Realism Invictus

[ostar]

Yep, those are very nice. Although I have some stylistic advice for you, if you want to match RI style closer. Firstly, you should apply the bevel/emboss to the upper small text as well. Secondly, when using b/w images (like in your first example), you can make them look nicer by applying sepia and/or warming photofilter (in PS, at least).

Thanks. I don't have PS, though - I use a combo of the open source Paint.Net and Gimp. But taking your advice to heart, here's Marian Rejewski with a BW photo and upper text Beveled.

Marian Rejewski is a Polish Great Spy - he's one of the Poles that initially cracked the German Enigma code machine (before the British did - he and his Polish team came to the British and taught them.)

 

[ostar]

Cool! Can you even make new leaders portait? I'm working on a new scenario for RI and I need some. Want you help me?

If you mean new leaderheads, sorry, that's something I don't know how to do.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Thanks. I don't have PS, though - I use a combo of the open source Paint.Net and Gimp. But taking your advice to heart, here's Marian Rejewski with a BW photo and upper text Beveled.

Marian Rejewski is a Polish Great Spy - he's one of the Poles that initially cracked the German Enigma code machine (before the British did - he and his Polish team came to the British and taught them.)

The text came out a bit too sharp, but overall this is very nice!

I made lots of those myself, and any help with them is greatly appreciated.

 

[Snake Pliskeen]

The map for the European Scenario of WW2 is finally completed, with 24 players and hundreds of cities. Now starts the boring time as I have to set all cities buildings, resources and improvements. On huge map this can be a very long work, but I have time.
I have created all .dds files for the new leaders involved historically in WW2, but I cant see a place for them. Unpacking Art.FPK I saw most of .dds files are there but I really dont know if I can simply add and packing again, I dont believe. For the modders of RI, is it possible to add new leaders to the game to play the scenario? Is it possible also create new Civs and add them to the game? For the moment I'm using existing leaders and Civs, but real Civs and leaders would improve the scenario playability.
To the players: I have some doubts about the 24 Civs involved in the scenario, I have included Arabia but they can have only 3 cities on the map, so I would like to change. Which minor nation can be involved? Any advices?

 

[BvBPL]

This is a very nice mod, but the MAF errors are killing me. It doesn't help that I assumed the new computer I'm playing it on has a 64 bit OS, but actually has a 32 bit one.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

This is a very nice mod, but the MAF errors are killing me. It doesn't help that I assumed the new computer I'm playing it on has a 64 bit OS, but actually has a 32 bit one.

Well, it's not as if we don't warn people about MAFs. We're currently considering placing an in-game popup warning the players that the game WILL crash sooner or later if they play on 32-bit OS, and that there is NO way they can avoid this (other than playing on smaller maps where MAFs appear much much later).

While I fully sympathize to anyone experiencing MAFs - and I had them constantly as well before updating my OS last year - everyone making a complaint here should realize that there is nothing we can do about those besides severly downgrading our mod so that it almost ceases to be our mod, and that therefore those complaints will ultimately achieve nothing.

 

[BvBPL]

You’ve been very much upfront about the MAF issues, and I appreciate that. I’m just experiencing double disappointment at not being able to play the mod and for having previously assumed my computer could play it. Neither of those are your responsibility. It would be nice if it were more stable on my computer, but if wishes were horses, beggers would ride.

 

[SJN]

Hi!

I'm new to this mod, so if I ask anything that has already been asked, I'm sorry. I did a search, but maybe I missed it.

1. What about land unit range? If we're talking about realism, one of my biggest complaints about civ IV is that an early explorer can explore the whole world.

2. Better trade routes. I think that trade routes should be based on a more geographic formula especially in early history. On the Earth map, Italy was a HUGE trading center for the Med early on. The opening of the so-called "new world" totally destroyed it's trade influence because it was not long such a strong "center point". This could be tied into the "range" concept in #1.

3. Better trade exploitation. If we do limit trade range, then an intermediary civ should be able to get a "cut" of the trade it is allowing across its borders. Suddenly, who controls the straits of Gibraltar matters economically.

