WTP 4.0.2 Published - Community Feedback

[VegetableRights]

Quick question - am I just missing it as a tiny picture on some of the terrain, or is Yerba the scarcest resource in the game for some reason? I can never find it anywhere, even near local villages who offer expert yerba planters.

Are you using a 'generated' map? It is recommended to use the scenario maps. The map scripts are still work in progress and don't work properly with the new resources and terrain.

The actual maps (non map script) have been balanced to have everything. If there is a problem - I'm sure Members like Mr ZorG, would be more than happy to hear of any issues.

 

[PH2]

I'm using the map scripts. Much prefer them to the maps that have become way too familiar at this point. I know the resources can vary some but I know where everything is and it ruins the exploratory fun o have with the script-generated map.

I can do without perfect resource allocation if that's the reason.

 

[raystuttgart]

Quick question - am I just missing it as a tiny picture on some of the terrain, or is Yerba the scarcest resource in the game for some reason? I can never find it anywhere, even near local villages who offer expert yerba planters.

If you are using the MapScript FaireWeatherTweakEx from WTP 4.0.2 it may be impossible to find.
It was not generating Hills on Marsh Terrain, which is what is needed for Yerba.

That is one reason why we continuously told to play the Maps instead.
But in the internal development branch this has already been fixed.

 

[PH2]

Got it. Glad to hear it's fixed. It doesn't ruin my use of the FWTEx maps, and perhaps I'm missing other resources as well, but Yerba was definitely one I noticed I could never find. I may fire up one of the other maps for my next game to more closely look at the differences now that I've played v4 so much, but the familiarity of the terrain makes me feel like I'm just playing the same game over and over again.

 

[Radujito]

Hello WTP devs,

Just created my login as wanted to say thank you for the absolutely fantastic mod you've done. I love complex mods (EU4 MEIOU and taxes, BICE) and yours delivers 100%. I have (checks Steam account) 1420.1h on Civ4:Col (and all of that with your mods, 3.x mostly) to back it up.

I've had one full game on 4.01/02 and it's great. Super stable by any standards, not to mention after so many new elements and features added. It's truly astonishing.

Looking forward to 4.1 and new movement system in particular. I tried to enable it but didnt know how to recompile the files. I'll wait for 4.1. Time and patience.

I'm trying to think about anything annoying to report about the mod but all that comes to mind is vanilla I think (automated transport!).

Ah, there is one thing - I noticed that scouts tend to be too frisky attacking wild animals and getting killed in auto mode. I did not have that in 3.x so I would say that is 4.xx related. I had cases where scouts attack, get a bloody draw one turn (withdraw from combat) and at the start of another turn (while the game is still processing construction and training) attack again and get themselves killed. I had way too many self-destructions that way. My solution now is to hand control scouts until they get a few promotions to get stronger, so at least they dont kill themselves in one go.

Sincere thanks for your efforts!

 

[ADHansa]

Great modd, After all thees years nothing has come that replaces this game as safe haven to go back to when nothing new peaks my intresset. There is something about it that no other games manage to deliver . This mod has polishes it and continues to deliver small well thought out tweaks and features that keeps it even more interesting.

A big applaud to you all.

 

[danpat]

Do any of you know waht the fudge do I need to build a scout? NOTHING INGAME EXCEPT A fudging IDIOTICLY BLURRED IMAGE TELLS ME.

 

[Jaded1]

Do any of you know waht the fudge do I need to build a scout? NOTHING INGAME EXCEPT A fudging IDIOTICLY BLURRED IMAGE TELLS ME.

Go to the Professions tab, not the Units tab, in the Colopedia. There you will see what is needed for any Unit to become that type of Profession. If your confused by the pictures of the items needed go into the city screen and hold the mouse over each item. It'll tell you what Professions need it and how much is needed to create it. e.g. The Scout needs Horses and Baked Goods. And the amount will differ based on the Nation you chose.

 

[danpat]

Go to the Professions tab, not the Units tab, in the Colopedia. There you will see what is needed for any Unit to become that type of Profession. If your confused by the pictures of the items needed go into the city screen and hold the mouse over each item. It'll tell you what Professions need it and how much is needed to create it. e.g. The Scout needs Horses and Baked Goods. And the amount will differ based on the Nation you chose.

Thank you. I really love this mod with bunch of manymany things, but this mod really needs some good explanations on Colopedia.

