TAM v2.00 Beta (for Civ4 Vanilla v1.74)

[ambrox62]

These guys should even be on standard if possible

Yes, they already are on standard (16 civs)

Huge map has 18 civs in. Does Civ Vanilla allow scenario maps with more then 18 civs?

 

[dyerbods]

@Dyerbods
Useful feedback, thanks.
Is your report first or after patch #1?
Cults tuning is a complex issue because we should find a balanced setup between start-mid-late game.
Patch #1 re-tunes cult effects, also resolving all previous cult/state religion issues.

Pre-patch. I have a Huge/Prince/Briton game that I want to progress some more before starting again.

I now think the new harbour may be too much too soon. How practical would it be to do some of the following (not fully thought out).

1) Have a probability of ships being damaged at sea, even in coastal waters, as the sea was a dangerous place. A new promotion set could be used to reduce this. Harbours and Lighthouses would reduce it in local waters. Cartography, Astronomy and Seafaring could reduce it anywhere.
2) Move Harbour to Masonry to reflect the building of sea walls. Cap the number of trade routes that can be added because a basic harbour can only handle so much trade. Buildings/Techs/Civics could increase this cap. Harbours would make ships significantly safer in local waters (though for realism, the benefit would only be for ships in the harbour - implying that ships in a city lacking a harbour should be at risk of storm damage). The trade routes added in other cities should also respect the cap - cities without harbours should not get these trade routes for free.
3) Have the Lighthouse increase ship safety in local coastal waters. Remove the food bonus from ocean plots as the bonus arises from not losing so many ships. The ocean plot food bonus could come with Seafaring. Since safer harbours are more attractive to traders, add a water trade route. Possibly remove all exploitation of ocean plots until Seafaring.
4) Add a Grand Harbour as a national wonder or 1 of N building, say with Commerce, that could remove the trade route cap, add water trade routes, make ships safer etc.
5) Add a Wharf building at Wood Working that adds a water trade route, a food bonus, etc. On the coast adds a little safety. If on the coast and adjacent to a river mouth then makes ships (almost) immune to storm damage loss. If on a river, add a hammer increase to represent the benefit of being able to move heavy loads safely on the river.
6) Major rivers were the safest and fastest transport routes in the ancient world. Vanilla Civ doesn't do justice to this. Allow Wharfs, and possibly Harbours, to be built in inland cities that are adjacent to a river. If the river connects to the coast then these cities qualify as source/target for water trade routes as if they were on the coast. Allows ships to move between connected river cities using the 'airlift' mechanism, provided 'in range' and not passing 'enemy' cities (though a promotion might allow this). Land units can be moved by transports or by the Wharf/Harbour acting like an airport. Attacks might be allowed using the 'paradrop' mechanism.
7) Add a Reed boat as a small transport buildable only in cities on rivers, perhaps from as early as Tools. Relatively long ranged on rivers and rather unsafe at sea. Builds faster with Papyrus of course.

I hope the above is of interest even if nobody has time to do anything with them.

 

[Shqype]

Yes, of course, although it isn't possible to know construction's date of some wonders exactly (mainly the oldest ones). Some results were really surprising.

I used TAGs instead of descriptions for convenience (search/copy/paste in XML files)

The Illyrian wonders (Oracle of Dodona and the Citadel) were pretty accurate. The Citadel date itself I'm not too sure on, but it sounds about right.

Golgatha should be 33 AD, though. It became significant once Jesus was crucified, and He died at 33 years of age.

Huge map has 18 civs in. Does Civ Vanilla allow scenario maps with more then 18 civs?

No, it doesn't. I'll change that for BtS. But in my understanding the Huge Map should have all civs present in standard, plus 2 more.

Anyway, for BtS I'll make the DLL allow for more civs to fix that problem.

 

[davbenbak]

When you say, "I'll change that for BTS." does that mean sometime soon? Just wondered how far along you guys were in the conversion process.

 

[jefmart1]

I'm having crashes when my Praetorians attack Libyan Mercenarys. On Huge TAM map. Its weird though because everything was fine for along time. Then I got a crash and lost a bunch of turns. Loaded an autosave and suddenly I'm having crashes there too. Any ideas?

PS The save is too large to upload.

