The Medmod VI for BNW

WesW

Creator of the Medmod
Joined
Mar 14, 2002
Messages
145
Location
Florence, AL.
The Medmod VI for BNW, v.4
Improved AI performance, smoother gameflow, expanded unit line-ups and better overall balance are the aims of this comprehensive mod. (Gods and Kings and the Spanish DLC are also required.)

AI development and behavior- Settings for roads, land and city development have been set to high. Other changes have been made to deliver healthy, but not runaway, expansion, and better unit choices. Namely, defensive (melee) infantry is set to high, while naval and air unit affinities have been lowered. These and other changes have been made to try and keep the AI from building nothing but air and anti-air units once it has access to them. The priority for Archaeologists has been lowered as well.
Warmonger hatred has been set to 2, out of 10, for all civs, since it is so easy to obtain this epithet. (As it is now, diplomacy completely ends for the rest of the game the first time you declare war and wipe out a civ. Ridiculous.)
AI Loyalty has been set to 8, and deceptiveness to 3, to try and keep the AIs from being forced to declare war on you even when they don't want to. (Don't worry, you'll still get backstabbed once or twice a game.)

Construction costs- Units and buildings now cost 20% more to build, except for the most basic items such as Monuments and Warriors. This helps to offset the increased production from improved resources given by the mod. This, combined with the new religious and trade structures, means that you rarely run out of things to build, and must make continuous choices between competing needs.
In addition, the costs of modern units, basically from Great War Infantry on up, have been increased by another 35 to 50 percent, since your production capacity expands so much during this era.

Units and Combat
Stacks- Up to three units may now be stacked on the same tile. The way the AI handles stack combat is both simpler and better than how it was in Civ 4. Once you try it I think you'll really like it. Besides combat, stacking makes it much more convenient to station and move units.
Eras- Eight new unit classes have been added to the game. Every era now has both melee and ranged infantry and mounted units. Unique units have been drafted to fill in the holes in the existing unit lineup.
The new units are Horse Archers (Huns), Mounted Archers (Keshik), Dragoons (Hussars), Tercio (Spanish), Cuirassiers (Hakka.), Fusiliers (Caroleans), Skirmishers (Foreign Legion) and Marksmen (Pracinha). These new vanilla units have been stripped of their unique abilities, so as not to take away from the unique units.
In addition to the new units, Musketmen, Riflemen, Cavalry, Hussars, Legionnaires, Anti-Tank Guns, Pracinha, Comanche Riders and Gunships are now ranged units.
Also, several units, both unique and vanilla, have been moved to different eras. Please check out the Tech Chart for an overview.
Combat strengths have been modified somewhat to allow for the new units. (Classical Age units are a little less powerful, while Modern Age units are a little more powerful.)
Experience levels reduced from 10 to 7. You now receive bonuses at 7, 21, 42, 70, etc.
Promotions have been raised from 15 back to 20 percent for open and rough terrains, as has the Great General bonus. Naval promotions have also been upped to 20%.
Obsoletion- Except for unique units, units now go obsolete when their immediate successors become available, to keep the AI from continuing to build obsolete units. The exception was made for unique units so that you can have the option of continuing to produce them for their abilities, and immediately upgrade them if you like.

Cities
The insertion of stacks into the game means that it is now easier to mass your units and quickly take cities. Therefore, city defense and attack have been strengthened. Walls and the like now give more protection and hit points, city ranged attack strength has been increased by 50%, and garrisoned units now add 25% of their strength to city defense, up from 20%.
Capturing a city only loses 25% of its population.

Mounted units
Mounted units have the Shock I promotion to complement their city attack penalty, to represent their traditional strengths and weaknesses.
Siamese War Elephants have been reduced in strength, but get the Shock 2 bonus to compensate.
Forest Elephants receive the Shock 2 bonus as well.
Camel Archers now have a 50% defensive bonus versus mounted units. (Horses don't like the smell of camels.)
Lancers now receive a flanking bonus ala Hussars.
Comanche Riders are now a ranged unit, and are somewhat stronger as well.

Bows
Horse Archers have no special abilities, while Mtd. Bowmen can move after firing, and Keshiks can now move to avoid melee attacks, making them harder than ever to destroy.
Longbowmen have a 50% defensive bonus versus mounted units. (They used stakes to shield themselves from cavalry charges.)

Naval units
Later naval units have been increased in strength somewhat, to better withstand bombardment from land units.
Embarked units now have a visibility range of 1.
Battleships now have 5 movement.
Missile Cruisers and Carriers can now carry one more missile and plane, respectively.
Caravels now have 6 movement.
Dromons now have an attack range of 1. (Greek Fire is obviously a short-range weapon.)
Submarines can no longer pillage.