 

[DwarfMurdered]

This mod has been really superb indeed, but I do agree the Colopedia needs more updates and more clarity on what it necessary to equip certain units. It took me a while to realize I needed Hardwood for ships, which was hard to come by on the generated map I was playing, instead of what I thought was Exotic Wood since they look similar for instance. I'm also really looking forward to the new movement system making scouting less insanely powerful. I swear the majority of my money comes from just villages and goody huts, it's like injecting meth into the economy's veins. But I'll start playing on the premade maps instead for a while or get the internal build.

 

[cammcken]

So, scrolling quickly past a lot of heated replies, I'm not sure whether my opinion is welcome... But maybe I can add something new.

There's a lot I like about WtP. The dometic market mechanci is genius, and happiness/health/culture/crime is fun to play with (although hard to learn when playing with 1-radius settlements, as the hover-over text doesn't display properly for happiness and health). Learn-by-doing is great, and it looks like frustrating features from previous versions, like native raids and escaped labor is getting smoothed and balanced out.

There is a question that's bothering me though. Being largely an economics game (and that aspect attracting me the most), how does WtP's design take into account resource substitution?

When resources are more abstract and bundled into large categories, we don't really need to worry about substitute goods. In the original (non-Colonization) Civilization, for example, stone, metal, and wood are all abstracted as one generic resource: production points. Civilization doesn't bother differentiating between those resources, even in some situations where it would make sense (how does a stone quarry help produce swordsmen faster?), because then the game can avoid complicated rules where substitution would happen.

In real life, if wood was so scarce that the price becomes prohibitively expensive, people would stop building their homes out of wood. Stone or clay bricks would become more attractive options. As people switch to clay or stone, the demand for wood drops until its price levels our somewhere close to the price of stone or clay.

In Colonization, most of the goods are luxury goods intended for export, so we don't need to worry too much. (Un-modded Colonization also specifically chose the four goods that would not be produced in Europe, due to Europe's land usage near capacity, so we don't need to simulate Europe's economy either.) If people want both rum and cigars, independently of one another, then we can attribute that to the arbitrary desires of the consumer. In situations where a consumer good would be substituted, then the formula for adjusting prices can account for it. Eg., every barrel of rum sold reduces not only the price of rum, but also, to a lesser degree, the price of wine and beer. In Vanilla Col and earlier versions of WtP, the only real purpose of different goods is to match different terrain types, and to highlight the advantages/disadvantages of specializing/diversifying.

But as more resources are being required in production chains, the more I start to ask whether that specific resources really is required. TAC required cloth to build ships. WtP later changed it to hemp sails. I'm sure there's a good reason hemp was used instead of cotton: Maybe hemp is less labor- or land-intensive, making it cheaper to produce. Maybe hemp creates stronger sails than cotton. But if I'm in a stage of my game when I really need a ship, and hemp is really hard to get, why can't I use cotton cloth instead? Maybe I would willingly accept weaker ships, or a slower field output.

I'll need to play a longer game to see how this version feels, but I hope WtP designers continue to consider mechanics that can allow either/or resource substitutes. At a glance, I notice some soldiers need to carry provisions now. Do the soldiers care whether they eat salted fish, or canned corn, or baked biscuits? Do the workers care whether the leather grips of their tools are made of pigskin, and not cow hide, or goat skin, or more luxurious fox pelts? I like the complexity, but good games involve decision-making. I like having options. Instead of hard-wiring requisite goods to force players to diversify production, I would rather see dynamic game mechanics that push or pull players away from one option or another. Making tools out of fox pelts, for example, might be a bad idea if pelts could be sold for much more as coats. We already see this type of decision making when it comes to choosing how to use a tile or assign a profession; I'm worried that longer production chains with fixed requirements would ruin that flexibility.

 

[Kju482]

About "Feedback"

I'd like to add a feedback about the canal. First of all - nice integration!! Panama Canal ftw. Though - I also have a question about it (and I hope it hasn't been mentioned anywere else before - didn't find anything with "search"): Might it be possible, since the coastal ships can travel it, to activate the two small docks in cities that connect with a canal to the ocean and/or large rivers/big lakes? Since other continental towns and cities, which are connected to rivers and lakes acquire it, it would be awesome if you can make this happen as well. Not only would it make minor seafaring possible, but also gives Fishermen, Pearl Divers and Seal Hunters the option to work on water tiles in the city area, that otherwise would be left useless.

Oh and a minor suggestion about the Galleons. It's very good, that you limited them about what they can carry. I mean in their early days they were launched with the idea of being warships (not talking about the later used way weaker, distant relatives which have barely been Galleons anymore but still carried the title...)
Though, I mean I don't know how much you guys can define the carryable goods but, if possible they should probably rather be allowed to carry blades, guns, cannons, gunpowder, and instead of all personal maybe just soldiers, artillery, of course Generals, Admirals, Captains and Lieutenants and eventually the "elites" like members of the church, statesmen, doctors etc. That would really make them special in a way they have been back in those days.

