for terrain, or making it cost comparable to a warrior and have an extra movement or something. The main issue is that forest starts are extremely painful in terms of exploring.

It may be worth exploring start options like guaranteeing every civ starts on a river, since rivers are so absurdly powerful in this version of the game (+1/+1/+1 is absurd).

Horsemen might need to be weakened given that they now require 2 techs to achieve instead of 3 and both of those techs are awesome. Animal Husbandry reveals a strategic resource, and gives your workers something awesome to do, and Horseback Riding has a unit and two buildings one of which gives happiness which is a key thing early.

I think settler cost needs to be watched closely, largely because of issues with food turning into production.

I've also noticed that settling on a flood plain turned it into a desert in one of my games (I think this is a bug), and that wheat can be placed on desert tiles, which isn't a big deal but it might effect emersion for some people (It's kind of a WTF moment when you're scouting this inhospitable desert and all of a sudden in the middle of this lifeless terrain there is wheat).

It might be necessary to rewrite some of the civ abilities, China (Gold is much more important than other resources in this version and Paper Maker gets much more powerful) and India get significant boosts IMHO (Big cities are far more achievable with the newer food ratios).

One unfortunate side effect of the huge bonuses to food and production that the tiles get is that the map ends up getting coated in those ugly trading posts.

Social policies, civs, etc are all going to be reworked at some point.

I do agree that all civilizations should at least start on a river tile, and that is pretty easy to add in. Not sure when will get the chance, but it is in the cards.

The wheat was on desert or floodplains? I don't think wheat is allowed to start on desert, but if it is I can remove that option. I am not sure about the floodplains turning to desert. I haven't really looked at what happens to the original tile that your city founds on other than to note that the game points you to found cities on non-desirable tiles.

The Early Game needs a fair amount of tuning, It's almost impossible to have a reasonable happiness level early on because the population growth gets out of control. This can be a potential big issue because the AI gets to ignore happiness, while the human player may end up in a really awkward place because of it.

It is nothing near impossible. There is a stop growth function in the city screen.

As far as AI trickery, all I can really try to do is to make sure that at certain points in history the player and AI keep some semblance of parity. Which I have found is generally the case, apart from the fact that human players' cities grow to very large heights while the AI seems to stop sometime around renaissance.

I don't see the case where the AI gets some unreasonable bonus, since I can beat them in tech, militarily(my tactics making up for their numbers), and just about in every other category on prince.

If the AI really gets out ahead, most likely you have been fighting a large war allowing them to develop in peace.

I'd like to see you add the blue mosque wonder from the mod of the same name, because it is awesome.

Here are some other wonders that I'd like to suggest:

Lots of good suggestions, many of which I have on a list I keep. At some point, many of those wonders will be accessible through the optional tech pages. Some others I may add directly to the main tree, but there is limited room on each tech(visually) so I can only add so much without much of it getting lost in the civpedia.

So many wonder's... after playing this game, I like how you expand the tech tree so much like it be Rise of Mankind, however I wish there was more improvement's to make and I wish we can somehow make the improvement's to upgrade in a number of turns like in Civ 4. Since we have lua, I guess it's possible, because lua is a powerful system which help make gmod look good.

Many more improvements is on my list, but I do not intend to add many if any before I can get the map graphics to represent them.

 

[TanisX]

Did you start manually putting in IDs in V6? I thought the autoincrement function of a table would handle this better than manually making IDs. Starting with V6 I can't use any other mod that adds new buildings/units without making a lot of units/buildings disappear. Also starting with V6 I can start a game but when I try to load a V6 or V7 save game it crashes.

 

[danielshannon]

How will these optional tech pages work? Will techs on these pages still be divided up into eras?

I’d like to suggest a tech:
Tourism (requires Flight or advanced flight- whichever one gives you the airport) unlocks the Akshardham and Disneyworld wonders and gives plus 10% Gold in every city with a great wonder

I also have some more suggestions for Extra buildings

Skyscraper
+10% Gold in this city
requires corporation

Brewery
+ 5 happiness
Must have Wheat in city radius
requires Agriculture

Once you have religions you’ll probably want religion specific buildings. I’m opposed to civ 4’s ahistorical take on this issue (easy going multiculturalism isn’t exactly the historical norm for human societies), so I’d like to suggest the following:

Make all religion specific buildings (Synagogue, Cathedral, Mosque, etc) give -5 happiness in addition to positive cultural effects (and additional effects if you wanted to differentiate between the religions somewhat). The state religion would give effects that negate that happiness modifier. So, being a Jewish state would give +10 happiness for each synagogue thus making synagogues give a net happiness. Some sort of religiously tolerant government would give a +5 happiness for each religious building- so they’d all have zero effect on happiness. Thus, there would be some reason for going for a homogeneous society (happiness bonuses) but a religiously tolerant society would bring other benefits (mostly cultural). Thus, religious diversity isn’t the automatically superior option, though it would remain a valid option.
Just my two cents on that.