Vox Populi vs Sapiens/Gaia

[azum4roll]

1. Steam integration for Civ 5 was done poorly. Subscribed mods seem to mess with the game even if you don't activate them and have a cleared cache (very common issue).
2. VP is updated so frequently that modmods can't keep up. Many people play an older version so they can play with their modmods, but Steam auto-updates all subscribed mods.
3. We have different packages of mods for CP only, VP without EUI and VP with EUI. With the installer, the only instruction is to activate all mods. We can't expect people to read the instructions properly to pick the correct mods from Steam.
4. Both EUI and VPUI are DLCs, not mods, and as such cannot be put onto Steam.

 

[Glassmage]

This kind of echoes my feelings pretty well. I remember the great merge to 2.0, then 3.0 then 4.0. Now you throw in the VP congress, and it's just a constant stream of possible change to the core files. At one point, the idea was to come up with a Going for Gold ultimate VP release.

Now when there's a major change, you have to go back through mods and see what works and what does. At least personally, it means I end up dragging my feet on updates because I know they are so frequent.

I don't know what the general thought is, but I think it would be better of some kind of Gold release was adopted, then the VP congress could function with modmods and mini-modmods. People could even bundle modmods into packages if there were modmod groups that a person was developing with a theme in mind. At least there would be some kind of stability on the core files that people could depend on in this case. (If this idea was adopted, I do think it would make sense to go through the mods in the mod repository and bury any in a legacy folder that are known to be outdated or fundamentally broken.)

yea I got so tired of the constant changes that I play with 2.7.3 (the last 2.x version) exclusively now.

 

[anastazjasz]

Oki guys I'm almost finishing my first full game of Sapiens so if i had only use one sentence to summarize difference between VP and Sapiens its how VP makes it tough to progress and bad decision in the early game can make you lose your run. Sapiens is way more forgiving.
So few advices for anyone suffering with crashes, im 562 turns on Epic so I figured out few things:
-Sapiens collection is 55 mods, all of them are working good but one is not, extra civilizations is breaking the game every time, sometimes after 100 , sometimes after 220 turns you can get fudged, dont use it yet
-you can play with different map scripts, ive tested tectonic v6, milae's map v14 and communitu 79a. Dont like pangea maps, all the games are the same on them. Also ive tested Jarcast's bigger communitu 79 fork, which forces huge maps to be bigger.

Now there is a trick to play those map scripts with Sapiens and not everyone will like it, you have to run game on DX9....I know I know, it will make a lot of scrolling but it works. Otherwise you will get missing font bug starting from medieval era, even with quicksave/autosave every turn you will not get around it.

There is still quite a few bugs:
-double improvements (e.g. industrial complex from vanilia game and one from sapiens or gaia)
-some missing descriptions on tech/wonders/buildings. Took me a moment to figure out why I cannot take exploration policy.
-special units suppose to have cap on how many u can get, well so far I have 9 super carriers and limit is 2, also some of them are not working as described, like sky fortress unit (nice cyberpunk idea)
-balance issue, yeah, the mod is not balanced after enlighten era ;0 some crazy stuff is gonna happen in your games. like in my game Ethiopia had 29 wonders in their capitol cos being advanced in tech means u can build them with no restrictions and fast ;0 I just wage a 150 turns war and conquer them. But since you didnt build them yourself some of them dont work, like the ones which suppose to give you trade slots ;0 so next time I'll try to just raze the city and build them again.

Since there is no forum for Sapiens here it is now I guess.
VP is very polished and everything is clicking, making sense. You can see all this years of development. But Sapiens has some rly neat ideas, sea improvements reminds me of sea cities you could build in civ3 ;0

 

[epicivfreak]

Oki guys I'm almost finishing my first full game of Sapiens

-balance issue, yeah...VP is very polished and everything is clicking, making sense. You can see all this years of development. But Sapiens has some really neat ideas...

Yeah, I've also been testing this mod, alongside VP, for years now. It is great & could be even more awesome if VP & Gaia/Sapiens worked together instead of apart.

 

[BismarkNova]

Oki guys I'm almost finishing my first full game of Sapiens so if i had only use one sentence to summarize difference between VP and Sapiens its how VP makes it tough to progress and bad decision in the early game can make you lose your run. Sapiens is way more forgiving.
So few advices for anyone suffering with crashes, im 562 turns on Epic so I figured out few things:
-Sapiens collection is 55 mods, all of them are working good but one is not, extra civilizations is breaking the game every time, sometimes after 100 , sometimes after 220 turns you can get fudged, dont use it yet
-you can play with different map scripts, ive tested tectonic v6, milae's map v14 and communitu 79a. Dont like pangea maps, all the games are the same on them. Also ive tested Jarcast's bigger communitu 79 fork, which forces huge maps to be bigger.

Now there is a trick to play those map scripts with Sapiens and not everyone will like it, you have to run game on DX9....I know I know, it will make a lot of scrolling but it works. Otherwise you will get missing font bug starting from medieval era, even with quicksave/autosave every turn you will not get around it.

