Thoughts on the game

[Derek Brown]

I had these thoughts while walking today. I've played about 15 games in full - maybe around 1,200 hours. A preface is that I still find WTP to be unbelievable and very much looking forward to V4 "New Hope" - extremely grateful to the people that have invested so much time for players. In fact I think these thoughts would work well with New Hope's heavy emphasis on economy.

As a player of Revolutionary / Gigantic mode, I find I have to conquer the whole map to prevent another nation from winning WOI first (unless you aim for a quick go around 1650). So once you conquer your first European, the game is pretty much over even though you still have a long ways to go - you'll just snowball your way into being an industrial power. Which is unfortunate because I'd rather focus more on trade / economics than military for early & mid game. I was thinking today, what if the game was tuned so that you're hanging on to your land by your fingernails trying to scratch a living and not have the natives turn against you, a military is expensive and cannot be developed without economic growth first, privateers/pirates are always a thorn on your side, and it is difficult to win by conquering other Europeans. Please hear out this proposal:

1. Military upkeep, which has been discussed before, but it needs to be expensive to keep a standing army. Town guards excluded - they are more a police force funded by the city. This helps with the late game money problem as once you are a growing economic power you'll then invest in military that you can afford
2. Camp fires way less likely to offer military units, more likely to offer indentured servants, missionaries, free colonists, and maybe an easy native convert that readily wants to join
3. Since you will be militarily weak for a long time, can go up to +8 for Natives for trade relations, delaying and maybe in some cases preventing having to just wipe them out. To counterbalance this, over time the trade benefit dies off, so you need to regularly trade to keep that relationship going
4. Natives that are far away from you don't offer slaves / mercenaries, but ones that are close in proximity do, increasing the importance of good relationships since you can't just buy them from any tribe
5. Europeans are more willing to trade smaller / newer settlements with you in order to help you peacefully clean up messy boundaries, since right now that requires a war to create a contiguous realm. To me this would represent negotiating over territories and dividing the map in a forward thinking manner as ambitious powers would do. After a certain point of city size this willingness would drop off fast, so it would be more about trading claims / tiny settlements rather than medium/large cities.
6. Europeans will avoid settling cities 'on top of you' - although I don't have a specific mechanism. Maybe avoid or at least having a lower preference for settling closer to your capital than their capital.
7. Military units need a transport loaded with food to travel with them to carry supplies outside of your territory or they will suffer penalties. Native mercenaries & rangers can forage without the supplies. Military units will consume same amount of food as people in a city whenever they're in any of the squares owned by a city unless they eat from their supply transport
8. Transports can hold more slots but are subject to same total storage limits
9. You are more easily seen as a warmonger by Natives and Euros for starting wars, risking turning everyone against you, especially the natives who would be more threatened by it whereas Europeans may be a little more expecting of it
10. Ideally you'd be able to engage in 1 or 2 small/medium wars before WOI, these could still be driven off the King's event, the Europeans declaring war on you, etc. Their King will threaten to intervene if you you take too much territory, with the intervention occuring earlier if you are the one who declared the war
11. Custom house percentage lower so that you're still incentivized to have to build transport ships and get the goods to Europe

Anyway, these may or may not amount to a way of playing that people prefer, and either way I look forward to trying out all of the new improvements underway, so thanks again!

 

[raystuttgart]

Hi Derek,

all of that sounds interesting if there is somebody willing to work on it.
Please understand that none of us is just waiting for other ideas - we are all busy.

So I can just repeat, that ideas are worth actually very very little without people to work for them.
So if you want to have some of that stuff it would be best to become a modder yourself and contribute to it.

If not, then all of these ideas will just be lying around endlessly and eventually be forgotten.
Because nobody will prioritize ideas of other people higher than his own ideas.

We need modders that are motivated to implement their ideas or at least invest some effort of their own.
Just posting ideas without motivation to actually invest effort achieves little to nothing.

That is also the reason why I completely stopped discussing ideas of community.
It is really wasting everybody's time as long as nobody volunteers to work on it.

So sorry, but I would be lying if I would tell you anything else.
Modding is driven by the desire to implement your own ideas and your own personal taste.

So thanks for posting ideas. Most of them are good.
Maybe somebody will be interested to actually work on them ...

Once you or somebody else signals motivation to work on these ideas I will happily discuss.
For some of that stuff I would then even be willing to help or support implementation.

Best regards
ray

----

Considering "Military Upkeep":
It is already on my list since years. Just have not found time for it.
But once the other stuff I want first is done I might start to work on it.

 

[Derek Brown]

Ray - definitely understand on the time commitment being put in and don't want to sound entitled by offering player suggestions. Very appreciative of the mod team's efforts and know that they're being enjoyed/played by many. Also - totally understand you guys can't take on player suggestions.

Would love to help mod, unfortunately these days have 2 kids below the age of 5. I know everyone has their reasons why they can't help out...

 

[raystuttgart]

I know everyone has their reasons why they can't help out...

