The Medmod VI for BNW

[WesW]

I'm giving this a whirl on Prince in order to get a feel for it. I've been loving it early on, except that I seem to have run into a problem: I can't build the National College. I have the Great Library in my cap & 4 other cities, each of which has a library. When I try to select National College, it says that I still need 2 more. Do I need a minimum number of cities to build it?

Yes, you need a minimum number. I would've thought the number to be about 6, though it might be seven if that's what the game is telling you. I play on large or huge maps, so founding the required number of cities is normally not a problem. There's no way to adjust it for map size or number of civs, either. The other early NW's also require this same amount of cities, so you'll need to get a couple more cities in your empire.

 

[WesW]

Just want to say that I really like what you've done here. I've only really started to play CIV 5 since BNW, and I must admit I have found the 1 unit per hex quite frustrating; it's nice to have that relaxed a little by your mod.

Unfortunately with the release of EUIV and the imminent release of RTWII, I don't know how much time I'll have to continue playing BNW. Also, I'm inclined to wait for a big patch from Fireaxis before playing any more BNW.

Anyway, a few comments:

- I don't personally mind the banning of luxury resources. I also see it happening all the time, but I feel it's something to work around, and even control.
- I'd like to see some extra tech, units, buildings at end-game, but I don't know whether doing that interests you.
- I'd like to see conquest more manageable early game for both the AI and player. Does your mod help with this, do you think?

Glad you like the mod. Re: the units per plot limit, it seems that a lot of civ players must be masocists or something, the way they like the 1-unit limit. I guess I tend toward the sadistic side, since the limit of three I'm trying out is really frustrating to me in the late-game.
Don't know why you're waiting for a patch before playing more. I haven't noticed any bugs at all in my games, though I haven't searched the forum bug list, either.
I know what you mean about building stuff in the late-game, but there isn't much need for them, since you'll never get much of a return on investment in them. A new happiness or income building might be worthwhile, though. I've avoided using outside graphics and units in order to make installing the mod as simple as possible. I might check out some of the scenarios and see if I can use something from them.
As far as conquest, the increased unit-per-tile setting makes it significantly easier than before. Actually, the main reason people are giving for not liking the 5-upt setting was that it made taking cities too easy. Early game conquest is very hard if the city has walls, but then again the earlier you take/lose a city, the greater the effect it has on the game. Basically, if taking cities early on is too easy, it really messes up game balance.
I like these posts where we can get to talking about game mechanics and such. Maybe some other people will come by with questions like these. Nice *talking* to you.

 

[earthwulf]

The mod's been great - I like the minimum number of cities thing (among other things), it really makes you expand. It's making me actually thinak about the choices I'm making - thank you!

Working on a king game now - wound up with Genghis to my west, Attila east & Zulu north.

 

[ilshur]

the limit makes sense but is this broken so that venice cannot build any of the national wonders which require 6+...? Or do the puppet states count. I haven't tried venice for a proper campaign yet, but if this is broken i'd change me towards doing morrocco instead

 

[ilshur]

The v2.3 link is a copy of the v2.2 link. or the files are identical. im not sure which, but the result is that there is no update from clicking #2.3

 

[ilshur]

WHere in the file is the city-range limitation located? having it at 4 tiles is a bit unrealistic. I realize that it was changed to encourage the AI to make more expansive empires, but it ends up really limiting new construction on maps with a lot of features like perfectworld3, tectonic, and highlands.

In NiGHTS, the lua/core was called something like plot_range, but i couldnt find it in any of the files of Medmod. Anyway, if it'd be possible to get the update, that'd be ideal, but ill keep looking.

 

[WesW]

WHere in the file is the city-range limitation located? having it at 4 tiles is a bit unrealistic. I realize that it was changed to encourage the AI to make more expansive empires, but it ends up really limiting new construction on maps with a lot of features like perfectworld3, tectonic, and highlands.

In NiGHTS, the lua/core was called something like plot_range, but i couldnt find it in any of the files of Medmod. Anyway, if it'd be possible to get the update, that'd be ideal, but ill keep looking.

It's located on line 75 of the GlobalDefines.xml, MIN_CITY_RANGE. I had adjusted this setting for the vanilla game, but decided to remove it for this version of the mod, so that players could make their own decision about it.

