Éa, The Ageless and the Divine (phase 2, alpha)

Vinnz · Mar 3, 2013

I played a game to have a game report to add. Here it is:
Year 0:
Settings : prince, human, continents, standard size, standard speed
Starting spot: Sheep+horse in first circle, can see stones marble and cow in 2nd circle, near river, no sea, not much forest, no jungle => planning animal ressource focus (horse as main army);

at Year 100:
Got the Fir Bolg naming condition on turn 35 (1p1g on pastures)
+8 science, -20% modifier; Researched Techs (in this order): animal husbandry, domestication, horseback riding and mining (masonry in 1 turn)
culture 1.75/2(+0.02); Researched policy: agrarianism opener
2 GP alive warrior and merchant (0.8% popup).
484(+1) gold
4 horse ressources (2 used)

2 cities:
capital Fir Bolg:
pop=5, (36-25)f35p16g6.4s2c,
buildings: Abattoir, Knackery, Monument, Smokehouse, Stable, Tannery
with in first circle: 1 improved horse on grassland with river (8f8p1g), 1 improved sheep on hill with river (8f4p2g)
in second circle :
1 improved horse on grassland with river (8f8p1g), 1 unimproved cow on marsh (6f4p), 1 unimproved marble (2p1c), [+1 unimproved and unexploited stone (4p)]

village Tronueyr (founded year 70)
pop=3, (14-15)f8p6g2.4s1c.
buildings: 1 monument
in first circle: 1 improved sheep 5f2p2g, 1 unimproved crab (5f), 1 mine on hill and forest (2p1g)

Neighbours:
Sidhe (Aes Dana) seems burried in forest (no improvements, only 1 city, pop=3, but has Voluspa and Tome of tomes). Not much known about other neighbours.
Civs scores from diplo screen: Aes dana (no religion) 56, Kaza (Azzandar.) 95, Nezeliba (no religion) 56, The Hod (Azzandar.) 54, Nemedia 48, (My score 89 but I don't know how it's calculated)

Remarks:
- should have leather from tannery (not yet in game ?).
- going neither science nor culture gives me a high production city rather quickly : however, I don't have any building with specialist slot, no useful GP (a merchant but not much use without the currency tech, and a warrior).
A bit stuck for now: cannot build new cities because of lack of gold and technologies to exploit other ressources available. No more buildings to build in capital.No excess gold to increase my army.

Plan for next turns:
will improve culture generation from quarries (researched next turn), and will research writing afterwards, will build library to improve science generation (not sure what to resarch afterwards), will use my horsemen to scout further and to keep my neighborhood clear from my barbarians. Possibly will try to do quests for city states. ]

Also, here's a diary-style log of this game

Spoiler :

Loffas · Mar 3, 2013

Hi, i tried to get this mod working.
It seems that are some dependeries. Got the dlc and the civ game updated. But it sais something about a mod that are needed. "Depends on .......long code....version 1-100"
Can it bee so that i am missing a mod?
Any suggestens, are psyked to test this mod

Br Loffas

Pazyryk · Mar 4, 2013

@Loffas, the only dependencies are for Mongolia (the free DLC that everyone should have), Gods & Kings, and the Éa Media Pack. You have to click the Media Pack circle before the actual Éa mod circle in the mods screen.

orlanth said:
Thanks. I got the Media Pack and was doing well for 150 turns or so, then got a freeze on ending the turn that was reproducible on loading autosave - maybe the same one encountered by Vinzz?

Yes, same exact problem. I won't have a hotfix for this, although you could copy Vinzz's fix above to play past this. I'll have a real fix in v6. (this will happen in many but not all v5 games if I understand the problem correctly; depends on what civ names the AI picks up)

orlanth said:
I had allied with a Religious city state, but is it the case that all the Faith they give me isn't really useful for anything?

