Rhye's Catapult

[Gunner]

For now my list is:

Ur
Babylon
Jerusalem
Axum
Lutetia
Carthage
Chichen Itza
Angkor
Seoul
....

I would take away Ur too. Would just get too crowded.

I think that Rome needs a few good cities to conquer. To that effect, I would propose the city of Massilia (modern day Marseilles) and a city in modern day Cartagena which you could either call Carthgo Nova or just Cartagena.

I think that one Scadinavian city would be good. That area really wasn't terribly densly occupied so I think more than one city would be excessive.

Perhaps a city in near the Great Lakes in North America to represent the Iroquois?

Maybe some city in Manchuria, I don't know what to call it though.

 

[V. Soma]

Test 2 - England - Duke level

BC 525

Persepolis appeared in Persia, that is, at the Eufrates River or what.
What was strange is that India already has a city northwest of this,
at the SE corner of the Black Sea! (I can send save of this)

BC 250
Well, Mongolian civ is destroyed...
As I see, Barbarians and Chinese had unified forces to get that done...

 

[Lachlan]

lachlan -> that would be the most realistic choice, but how would you achieve that? Pressing end of turn 100 times before starting to play?

Personnaly this is not horrible for me even my "enter" kewboard button is tired

 

[V. Soma]

Test 2

1.
I see (again) that France and Spain has VERY LITTLE space left to create a cohesive empire,
they have to scatter far, far apart...

2.
The fall of Rome - then I see barbarian cities with NO defense AT ALL!
These cities are EMPTY!

On Duke level the tech race is more evened out...
The AI is quite up the level I play, Hatsy has the same tech level as me

 

[V. Soma]

Test 2 - 1705

Hatsy is alive and does well, making Egypt par with me.
I, as England, do the same as last time: colonizing North and South of America.

Aztecs are spreading all lands in North-Am. Incans were destroyed suddenly, long ago...
I could have a swift attack on Monty (axemen) but then I would face severe
backfall on treasury - so I rather keep science on 100% by having
GP Merchants every now and then (who always yield 900 gp)

 

[V. Soma]

Test 2 - 1914

Uhh, it is not easy, in fact, I am about to lose or what!

The picture below will explain it - just look at what Hatsy learns now?

I had a long and bloody war in the 19th century with the Aztecs,
who attecked with a big, big army on New York and the other city I had.
Past tense... Only New York I could keep and then do some counterattack
with my redcoats (Monty had only crossbow and mace - but a lot of them!)

This made my fall back on techs, since I had to do drafting those reddies...

It is evident, that Egypt is the Big Guy, the one present from the start on,
this time they faced no fall of their civilisation...

USA is again nowhere.

Persia and Russia are also developing but behind me in tech.
(I checked Persia in diplo window - they don't have Liberalism, for instance)

Colonistaion is not much an issue for the AI, only for Japan...

 

[V. Soma]

test 2 - 1930

Game is slowing down a bit, in 1930 40 seconds in btw turns
(OK, still bearable - I remember of good old Civ3's 2-3 minutes... )

 

[Rhye]

http://rhye.civfanatics.net/civ4/files/RhyesCatapult011.zip

delete completely the mod and unzip again


- new DLL (check if cities are closer now, though I guess they don't)
- updated map (Baltic, Indonesia, East Africa, Greece)
- some barbarian cities spawn (to be expanded)
- barbarian units spawn in Mongolia
- fall of civs temporarily disabled
- fixed Russian skirmishers

 

[Virote_Considon]

Random other things

..
2. And on the note of Greece, to make it so that it is actually Greece, not Macedonia, how about changing the Leader from Alexander to Agamemnon or Memnon? They could essentially still keep Alexander's traits, too...
..

Ack, I just realised, Memnon was a king of Eathiopia

I meant Menelaus of Sparta!

(Some Greek Mythology expert is probably going to read through my post and think: "Pah! What a *insert demoralising word here*! I bet he gets all his Ancient Greek knowlege from the Disney film Hercules!")

 

[V. Soma]

I am happy to report a proof of a "2-tiles-distance" city made by the AI (in v.011)!