Misc.
Barbarian units and camps now spawn somewhat less often.
Gatling and Machine Guns must set up prior to firing, to emphasize their use as defensive units, and both now have a range of 2.
Anti-Aircraft guns and SAMs can no longer attack ground units, and SAMs now require Radar (see tech changes below).
Medic promotions now also heal units in the same tile as the medic.
Landships and Tanks have lost one movement point.
Panzers now begin with the Blitz promotion.
Modern Armor now requires Oil instead of Aluminum, while Rocket Artillery no longer requires Aluminum.
Fusiliers have a bonus versus cavalry due to their bayonets. (Historically, pikemen didn't entirely disappear from the battlefield until the development of the socket bayonet in the 18th century.)
The Longswordsman has been re-named the Man-at-Arms and Cavalry have been re-named Carabiniers.
Legions and Rocket Artillery now have 3 movement.
Peace treaties now last 15 turns, since the AI now declares war more frequently.
Great Prophets now have the Unwelcome Evangelist promotion, and the promotion now takes away a third of the unit's strength per turn. (No longer will Prophets be able to convert your cities with impunity.)
Archaeologists now cost about 40% less.
Merchants now have 4 movement.
Pathfinders cost less, and upgrade to Swordsmen.
Impis now replace Swordsmen, and ignore terrain movement penalties.

Terrain and Growth
Cities now take 25% more food to grow, since the timeline is longer compared to the default game. I also set things so that 90% of the time civs should start the game next to a river.
Flat terrain no longer carries a defense penalty, except for Marsh. Hills now give a 33% bonus to units and a 25% bonus to cities.
Flood Plains now give an extra food, and Forests give +1 prod. and -1 food. (No more wooded hills that give the same output as grassland.)
Oases provide 1 extra food and gold with Aqueducts.
The cost of buying plots has been reduced by 10 gold.
Cities may not claim tiles more than 3 plots away.
Lake Victoria now provides fresh water to surrounding plots.
Snow Hills now give 2 production, same as all other hills.

Resources and Improvements
Undeveloped resources now give a base 1 bonus (Base 1= 1 food, 1 prod. or 2 gold), and improving resources now gives a Base 2 bonus. (Thus an improved resource gives a base 3 bonus versus plain, undeveloped land.) In addition, bonuses have been added where necessary to ensure that each improvement type receives a base 2 total bonus from buildings and/or technology.
Oil Wells and Platforms now give 5 prod.
Towns (Kasbahs) are a new type of tile improvement added to the game. They can be placed on grasslands and plains, and add +1 production initially, and add 1 food when Biology is researched. They also improve tile defense, the same as Kasbahs.
Speaking of Kasbahs, they now add +1 gold with Steam Power, and +1 production with Dynamite. This puts them on par with other types of terrain. Kasbahs can no longer be built on Hills.
Brazilwood Camps give +1 prod. bonus in addition to their gold effect, and a +1 food bonus upon discovering Scientific Theory.
Trading Posts lose 1 gold but gain 1 production upon researching Railroads.
Copper is now treated the same as Iron in regards to development and requirement for Forges.
Incense now gives 4 extra gold.
Strategic resource exhaustion penalty reduced to 33%.

Buildings
The cost of purchasing buildings has been reduced by about 30%, in order to try and make gold resources more competitive with production tiles. (The old settings had 1 prod. equal to about 3.5 gold, which is way too much.)
Universities now increase science by 50%. Their cost has been raised by 50% as well.
Harbors and Seaports now give 2 culture in addition to their existing effects, to simulate the effects of trade.
Opera Houses and Museums give 2 and 3 culture, respectively. Their costs have also been increased.

Income buildings are now 25% cheaper, since they do not affect trade income.
Markets and Banks now give +2 and +3 gold, respectively, in addition to their normal effect.
Mints now improve Gems as well, so that they are as valuable as gold and silver.
Coffee Houses now give 4 gold.
Ducal Stables gold bonus raised to 2.

Ironworks require a Forge and only give 6 prod., but add 2 prod. to each source of Iron and Copper, so you'll want to build them in cities with multiple sources of these resources.
Windmills and Factories give 4 and 8 production, respectively.
Factories now add 1 prod. to each source of Coal and Aluminum, and add +1 production to Forests, thus keeping Forest production equal to that of Mines even if you have the Five Year Plan policy.
Hydro Plants now give an additional bonus of 1 food to river tiles. (It doesn't seem right that river tile food production stays the same from Civil Service through the end of the game.)