I believe as things are that this will give you Divine Favor if you are Azzandarayasna and otherwise mana. Both are useless without spellcasters, which (in phase 2) means Devout GPs only (Druid, Priest, Paladin and their fallen counterparts). Phase 3 will have additional Thaumaturge subclasses that only cast arcane spells. Also, I have my own city states planned, just not added yet. Some are Pantheistic and give mana only, others are Theistic and give divine favor only. So not all city states will be useful to all civs (except for the resources of course).

orlanth said:
I didn't found a religion yet, I wanted to choose Azzandarayasna, but it looks like Sidhe civs aren't allowed to found it. I do wish there was a bit more variety in the religions, maybe from bringing back a Pantheon feature to allow some more customization. Especially if some are closed off to certain races there's not many to choose from. I guess I can go with Pantheism - it goes against Agrarian strategy of chopping/development, but OTOH the Pure Waters cult could gimme an awesome bonus from building Floating Gardens on my mega Lake. There's also plenty of Incense & I got the Aldebaran plantation bonus, and am writing the Grain tome, so should be sitting pretty

Keep in mind that Agrarianism is exclusive with Pantheism. If you play agrarian Sidhe, you are definitely playing against "type". There are some built in disadvantages, such as the slower growth rate and Living Terrain near your start has initial strength (all set to 0 to radius 3 for Man). However, the specific conditions of your start location may easily override these factors and make Agrarian optimal even for Sidhe, or maybe you like to play against type even at a disadvantage.

Only Man can open Theism and found Azzandarayasna (for lore reasons). And with Agrarianism, you've locked yourself out of Pantheism. So... you won't be founding any religions in this game. You could still get one from another civ by pressure, conversion or conquest of other cities. Hopefully, if I get the balance right, players will consider going non-religious as a good option in some games.

Just as a note, the Aŋra religion can be founded by any Devout (even a Druid) if you have the Maleficium tech, meaning that it is possible for Sídhe to pursue this dark route in addition to Pantheistic religions/cults. (But you've already locked yourself out of Pantheism so this is not available to you.)

Vinnz said:
I played a game to have a game report to add. Here it is:

Thanks! This is exactly what I need to make some headway on balance and pacing (saves me the 30 hrs of playing a game myself).

At a glance, I'd say you should have picked up Currency sometime soon after naming. It's probably a "must have" tech unless you are planning a game with few cities and a small army. (Note: I have considered making Warriors maintenance free so that a swarm-of-low-quality-troops approach to warfare is viable.) Leather is not in yet, nor Ale or Spirits (will be in v6). I'll look over the rest in more detail...

Pazyryk · Mar 4, 2013

I'm reworking the "overgrown/flooded" improvement system a little. In the current system, when a forest, jungle or marsh spreads to an improved plot (anything other than a camp) the effect of the improvement is cancelled and you get the base resource yield only. I want to make it a little less harsh (but still negative) for players. But more importantly, the AI isn't dealing with the current rules very well and it's hard to figure out how to make it do so. So, new rules:

Forest, jungle, marsh cause -1f, -1p, -1g on a plot (remember that an unimproved, unresourced plot is 0 anyway)
Camp improvement gives +1f, +1p, +1g on forest, jungle, marsh (to exactly offset above) in addition to its normal +2f1p.
Wildlands "improvement" offsets penalty (as above), in addition to its own benefit.

So, for example, if you have sugar with plantation it is 3f4g1c when clear or 2f3g1c when flooded or overgrown. A farm on wheat should be 8f when clear (with Agrarianism) or 7f when flooded or overgrown. A camp on a resource will have exactly the same yield regardless of feature. There is a little bit of a bad side effect: A deer on a forest without camp will be 3f to start and 4f1p if slashed/burned. Perhaps I should give an extra +1f for camp on forest or jungle to discourage removing features on these "wildlife habitat" plots.