4. "Open Borders" should only be for diplomatic and commercial traffic. What about a "military basing" agreement that is for a specific time (10 turns), and can be traded for money. Also works well with the "range" concept in #1. Allowing one country to launch an attack from your borders may result in war, and will definitely result in a negative modifier (but less than openly fighting).

5. Selling weapons/units. this would be especially great for selling or renting out "special units" that are custom to the culture. Did you know that during the American Civil War an asian nation offered to sell/rent WAR ELEPHANTS to Abe Lincoln? And lets not forget FDR's idea that America would be the "arsenal" of democracy in WWII before we officially joined the war... but somehow were still neutral.

6. Selling special buildings. Allow a nation to build their special building in an foreign city for a cost

Thoughts?

 

[SJN]

I have a few more ideas I'll just toss out... I'll admit I'm not a Civilization V fan, so if this sounds CIV 5'ish, it isn't.

1. Historically, more soldiers died from wounds than from actual combat. so, instead of a unit healing after battle, it should continue to lose HP unless it can meet up with a Medic.

2. Instead of being completely destroyed, I think that units should be "captured". I recognize what a pain this would be to program, so it's probably not doable. But it would be neat if POW units had to be held somewhere, and could be traded for your own POW's. these units could occasionally escape or revolt. Units that escape back to friendly territory could be upgraded to any current unit for some kind of cost.

3. I think you should have to factor the desires of your population into a military engagement. If you have a really good relationship with another nation, it should be difficult to go to war against them. You could have units defect or desert, and massive unhappiness. To this end, you could start to use spies against yourself to blame it on someone you want to fight.

4. Populations should also influence victory and defeat conditions. A Population that is losing might want to force their leader to surrender for better terms. But maybe a population that is **really** losing (e.g., Germany in the face of the Soviet advance) will be willing to draft militia units without penalty.

5. Governments in history have negotiated much more significantly over land deals. I wish we could push that into the system.

6. I doubt I'll ever see it, but I think we should come up with better ways of administering a large empire. Federalism and Commonwealths spring to mind. It would be cool if you could have a "state" that is a part of your empire, but administered by a different leader. Similar to vassalism, but more tightly bound together.

Again, please excuse my ramblings. I hope they're at least interesting reads.

-- SJN

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

While most of your ideas would be nice to have, almost all of them are a hell from coding perspective. While it is true that almost everything is possible to code in Civ 4 with the right amount of effort, this amount can range from trivial to "lots and lots of work". Implementing even one of your ideas in a decent manner would take days and days of coding, balancing and testing.

 

[SJN]

Yes, I'm aware of how difficult coding can be. I do it for a living.

I was just curious if any of these ideas have been considered before and/or if any of these ideas are practical.

-- SJN

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Yes, I'm aware of how difficult coding can be. I do it for a living.

I was just curious if any of these ideas have been considered before and/or if any of these ideas are practical.

-- SJN

Yep, we considered most of those - and it is still a possibility that some of them will get implemented in future - but as for their practicality...

 

[Snake Pliskeen]

The map for the European Scenario of WW2 is finally completed, with 24 players and hundreds of cities. Now starts the boring time as I have to set all cities buildings, resources and improvements. On huge map this can be a very long work, but I have time.
I have created all .dds files for the new leaders involved historically in WW2, but I cant see a place for them. Unpacking Art.FPK I saw most of .dds files are there but I really dont know if I can simply add and packing again, I dont believe. For the modders of RI, is it possible to add new leaders to the game to play the scenario? Is it possible also create new Civs and add them to the game? For the moment I'm using existing leaders and Civs, but real Civs and leaders would improve the scenario playability.
To the players: I have some doubts about the 24 Civs involved in the scenario, I have included Arabia but they can have only 3 cities on the map, so I would like to change. Which minor nation can be involved? Any advices?

 

[Gabihime]

Hi guys

I'm a longtime Warlords player of TR and was really happy when I suddenly discovered RI yesterday. I have a tendency to play CivIV on and off every few weeks so, so sometimes updates like this slip by me for a bit. Anyway, I have always liked it. Hurrah!