 

[WesW]

The v2.3 link is a copy of the v2.2 link. or the files are identical. im not sure which, but the result is that there is no update from clicking #2.3

There are only a few files that are different in version 2.3. I didn't change the modinfo file so that players could continue their current games. If you unpack 2.3 over the 2.2 files, they should update. A quick way to check is to start a new game, open up the tech chart, and see how much happiness a Stadium gives. It should now give 4.
Be sure and let me know whether it does or not, since I may be overlooking something.

 

[ilshur]

The link to 2.3 downloads as the 2.0 file now. the contents do not include any file named "GlobalDefines.xml", and only include the following:

Buildings
Gameinfo
Global
Leaders
Medmod_VI for BNW (v 2).modinfo
Tech
Terrain
text
Units

--
The .modinfo file is unopenable in afaict.

I looked in all of the other existing files, and there is no line in any saying "Min_city_range" casesensative or not.

However, the buildings do appear to be the updated versions (stadium gives 4 happiness). So idk.

 

[ilshur]

where would i put this code to make it work for 2 hexes between cities?

<GameData>
<Defines>
<Update>
<Where Name="MIN_CITY_RANGE"/>
<Set Value="2"/>
</Update>
</Defines>
</Gamedata>

 

[WesW]

The best thing to do is open up the game's GlobalDefines.xml, located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\assets\DLC\Expansion2\Gameplay\XML (or just search for the file), and alter line 75. This way your changes won't be lost when the mod updates.

 

[ilshur]

How easily are components of other mods introduced into new ones?

Could it really be as simple as copy and paste, at least for large game mechanics that are just 'updating over' the existing vanilla mechanics?

I want to paste this one part of NiGHTS called "Eras" into your mod for BNW, because its the mechanism by which modifying the research and cultural output depending on the era you're in is most accessible.

As i might have mentioned, i liked to turn way down the research capacity once you reach the medival era, because there is no other way to increase research times (science has a hardcap of 200k at which point it multiplies itself by -1 and becomes buggy. Realistically, this means that the highest actual value of science can be set is around 25k or 30k, because of multipliers that already exist like marathon length and city multiplier, etc.)


Anyway, its a simple amount of data, and i could put it in a stand alone subfolder as it currently is, or i could paste the text directly into the body of an existing folder.

Im inclined to try both, but i was wondering if there was a simple answer before i go through the effort of extensive testing for stability, etc.

There is a section of text for each era that looks like this:

"""
Ancient Era

<Eras>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set ResearchAgreementCost="150"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set EventChancePerTurn="10"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set CreatePercent="110"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set ConstructPercent="120"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set TrainPercent="110"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set CulturePercent="120"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set ResearchPercent="120"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
<Set BuildPercent="120"/>
</Update>
</Eras>
"""

Where could i put this?

 

[WesW]

I guess you could tack it onto the end of an existing mod file, such as global.xml. I have not fooled with that part of the game, so there should not be a conflict.

 

[WesW]

Btw, I plan on making another update this weekend, so if anyone has any comments or suggestions, let me know what you would like to see in the mod.

I have been looking around the mod forum and the steam workshop, and there does not appear to be anyone else doing exactly what I am with the medmod. If you like what I am doing, and would like to spread the news about the mod, please consider giving the thread here a nice rating and hopefully we will get some more eyeballs on it, which could mean more ideas and a better mod to enjoy. I figure that there are a lot of players out there that would enjoy the mod if they knew about its existence, but a lot of them probably do not check the forum as often as they used to, since the game has been out for so long now.

 

[ilshur]

without cluttering things needlessly, increased depth of any mod is obviously a plus, especially for those of us who like to increase the user side adjustments depending on the type of game we'd like to play. NiGHTS did this really well, especially with all of the definition updates found in their "GLOBAL" file of the CORE subfile of the mod.

 

[Canabrava]

First time playing this mod and first impressions:

- I liked 3 unit per hex.
- AI knows atack but dont know defend.
- My first game, AI shaka conquered 10 cities in 170 turns on epic speed. They just get more strong, with more gold, science, culture and power. Doesn't matter how big they are, they always happy and with gold to create more army.
- I see this mod focus on huge empires. If you have more cites, you win. National wonders just to 3 cities or more, why?