Edit: because I didn't mention it. Since there is no port in this town, ships can't enter either. It might be a problem of the build order. I found the city first and then added a canal to give it a connection to the ocean - which didn't work. Maybe (don't know yet) if it would have been built the other way around, the city might have become a "coastal" city, because of the canal already being there.

 

[Mousey_Commander]

So after playing 4.0.2, first of all: This is a genuinely impressive amount of work all throughout. The art direction (the new terrain is gorgeous!), new content, and mechanics clearly had a lot of work and love put into them. I appreciate the amount of passion on display and am glad to see you all working on this game even now.

But unfortunately after playing a couple of games, I'll be going back to 3.0.

For me it is entirely due to the new resources and production chains. People have been talking these in terms of the learning curve being harder or the UI being cluttered, but to me I see a bigger problem: What necessitated them being added?
I honestly picked up the new system without too much difficulty, but I find that the new resources and production chains don't meaningfully change my decision making process, which is the key driver of a 4X game.

For example, if we go from needing wood and stone for a building; to needing wood, stone AND clay:

• What does it change in terms of a player's thought process?
• Do the weights of competing priorities change?
• Does it provide a new form of interaction, leverage or threat against the AI or King? Anything new for those to use against the player?
• Any alternative path to victory?

The answer for all of these questions for me was sadly, no. There is nothing different, there is just... more. More and more. I'm still making the same decisions, now there are just extra steps or requirements to execute those decisions. Why does clay exist? And if does exist, why as an additional layer of complexity, instead of for example being an alternative to stone?

That's not to say there isn't potential: I appreciate the coal - powder chain adding a new requirement into military production that is also thematic as powder shortages were a critical problem in early colonies (unlike for example, clay which is neither a necessity nor a resource in short supply). It's intuitive, provides an interesting point of conflict when land grabbing, and immersive!

I also like the fruit variety. There are a dozen or so different kinds of fruit that add immersive variety to your colony depending on the terrain/climate you settle in, but they all produce the same output resource so it doesn't introduce unnecessary complexity to the actual production chain. While it may not change my decision making, it's extra flavour without much cost in complexity!

But I really can't say the same for most of the other new additions. As a player, I cannot see a meaningful justification for most of them to exist as discretely detailed features when they could just be abstracted into categories without changing how I interact with the game. I would seriously take a look into cammcken's suggestion above about substitutions as a good solution, and redesign more resources to be flavour-only alternatives like how fruit varieties currently work.

To put my point in shorter terms, I'll use my favourite Civ 4 tech quote:
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

While I am personally not a fan of this newest release, again, I do appreciate the amount of effort involved and am keen to see where the team's hard work continues to lead this mod.

 

[raystuttgart]

I will try to answer to this, as I read the same arguments and misunderstandings again and again.
A lot of it sounds like WTP 4.0.x is kind of judged as the "final version" of the mod - which it was never supposed to be.

Also what is really frustrating and annoying for me with the feedback we got from WTP 4.0:
People critizise again and again features without having read all the explanations given why we added them.

-------------

Were the new Yields / Professions just because the gamplay value they add by themselves?
(Because that is kind of claimed again and again and again ...)

No, they were not. As I fully agree that alone just would not have made the mod much better.
But that was also never the only reason why we added all those new Yields / Professions.

-------------

So why were they added then? (Just in case people are not motivated to read my endless posts about it, I just repeat.)
Simple answer: To create the base for more features and gameplay to come in next release ... which we just did not have time to finish for WTP 4.0.

In short without endlessly repeating what was already written:
(As I am really fed up with repeating myself again and again.)

A) The features I am talking about have been discussed and mentioned endlessly already, so I am not going to repeat once more.
(Just to name a few: Dynamic Markets / Market Events, Actual Triangle Trade, City Worker Professions also requiring Equipment, ...)

B) They were intended to enhance and balance also the new Terrains and Terrain Features, so they do not feel all the same.
(And based on these new Terrains / Terrain Features there were also more features planned: e.g. Logistics - and the already implemented "New Movement".)

--------------

So people demand that stuff is reverted or changed because they think the modders were stupid and did not know what they were doing ...
But not seeing the meaningfulness of things does not mean it may not exist ... but sure you are free to plain disagree.

