TheBirdMan
King
As a certain person said to one of his friends back in the Classical Era. It's not a problem to cross that lake. Just follow me - I know where the stones are .........
I'm pretty sure they are just looking for less defended cities.- The logic for revolting slaves may need to be revisited. I'm consistently getting meandering and only partial city attacks which cause me to have to shuffle my workers around and actually fight revolts in the field rather than just defend my cities, as before.
I'd go as far as to make AI promote most units to combat line first and everything else after that. Though crude this change will definitely make AI much stronger in combat.- The AI's preference for desert promotions should be adjusted, if possible. For some reason, civs far removed from any desert still end up promoting their units along that path, which is nice as the player but obviously not working as intended from a smart opponent standpoint.
I'm pretty sure they are just looking for less defended cities.
If in doubt enter WorldBuilder and check AI behaviour of a rebel unit. If it's city lemming then it's working as intended.
I'd go as far as to make AI promote most units to combat line first and everything else after that. Though crude this change will definitely make AI much stronger in combat.
But I read that there won't be any real development in this mod anymore except bug fixing. Combat AI improvements will likely not seen as bug fixing.
Good to know.I've been playtesting and writing feedback for the mod for over a couple years now. In my experience, balance revisions and things having to do with misguided AI behavior are typically welcome.
There is, as with most things in Civ 4, but it is really, really involved, as multiple UI elements need to be moved and sprites for them edited in multiple places. So in practical terms and for you, the answer is "no" - there is no easy way to do it (and to preempt you not minding the "hard" way if that's the case, CvMainInterface.py is the file you want, and there are settings to tweak there - but you'll have to experiment for yourself).Asking again if there's any way to change the ratio of the minimap, or to fix the bug where units near the edge show up in the black space? I play on either 1:1 or 2:1 maps, and I get this problem with both.
That's working as intended, as for the purpose of the map script (and TBH for the purpose of common sense), two parts of a landmass separated by mountains are the same as two different islands.Here's another bug - on the Totestra script, even if "start anywhere reasonable" is selected, civs will NOT be placed on any part of a landmass that is cut off from the remainder by mountains. Hence, you see everyone on this standard-size map crammed in to one part of the continent when there's plenty of lebensraum just a few tiles away. Would be nice if there's a fix.
Saw something similar posted a couple of times, but never ran into it myself.[IMG alt="Marine.jpg"]https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/marine-jpg.690648/[/IMG]
Thats weird
Nothing changed there, but I also noticed that the supposedly lemming AI revolters feel more "picky" lately. I'll keep that in mind and if I notice a reason, I'll fix that.- The logic for revolting slaves may need to be revisited. I'm consistently getting meandering and only partial city attacks which cause me to have to shuffle my workers around and actually fight revolts in the field rather than just defend my cities, as before.
Yep, it is a t-posed unit all right . I'll see if I can replace it with a more interesting sprite.- Aesthetic suggestion: the sprite for the epidemic could be postured a little more naturally. The way that it has all of its limbs extended seems like a default template (having seen other unit models positioned the same way). I would suggest that it hold the hourglass closer to the torso with the scythe extended, but more in front than to the side, or at least have a more natural stance overall.
That one is a maybe. I think the way they are now works good for practical purposes. Since a lot of stuff is shared between grasslands and plains, them being visually distinct from each other is really important from UX perspective.- Aesthetic suggestion: plains should appear a little less chalky. I thought that the previous texture was a little too granulated, but the cool tone and cakey appearance on plains just seems a little too much. It doesn't really look like grass anymore, and it also doesn't appear semi-arid relative to actual grassland. Something to distinguish it a little more along those lines is called for, I think.
That is actually on my to-do list. It annoys me, hence it's a bug to be fixed. I am not sure if I will be able to make AI actually evaluate the utility of that promo line to a decent extent, or if I'll just have to forbid AI from using it, same with arctic combat. Theoretically, they are very useful if evaluated properly.- The AI's preference for desert promotions should be adjusted, if possible. For some reason, civs far removed from any desert still end up promoting their units along that path, which is nice as the player but obviously not working as intended from a smart opponent standpoint.
I can see where you're coming from; it does have a later "vibe" to it than other techs it's contemporary with right now, and it's been bugging me as well. I'll rejig the tech tree a bit, to have it closer to Iron Working.- I feel that the Philosophy tech should either be moved or retitled. I mentioned something to this effect before (and my bad if I am failing to recall something that was already addressed), but it really feels out of place as-is. What it conceptualizes is Socratic philosophy (I think, at least) which is Hellenistic in the west and should be deep classical rather than ancient. For gameplay and balance considerations, I think it works well as a math prerequisite, but historically it feels out of place. I would suggest moving it to classical and giving it a buff, consequently.
