Rise of Mankind - A New Dawn

[Uncle Anton]

No idea about the "Zone of Control" thingy, huh?

Just found this mod, might give it a go...

As for Zone of Control...

Zone of Control or ZOC for the uninitiated, is a concept that goes back to Civ 1, and featured in Civ 1, 2 and in 3 (although with a reduced mechanic). The idea is that a formed body of soldiers exert control not only over the ground they occupy, but also over the topography immediately around them.

In terms of gameplay, Civ 1+2 basically disallowed the movement of any ground unit which was adjacent to an enemy unit to move to another other tile that was adjacent to that enemy unit, the idea being representative of the fact that the "men on the ground" would no doubt balk at your orders for them to turn their flank to the enemy and in doing so ask for a giant kick up the backside from the unit opposing them. Certain ground units which were special had the ability to ignore ZOC. If memory serves, ZOC did not apply to sea or air units (which in both games air units moved just like ground units except they often had "Blitz" attributes and in most cases needed to land back in a city square by the end of their turn, or they'd crash and the unit was lost)

Civ 3's take on ZOC for ground units was toned down, or somewhat reversed... rather than every unit putting out a ZOC and some units able to ignore that ZOC, Civ 3 had a system whereby only some special units put out a ZOC at all and additionally rather than the ZOC being a forced no-go zone, the game would allow movements through the ZOC if the player/AI desired, but if a unit moved across the ZOC (assuming a unit put one out - eg the Paratrooper was one such special unit), the defending unit would get a free "attack" on that moving unit's health bar, essentially depriving that moving/attacking unit of anywhere from 1/2 to 1/4 of it's hit points depending on the experience of the attacking/moving unit. ZOC again didn't apply to sea or air units (the latter of which had taken on the type of air "missions" which first appeared in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and which we're now familiar with)

I'm assuming (As I haven't played the mod yet) that Afforess' take on ZOC is similar to that of Civ1/2... that once a ZOC is established by a unit in a fort then enemy units cannot "flank move" from one adjacent tile to another and must either attack the occupied fort or disengage from it by moving back and away from the fort before moving diagonally back toward to move past it (eg a unit approaches a fort and wants to move to the west, but can't because that fort has a ZOC on both the tile the unit stands on and that western tile. The unit must thus move south, then diagonally north-west to move to that desired western tile).

I know it's a long post, but ZOC is a long story too...

Hope it makes sense.

 

[Afforess]

Nice post on ZoC. Yes, ZoC in AND works like Civ1 and Civ2. (I liked Civ2 better than Civ3, never played Civ1). Zone of Control should be fairly apparent when you encounter it, I have the tooltip explain why your units can't move forward. Cities can exert Zone of Control when they build moats, units with the GC promotion, and with Fort's in Fixed Borders.

Unrelated-ly,
I can believe this thread's still going - I was sure it was going to drop off the face of the forum after 5 pages. I'm glad so many people still enjoy this mod - I put a year of my life into it.

 

[rkade8583]

Sure it's biased but I figure I'd ask. Is this the most stable AND balanced of the ROM modmods like I've been told? Also, does this mod keep SoDs from occurring (or give some kind of penalty for using them?) I HATE SoDs.

Thanks

 

[NBAfan]

Sure it's biased but I figure I'd ask. Is this the most stable AND balanced of the ROM modmods like I've been told? Also, does this mod keep SoDs from occurring (or give some kind of penalty for using them?) I HATE SoDs.

Thanks

Press Ctrl-Alt-O, go to the New Dawn Settings tab and set unit limit to whatever you want.

 

[rkade8583]

Oh that is just AWESOME!!! Fan for life *dings bell*

 

[Ssenkrad]

As for Zone of Control...
[snip]
Hope it makes sense.

Got it. You actually explain it pretty clearly.

I've already scrapped the first game I was playing, since I fell too far behind in research. I was getting invaded by the AI with tanks and infantry while I was still using macemen and pikemen.

It wasn't going to be pretty, and I didn't want to watch.

[snip]
I can believe this thread's still going - I was sure it was going to drop off the face of the forum after 5 pages. I'm glad so many people still enjoy this mod - I put a year of my life into it.