I do have a couple of questions! I play on a 32 bit OS for now, and while upgrading to 64 bit will definitely happen this year, it's not happening tomorrow, so therefore I obviously can't play huge maps, like the carefully constructed World Map. What I'd like to play on is a Standard size European (mainly Britain and the continent) map. I have no experience with map making, but I can learn absolutely anything given a little time. What I mostly worry about making a map is not the physical process of doing so, but proper resource balancing. If I decide to work on a standard size European map for RI, can I count on some feedback/general advice over resource placement? I know resources in RI are very different than in Vanilla, so I'd be going into pretty unknown territory there, at least for me

My other question is this: has the team considered adding any additional British leaders? I'm mostly looking in the direction of Medieval leaders, like a Saxon King, maybe Edward the Confessor or Alfred the Great? It's not like I don't like Victoria or Elizabeth, but I was looking for a little variety (I primarily play the English, French, and Russians) And I would rather die than play Oliver Cromwell XD. Also I was wondering if you would classify the Welsh as Celtic or English, in terms of adding a leader to represent them. I know that adding a leader is an aggravating amount of work, so I may fiddle around with this a bit myself, but I was just curious where you would represent them (I have always nurtured a not so secret desire to play Owain Glyndŵr in CivIV XD).

Thanks for answering my questions!

 

[Vertico]

Hi RI Team

I mentioned recently some features programmed in Pie's Ancient Europe.
Some of them fulfil below's requests, so probably much less to code if you could benchmark some ready solutions...

1. What about land unit range? If we're talking about realism, one of my biggest complaints about civ IV is that an early explorer can explore the whole world.

Pie solved that in two ways:
firstly: power of animals has been raised in the ancient era - so only later bronze age units can counter wild animals
secondly: fog of war get dark again after few turns - so the map you struggled to reveal if not often refreshed, is gone dark again. Personally I would switch off this feature with discovery of special tech. ie: "cartography"

5. Selling weapons/units. this would be especially great for selling or renting out "special units" that are custom to the culture. Did you know that during the American Civil War an asian nation offered to sell/rent WAR ELEPHANTS to Abe Lincoln? And lets not forget FDR's idea that America would be the "arsenal" of democracy in WWII before we officially joined the war... but somehow were still neutral.

Probably the most smart solution I ever seen in mods to simulate concept of "mercenaries" was in Pie's mod, where every CIV has a special building (mercenary guild) available at given tech. which produce one special strategic unique resource ie: "greek mercenaries" are available for Greeks. These resources can be sold via diplomacy to the other civ. The civ which bought such resources and built another special building (mercenary post), can build special flavour units of the other civ connected to resources they bought, so for example with "greek mercenaries", Romans, can build "greek mercenary hoplites".

What is fun: apart of the 'mercenary resource' civ doesn't need to have any other resources (mercenaries came fully equipped), but in exchange every mercenary unit costs +1

3. I think you should have to factor the desires of your population into a military engagement. If you have a really good relationship with another nation, it should be difficult to go to war against them. You could have units defect or desert, and massive unhappiness. To this end, you could start to use spies against yourself to blame it on someone you want to fight.

Also here a very interesting system implemented in Pie's mod. Units can retreat being attacked, can desert changing side of the war or sometimes even the whole army can rebel becoming barbarians. Also cities sometimes surrender instead fighting to the bitter end, depending of "loyalty" of the defending units.

 

[vcordie]

Poor me
I dled this excellent mod, tried to install it, figured out I needed to patch my game first because I wasn't up to the latest update, did that, installed, read up everything I could, prepared to jump into a custom game...hit the launch button....Civ encountered an error and needs to close...nooooo. Curses. Specs below, I know im using 32bit but it was a standard size map...additionally I know my ram is a little low but I was playing BtS just fine
http://pastebin.com/tVmYusAQ
detailed error that the crash dump gives me is here:
Blast it all, the text in the error report isn't selectable, meaning I can't copy and paste into pastebin. Additionally, the file it says it saves the report too doesn't exist...If you guys know how I could obtain this error, I'd post it here....along with a video....I really want to play this mod :/

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Hi guys

I'm a longtime Warlords player of TR and was really happy when I suddenly discovered RI yesterday. I have a tendency to play CivIV on and off every few weeks so, so sometimes updates like this slip by me for a bit. Anyway, I have always liked it. Hurrah!