Pazyryk · Mar 4, 2013

Some reworking coming to water plots in v6. I've had this idea for a while but didn't implement due to AI problems. But I have that solved now. New mechanics:

Normal city border expansion no longer spreads onto water plots, not even lakes or coastal. Also, you don't own water plots even if adjacent to your city when it is founded.
Fishing Boats or Whaling Boats "claim" the single resource plot for the city at the same time they improve it.
Floating Garden is similar to above for lake plots, claiming them at the same time they are improved (you don't even need to be adjacent).
Fishing/Whaling Boats can act beyond 3-plot radius from your city with naval techs: Sailing (out to 4-plot radius); Ship Building (7); Navigation (14); Whaling (whales only at any range); Astronomy (required to access any resource in or across Ocean if they are outside your city's 3-plot radius)
Improved sea resources contribute something (2f each?) via Harbor, Port, Whalery and maybe other buildings.
A city within 3 plots of a water resource that is "remotely owned" by another civ (that is, they are >3 plots distant) can claim the resource with their own fishing/whaling boat. But if at 4 plots the other civ can keep it forever.
Perhaps Cult of Ægir cities will violate the first rule and have borders spreading over sea plots, and Cult of Pure Waters over lakes.

There is a bit of a "cheat" for AI. What happens is that the plot is claimed and improved the instant the fishing/whaling boat is built. The unit is only available to build if there is currently a water resource in range (and a high "flavor" value ensures that the AI builds it quickly). This solves AI for my mod change but also solves the problem that the base Civ5 AI is really bad at improving water resources anyway.

One possibility I'm considering is applying the AI system above to the human player. Several advantages: 1) a little bit less work for me, 2) it's no longer an AI cheat so the playing field is exactly even, and 3) you could improve those occasional water resources that are unreachable, for example when they are ice-locked. You also wouldn't have to drive the boat to the resource anymore. Would folks miss that?

Loffas · Mar 4, 2013

@Pazyryk.
Oh, I thought the media file was optional. Allright then I will get that one and try again.
Thanks!
/Loffas

Vinnz · Mar 5, 2013

I continued the game started in my post above (which stopped at year 100). Hope the following report will be helpful.

Since last report, I could progress in culture (new yields from marble and stone) and science (boost after researching writing and building library ). Money problem solved with marketplace.
However, still not much to build in my high production capital (which ended mostly buying/selling walls every 5 turns)

General situation at year 150 :
10 science (-57% misc modifiers)(Animal husb, domestication, Horse riding, mining, masonry, writing, currency, fishing, mathematics) ; 625gold (+18); 6 happy; 3.9/4(+0.03) policies (learned agrarianism, aristocracy, feudalism); 2GP alive (sage+ warrior), +4,6%;4 horses 2 used.
Units: 2horse riders, 1 warrior, 2 workers
religion: every city on my continent are azzandarayasna
Cities:
Fir Bolg
pop= 7; (36-35)f40p34g7.52s8c;
Buildings: Library (with scribe); marketplace (with trader); Abattoir; Knackery; Monument;Smokehouse;Stable;Stone works; Tannery; Walls (currently building: workshop)
Resources: centre 4f1P7g, first circle: improved sheep 8f4p3g, improved horse 8f8p2g; 2nd circle: improved horse 8f8p2g, unimproved cow on marsh 6f4p1g, improved marble 5p1g4c, Improved stone *2 (not exploited)
Tronueyr (founded yr70)
pop=4; (28-20)f8p10g1.72s2c
Buildings:marketplace (no specialist), monument, smokehouse (currently building library)
Resources: centre:4f1p; first circle: mine on, hill with forest 2p1g, sheep 6f2p3g, crab 8f1g; second circle 8f1g; third circle elephant (not exploited)
Rin (founded yr109)
pop=3; (17-15)f8p5g1.29s1c
Buildings: monument (currently building smokehouse)
centre 4f1p; first circle: improved sheep 5f2p2g, unimproved deer 4f1p, unimproved
Resources: deer 4f1p, 2nd circle: elephant (not exploited), fish (not exploited)

After Year 150, one of the AI converted to Aŋra (with ŋ letter not displaying properly in game).
And then an error report appeared at Yr 156, telling me to post the log (added on this post). Stopping game here

turn by turn log for yr 100 to yr 156:

Spoiler :

Remarks (in no particular order):
- The AI could use the found religion prophecies (Azzandarayasna and Aŋra founded)
- Some of the animal husbandry lines techs apply also to the hunted resources (deer), providing help to settle a new city
- Despite ignoring science culture and money early, it was not difficult to come back in these areas
- My high production city ran out of stuff to build
- I was lucky with barbarians, who were rather quiet
- My neighbours did correctly, but none seems to be really good (however difficult to check).
- No obvious problems in yields calculation (however did not check everything)

I'll try next a game on the same map, from a save at year 0, with a totally different orientation.