This mod is awesome.

A couple trivial things I want to mention.
I keep getting an error:

Dunno if that is important, but I get it a lot.

Also, I edited
\Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml
to allow six World Wonders per city, but I seen one rival city with eight in my last game.
Here are the edits I made:

<Define>
	<DefineName>MAX_WORLD_WONDERS_PER_CITY</DefineName>
	<iDefineIntVal>6</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
	<DefineName>MAX_TEAM_WONDERS_PER_CITY</DefineName>
	<iDefineIntVal>3</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
	<DefineName>MAX_NATIONAL_WONDERS_PER_CITY</DefineName>
	<iDefineIntVal>3</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

I also have the option enabled in the Custom Game setup. Is there someplace else I need to edit to make the change, or what?

And one last thing. I've seen it mentioned by others, and I can confirm that "Choose Religions" doesn't work. You just found the religion based on the tech you discover.

If I can ever get past turn 2,000... I'll probably have more questions for you, but that's all for now.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Also, I edited
\Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml
to allow six World Wonders per city, but I seen one rival city with eight in my last game.
Here are the edits I made:

<Define>
	<DefineName>MAX_WORLD_WONDERS_PER_CITY</DefineName>
	<iDefineIntVal>6</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
	<DefineName>MAX_TEAM_WONDERS_PER_CITY</DefineName>
	<iDefineIntVal>3</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
<Define>
	<DefineName>MAX_NATIONAL_WONDERS_PER_CITY</DefineName>
	<iDefineIntVal>3</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

I also have the option enabled in the Custom Game setup. Is there someplace else I need to edit to make the change, or what?

And one last thing. I've seen it mentioned by others, and I can confirm that "Choose Religions" doesn't work. You just found the religion based on the tech you discover.

The option "Unlimited Wonders" over rides the settings you have in GlobalDefines.XML allowing you to build as many wonders as you like per city.

Confirm - "Choose Religions" does not work.

 

[Ssenkrad]

The option "Unlimited Wonders" over rides the settings you have in GlobalDefines.XML allowing you to build as many wonders as you like per city.

I just checked the Options screen, and "Unlimited Wonders" is not checked.
I just wondered if maybe the settings in GlobalDefines.xml might be getting trumped by something somewhere else.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I just checked the Options screen, and "Unlimited Wonders" is not checked.
I just wondered if maybe the settings in GlobalDefines.xml might be getting trumped by something somewhere else.

No, the only thing that does over ride the GlobalDefines.xml is that option.

 

[Ssenkrad]

No, the only thing that does over ride the GlobalDefines.xml is that option.

Seems I cried wolf.
I just built my sixth WW in one of my cities, and am unable to build any more there.

I've not seen any rival cities with more than six, either...

Sorry about the false alarm.

 

[OneFootInThe...]

This mod is great, and I am pretty certain it will live on for a looooong time to come... however as usual there are some details that may be better, below are some points on "better AI". As Better AI mod seems to be dead and we are using here the last version of it - I will post here few points which are not quite right with "better AI" mod. While it probably plays well in the typical overcrowded CIV setting where AI has plenty of decisions to make around "who to attack first", in last few games I am trying to play in a somewhat unusual setting.

Settings are: huge map, highlands (small lakes, so almost all land); 7 civs (more civ II style setting).

Thus the initial idea is to give plenty of space for growth and have wars in modern times, however the following happens repeatedly:

1. By AD 500, playing on marathon, a civ will either attack me or another civ, and that is despite being nowhere near the borders of the other civ/or me.

- if nearer they may have only a small stack to attack and are very easy to deal with; if further away they may even never come to my borders, and eventually offer peace with a fair amount of gold if I develop better than they do, which typically happens, as they seems to be on the war footing, but are probably too far to come (killed by barbs/whatever)

- if there is a skirmish, once I defeat them with very modest power on my side, I can go to their civ (if I know the position) take 10-30 turns to travel there and raze a few of their cities, just because they put too much effort in that mid size army to try and get to me

- they are toast

- other 2-3 civs that I was "nice" to and are weaker than me offer to become my vassals.

