RAR 4 CIV discussion thread

[Isak]

To those who have asked, I can say that development of RAR4CIV (working title) has now begun, with just about all the old DYP team-members joining in the ranks, as well as some new faces we've met along the way.

We're very early in the development phase at the moment, having accomplished nothing more than starting up a few discussions about what we want and don't want, but if you have any input on what you would like to see, please post about it here, or in our forums (see link in my sig).

Note that we won't be deviating much from the DYP/RAR formula, with a primary focus on increasing the level of strategic choice, and a secondary focus on historical accuracy. We don't want to add in things just to add them in - despite what some people might think.

I'll try to keep this post updated with our progress.

 

[The Great Apple]

Awsomeness - good luck!

 

[alms66]

Great news.

My suggestions are:

1. Slow exploration!
Even on the largest of maps (which is all I play), it's just too fast. I'd suggest doing this by reducing the move of all units from the ancient age through the middle-ages, including the scout, to one. Mounted units then have the advantage of retreat, while infantry do not. Then, I'd go further, and restrict the movement of all military units to plains/hills/grassland, except for a few specialized units such as "camel riders" which can move through desert or "alpine warrior" which can move through mountains. Scouts, of course, can move through any terrain, but still only have a move of 1. Next, I'd double (or at least increase) the movement cost of all tiles (making mountains and ice passable with a cost of 6). And finally, I'd change the movement system such that a unit entering a tile has the movement cost of the tile subtracted from it's current movement point total and gets a +movementPoints per turn until it has a positive movement, at which point it can move again.

2.) Give me something to do!
I don't play civ4 much currently, because it's just too boring. I have yet to play a game where there has not been a stretch of 10+ turns in a row where I do nothing but hit enter and I hate that. It makes me not want to play the game. I'd suggest fixing this by multiplying the number of techs tenfold or so, thus ensuring more tech selection. I'd increase the number of buildings in a similar manner, thus ensuring more building selection. I'm sure this was in the game-plan already, judging by past mods, but by reducing techs and buildings to single or the occasional double effects in this manner, you greatly enhance strategic decisions - which are what civ is about.
*Note that I do realize #1 & 2 are conflicting, in that #1 causes the problem addressed in #2 to be worse, but I simply can't live with exploration being as fast as it is, while I can live with a span of a few turns with nothing to do.

Those are my two biggest complaints (though there is so much more that can be improved/added), so I'll just leave it at that for now. I'm sure I'll add more later.

 

[MrUnderhill]

If you guys need some tech tree ideas, I have one that reaches up to the early middle ages, as well as a few ideas for a future-age tech tree (post-2050 ).

 

[Tabris]

If the team want some more ideas, more realism and etc talk to me, i'll be willing to help if i notice the team wants to do a mod with realism and a more deep playing experience like i want.

 

[HourlyDaily]

Great news. Unfortunately I have nothing to add or questions to ask. Just very pleased to hear it.

 

[Bevertje]

I played DYP for C3C and I really liked it.

I guess if you add techs, buildings, resources, religions, civics... like you did with DYP for C3C it will make the game a lot better.

But I think that it will slow down the game even more, and most of us can't even play a normal game 'till 2000 AD.

I'll try to follow this tread a bit...

 

[Jimmyh]

Will there be any changes to the core sdk code?
Any thing radical?

 

[Mallipeep]

More strategic choices:
*economic warfare, if SDK allows it:

- spy kind of unit's: merchants, traders: that can build stuff at other cities, only you will be getting benefit from those (or maybe the other civilization will get some benefit too). Can only use if civ is using certain civics
- also, some of these buildings may spread like religion
- economic victory, corporations of your civilization have monopolized pretty much all the world
- related diplomacy enhancement, spies can organise unhappy population who demand certain civics... of course emancipation (and maybe some other civic) will do that anyway, so in that case it's easier for spies to make trouble.
- oh, and it would be cool if lot of that economy stuff would be dependent on your culture/luxury slider, where luxuries are representing the extra money that will be left to people to invest and consume. the civics might have modifiers that determine which is more emphazised: culture for culture effects, or luxury for wealthier merchants and consumers...

*when spaceship victory is turned off, you can build it anyway and get bonuses from it, allies can share the work and benefits.

 

[guastardo]

Hi!
I'm a great fan of the DyP and R&R mods, there are some news about the new RAR4?

thank you!

 

[Craterus22]

If you alter the SDK - I hope you can have different settler classes that will have different goals when settling new cities...

I would also recommend a leader unit that would force the AI to create significant invasion forces.

I would also like to second the idea above that you give us something significant to do - I have pressed the enter key far more often than just ten times in a row many times in a game.

 

[bernskov]

What is the status on RAR 4 CIV?

 

[woodelf]

They haven't kept you in the loop? I was wondering the status as well.

 

[bernskov]

Lets hope this spawnes a result.

 

[woodelf]

Indeed. Since you are the DyP webmaster and I recognized your name from the site addy I'm surprised they haven't kept in touch.

 

[RobO]

I dropped out of the loop as well, doing other things. There was a good deal of discussion about features, but I'm not sure if anything has been implemented. Then the website hosting the discussion forums went down and there's an effort to reestablish it. That's pretty much all I know.

 

[Isak]

Well, Danthrax and I are busy trying to make a formal 'design doc' that we'll present to all of the old gang once we get new forums (we're working on it).

So at least I can say that it hasn't died. I've stayed out of the loop, and frankly haven't played Civ for almost 6 months, until I picked up Warlords on the releasedate, and that rekindled my enthusiasm for the game again.
(Not that I thought vanilla Civ4 was bad or anything - on the contrary, I had just been playing it exclusively for way too long)

I hope everybody will join us - i'll let you know when we have our forums, and then we shall commence ... for real .. and we're not kidding this time.

 

[Good Sauce]

I'm looking forward to it. DYP was was civ for me after i discovered it.
I really like the idea of 'ecconomic warfare' from above, esspecially into the modern ages. the last two great empires (british and american) were promarilly ecconomic in nature. they may have had large armies, but their true power was in the ecconomic pressure they could put on countries not going their way.

look at the state of affairs in any country that the US has an embargo agsint and you can see just how powerful ecconomics is.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I just hope that the old content of the EVG forum isn't lost, because there was quite a lot of interesting discussions and suggestions.I'm looking forward to have a forum for this project again

 

[Healz]

As long as you post notes on how the movement values of the units are changed, so that they can be changed back. I for one just want more research and the units to move at the same rate they do in the unmodified game or maybe faster. I already had to do a bit of editing on MaxRiga Mod because of his decisions to raise the cost of workers and workboats so much it really did ruin the game.