There is still quite a few bugs:
-double improvements (e.g. industrial complex from vanilia game and one from sapiens or gaia)
-some missing descriptions on tech/wonders/buildings. Took me a moment to figure out why I cannot take exploration policy.
-special units suppose to have cap on how many u can get, well so far I have 9 super carriers and limit is 2, also some of them are not working as described, like sky fortress unit (nice cyberpunk idea)
-balance issue, yeah, the mod is not balanced after enlighten era ;0 some crazy stuff is gonna happen in your games. like in my game Ethiopia had 29 wonders in their capitol cos being advanced in tech means u can build them with no restrictions and fast ;0 I just wage a 150 turns war and conquer them. But since you didnt build them yourself some of them dont work, like the ones which suppose to give you trade slots ;0 so next time I'll try to just raze the city and build them again.

Since there is no forum for Sapiens here it is now I guess.
VP is very polished and everything is clicking, making sense. You can see all this years of development. But Sapiens has some rly neat ideas, sea improvements reminds me of sea cities you could build in civ3 ;0

Wow what a great and indepth review! A pleasure reading my friend @anastazjasz

I actually really enjoy the ability to make super cities and go crazy with the wonders and reaching high production values. Only wish working 5 tiles would be available early on. It's a great feature.

Please, please - how on earth did you get Communitu_79a to work? I tried downloading an earlier non-VP version and loading it. However it was messed up. I found that playing on Medium Continents, large map, but with the amount of civs and CS with a normal size map (8/16) gives an almost same sense of exploration and fun as communit_79a.

 

[BismarkNova]

Yeah, I've also been testing this mod, alongside VP, for years now. It is great & could be even more awesome if VP & Gaia/Sapiens worked together instead of apart.

@epicivfreak oh how I only wish... That would have been glorious.

 

[KayAU]

@BismarkNova Thanks for mentioning the Communitu map script. Tried a game with it now, got a pretty cool map, with an uninhabited peninsula to the south, naturally defensible terrain toward the Mongols in the north, and a natural moat separating me from Assyria in the west. I will be using this script for my next games too.

Spoiler :

I also spiced things up a bit with "Vox Populi's Bare Necessities", "Neolithic Wonders" and "National Wonders Collection", all of which could be installed from Workshop.

 

[Bösewicht]

I am grateful for the diversity and it looks great, although I have not played sufficiently to make a general comment. I noticed that when attacking a barbarian camp with a slinger, there was no counter-attack, which makes sense when a melee unit attacks, but not in this case. Of course, it's a minor point, for the sake of notification only.

 

[Bösewicht]

A barbarian inside a barbarian camp now counter-attacked a nearby slinger.

Not comparing it to Vox Populi, since it focuses on immersion and not the AI - this is a great addition with a unique experience, in my humble opinion worthy of a sub-forum here.

 

[greenfieldpark]

K. But vox seems to have fixed multiplayer. Does sapiens mp work?

 

[Bösewicht]

K. But vox seems to have fixed multiplayer. Does sapiens mp work?

Unfortunately, I do not play multiplayer games, and therefore cannot say.

 

[N.Core]

K. But vox seems to have fixed multiplayer. Does sapiens mp work?

Since it was based on a fork of the older version of VP (before MP fixes by senoperson), I don't think so.

 

[BismarkNova]

Since it was based on a fork of the older version of VP (before MP fixes by senoperson), I don't think so.

Since there's a history between VP and Gaia/Sapiens - do you know why the two diverged? It seems both encompass so many improvements. It's would be amazing to see a hybrid of the two and 'the best of both worlds'.

 

[pineappledan]

There is no real history.
The person who started making Gaia/sapiens simply took a version of the community patch and started making their own mod off of it. Since then the community patch has continued on its own path of development, and neither project has done anything to incorporate changes made to the other. The two diverged because that is the nature of forking projects like this.

 

[Tekamthi]

It's would be amazing to see a hybrid of the two and 'the best of both worlds'.

some of the sapiens add-ons are inter-operable, as are some mods here. As time goes on however, there are more and more differences between both projects under-the-hood, so I'm finding some things that were compatible even 6 months ago are no longer.

As noted by others, development is occurring independently, unlikely the main branches of these projects will be brought together. I think each has slightly different focus as far as modding objectives go as well. However, for the most part there is considerable willingness to share ideas & code -- best way to achieve this "hybrid" is to borrow sapiens ideas and make em into a VP mod. Gaia's canals mod would be especially interesting as a VP adaptation, for anyone feeling ambitious

 

[KayAU]

For the slightly less ambitious, I think those extra resources could add a lot to the game.

 

[hokath]

For the slightly less ambitious, I think those extra resources could add a lot to the game.

What is it about extra resources you like? I feel like there are already a ton of resources?

 

[N.Core]

For the slightly less ambitious, I think those extra resources could add a lot to the game.

VP already has a modmod that adds more resources. Like this one. In fact, Gaia borrows some of the modmods from here, probably without permission from its creator (albeit they credited it).

 

[Tekamthi]

VP already has a modmod that adds more resources. Like this one. In fact, Gaia borrows some of the modmods from here, probably without permission from its creator (albeit they credited it).

pretty sure anything uploaded to CF is done under agreement that it can be re-purposed and re-used freely by other CF users. ie the permission is baked in at time of upload

 

[KayAU]

What is it about extra resources you like? I feel like there are already a ton of resources?

It's just a bit of variety. I love collecting resources to gain their monopoly bonuses, and which resources are nearby impacts some of my choices in the early game. I also like what they add to the map visually.

VP already has a modmod that adds more resources. Like this one. In fact, Gaia borrows some of the modmods from here, probably without permission from its creator (albeit they credited it).

I looked at that one...unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work with the latest version of VP.