Basically Players critisize WTP 4.0 for not being WTP 5.0 yet and not having understood what WTP 5.0 might have become ... or not wanting it.
The irony for me personally of all of this is that all of the time wasted in these discussions led me to abandon the project.

The alternative of discussing endlessly is not worth it for me. Especially not with people with that act smart without contributing.
It seems there are now endless smart people out there that think they know better how Civ4Col modding or game design works than people actually doing it for 15 years.

Still I hope that at least the work already invested in WTP 4.1 will at some point be published as it will silence some complaints and has good improvements.
But I also do not consider it my responsibility anymore. Infact I do not want to be involved in the release as there will surely be similar discussions again.

-------------

So "my vision" of WTP can be considered dead ... including the features I discussed and planned ... as I will most likely never finish them as it is too frustrating for me to justify my concepts again and again.
Maybe the rest of the team will continue the project and come up with a new vision and lead this mod in a direction that works better and is fun enough for them to continue modding.

Generally everything done and created in the mod can be changed by the people working on it. People contributing can shape it to whatever they like.
It is all just a matter of motivation, time and maybe a bit of passion and skill ... so as long as people mod on this project it will continue ... at whatever pace that may be.

Feel free to reuse any of my concept you feel is worth implementing discard whatever you feel is not. Change in the way you like.
As long as you in the end like what you create everything is ok - the people contributing decide what shall be done.

--------------

Summary:

WTP 4.0.x was originally never supposed to be the "final version" of the mod ... even though discussions often sound like that ... it was just supposed to prepare what was to come.
Ironically the discussions since release did so much damage to the moral and motivation (of myself and other team members) that it may take very long until there may be another major feature release.

For me personally I have come to the decision to abandon the project once more - just as I did years ago with RaR - and let community and the remaining team find their own vision.
Maybe in a few years I may return and see what happened to the mod and if I may find time and motivation to join in again and maybe finish some of the feature protoypes I still have.

Honestly 90% of the feedback we got during all these months really served no purpose ... as it was given without understanding and just destroying motivation to continue.
For me modding is all only about having fun modding and creating the mod I like for myself. It is not about being endlessly advised and told by others what I should do.

---------------

My last words to the remaining modders:

I am still around generally to be contacted by old modding friends in case there is some issue with my work. I might still check and fix some small stuff.
It may be more effective however to contact me over at discord - I will also check internal modders chat from time to time.

And remember that only thing that really matters in modding is to have fun being creative and working together.
So keep doing what you like - how you like to do it and when you like to do it. If somebody does not like what you do ... so be it.

It is the people that contribute that will shape the mod ... not the people that just talk, critizise or advise.
I still consider WTP 4.1 an awesome base to create an even better deeper gameplay ...

 

[Mousey_Commander]

That's a bit of an extreme reaction mate, and misrepresents what I even said.

1) I never asked for a reversion, I explicitly stated I would be playing the old version instead. I work in software design so I'm well aware of how hard it would be to rollback features, not that I wanted or asked for it anyway when older versions are freely available.
2) I never judged this as the final version of the mod, in fact I specifically said I looked forward to the next version!
3) I "ignored" the future purpose of the features because the title of the thread specifies WTP 4.0.2. I do not care to comment on features that are not part of the version that feedback is being request for. Nor do I think it would change the nature of my complaints, which are about needless complexity; the new features would have to be very interesting indeed to justify the extra micromanagement the new resources have added.

Rather than being a problem with the community, it seems to be you Ray who repeatedly misses the point of this thread.
You react with immediate defensiveness to even the most polite criticism of the mod, and have frequently misrepresented or exaggerated what people are saying.

While I appreciate the work you have done, and I understand receiving critical feedback can be frustrating and repetitive, your responses in this thread have been far from productive in most cases. If you do end up continuing to work on the mod, it would be healthier for everyone if you left feedback discussion to another team member.

 

[raystuttgart]

My decision to abandon the mod has nothing to do with just recent posts as I hardly read them and also hardly care about anymore what was written.
Modding in this community is simlly not fun anymore as it is just endless pointless discussion in these threads - thus I simply turn to stuff I actually still enjoy.

I will happily leave further public discussions to whoever is interested. This mod is not my responsibility anymore. And thus there is also no need for me to discuss it.
But I doubt that there will be a lot of discussion going on here at CivFanatics anymore as all important discussions for the mod happen over at discord in the internal team area.

Also my reaction is not extreme, it is just reasonable to stop doing something I do not enjoy anymore.
Continuing to waste my private life with something that is not fun to me on the contrary would be stupid.