I do have a couple of questions! I play on a 32 bit OS for now, and while upgrading to 64 bit will definitely happen this year, it's not happening tomorrow, so therefore I obviously can't play huge maps, like the carefully constructed World Map. What I'd like to play on is a Standard size European (mainly Britain and the continent) map. I have no experience with map making, but I can learn absolutely anything given a little time. What I mostly worry about making a map is not the physical process of doing so, but proper resource balancing. If I decide to work on a standard size European map for RI, can I count on some feedback/general advice over resource placement? I know resources in RI are very different than in Vanilla, so I'd be going into pretty unknown territory there, at least for me

Yeah, we could help you. Actually, old TR map will probably get ported to RI as well - it might still be large-ish for your taste, but keep that in mind.

My other question is this: has the team considered adding any additional British leaders? I'm mostly looking in the direction of Medieval leaders, like a Saxon King, maybe Edward the Confessor or Alfred the Great? It's not like I don't like Victoria or Elizabeth, but I was looking for a little variety (I primarily play the English, French, and Russians) And I would rather die than play Oliver Cromwell XD.

Irish eh? Actually I was thinking of adding some new king for England, but due to one scenario we're working on now, it will probably be William the Conqueror instead or Richard the Lionhearted (yeah, I know, all Englishmen reading this have just cringed - but we need era-appropriate folks).

Also I was wondering if you would classify the Welsh as Celtic or English, in terms of adding a leader to represent them. I know that adding a leader is an aggravating amount of work, so I may fiddle around with this a bit myself, but I was just curious where you would represent them (I have always nurtured a not so secret desire to play Owain Glyndŵr in CivIV XD).

The guy might well make it in as a Welsh leader. Don't hold your breath just now, but...

The map for the European Scenario of WW2 is finally completed, with 24 players and hundreds of cities. Now starts the boring time as I have to set all cities buildings, resources and improvements. On huge map this can be a very long work, but I have time.
I have created all .dds files for the new leaders involved historically in WW2, but I cant see a place for them. Unpacking Art.FPK I saw most of .dds files are there but I really dont know if I can simply add and packing again, I dont believe. For the modders of RI, is it possible to add new leaders to the game to play the scenario? Is it possible also create new Civs and add them to the game? For the moment I'm using existing leaders and Civs, but real Civs and leaders would improve the scenario playability.

You don't HAVE to pack your assets. We do it just because we have so many of them. A couple of leaderpics won't hurt. And yes, a leader becomes selectable only when "assigned" to a civ. So you can add as many leaders as you like for your scenario, and they won't end up in regular RI games. My advice for you is to find existing leaders with satisfying personalities, copy them and change name/pic/traits.

Same with civs - you can't play WM minors in regular RI games; but you're just creating A LOT of work for yourself if you decide to make them.

QUOTE=Vertico;10337074]Hi RI Team

I mentioned recently some features programmed in Pie's Ancient Europe.
Some of them fulfil below's requests, so probably much less to code if you could benchmark some ready solutions...

Pie solved that in two ways:
firstly: power of animals has been raised in the ancient era - so only later bronze age units can counter wild animals
secondly: fog of war get dark again after few turns - so the map you struggled to reveal if not often refreshed, is gone dark again. Personally I would switch off this feature with discovery of special tech. ie: "cartography"[/QUOTE]

The first one won't really work for WM for example, as it is so packed with civs that animals almost don't spawn at all. The second approach is interesting (if likely quite annoying for players).

Probably the most smart solution I ever seen in mods to simulate concept of "mercenaries" was in Pie's mod, where every CIV has a special building (mercenary guild) available at given tech. which produce one special strategic unique resource ie: "greek mercenaries" are available for Greeks. These resources can be sold via diplomacy to the other civ. The civ which bought such resources and built another special building (mercenary post), can build special flavour units of the other civ connected to resources they bought, so for example with "greek mercenaries", Romans, can build "greek mercenary hoplites".