That is the point.

We have a huge community full of ideas that sound nice.
But only a handful of people working in the little spare time they have.

We just do not lack ideas or suggestions. We have enough of that. Actually too much.
We lack people willing to actually spend time and effort to make some of that come true.

Thus it is really just wasting time and frustrating to discuss stuff nobody cares enough to work on.
If people really care enough, they will work for it. Otherwise it was probably simply not worth it.

don't want to sound entitled by offering player suggestions

It is not about "entitled" or being offended. It is simply frustrating for me as a modder that people have ideas but no motivation.
It is extremely pointless to discuss stuff that nobody cares enough about to actually invest a bit of his spare time. (Like e.g. 2 hours a week)

There are a thousand reasons for people not modding and I understand since I also have private life and a job.
But this also means that only that stuff will get worked on that is prioritized high enough by the other people still motivated.

As I said, our todo list is full already for years to come ... we have endless ideas of our own and enough todos on our list.
But even of our already agreed todo list we achieve to implement only a fraction since we also simply lack time and motivation sometimes.

Throwing work or ideas on people already overloaded does not help - quite the contrary it frustrates.
The only thing that would actually help is to actually offer support ... meaning to start modding and contributing.

----

Just so you understand why I do not scream happily when I see new ideas posted.
But I would do so if that person having these ideas would actually be motivated to work on them.

Otherwise there is no point in trying to explain why anybody is not motivated to mod ... it does not change anything.
I understand why people are not motivated sometimes ... because I am also often not motivated.

----

But ok I start repeating myself without telling anything new.
Right now I should rather get back to modding ...

Still thanks for your thoughts. You brought up some good ideas.
Let us see if somebody may actually be motivated to work on them ...

 

[Link Gaetz]

I suggest turning off ancient ruins in the map options. Scouting is rewarding enough without them, especially on larger maps. I'm not sure if anything changed in v4 but in v3 the AI didn't prioritize shipwrecks so it was easy to collect them all and get some free ship upgrades (not as powerful as the land ones, but still).

Besides strategic colony placement, forts are useful to stave off aggressive settling. I guess it would be nice to be able to claim territory without spamming forts - a big flagpole, maybe? - but forts are good enough for now and the 500 gold cost isn't crippling.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

I suggest turning off ancient ruins in the map options

this option is available if you select "custom scenario" or "custom game".

 

[Milamber1931]

I had these thoughts while walking today. I've played about 15 games in full - maybe around 1,200 hours. A preface is that I still find WTP to be unbelievable and very much looking forward to V4 "New Hope" - extremely grateful to the people that have invested so much time for players. In fact I think these thoughts would work well with New Hope's heavy emphasis on economy.

As a player of Revolutionary / Gigantic mode, I find I have to conquer the whole map to prevent another nation from winning WOI first (unless you aim for a quick go around 1650). So once you conquer your first European, the game is pretty much over even though you still have a long ways to go - you'll just snowball your way into being an industrial power. Which is unfortunate because I'd rather focus more on trade / economics than military for early & mid game. I was thinking today, what if the game was tuned so that you're hanging on to your land by your fingernails trying to scratch a living and not have the natives turn against you, a military is expensive and cannot be developed without economic growth first, privateers/pirates are always a thorn on your side, and it is difficult to win by conquering other Europeans. Please hear out this proposal:

1. Military upkeep, which has been discussed before, but it needs to be expensive to keep a standing army. Town guards excluded - they are more a police force funded by the city. This helps with the late game money problem as once you are a growing economic power you'll then invest in military that you can afford
2. Camp fires way less likely to offer military units, more likely to offer indentured servants, missionaries, free colonists, and maybe an easy native convert that readily wants to join
3. Since you will be militarily weak for a long time, can go up to +8 for Natives for trade relations, delaying and maybe in some cases preventing having to just wipe them out. To counterbalance this, over time the trade benefit dies off, so you need to regularly trade to keep that relationship going
4. Natives that are far away from you don't offer slaves / mercenaries, but ones that are close in proximity do, increasing the importance of good relationships since you can't just buy them from any tribe
5. Europeans are more willing to trade smaller / newer settlements with you in order to help you peacefully clean up messy boundaries, since right now that requires a war to create a contiguous realm. To me this would represent negotiating over territories and dividing the map in a forward thinking manner as ambitious powers would do. After a certain point of city size this willingness would drop off fast, so it would be more about trading claims / tiny settlements rather than medium/large cities.
6. Europeans will avoid settling cities 'on top of you' - although I don't have a specific mechanism. Maybe avoid or at least having a lower preference for settling closer to your capital than their capital.
7. Military units need a transport loaded with food to travel with them to carry supplies outside of your territory or they will suffer penalties. Native mercenaries & rangers can forage without the supplies. Military units will consume same amount of food as people in a city whenever they're in any of the squares owned by a city unless they eat from their supply transport
8. Transports can hold more slots but are subject to same total storage limits
9. You are more easily seen as a warmonger by Natives and Euros for starting wars, risking turning everyone against you, especially the natives who would be more threatened by it whereas Europeans may be a little more expecting of it
10. Ideally you'd be able to engage in 1 or 2 small/medium wars before WOI, these could still be driven off the King's event, the Europeans declaring war on you, etc. Their King will threaten to intervene if you you take too much territory, with the intervention occuring earlier if you are the one who declared the war
11. Custom house percentage lower so that you're still incentivized to have to build transport ships and get the goods to Europe

Anyway, these may or may not amount to a way of playing that people prefer, and either way I look forward to trying out all of the new improvements underway, so thanks again!