Loffas · Mar 5, 2013

Hi, I got the game started and everything seems to work fine. When I get a great person(engienneer or scientist, tried twice) and try to use one of the abbilities. Join city or hurry production the whole computer freezes. The leaderhip abbilitie and walking around works fine. Don´t know if this is common problem or not.
/Loffas

Pazyryk · Mar 5, 2013

@Loffas, Haven't heard that from others. Make sure you are not using any other mods. Post your Lua logs and maybe I can see what is happening.

@Vinnz,
Tech and policy progress seem OK for your non-tech/non-culture focus. Growing fast will give you a tech boost early (getting you to 10 or so quickly), but you're going to top out pretty soon (so think about what "teir 4" tech you want).

The most serious problem, of course, is running out of things to build. Just out of curiosity, which of the (now hypothetical) victory conditions would you be pursuing in this game? If Conquest, you always need more units, even if only warriors. For Subduer, you also need to expand, probably necessitating both settlers and military. For Protector, you would need military to take out the Aŋra civ (if you have found them). The other two conditions don't seem to be fitting. I guess my question is: would lack of things to build be a problem if you were actually perusing a goal of some sort?

Still, I may need to bring back the yield conversion processes (though I am loath to do that). There will be some more buildings but I can only add so many. Any other suggestions are welcome.

Edit: Looking at this again, it seems like you were able to build too many buildings for turn 150 (even considering your production focus). Perhaps building costs need to be bumped up quite a bit.

Vinnz · Mar 5, 2013

Pazyryk said:
@Vinnz,
Tech and policy progress seem OK for your non-tech/non-culture focus. Growing fast will give you a tech boost early (getting you to 10 or so quickly), but you're going to top out pretty soon (so think about what "teir 4" tech you want).

I agree, my tech and policy growth seems ok (slow while not caring about it, and then a boost when trying to concentrate on them).

Pazyryk said:
The most serious problem, of course, is running out of things to build. Just out of curiosity, which of the (now hypothetical) victory conditions would you be pursuing in this game? [...] I guess my question is: would lack of things to build be a problem if you were actually perusing a goal of some sort?

Sure, I wasn't strictly focusing on a victory condition (and turn 150 is still far from end of game). I was more on a "gameplay plan": getting the most out of the lands around my capital city, developing a core of strong cities (with some emphasis on checking how all of this works) and then going for one of the military victories . I was researching chemistry to gain access to powder/naphta if any nearby, and was planning to research the horse warriors tech after finishing the tome of Equus to build equites. I was expecting that thanks to high production, I would be able to build an army quickly enough when needed (Though I would probably be unfit to take strong cities, and gaining access to timber for catapult might be necessary).
I felt that I wasn't ready to wage wars (lack of techs to take advantage of resources on my neighbours lands, science and culture penalty if I managed to expand quickly , and not strong enough to roll over my enemies until total victory). OK, I didn't try, so that might be wrong...
By the way, I think a "continents" map should be avoided since most of the civs will never be allowed to cross oceans by design (they need to focus their research on other techs at first).

Pazyryk said:
Still, I may need to bring back the yield conversion processes (though I am loath to do that). There will be some more buildings but I can only add so many. Any other suggestions are welcome.