Military Bases now give +15 combat experience. Note that they still require Arsenals.
Airports now require 1 Oil.
Stoneworks can now be built in cities founded on Plains. (I have no idea why that restriction is in the game.)

Wonders
Broadway and Uffizi now only contain a civ restriction for their theming bonuses. (Era restrictions removed.)
Red Fort increases the effect of defensive buildings by 50%.

Happiness
Colosseums and Zoos give 3 happiness, while Stadiums give 4. (I honestly don't know how you're even supposed to play the game anymore with what's been done to happiness. It's like you're forced to play the game only one way.)
The Garden has been re-named the Public Park. It increases happiness by 3 and is available with Biology. The Zoo picks up the Garden's Great People ability. Note that the Zoo's Great Person effect isn't accounted for in the pop-up that shows the progress rate until Person creation, but I am sure that it is working.
Unhappy growth penalty reduced to 50%, and very unhappy production penalty reduced to 33%.

National Wonders
The required number of buildings has been changed from "all cities" to between 4 and 6, and the increase in cost per city has been reduced by about half. Now expansionist civs should have some chance to build them at a reasonable cost. Note that the code went screwy when I started messing with it, so the number required and cost are only estimates.
The Ivy League, a new National Wonder, has been added to the game. It adds 1 point of output to all Specialists in their given field, similar to what the Statue of Liberty does (except for Merchants, which gain 2 gold). Specialists are now a competitive alternative through the end of the game.
East India Co. increases trade by an additional 2 gold for both parties. (Wherever I build this, the ai seems to deliberately avoid.)

Policies
Oligarchy only increases city attacks by 50%.
Philanthropy's effect on gifts increased from 25 to 40 percent.
Theocracy's effect on Temples has been raised from 10 to 15 percent.
Commerce beginner now increases Capital income by 100%.
Merchant Confed. now adds 5 gold to the value of city-state routes. (1 gold? Why bother?)
Wagon Trains now add 5 gold to the value of land routes.
Towns, Chateaus and Brazilwood Camps now gain the same bonuses as Trading Posts upon enacting the Free Thought and Commerce finisher policies.

Ideologies
Univ. Healthcare, Double Agents and Hero of the People are now level 2 tenets, while
Workers' Faculties, Party Leadership and Resettlement are now level 1 tenets.
Univ. Healthcare now adds 3 happiness for Nat. Wonders.
Hero of the People increases growth rate by 40%.

Civ bonuses
English, French and Brazillian Golden Ages now last 50% longer.
The Turks now have a 40% chance of converting land barbarians, ala the Germans (see origin of Janissaries).
Gandhi's population unhappiness bonus has been reduced to 30%.

Technologies
Tech costs have been increased significantly, from small Ancient-era changes up to a tripling in cost by the Modern Age. I am very pleased with the way that tech progresses now, and I think you will be, too.
In addition, I have switched Ballistics and Flight, as well as Radar and Rocketry. Now you get Machine Guns before Landships and aircraft, which fits in with their historical developments.
I have also changed and added many tech requirements, to keep civs from jumping ahead along a single path, and to try and assure that a unit of a given era cannot be accessed without first getting its predecessor.
The newly-installed science cost increase per city has been reduced by about 25%, in order to try and get the timeline back on track.

Culture
Growth in the cost of later tiles reduced a little. Again, this has worked out quite well in my games.
Also, culture growth should now acquire hills, forests and flood plains as easily as flatlands, and, hopefully, river tiles easiest of all.

Specialists
Engineers give 3 prod., and Merchants give 5 gold. (The AI loves specialists, so I gave them more value to match the production of tiles.)

City-states
Cultural and Religious CS's now give more culture and faith, respectively.
Also, killing Barbs and gifting units give more influence.

Misc.
The preferred religion of several civs has been changed to reflect reality, and GG units and the like don't change appearance until the Modern Age, when you actually get Combustion.

Great Generals
After some research, I decided to replace several of the GG's in the game, so be on the lookout for Hannibal, Frederick the Great, Wellington, the Duke of Marlborough and others. Also, GG's now have 3 movement and +1 sight, while Great Admirals have 6 movement.

About the Medmod series: The Medieval Mod series started out in 1999 with a small mod to address some issues in the medieval period of the game Civilization: Call-to-Power, and eventually grew to encompass the entire game. As things worked out, I kept the name Medmod for the name recognition not only for that mod, but all my mods. For my work on CtP I and II, I was inducted into the Apolyton HoF a few years back.
Next I went on to the Total War series' Medieval edition, and the Medmod IV, or WesMod as some knew it, again earned me HoF recognition, this time at TotalWar.org. Since then I have continued to mod games, though none were nearly as big a project as these early works.
 