I don't quite understand the answer. If he selected that civilizations may start anywhere reasonable, shouldn't they then also start on the 'island' separated by mountains?That's working as intended, as for the purpose of the map script (and TBH for the purpose of common sense), two parts of a landmass separated by mountains are the same as two different islands.
To anyone: does this mod have a kind of semi-hard cap on expansion in say ancient/classical/medieval times? There are a bunch of elements that I mentioned in this post like increased research costs per city, happiness and health resources that need a building to get enabled, epidemics, buildings that reduce city upkeep come in two parts and later and the well-known steeply increasing Civilization 4 city upkeep. All of these mean that you really need to invest in your cities before they become self-sustainable. But is there some additional cost outside of what I already know about Civilization iV BTS that will curb my expansion. Something where I have 7 cities and build an 8th one and I really shouldn't have done that since that 8th one will trouble me dearly? I was reading some earlier posts in this thread and it seemed that you should be really careful with overexpanding, and a lot more careful than in base CIvilization IV BTS. Are city upkeep costs higher in this mod? Something that I am missing, or is it just the combination of all of the effects that I mentioned before?I still haven't had time to play. But I read something about more early game restrictions to the empire growth in Realism Invictus.
I read about the increased research cost per city which gives a kind of upper limit to the research speed that you can get through expanding, even if you develop the new cities.
And I saw that the happiness and health resources that in the base game allow you to grow greater cities now need buildings to enable them and that takes time to research and build which also slows down expansion.
And the epidemic mechanic is another bottleneck which needs mostly technologies and buildings to overcome, which also takes time and thus slows down expansion.
And of course, this is all coupled with the Civilization 4 mechanic where city upkeep quickly rises to a quite substantial level which you can't pay for with early game small cities. And in this mod, the buildings that reduce city maintenance are split in two buildings, a bit later in the tech tree.
However, I got the impression that this last part, the civilization 4 soft cap on expansion through city maintenance cost was made a lot more of a harder cap. Can someone explain how that works? I don't want to hurt my civilization too much by going over an invisible limit. Can you really not expand beyond a point even if you develop your early cities very well with ancient and classical technologies? What is needed for further expansion then? I am asking here since I couldn't find anything about this expansion limit in the manual or the Civilopedia (although that last one is huge and I really didn't read every entry).
To anyone: does this mod have a kind of semi-hard cap on expansion in say ancient/classical/medieval times? There are a bunch of elements that I mentioned in this post like increased research costs per city, happiness and health resources that need a building to get enabled, epidemics, buildings that reduce city upkeep come in two parts and later and the well-known steeply increasing Civilization 4 city upkeep. All of these mean that you really need to invest in your cities before they become self-sustainable. But is there some additional cost outside of what I already know about Civilization iV BTS that will curb my expansion. Something where I have 7 cities and build an 8th one and I really shouldn't have done that since that 8th one will trouble me dearly? I was reading some earlier posts in this thread and it seemed that you should be really careful with overexpanding, and a lot more careful than in base CIvilization IV BTS. Are city upkeep costs higher in this mod? Something that I am missing, or is it just the combination of all of the effects that I mentioned before?
Thanks for any input.
My question about Forced labor civic was kinda ignored, are there any good uses for that civic?
I just cant imagine a situation where it might help, instead of hindering your progress.
Any feedback or opinion would be much appreciated.
Sorry, yeah, that one got lost a bit. I myself saw it as a strictly wartime civic, when you need to maximise production to the detriment of anything else. It might have ended somewhat underpowered, but I tried to err on the side of caution here. Labor camp is a cheap building with a substantial production boost.My question about Forced labor civic was kinda ignored, are there any good uses for that civic?
I just cant imagine a situation where it might help, instead of hindering your progress.
Any feedback or opinion would be much appreciated.
Thanks for the extensive feedback! I'm not one to go for the tldr part of a message, I like the details! By reading some posts earlier in this thread, I got the impression that there might have been some larger changes to city maintenance too. Something that you'd need to know about because otherwise, you'd make a great game-crippling error in game play and would only notice 20 or 50 turns after you'd made the error. Like how some players started playing Civ4 in the same style as Civ3 and then bankrupted their empires and complained loudly. They just realised the impact of city maintenance too late. The extension of my empire from the 7th to the 8th city was just an example and there's nothing in these numbers specific to CIv4 BTS. I just tried to ask by using an example whether there was some (semi-hard) cutoff point that I'd need to be aware off.In general, early rapid expansion is more punishing in RI than it is in the base game, but there aren't any additional hard limits. As far as I know, the city maintenance mechanic itself is unchanged from vanilla, and so the additional penalties are indeed on top of this, but one should also account for the fact that the overall output and utility of each individual city is greater, over the course of the game, meaning that in balance, it isn't necessarily advantageous to expand minimally, though it is now much more viable to do so, should the situation demand it.