For me, the problem was that I was able to have such a high production city before the end game (about 35p at year 100, with 5pop; and I was expecting to be able to reach 50 at year 160 with the smiths guild up). With all the bonus, some tiles become very productive quickly (ie my horses were 8f8p2g).
Some suggestions:
- make it more difficult to have such high yields (eg: reduce the production bonus of knackery, or push the building one tier up, or add some policies conditions to reach the full yields)
- punish me for having forgotten science and culture early on (cannot see how)
- add some cap (maybe with game mechanics wasting it to "ineffiency" if the global science or culture level is low) to production (by cities, or by tile)

Also: I'm possibly not the kind of player you need for these tests. Nowadays, I am not interested that much in the victory by itself (though I will try to succeed in a way) than in the "historical" experience. As an example in ffh2, I could enjoy just being able to survive the successive armageddon events, even if I had no chance to actually win some wars afterwards.

Pazyryk · Mar 5, 2013

Vinnz said:
Also: I'm possibly not the kind of player you need for these tests. Nowadays, I am not interested that much in the victory by itself (though I will try to succeed in a way) than in the "historical" experience. As an example in ffh2, I could enjoy just being able to survive the successive armageddon events, even if I had no chance to actually win some wars afterwards.

Actually, that is exactly what motivates this mod. I almost never finish a base Civ game or even FFH. The interest for me is "roleplaying" a civ type, which usually only lasts until the map is fully explored or the tech tree is fully discovered.

So, one of the goals I have is to make the game continually playable to any length, without having all the civs "blend" to the same thing over time. Specialization should be the endpoint, rather than the starting point as I think it is in FFH. I think the tech/policy system basically works for this (still needs tweaks of course). But there is something fundamental that needs to be done with production. I have a bunch of small fixes in mind, but I can't quite get my head around a real solution.

Calavente · Mar 6, 2013

I'll just chime in with a philosophical question....
which arise with your previous comment about story-playing.

the interest of FFH is
1) to play very different civs
2) magic
3) different religions
4) environnement : to adapt specialized civs to different environnement, more or less compatible with the civ specialization. (vanilla civ mostly has that one, + leaders traits)
5) unit focus (depends a bit on civ, religion and terrain)

Ea (at the moment) works mainly get 2 aspects:
2-3 are fused together as two aspects of a same thing.
1-4-5 are fused : -> you create different civs, kinda specialized, but your civ specialization is dictated by your immediate surrounding, and unit choice will be hugely impacted by your name, so by your terrain.
It means that normally, your specialization is the best adapted to the environnement.

thus you have two parameters for replayability:
1) environnement that leads to civ names
2) choice of religious/magical path, which is further limited as you can't easily change from one to the other.. you are quickly commited iirc.

wouldn't there be a reduction of replayability (theorically at least) ?

or are there further means, in v0.3, v0.5 or v0.9 that you aim to introduce to increase replayability ?

(I fear that most Elephant-civ / pantheisme games will feel the same.. as you'll only go elephant if you get that elephant ressource (no need to search for the ressource, you wouldn't have had the name without it), and then your army will be elephants.)

(Comparatively Empy-Elohim will lead to very different games due to ease to change religion before using Empy + very different terrains that will dictate if you get mainly horses or mainly melee, or mainly religious if you have niether copper nor horses...etc).

or maybe I'm wrong, and that's just an impression that comes when only reading and not playing.

Pazyryk · Mar 6, 2013

Calavente said:
I'll just chime in with a philosophical question....
which arise with your previous comment about story-playing.

the interest of FFH is
1) to play very different civs
2) magic
3) different religions
4) environnement : to adapt specialized civs to different environnement, more or less compatible with the civ specialization. (vanilla civ mostly has that one, + leaders traits)
5) unit focus (depends a bit on civ, religion and terrain)

Ea (at the moment) works mainly get 2 aspects:
2-3 are fused together as two aspects of a same thing.

In phase 3 I'll be developing the arcane side and the Thaumaturge class. Right now, you have two GP subclasses that are dual-class Devout/Thaumaturge: Druids and Fallen Priests. Phase 3 will have a whole bunch of "pure" Thaumaturge subclasses. Also, there will ultimately be two ways to approach the Destroyer Victory: one religious focusing on Aŋra (with Priests and Eidolons) and the other pure arcane (with Sorcerers and Necromancers) without necessarily having any religion at all. Or you could split the difference and have a little of both. On the less evil side, Pantheism is sort of dual religious/arcane by nature (with the Druid class) but there will be an Arcana policy branch and many techs downstream of Thaumaturgy that support a more pure arcane aproach (with Witches, Wizards on the not-necessarily-good-or-evil side; and Sorcerers and Necromancers on the probably-bad-news side).