 

[woodelf]

I am happy to report a proof of a "2-tiles-distance" city made by the AI (in v.011)!

And that's a good thing, yes?

 

[V. Soma]

OK, now v0.11 - AD 1000
EDIT: this is on Count level, I "played" Japan

I again attach a pic - about Europe and Middle-East.
But let's see it nation by nation:

1.
Egypt (4 cities, sizes: 15, 10, 6, 4)

Hatsy had that documented settling 2-tiles NW of Thebes
After that she followed a tactic of conquering the barbarian city of Jerusalem
and then going up to "Turkey" with a 4th city...
Going south along the Nile perhaps would be more historic

2.
India (2 cities: 13, 6)

Well, well, 2nd city placed 8 (eight!) tiles to the east, in the Himalaya...
...and that's it... no more

3.
China (8 cities: 10, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 2, 1)

Happily prospering, no matter that 2 of her cities were lost to Mongolia's birth. Maybe too happily... Conquered Seoul, too...

4.
Persia (6 cities: 9, 9, 8, 5, 3, 2)

Pushed a little east of the "cradle" of the two rivers, she does fine,
as Babylon and Ur also joined the empire.
Strange expedition. Persia conquered a spawned barb city in tha Far East...

5.
Mongolia (3 cities: 3, 3, 1)

Bit too weak...

5.
Greece (4 cities: 7, 6, 5, 2)

Alex has 3 nice cities in the homeland, that's fine.
What I don't understand is hy, oh why the third city is in Iberia?
I ask it, because after this Iberian one, Corinth (4.) was founded fine and well...

6.
Rome (3 cities: 7, 2, 1)

2 cities, and I just don't see why a 3. could not be put in the north, south of the Alps...
Instead, I saw a Roman settler wander all around, finally putting down
a city in Iberia (such a famous place...) in a race with Spain...

7.
Germany (3 cities: 6, 6, 4)

Germany does fine, I guess

8.
France (4 cities: 5, 3, 2, 2)

The move that Lutetia became capital city is simply GREAT
All in all, they do a fine job...

9.
Spain (2 cities: 2, 1)

Placing Madrid only 2 tiles away from that Greek settlement was lovely,
but after that ony one place was found good enough by the queen,
and thus began a wandering to the east with two settlers - ehh...

10.
Russia (3 cities: 1, 1, 1)

Well, for a start, OK.

11.
England (2 cities: 2, 1)

York is just a bit too far away, hm?

12.
Arabia (1 city: 2)

Hey, did Saladin get any starting units, I see none!
Can it be because of the fact the capital is a city stolen from Persia (Arbela)?

 

[V. Soma]

Here is another run until AD 1000

Baron level, with Incans

Quite a different babe, this one:

Egypt (4 - 9, 7, 4, 2)

Again, 2 tiles distance, but this time SW of capital...
Expansion into Arabia

India (5 - 7, 6, 4, 2, 2)

That's more likely! Cities in homeland, quite close to each other!
But one city is far north, in IRL Mongolia.

China (5 - 8, 8, 7, 5, 2)

More compact sized.

Mongolia (3 - 6, 4, 2)

A healthier version.

Japan (5 - 6, 6, 6, 2, 1)

Quite spreading, with 3 on home island, one on continent, one on a small island.

Persia (5 - 8, 5, 5, 3, 2)

Again, east of the two rivers, then conquering barbs.
And then again going to the far east...

Greece (4 - 6, 5, 4, 2)

They hit a "home run", perfect settling of the Balkan

Rome (3 - 7, 6, 5)

This time Caesar DID went north (IRL Monte Carlo and Vienna), which is logical, but...

...France???

They DID NOT MAKE APPEARANCE...
May this be because of Rome?

Germany (3 - 6, 5, 4)

Went north, claiming IRL Denmark - I like that

Spain (3 - 2, 2, 2)

As there was no France, easy settling of homeland, all cities in 2-3 tiles distance!

England (3 - 2, 1, 1)

Yes! York is close to London to the north this time!

