Quo's Spheres of Intrigue v8.0.13

[isau]

isau submitted a new resource:

Quo's Spheres of Intrigue - Mini expansion that adds spheres and other concepts to the game

This is the ALPHA release of Quo's Spheres of Intrigue. This mod was previously known as Quo's Combined Tweaks. The name change is to reflect the new focus of the mod on being more of a total conversion/expansion pack than just a series of gameplay tweaks.

NOTE: This version of the mod is very new and introduces some features that will break civilizations created by other modders (they will not be able to choose governors, for example.) For this alpha release, refrain from using...

Read more about this resource...

 

[DioAurion]

Congrats on going all-in for the full conversion. Playing through the new expansion with the last version prior to the 8.0 alpha. Will let you know if I come across anything unusual. So far (about 800ad) working flawless.

 

[Kebutus]

Really enjoying the updated mod so far! Just got a couple of things am iffy about.

Some of the governor choices don't really synergise with some of the civs abilities. The Nordic sphere for example has no castellans or cardinals which seems to go against Norway's playstyle.

Also what's the reasoning behind the restriction on uranium for the Nordic sphere?

 

[Kebutus]

Also uranium seems to no longer be revealed by nuclear fission but instead by future tech, I am assuming that this is a mistake?

This was me playing as Mongolia

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I guess it's too late to suggest "Quo's Spheres of Influence"?

 

[Grathocke]

Hooray! Just downloaded and am about to start a new game.

 

[isau]

Also uranium seems to no longer be revealed by nuclear fission but instead by future tech, I am assuming that this is a mistake?

This was me playing as Mongolia

Uranium will show that way on the Tech tree for now because of the internal way the Uranium block on the Nordic sphere works (on the technical side, by moving the "actual" unlock back t Future Tech. A custom modifier then unlocks Uranium manually for other civilizations at the "correct" technology. I need to find a way to put the icon in the correct spot for those civs.)

 

[isau]

Really enjoying the updated mod so far! Just got a couple of things am iffy about.

Some of the governor choices don't really synergise with some of the civs abilities. The Nordic sphere for example has no castellans or cardinals which seems to go against Norway's playstyle.

Also what's the reasoning behind the restriction on uranium for the Nordic sphere?

The governor choices are definitely subject to comment and review.

The Uranium lock out is there because the real thing I was trying to do was put limitations on WMDs for this civilization. The existing game structure makes this very hard to do, however. In the end I'm not even sure the Uranium lockout is appropriate since you can still trade for it, and I'm not sure it's much of a penalty at all. I've struggled to balance this Sphere over past iterations and may need to go to the drawing board again if this new ability set doesn't work out.

 

[isau]

I guess it's too late to suggest "Quo's Spheres of Influence"?

That was the working title but unfortunately if you put that into Google 10 million other things pop up first. Spheres of Intrigue is a sort of play on that term that is easier to find.

 

[isau]

Things I'm noting based on my own observations:

• In some cases, having double access to a Governor isn't very attractive (e.g. Liang). I am going to be looking into how make her twin a good selection.
• Because the Cardinal is so critical to Religious strategies, losing access too him is a pretty big blow if you want to go that route. Looking at how to spread some of his abilities around or create a new governor with a mixed set of abilities

 

[DioAurion]

Haven't found a stand alone mod that does this so thought I'd drop the idea here in hopes it gets picked up.

I wish razing a city was a longer process than instantaneous, especially with this mod's nerfs to city defense. I rarely suffer from it but I hate seeing a leading AI lose one of their largest cities by getting sideswiped by a raiding city-state army that has no real long-term ability to defend the city but burns it to the ground in one turn before the defending civ can rally a defense. I believe in a past version of Civ razing a city took 1 turn per city population (reducing the city size accordingly for each turn) but gave the conqueror the city's cultural radius in the interim to heal their troops and gain in-culture combat bonuses for the duration.

I'll probably drop a request for this in the general chat too but thought I'd float it your way first.

 

[isau]

Haven't found a stand alone mod that does this so thought I'd drop the idea here in hopes it gets picked up.