What is fun: apart of the 'mercenary resource' civ doesn't need to have any other resources (mercenaries came fully equipped), but in exchange every mercenary unit costs +1

The idea is not without its merit, but adding resources is always a pain, and we'll need a new one for EVERY civ out there. I am actually giving much thought to elegantly implementing mercenaries now, but I still don't see a satisfying solution.

Also here a very interesting system implemented in Pie's mod. Units can retreat being attacked, can desert changing side of the war or sometimes even the whole army can rebel becoming barbarians. Also cities sometimes surrender instead fighting to the bitter end, depending of "loyalty" of the defending units.

I'd have to see what it does for combat with my own eyes first. Also, RevDCM will probably change combat a lot on itself, if we implement it.

Poor me
I dled this excellent mod, tried to install it, figured out I needed to patch my game first because I wasn't up to the latest update, did that, installed, read up everything I could, prepared to jump into a custom game...hit the launch button....Civ encountered an error and needs to close...nooooo. Curses. Specs below, I know im using 32bit but it was a standard size map...additionally I know my ram is a little low but I was playing BtS just fine
http://pastebin.com/tVmYusAQ
detailed error that the crash dump gives me is here:
Blast it all, the text in the error report isn't selectable, meaning I can't copy and paste into pastebin. Additionally, the file it says it saves the report too doesn't exist...If you guys know how I could obtain this error, I'd post it here....along with a video....I really want to play this mod :/

Aw, don't panic. It's not the end of the world, it is just one stupid error. It is a weird bug that haunts us for quite a long while - mostly because we cannot reproduce it. It occurs only when trying custom games. To test if that's it, choose Play now! - it should work fine.

For getting rid of the bug, I can recommend trying to start a custom game with no options selected, all options selected or selecting random stuff. Once it goes away after you try something, it does not return.

 

[Ambassador]

Hi Walter,

is the older Total Realism 2.4 (Warlords) playable with a 32-bit system without errors? I consider switching to it. Or is it possible the play RI without all the graphics turned on, a kind of light version?

EDIT: Any chance that the 3GB switch will be explained for Windows Vista systems any time soon?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Hi Walter,

is the older Total Realism 2.4 (Warlords) playable with a 32-bit system without errors? I consider switching to it. Or is it possible the play RI without all the graphics turned on, a kind of light version?

EDIT: Any chance that the 3GB switch will be explained for Windows Vista systems any time soon?

Thanks in advance!

No, there is no principal difference between RI and TR. TR had just as many MAFs on 32-bit systems.

Tuning down graphics (resolution, AA and such) does indeed make MAFs appear later (only don't select low graphics detail, it's glitchy).

MAF fix for Vista is explained here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=224178

 

[SJN]

Ok, so, of all the ideas I suggested above, the one about being able to sell units seemed the simplest in terms of implementation in the code. As for playability, fun, and balance, I can't say.

Look, the mechanics are already there. You can already gift units. And if you gift your special unit, they remain that unit to the receiver. If an American (in BtS) gifts a Navy Seal, they stay a Navy Seal even for another country.

And truthfully, being able to buy units would be useful (even if they aren't special units) for Civs with a lot of money but not running Universal Suff.

The biggest implementation change would be the diplomacy and the AI. There would have to be a screen added to the diplomacy menu with something like, "Buy/sell Units/Weapons" or something. This option could start out with units already extent, so that there's no weird negotiation for future production.

The hardest part would be the AI. the AI would have to decide how many units to build above and beyond what it thinks it needs for its own army. Units have maintenance costs which means that the extra units built would be sitting around costing money before finally being sold. And, then there would be the AI for negotiating the price. It would have to decide if it wants to make a profit, build a friendship, or hurt the buyer's enemy, etc.. This is obviously a complicated problem.

But you could start with a fairly simple solution that goes something like this:

1. An AI is willing to sell up to x% of it's current military (when not engaged or planning to engage in war), where x is a fixed number for every leader or characteristic
2. The price is equal to exactly the universal suff. cost plus an additional x percent where x is a fixed number for each leader or characteristic
3. The AI will only sell to a player with a positive diplomatic count who is at war with players that have a negative diplomatic count.

Starting with that simple, and decidedly weak, mechanic, it would be easy to play games experimenting with different options for modifying the amounts, costs, and diplomatic variables.

-- Seth