 

[ambrox62]

I now think the new harbour may be too much too soon.

Yes, we'll lower harbour effects a bit.

Thanks for your further suggestions.

 

[ambrox62]

When you say, "I'll change that for BTS." does that mean sometime soon?

No, it doesn't.
Team leaders are busy actually.

 

[ambrox62]

I'm having crashes when my Praetorians attack Libyan Mercenarys. On Huge TAM map. Its weird though because everything was fine for along time. Then I got a crash and lost a bunch of turns. Loaded an autosave and suddenly I'm having crashes there too. Any ideas?

PS The save is too large to upload.

Probably it's an animation's problem.
Did you attack Libyans in a fortified city or in a open space?

I suggest you to turn off combat animations for some turns, or switch from multi to single unit display (or the opposite)
Tell me your progress about CTD.

 

[ambrox62]

Golgatha should be 33 AD, though.

Although it isn't important at all, I mentioned year 30 not at random absolutely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Jesus

 

[jefmart1]

Removing animations fixed it...

 

[thamis]

Which animations did you remove?

 

[Shqype]

No, it doesn't.
Team leaders are busy actually.

Yes, it does.

In the relatively early development of TAM for Civ4 I helped Thamis out and was the lead programmer for a period of time. I am resuming those duties and Thamis has given me permission to resume my role as lead programmer and to head up the BTS conversion of TAM.

I'm waiting for Ambrox and Graywarden to release their final version of TAM for Vanilla. At that point I'll have a base to work from and can begin the conversion process. Hopefully they complete it ASAP, and with whatever volunteers I can muster to help in the tedious conversion process, we may just have a nice Christmas gift ready for us by the end of the month.

 

[Seven05]

...and with whatever volunteers I can muster to help in the tedious conversion process...

Psst... click here

That should save you some time.

 

[jefmart1]

I removed all animations via the options screen. Movement, combat, workers, etc. I haven't had any problems since then.

Also, when this moves to BTS,and there isn't a 16 civ cap. There should probably be civs added east and north east of the Persians. They can expand into what I assume is currently Afgahnistan and possibly Pakistan without any resistance other then barbs, and it is chock full of valuable and rare (for that side of the map) resources like silk and game.

 

[Tiberius Earley]

two questions.
First is crash to desktop consistently after moving my last unit
in a huge map pangaea game 373 AD (pre patch). Happened every time.
Restart computer, reload file, turn off all animatioins etc., still happens.

second question.
quit often on screen after classical age or so I will see the message
"you gained 20 gp from plundering" Where does this come from?

GREAT MOD by the way. THanks you guys.
This is my 3rd game and the first one to crash.
My main goal in the games now is to somehow, someway
MAKE A FRIEND. I have only had one civ in one game
consistently pleased with me with open borders.

Looks like file is too big to upload

 

[dyerbods]

There may be a problem with the Republic and Empire civics. These are higher upkeep than the other government civics and also increase city maintenance costs. The carrot for this stick is the prospect of greater income from being allowed foreign trade routes, but will there ever be anyone to trade with? The other government civics all ban foreign trade routes, therefore Republics and Empire can only have foreign trade routes with other Republics and Empires. If the AI code does any cost benefit analysis, I would not expect any AI civ to ever choose to be the first Republic or Empire as the other government civics have lower costs.

 

[ambrox62]

Good appoint.
Did you observe that in your late-game? Did you get any AI-civic-choice statistic report to submit?

 

[dyerbods]

Good appoint.
Did you observe that in your late-game? Did you get any AI-civic-choice statistic report to submit?

I stopped playing the Huge/Epic/Prince/Briton game in 365AD to switch to patch #1. At that point I had the Sphinx and had switched to Republic for a while but switched back to City States because the maintenance under Republic was significantly higher. I noticed that I had no foreign trade routes to the one civ I had open borders with. At first I though that was due to trade being blocked by intervening civs and only thought of the "No foreign trade routes" effect later. No other civ has Republic yet so no possibility to disprove my hypothesis.

I currently have a Standard/Epic/Prince/Carthage game and I'll watch what happens once several other civs get to Republic. BTW in this game I spotted a Mycenaean ram displayed as a pink catapult!

 

[ambrox62]

Patch #2 is out! See post #1