A few sketch thoughts from my own experience, if it helps you decide if/how you want to play (though I'd recommend playing a smaller map at an easy difficulty level and just going for it to get a feel of everything, yourself):
- The scarcity of happiness early in the game is severe and perhaps the greatest practical check on growth, initially. The base limit (at least on Monarch) for newly founded cities is now 2, and the means of increasing this are minimal in the ancient era. For one thing, most bonuses which provide happiness require infrastructure to be rendered effective (which, outside of temples, are found in the classical era, primarily with the market and the jeweler), so your best means of bumping the cap early on are through crude solutions such as building mob justice under rule of fear (and consequently incurring a -50% penalty, which is still rather viable if you have no border pressure in your capital and another useful tile to work, seeing as how you won't stay in that civic for long), or building Stonehenge and gaining an additional from pagan temples. However, as the mod is an entire overhaul and growth itself is more difficult due to the new food mechanic and substantially longer improvement build times, this feels more natural in game than it likely seems on paper. While this concerns vertical growth, without decent base population caps, wide expansion as well is still much more restricted.
- The research cost increase per number of cities is additive rather than multiplicative. I used to fear this one more than I should have. On a standard sized map, you'll be spending +12% more for each technology per city, but it only adds to the base cost (as with other hidden modifiers even in the vanilla, such as the number of prerequisite techs already known and the number of civs you know who already have the tech in question, even before the tech transfer applies, which is not hidden). Once again, since individual cities RI have much more potential for vertical growth and development (but must be truly invested in for this, often resulting in a core "heartland" of your empire which far outweighs newly founded or conquered cities for quite a long time, rather than vanilla's relative parity between mature cities) this is in quite a nice balance, I find. In fact, in many cases I often still out-tech small civs as one of the largest empires, but if this mechanic were not in place, they would not even be remotely competitive or able to contend with the snowballing runaway examples, as they usually can in the mod.
- Once again, I am not aware of any changes made to city maintenance itself as compared to Beyond the Sword, and your reference to being fine with 7 cities but an 8th doing you in is, I believe, the "INC" in vanilla, where after the 10th city, additional maintenance costs become exponential until something like the 30th city, where the marginal cost flattens. As far as I know, that would remain the case here, but thrown in the mix of the rest of the mod's rebalance, it never stood out too prominently, and indeed, I expect expanding to that level early enough to have a strong enough economic engine to support it to be very difficult for other reasons than just maintenance, primarily due to much more intense early warfare and AI aggressiveness.
- While they all contribute to it in general, each era of the game has a "tone" with respect to one aspect of facilitating greater expansion. The classical, I feel, widens the scope for the aforementioned happiness more prominently than anything else, which is absolutely vital for any kind of growth. Medieval is a bit more balanced overall, but I think food and culture are what stand out the most here (indeed, medieval has much more of a "tall" and static feel, especially with the way warfare is oriented with very strong city defenders and cavalry dominating the battlefield, which is not suited for taking cities), and in the renaissance, there is a commercial revolution where and explode, and this makes the financial aspect of expansion significantly less of a speed bump. With the industrial and modern eras, the cap on utility per individual city gets substantially higher with industrialization and modern medicine and food output enabling you to grow enormous cities (over 40 population is feasible in good land), but once again this requires a lot of attention and security to manage, and is not likely to be the case outside of a carefully curated core of your empire, so small civs that managed to remain safe and developed this way might even contend for a win against a wide empire. There is a really good dynamic between tall and wide here (perhaps the best in any strategy game I'm aware of, actually) which vanilla IV only quasi-tackled by forcing a pace with city maintenance rather than shifting the tone of the destination for either approach.
Tl;dr, everything is so massively overhauled and rebalanced relative to itself, that direct comparisons to the vanilla game are always going to be misleading, but the challenges of expansion are more nuanced and dynamic (and also a lot less linear, with things like era-specific bonuses expiring, pronounced power arcs for certain civs, and especially revolutions). If you were intending to try the game anyway and are just curious what settings to include, I would leave everything default and then play with revolutions on.