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I found out that the tech chart was all messed up from where I switched Rocketry and Radar. That is now fixed. And yes, you can continue your game after installing the update. I made several other changes that affect science and gold, though, so you may want to start a new game unless you're heavily invested in seeing your current game through.
Below is a detailed list of the changes:

Tech chart fixed.
Towns added to Policies which add science or gold to Trading Posts. These policies now affect Towns the same way.
Tech bonuses for Towns and Trading Posts changed from gold to production bonuses. There is way too much gold in the latter third of the game.
Wheat can no longer be found on Flood Plains, since Flood Plains now give 3 food.
Lake Victoria now adds fresh water to surrounding plots.
Archaeologists now cost less, and are less of an AI priority.
Warmonger hatred set to 4 out of 10 for all AI civs, since it is so easy to get this epithet.
The cost and effect of Universities has been raised by 50%. Hopefully this will get the timeline back on track.
 
Do you have any plans to keep updating/balancing the mod? I'm currently playing with it and really liking what you've done with it so far.
 
Do you have any plans to keep updating/balancing the mod? I'm currently playing with it and really liking what you've done with it so far.

I'm definitely going to keep working on it. Glad to hear you like it.
For everyone, let me know how your games are going.

I have uploaded the mod to Steam, and the thread there has been pretty lively. You may want to subscribe to the mod through Steam, so you'll get automatic updates. I'll keep checking in here as well, so just post wherever you want.

The most commented upon aspect of the mod is the stack feature. Most people seem to like it, but at least some feel that the limit of 5 is too high. Let me know what you guys think. People are generally more liable to comment about what they don't like as opposed to what they do like, so I won't change it lightly, but if the overwhelming consensus is that it needs to be changed, I'll go ahead and do it.
 
I haven't played your mod yet, but I always wondered about having different unit limits for different eras, like 1 UPT, then 2 or 3 UPT, meidieval era could go back down to 2 or 1 UPT, then slowly back up to the max. Would it be possible, and would the AI be able to adapt?
 
I haven't played your mod yet, but I always wondered about having different unit limits for different eras, like 1 UPT, then 2 or 3 UPT, meidieval era could go back down to 2 or 1 UPT, then slowly back up to the max. Would it be possible, and would the AI be able to adapt?

That's an interesting idea, but it's not possible to implement.
Btw, the AI has no trouble adapting to the multiple upt setting. Sometimes when they attack a city you can tell that code has kicked in that has them surround the city rather than mass and go straight in, but I've only seen this a few times in my 2+ yrs. of playing with this mod. On defense, the AI generally does a good job of massing ranged units in its cities, meaning that you need to mass yours as well, or else you'll be picked apart.
 
Hi, can you write how to install you mod manually ?

Cant find or see any guide here !!!

If you're unfamiliar with manual installation, the easiest thing to do is search for the Medmod_VI on the steam workshop, and get it from there. If you subscribe to it, you'll automatically receive the mod updates as well.
 
Update Posted! Zip file is in the initial thread post.
This is version 2.2 of the mod. You may continue current games after installing the mod.

Change log:
Pathfinders now cost less, and upgrade to Swordsmen.
Comanche Riders are now a ranged unit, and are somewhat more powerful.
Lancers are also somewhat more powerful.
All ranged units, except for Dromons, now have a range of at least 2.

The Warmonger diplomacy penalty has been reduced again, since the last try didn't result in much of an effect.

Towns now gain a bonus to food rather than production, and it is gained upon researching Biology.
Kasbah's gold bonus moved from Steam Power to Indust.
Fish's gold bonus removed, since the Lighthouse and other improvements give greater bonuses than before with the last official patch.
Stoneworks may now be built in cities founded on Plains. (If anyone knows the reasoning behind this restriction, please let me know.)
Snow hills now give 2 production, the same as all other hills.
A few text updates, to Dragoons, the Philanthropy policy and a couple other small things.
A couple of bugs fixed, like the Great General bonus and Ironworks requiring Forges.
The newly-installed city science cost penalty that came with the last patch has been reduced about 25%, as it was throwing off the timeline.

All in all, just some incremental changes, as you would expect in a mature mod.

If there is anything about the game or the mod that you would like to see changed, post in and we can discuss it. Still haven't received any comments on the units per tile setting.
 
Tested and i feel it good to play now... but some units are extremely powerful to deal....

Oh wait... update !!!!