Arabia (1 - 2)

Again, no settlers - because of capital being "Persian"?

 

[V. Soma]

Well, in this latter, baron-level game tech-knowledge is the following:
EDIT: money spent and % on tech in brackets

Egypt:
has 16 techs, learns Optics (61 - 100%)

India:
24 (!!!), Alphabet (57 - 100%)

China:
22, Currency (46 - 80%)

Japan:
22, Compass (46 - 90%)

Mongolia:
11, Pottery (29 - 100%)

Persia:
23, Compass (49 - 100%)

Greece:
26 (!!!) - Compass (31 - 80%)

Rome:
21 - Mathematics (27 - 80%)

Germany:
10 - Iron Working (22 - 80%)

Spain:
4 - Archery (14 - 100%)

Arabia
4 - Mining (11 - 100%)

England
3 - nothing at the point (13 - 100%)

Russia
2 - Animal H. (15 - 100%)

Well, so this needs working...

 

[V. Soma]

Rhye, what should we test at this phase?

BTW, I like the terrain a lot!
I also like the way ships has enhanced move (a trademark of Rhye's Civ)

How do you plan to influence AI-behavior?

 

[Elhoim]

When playing as Rome, my influence doesn´t reach the sheeps in the nearby isle, when it is high enough to cover it... Besides, there isn´t any way to reach it, only if you settle there. I think it would be nice to move it one tile north so Rome benefits from it...

 

[V. Soma]

I guess that there could be scenarios made to the game,
concerning each civ's start in time.

E.g. Rome's would be sg. like start at BC 700 and thus with a pre-made map
and state of earlier civs. Of course Rome also would have a pre-set of techs...

Just an idea...

 

[Rhye]

Making a scenario for each year a civ should start would mean a HUGE work, not counting the extra civs that would be needed (Byzantines and many others).

Your duty is to understand if the change of city spread is due more to barbarian units or to the new DLL.
To test this, rename the dll to something else and try if the game develops in the same way. Then reenable the DLL and rename Barbs.py (and ignore possible python errors ingame) and retry.

If it is proved that the new DLL does its work, I'll go to phase #2: customize Age of Discovery AI settlers spread

 

[Vishaing]

I played through as Russia for a while. I noticed the spawning was working quite well until later on when the Civs started getting bonus Settlers. I feel what happened is best discribed with this little screenshot:



(Is York close enough now Mr Soma?)

The same thing happened with France Persia and Japan, but I won't burden the Forum with four redundent Pictures. However one thing I noticed is that France spawned, took Lutetia as its Capitol, and then sent two settlers into the Iberian and founded two cities right next to each other. I was surprised by this because I figured the two cities next to each other were there because the cities were spawned directyl. This also made Spain spawn in the Carthage/Morroco area instead of their peninsula.

THe only other strange thing I noticed was that China went into the desert west of Beijing instead of down into, you know, China. In fact the only city founded in the China area was founded by Mongolia, strange.

I also noticed a strange error screenshotted (is that a word?) here:


I'm now going to keep playing it and see how the Aztecs and America do, or don't do, as the case may be.

Also, I would like to say now how happy I am that the Black Sea is now large enough that cities on its coast can build naval units, now I just need Greece to found a city on Byzantium to allow me access to the rest of the world.

 

[V. Soma]

So far, problems I see:

Spain – No land

Spain is heavily pushed into the corner…
Chance is that only one city for her in Iberia,
And in consequence the settlers are just rambling in Europe…

France – too big spreading land

It forces Spain to be small and also the French borders might push London to the north
and thus confusing England, I guess…

The Arabian-syndrome:

This is major issue

If a civ gets its capital from a neighbor civ, then the starting units (and settlers)
are not given to the civ – it means great disvantage…
I believe this is problem for the Arabs and Mongolians in practice…
but this should be solved in general…

-

What I see is that AI does not wish to settle if the empty land is not big enough,
even though the coastal waters would give the future basis.

I illustrate that with the pic of Iberia, I put crosses where Spanish cities could have placed, but the AI denies these possibilities...

EDIT:
Can SDK-tweaking do sg. with this?