- effectively "the end" - ie no more fun, and that is at the stage where we are typically barely into the medieval times...

it seems that the pattern is easy to repeat when playing this game style.

So what we would need to add to the "attack" AI is the following:

- some sort of proximity idea - ie not attack if you are 10+ turns away from the borders (ideally not attack as long as you do not have at least a little of common border, or have a huge army you do not know what to do with).

- also some sort of balancing of "growth vs war", where it should be skewed more towards growth if there is ample space for it

- the idea of weak civs offering vassalage is good, but it should also occur when the space runs out/or maybe the civ is attacked by a stronger opponent, as it is - there is plenty of space to grow and develop but they just side to the strong opponents very early, thus either skewing the game into unplayable due to the overwhelming enemy numbers (if they side with a runnaway civ on a higher level), or due to being too easy, siding early with the player if there was some sort of tech/size lead being developed.

- to counter this AI behaviour vassalage should be offered by AI when they run out of space/development opportunity and are in a losing war, and not before those points.

this is all with "regular" AI, with "aggressive" it seems even worse.

Not sure if anyone will be able to pick up on that, but just to write it down, at the moment I am struggling to figure out how to avoid this type of behaviour, trying with chosing some "peaceful" civs but not succeeding yet in having a game which stays open longer than reneissance period, which happened only once so far with those settings (ie that the above happened in reneissance), and in that game space was nowhere near utilized.

What I would ideally be looking for would be 5-7 civs all fully developed 30+ cities, and some major wars when space is filled in... but no way to get there, typically the game is decided when I reach 10-20 cities with ample space to grow in between.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I use Archipelago Map, Huge (or bigger), and 7 to 9 AI for some of the very reasons you've posted.

But with the Arch world I also disable Vassals (IMHO vassals have been unusable even from Vanilla BtS). This allows every AI room to grow and develop with one more Very important caveat: contact with the other Civs is Very limited early game.

It won't be until Caravels are reached before you will make significant contacts. You may come into contact with 1 or 2 AI with galleys and triremes but it will not be until much later that you can interact significantly.

Sea level on this type map also plays a large role in "when" contact with others is made. Low sooner, high much later. And as stated above the larger the map the better.

JosEPh

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I'm playing on Emp or Monarch now, and have been having different problems from the 2 guys above....

I play Huge maps/Hemispheres/random no of continents/13 or 14 civs/agg ais/random personalities

I've been trying a few games as Monkul (is that his name?) of the Siamese..the philo/creative guy. My tech starts- Hunting/Stone Tools/Myst/Ceremonial Burial/Mining etc....I have as yet always got the religion first with this path (4 trial games). My problem is that in EVERY game, I've been attacked by some random civ ridiuclously early on...ridiculously.

Last game, I built Elder Council/Worker then planned several Javelineers. I have been dow before I even finished the 2nd Javelineer! Now in the last game, it was Mansa, and Skirmishers are just stupidly strong when he can build them right out of the gate. In the other 3 games, I soon gave up..the aggressor would not give peace whatever, and once the ai starts parking units in forests, they become basically unshiftable. Therefore you can't get any economy going, and it soon becomes "what's the point in this masochism?" (N.B. I've nerfed terrain D bonusus in other mods- why should it be when 2 similar units clash in a forest, the attacker has a -50% strength? It's always been rather silly an idea to me...may have to do that here)...

Anyways, in the last game, somehow the ai blew a fuse, and instead of pillaging my mines and forest/ivory, which I was powerless to stop, it let me build 2 more cities, taking in obsidian with the 3rd....then it was a long grind to "con it" into moving where the axes had a chance, and then taking Mansa's 2 cities.....and how many well promoted axes does it take to beat a skirmisher defending a city on a hill? An annoyingly large amount is the unfortunate answer...I'm some how now MUCH later, most probably winning overall in the renaissance

Has anyone else found themselves being dow on, at what seems a truly unfair time...(you get those free techs and units at the start ai to help you compete with the player, not to try and take him down before he's even started...)