 

[WesW]

I set the national wonders where they are so that a player wouldn't be able to get them immediately after they became available. I wanted them to be available to expansionist players, but not without doing some work. You need 6 or 7 cities to qualify for the earlier wonders, and about 3 or 4 to qualify for the later wonders. With the changes to the cultural victory setting, I really don't see how you can win the game without having al least 6 or 7 cities.
If you're one of those players who likes to found 3 cities and "turtle up" for the rest of the game, then maybe this mod isn't for you, but I have been playing civ for 20 years now, going back to civ 1, and in my opinion you shouldn't be able to win the game that way.

Caution, rant ahead.
Imo, you should strive to be number 1 in all the demographic categories, and you shouldn't be able to win the game without being at least near the top in all of them. I consider the game won when I am dominant enough to be certain of winning both the science and domination victory paths, whichever one I wanted to choose. I play the game as a 4x-game, and I feel that everyone else should too, as far as their standard way of play. I mean, if you want to occasionally stay small and try to get a diplomatic victory or some such, that's fine- that option should be there. However, I don't think that it should be considered the "normal" way to play the game, and I certainly don't think that the game should be slanted to favor this style to the detriment of expansionistic styles, which is what I feel has happened over the last couple of years.
Do you guys remember when the game first came out, how luxuries gave 5 happiness and buildings either 4 or 5? This was how the original programmers and playtesters thought it should be, which was to favor the expansionist. Most every change since then has been to hamstring the expansionist and favor the turtle, to the point where I don't feel that expansionism is a viable strategy anymore without either modding or dropping down to such a level that the game isn't challenging.
To sum up, I feel that size should be the biggest factor in winning the game, and that trying to win without being the largest civ should be a real challenge, something that would normally require you to drop down a level or two to achieve.

 

[WesW]

Update posted!

Version 3 of the mod is now available. There are quite a few changes in this version:

Broadway's era theming restriction has been removed, so that now you only need 3 musicals from the same civ.
The Red Fort increases defensive building str. by 50%.
Income buildings such as Markets have been reduced in cost by 25%, since they are now less effective.
Opera Houses and Museums now give 2 and 3 culture, respectively. Their costs have also been increased.
The East India Co. now gives 2 more gold to both parties in a trade, so hopefully the ai can be induced to make more routes with the Co.'s city.

Merchants now have 4 movement points.
Tech. costs have been reduced by about 5%, due to the city science cost penalty.
I removed the stated restrictions on Wheat and Incense, since the code apparently doesn't work.
I updated the text for a number of things in the game to reflect the mod's changes, though it is still hit-n-miss. The text folder in the game is a complete mess, containing dozens of files with seemingly random entries for everything in the game. I tried to catch as many things as I could. Let me know if there are still things in the game that you find confusing.

This version's biggest changes are found in Policies and Ideologies.
The Commerce beginner now adds 50% income for the capital city, up from 25%.
Merchant Confed. now adds 5 gold to city-state trade routes.
Universal Healthcare now adds 3 happiness for each national wonder.
Univ. Healthcare and Young Pioneers are now level 2 tenets, while
Workers' Faculties and Resettlement are now level 1 tenets. (With Faculties at level 2, you never got it before you had already finished most of your factories.)

This is a fairly significant update, focused on the additions and changes of BNW.

 

[ilshur]

a couple things:

I think that the 'biggest blob = winner' model is a bit overly simplistic, and that a more robust empire with a handful of very tall cities should be able to, especially in the industrial era, easily overpower larger terrestrial blob-empires. A good compromise you might consider for national wonders is to make them available right away if you have the 1 structure in the city, and then each additional structure in other cities gradually brings down the cost of them. I've long been a proponent of dramatically increasing the cost of wonders, and for national wonders it also makes sense.

For venice, you cant build any national wonders, which is incredibly prejudicial.

Also, if there was a way to somehow increase the science from traderoutes with more advanced civilizations, that'd be very good. i did some digging and i cannot really find where the formula is held, but single points of science matter very little beyond the classical age.

 

[ilshur]

also, currently artists/writers/muscians are scaled separately from scientists/engineers/merchants. Why? I'd be in favor of splitting them all up so that pushing one type hard didnt mean you'd never ever get another type, relatively speaking.