I wish razing a city was a longer process than instantaneous, especially with this mod's nerfs to city defense. I rarely suffer from it but I hate seeing a leading AI lose one of their largest cities by getting sideswiped by a raiding city-state army that has no real long-term ability to defend the city but burns it to the ground in one turn before the defending civ can rally a defense. I believe in a past version of Civ razing a city took 1 turn per city population (reducing the city size accordingly for each turn) but gave the conqueror the city's cultural radius in the interim to heal their troops and gain in-culture combat bonuses for the duration.

I'll probably drop a request for this in the general chat too but thought I'd float it your way first.

There's probably a mod out there that does this. I believe it would require Lua code, which I am not terribly skilled at. I can add it to the list of things to look at.

 

[DioAurion]

There's probably a mod out there that does this. I believe it would require Lua code, which I am not terribly skilled at. I can add it to the list of things to look at.

Appreciate the consideration. I expected this mod to already exist as well but my search has only shown mods that mess with war weariness relating to city razing and not the process of city razing itself. Makes me imagine there may be an issue in the base code of the game preventing such a mod as I doubt I'm the first to consider this.

 

[isau]

Appreciate the consideration. I expected this mod to already exist as well but my search has only shown mods that mess with war weariness relating to city razing and not the process of city razing itself. Makes me imagine there may be an issue in the base code of the game preventing such a mod as I doubt I'm the first to consider this.

IMO the hardest part would be allowing AI to do it and creating the mechanism that allows players to choose whether to raze. The actual mechanic of lowering Population by 1/turn and then deleting the city wouldn't be terribly hard.

 

[isau]

Just another comment.

I'm aware the Wandering Monk unit right now (part of the Asian Pacific sphere) is in a weird place in terms of its spot on the tree and its Production cost. I think possibly this unit should actually be a Recon unit, given its current focus.

The background on the unit's origin is that originally the goal was to allow Asian Pacific civs to have access to a new Promotion tree. The tree is actually created and in the mod files, just not used right now. The reason is that Promotion trees are tied directly to AI. This means if a unit is given a brand new Promotion tree you need to write AI that specifically hooks into that unit or else it will literally just stand around doing nothing. ;/ If Firaxis had linked AI behavior to a different attribute we wouldn't be in this position, but here we are.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

The reason is that Promotion trees are tied directly to AI. This means if a unit is given a brand new Promotion tree you need to write AI that specifically hooks into that unit or else it will literally just stand around doing nothing.

Could you expound on this a bit more? I have used new promotion trees before and have not seen this issue.

 

[isau]

Could you expound on this a bit more? I have used new promotion trees before and have not seen this issue.

Maybe I am the one who is incorrect.

As I understand it, a lot of the AI code relies on the PromotionClass field to determine how to use a unit. But maybe this understanding is wrong.

 

[Infixo]

Maybe I am the one who is incorrect.
As I understand it, a lot of the AI code relies on the PromotionClass field to determine how to use a unit. But maybe this understanding is wrong.

Afaik, there are 3 levels of how AI determines and uses units.
1. Setting up a team for an operation. PromotionClass is not used here, what matters is unit's AiType defined in UnitAiInfos.
2. Using various unit in a behavior tree. Some nodes directly specify what AiType to use. But most of them assume a unit's default usage. E.g. "Attack Units" node doesn't say more than just that.
3. Tactical moves and attacks. This is the default unit's usage done by the engine, it is not "programmed" anywhere in .xml files, etc. This could be the place where promo class matters.

 

[DioAurion]

Found a very minor error. The mid early game civic that bolsters faith from holy sites (with bonus for population and bonus for having above average adjacency bonuses) is labeled as colonial taxes. Seemed pretty odd until later when I unlocked the real colonial taxes civic and realized it was just a mislabeling.

 

[GemAye]

A few minor error's:

1. When playing the Viking civ, with each attack an enemy unit is pushed back one step which is a feature, I know. But sometimes pushed "into" the sea and the enemy unit just disappears, also a barbarian spear unit guarding a camp is pushed out of the camp resulting the attacking Viking unit to capture the camp without defeating the spear unit. I didn't test this but I think its possible this could also happen to enemy units defending a city.
2. When playing the Spanish civ, I was able to trade one luxery item for the complete treasury and income of any known civilization on the map. I did not test this yet when playing other civ's.

Question:
Is the AI+ mod compatible with this mod?