P/s: Nice and keep it on
 
There is a conflict within the mod, relating to the terrain improvement hot keys. I thought I was doing everyone a favor by changing the hot key for Towns from a K to a T, forgetting that the T was used by Trading Posts.
To fix this, simply open up the mod's Terrain.xml (any text editor should work) and change line 35 from <HotKey>KB_T</HotKey> to <HotKey>KB_K</HotKey>. All you need do is change the letter T to a K.
Sorry about this, but these things happen with mods. After fixing this, you may want to look over the other mod files, just to appreciate the hundreds of changes that the mod now contains.
 
Alright, so i want to begin my post by saying: Excellent mod.

At least, excellent start. I have a few ideas to further its depth. If you can get a hold of markusbeutal, you could ask him if you could use the "Eras" (..Nights/Core/Eras) part of his mod.

I don't have the wearwithal to mod this myself, but this is the segment of NiGHTS that i used most advantageously to add userside issues.

Specifically, i used it so slow down culture and scientific output in each successive era so that borders expanded much more slowly and you had to push science a lot harder to stay at the leading edge of it.

This has a couple of helpful sideeffects, allowing civ's that aren't 'science flavor' to stay militarily competitive, as well as to allow for more balance and longer eras with more playability in general.

With BNW, archaeology and some of the wonders build times would have to be elongated too, but that could be worked out if there was an easy way to manipulate output %'s of metrics on an era and gamewide scale, and not just tech costs.


I really like the idea of creating a unique or semi-unique 'town' or 'chateau' type structure for most other civ's too, down the road. Content side, i've got a ton of ideas and a lot of experience at balancing out specific attributes, but i've got no modding experience. But great effort with this mod !
 
Update posted! This is version 2.3 of the mod.

Plot unit limit reduced from 5 to 3.
Stadium happiness bug fixed.
Town/Trading Post hot key conflict resolved. (Set the Town hotkey back to K.)
Kasbah prod. bonus moved from Railroad to Dynamite. (Too many things were happening with Railroads, and the tech chart couldn't display them all.)
Sea route range bonus moved from Refrigeration to Steam Power. (Makes more sense to me.)
Additional Trade Routes removed from Biology and Penicillan and given to Steam Power and Refrigeration. (Again, this makes more sense to me.)

Main reason I posted this quick update was the 2 bug fixes. We'll see how the plot unit reduction plays out with everyone.

Also, how do you guys feel about disabling the Ban Luxury Resource resolution. In my current game the AIs are banning things every cycle, and it's a pain.
 
Alright, so i want to begin my post by saying: Excellent mod.

At least, excellent start. I have a few ideas to further its depth. If you can get a hold of markusbeutal, you could ask him if you could use the "Eras" (..Nights/Core/Eras) part of his mod.

I don't have the wearwithal to mod this myself, but this is the segment of NiGHTS that i used most advantageously to add userside issues.

Specifically, i used it so slow down culture and scientific output in each successive era so that borders expanded much more slowly and you had to push science a lot harder to stay at the leading edge of it.

This has a couple of helpful sideeffects, allowing civ's that aren't 'science flavor' to stay militarily competitive, as well as to allow for more balance and longer eras with more playability in general.

With BNW, archaeology and some of the wonders build times would have to be elongated too, but that could be worked out if there was an easy way to manipulate output %'s of metrics on an era and gamewide scale, and not just tech costs.


I really like the idea of creating a unique or semi-unique 'town' or 'chateau' type structure for most other civ's too, down the road. Content side, i've got a ton of ideas and a lot of experience at balancing out specific attributes, but i've got no modding experience. But great effort with this mod !

Those are interesting ideas, though I am pretty comfortable with the way the game plays out now in regards to the timeline and border expansion. It's usually all I can do to stay on a historical path, and the leading AI civs are usually close behind me (or in front. I've had AIs complete the Apollo Program in the 19th century in some of my games.)
With the current unit stats, a civ isn't completely out of it if it falls behind by one level of development. If it's two levels down, slowing down the eras isn't going to save them imo.
I'd recommend that you play a couple games with the medmod, and see if the ai doesn't impress you. I think you'll find that the changes I have made result in a significant improvement over the vanilla game.
 
The AI can hang, more or less, i just want tremendously longer eras. This isnt something most people probably would care for, or have the patience for, but instead of an era lasting 200ish turns, i want them to last closer to 300 or 400 turns, for a whole game to be about 2-3k turns, not just 800-1000. I was able to achieve this kind of customization in NiGHTS, and i guess i should take a more active interest in customizing settings or creating some kind of simple mod that applies penalties to civs researching stuff way ahead of time. Its just a bit of a shock coming from a complicating mod that had a whole file where this was customizable to not having it.
 
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?
 
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?
 
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