The people that contribute may continue to shape the mod to whatever they like. All that matters in moding is fun.
And if they are truly interested to listen to endless advises and criticism of people not contributing, they may do that as well.

For me personally time as a (public) modder is over - even though I might still mod stuff for me privately here and there.
It is much better for me to abandon the public mod for good as continuing it is no option for me anymore.

Of course I wish the WTP team all the best for the future and will stay in contact with old modding friends.
My decision to leave has absolutely nothing to do with the team itself as all team members are great people and I call many of them friends.

Otherwise there is nothing more to say for me.
Enjoy the weekend.

 

[Joij21]

But if I'm in a stage of my game when I really need a ship, and hemp is really hard to get, why can't I use cotton cloth instead?

Perhaps find a rival colonial civ that has settled by a hemp resource or hemp producing terrains, buy their hemp even if they are technically selling slightly higher than in Europe so as to not worry about travel times (that is get the product faster) in order to use such turn savings to give you more time to export something back to Europe which then makes up for the higher price one payed on the hemp.

Same could be done for tools, since tools are the most common bottleneck in building up one's colonies, perhaps one could import tools from a rival colonial neighbor especially if that neighbor has set up an efficient tool production/ore extraction chain before you. Again doesn't matter if it's more expensive than Europe so long as it's quicker to go to their settlement, buy the product, and dump it in your settlement then the amount of turns it would take to go to Europe and back.

If one doesn't want to pay for such critical resources one can utilize a strategy which the Spanish used against their colonial rivals during the early colonial period. A "rape and take" strategy whereby you gain a bunch of initial gold from exploring ruins and tribal villages, then use this initial gold to beg from your king/purchase from Europe military units + artillery and create a stack capable of taking the AI's cities, attack the AI, and wage a salami slice style war whereby you take a city or two which you believe is producing the desired resources you need and as soon as the resistance is over literally steal all the resources you wish to use from the city to cities in your core which you wish to develop, then kidnap various slave and specialist units from the cities you would find useful in the near future for development in your core, and finally liberate and gift the cities back to your enemy in order to allow the AI's faster development bonus to redevelop the cities so you can declare war again and retake them so as to keep farming it and just repeat the process over and over again.

 

[Voker57]

Thank you for your work on the mod, raystuttgard and may you find something you enjoy doing . Couple of answers to your message, mostly not to you since you are not interested, but for future modders that might find themselves in similar situation.

So people demand that stuff is reverted or changed because they think the modders were stupid and did not know what they were doing ...

Do they? Maybe they just see that they do not improve the gameplay? And play the game more so they understand it better than modders? Of course people can't demand anything of you (did they?), but they are free to express their opinion of degraded gameplay, and in my view, they were right.

Simple answer: To create the base for more features and gameplay to come in next release ... which we just did not have time to finish for WTP 4.0.

How do extra resources and professions, which currently degrade the gameplay, help you develop the game? If you need the resources, they can exist in disabled form. If that's a development version which has stuff that's work-in-progress and is not expected to be played, bugfixes might have been released separately. People are right to provide feedback that currently the quality of gameplay is decreased by these features, maybe they could have been disabled to avoid receiving the same feedback over and over.

 

[Nightinggale]

Whoa, this took an unexpected turn

I had a chat with ray and I'm not going to dig into who said what or why today. I feel like it will be better to focus on the mod itself and the mod roadmap.

There is a general agreement that the current situation with yields shouldn't be permanent. Some say fewer are better and some say the complex model should be more developed. I will be honest and say right now I don't know what will happen, but something will happen.

As for when, not sure. It will delay the next release and that would be a bad thing. The next release will include changes to track network desyncs, which will then help to locate and fix those bugs in later releases. In other words it's a release in the (hopefully near) future aimed at paving the path for future releases. Postponing that release to work on yields will only serve to postponing network fixes.

As for what to do with yields.... not sure now. It's something the team will have to discuss. Ideally whatever we end up with, the more diverse terrain, bonuses etc should be kept. It makes the map more alive and less repetitive. As for number of yields, production chains etc, who knows? Nothing has been decided on that regard yet.

One idea I have toyed with in my mind is to make a game option for simple/complex economy. At first glance that will solve all problems, except it seems fairly complex to get working. We might also run into problems with game balance. I'm far from certain this is a viable solution. I'm also not a fan of adding a new option whenever we don't agree on a detail because then we end up with asking the player 50 different questions at startup and most players won't know what they do. That's not good either.

 

[johnsonb2090]

Glad I gave up on learning to navigate the XMLs to try and take a crack at gold management lol