With regards to #7 here I've had very similar sentiments. I think it should also apply out at sea with merchant vessels transporting goods and there should be a metric called Morale that affects what happens if units are undersupplied. For the military, they should have a finite # of turns wandering around before Morale starts to go down and that could be reflected by a simple drop in fighting power. On the high seas, I think that low morale could be reflected in ships coming into the harbor with lower totals of commodities than when they left the last port representing theft by the crew. The other way it could be added would be to run the risk of a mutiny where the ship just wouldn't move until the crew was resupplied or promised gold if not already in a port or disappear in the worst cases. Rum could also be incorporated as an essential as that was as common as money in payment to sailors during this era. You could also add a Harbor Master who would function inside the Custom House to prevent theft from crews with low morale and he would also be paid in straight cash so the focus on lowering late-game cash hoards would still be the main aim. Doesn't need to be a huge adjustment that grows into something unwieldy but would patch the hole in the late game to a degree

 

[Jabojoggins]

In terms of the snowballing from conquering other Europeans and also the issue of them winning - I would add one more thing that annoys me about Europeans - is that they steal my founding fathers.

So what I do, I’m sure I’m the only one, when I start a new game on a normal new world map. I go into the world builder mode. For each European, I create one ocean tile surrounded by ice tiles. I delete their starting boat/units, and I put a caravel and a colonist on the stranded ocean tile linked to this European nation.

What I’ve found is that they are completely unable to do anything, and they die off after some large number of turns.

And I’m free to relax and play the economic simulation that I want.

Is there an easier way? I don’t like playing against Europeans, but the default maps all have them all included.

Edit: the reason for all this silliness is I guess there is some mechanic where if all their units are dead, they make a comeback with some free units. This way works around that mechanic.

 

[Nightinggale]

What I’ve found is that they are completely unable to do anything, and they die off after some large number of turns.

To avoid keeping Europeans alive in late game because there is a single unit hiding somewhere, we added a "kill European player" feature, which activates if they don't own any colonies after turn X. I forgot the specifics, but that's the idea. As for them gaining new units if they are killed off, that is also tied to game turns. At some point that stops happening.

Is there an easier way? I don’t like playing against Europeans, but the default maps all have them all included.

Custom game, close X slots where X is the number of Europeans. The game will fill in natives first and once it has run out of AI slots, it will stop adding. This means adding or removing AI slots will adjust the number of European players.

That or you can edit the xml file to remove them. It's listed in Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4WorldInfo.xml. Default players is how many players in total and default native players is how many of those are natives. Make the first one higher than the latter and you should be alone. I haven't tried doing this through.

At startup you will most likely get a warning that there aren't any AI Europeans in the game. This is usually due to a setup error in multiplayer, hence the warning, but if you don't want them, then just click ok and the game should be fine.

 

[Milamber1931]

To avoid keeping Europeans alive in late game because there is a single unit hiding somewhere, we added a "kill European player" feature, which activates if they don't own any colonies after turn X. I forgot the specifics, but that's the idea. As for them gaining new units if they are killed off, that is also tied to game turns. At some point that stops happening.


Custom game, close X slots where X is the number of Europeans. The game will fill in natives first and once it has run out of AI slots, it will stop adding. This means adding or removing AI slots will adjust the number of European players.

That or you can edit the xml file to remove them. It's listed in Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4WorldInfo.xml. Default players is how many players in total and default native players is how many of those are natives. Make the first one higher than the latter and you should be alone. I haven't tried doing this through.

At startup you will most likely get a warning that there aren't any AI Europeans in the game. This is usually due to a setup error in multiplayer, hence the warning, but if you don't want them, then just click ok and the game should be fine.

Great to hear you guys have addressed this because once your army is 34 times the size of theirs and it's obvious they can't realistically recover it became just a game of whack-a-mole but in an extremely annoying way since they still hold onto every single FF they recruited. Maybe a feature could be added where once influence in the new world has declined to a certain point their FFs go into a secondary recruitment market and are susceptible to bribery and switching over. Also since the Crown and Viceroy operate as separate entities and you have contact with their Crown you could just go straight to them and offer them a buyout amount to pull back all their operatives and give up their claims in the new world. Would be a great way to spend all of the excess cash late in the game and it might force you to maintain those relationships more in the midgame