 

[JosEPh_II]

/Hemispheres/random no of continents/13 or 14 civs/agg ais

Is it the same for Regular AI?

At time I play on large landmass maps I've experienced what you are saying. You have to do some serious shifting in how you normally play. If you're a builder type you'll get owned early. You have to become a warmonger in the early game.

I complained often to afforess about this. But he always retorted that AI balance was a major priority for his mod. And expect to get pushed hard if you use Aggressive AI.

JosEPh

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Is it the same for Regular AI?

At time I play on large landmass maps I've experienced what you are saying. You have to do some serious shifting in how you normally play. If you're a builder type you'll get owned early. You have to become a warmonger in the early game.

I complained often to afforess about this. But he always retorted that AI balance was a major priority for his mod. And expect to get pushed hard if you use Aggressive AI.

JosEPh

Haven't tried anything but Agg ais in years ........may have to try the regular ais, or take the free Archery/starting Archers away, but leave the ais all their other bonuses. I don't mind being attacked early, as I NEVER neglect troops in the early game, but this has been so early as to be silly. The ai starts off with 2 or more Archers, you get a scout or warrior (who inevitably dies almost instantly exploring). The ai will then have probably an 8/1 or more power ratio, and when it reckons its capital is sufficiently defended, this ratio is probably 4 or 5/1 better than the players, and thus it attacks.

In vanilla BTS and ALL other MODs I know of, the ai isn't allowed to attack the player until around Iron Working or so. This constraint has obviously been removed. I think I'll just take the free Archery tech away, that should fix it.

 

[rkade8583]

After cracking open some of these options, I have a question: Can the computer use these or am I handicapping it by enabling stuff it can't use? Bombardments, 1upt, etc. come to mind.

 

[Nosferum]

-In my game, I've run across a city I cannot attack: Avignon. When I move the attack cursor over the city I receive the red circle which indicates territory into which I cannot move. I've attached the save game.

 

[trevort]

-In my game, I've run across a city I cannot attack: Avignon. When I move the attack cursor over the city I receive the red circle which indicates territory into which I cannot move. I've attached the save game.

One of the buildings (I forget which) in that city exerts a Zone of Control around that city. The building must be destroyed, through bombardment, before you can move in for the attack.

 

[Carwyn]

Afforess - Your PM box is full and I'm not sure where to post otherwise to get your attention. I wanted to ask you a question specifically (but anyone else that might have ideas as well) about modding. One of my friends is working on making a small mod for us for MP and wants to spice it up with more advanced spy action.

He's really stuck trying to figure out how to make a unit that will attack a spy when that spy is in a city. He asked me to ask around with this question:

How can you get units that are always hostile to attack another unit in a city?

So far he's been playing with making a Counter Spy that can root out Spies and fight with each other and generally its been fun, but both the Counter Spy and the Spy need to be attackable in a city, otherwise a Counter Spy can park in a city, making all spy actions impossible (turns out a Spy that is visible can't spy) . He's working on other possible workarounds, but if anyone could help, that would be wonderful!

Thanks for your time!

 

[al-rashid]

Just tried this mod out a little (upto 850 AD), although I like the mod im struggling badly and dont understand a few things. started out ous kmer empire on giant map 21 civs generally normal settings, back to where i am now: 5 cities around 300+ a turn tech rate dont know if thats good or i should be doing better, but theres nowhere to place new cities and the main problem being assyria are just across the sea they outech me by far and keep declaring war (they are soon to wipe me out as theyve just reduced me to 4 cities) theyre capable of assualting with like 20 naval and land units each and i cant understand how theyve runaway with it, i thought things like maintenance/economy would stop them settling but no, right now before the assualt im on 405 score, theyve just hit 900. Im a fair way behind others too though seems to be no sign of the feature called tech diffusion, or maybe im doing incredibly badly i dunno. would like an insight on this, if needs be i can send my save in.

also one last thing i cant get to grips with is diplomacy, cant understand the benfit to being on good status (pleased) because i cant ask them for anything like joining wars with me asking them to trade techs, all i cant get is the occasianal resource trade, the only benefit im seeing right now is establishing embassys and free trade, just for the trade routes.