Calavente said:
1-4-5 are fused : -> you create different civs, kinda specialized, but your civ specialization is dictated by your immediate surrounding, and unit choice will be hugely impacted by your name, so by your terrain.
It means that normally, your specialization is the best adapted to the environnement.

thus you have two parameters for replayability:
1) environnement that leads to civ names
2) choice of religious/magical path, which is further limited as you can't easily change from one to the other.. you are quickly commited iirc.

wouldn't there be a reduction of replayability (theorically at least) ?

It's true that environment is very tied up with Civ specialization. But there are almost always >1 specialization that is optimal for a particular environment. For example, many horses/cows/sheep could lead to Ikkos (pure militeristic), Hippus (mercenary) or Fir Bolg (pastoralist). More civs can always be added where this is not the case. And these civs could go religions or not (by choice or perhaps imposed from outside), or have slavery or not, etc. And 3 of the 5 victory conditions (plus the 2 I haven't revealed) would be very fitting for any of these civs.

In FFH, you start out very specialized and really (contrary to my statement above) stay specialized through the game. However, I did feel that the standard Civ approach to teching did lessen specialization over time. Even Doviello were going for a very high tech (Machinery) and I certainly played Clan of Embers to get high level techs. The more techs everyone had, the more similar the play. My Clan cities built universities, banks, etc., just like any other civ. I think the tech approach in Éa (where you can only explore part of the tree in any game) will add a lot to replayability.

Calavente said:
or are there further means, in v0.3, v0.5 or v0.9 that you aim to introduce to increase replayability ?

Lots of stuff coming in future phases. Now, if I can only wrap up phase 2 and finish off a few of the missing policies, resources, etc...

Sezneg · Mar 6, 2013

Pazyryk said:
But there is something fundamental that needs to be done with production. I have a bunch of small fixes in mind, but I can't quite get my head around a real solution.

Right now, production comes from tile yields for everyone.

Perhaps what you're looking for is that how you specialize in the tech/policy trees should determine how you get production.

Lower the base tile yields, pantheists can increase them through policy advancement.

Agrarian civs will rely on techs to increase their production, or the slavery policy tree.

The slavery policy tree grants some production based on population (would need some drawbacks).

Add more buildings that add production, some with various drawbacks.

So you have to pick how you access production through your planning.

Just some vague brainstorming.

Pazyryk · Mar 6, 2013

A lot of that is already in: Slavery has several things to boost production, as does Pantheism. And Ag gets you Smith slots and the growth to fill them. You may not have noticed, but I also give 1p for each pop point (on top of the normal 1s). I do this because it is very easy to have a city with no production plots nearby.

I think what we are in for is a general across-the-board increase, maybe as much as 2x. However, I don't want to make it much harder to get your 1st or 2nd warriors unit. I think what I'll do there is make them a true "spam" unit. Same cost as now, but reduced strength from 7 to 5. And no maintenance cost. So these will always be there no matter what your tech situation. But I don't want you to often be in the situation where this is the only thing you can build...hence the across the board increases.

Vinnz · Mar 9, 2013

As announced, here's report of a game on the same map as my previous post, but with a different strategy (previous one was along the animal husbandry line, and seemed to have an excess of production quickly).
This time, will go to a culture strategy:
tradition branch. peaceful. reasonably wide tech-wise at first, then focus towards the culture/science techs.
Try and found Aŋra, then play with the "mages" against my neighbours.
(Probably not the best strategy considering horse and sheep ressources, but should be ok)

Here's the situation at year 100:
8 science (-19% various modifiers)(researched:writing, animal husbandry, mining, masonry, drama, currently researching maleficium); 427 gold (-3); 8 happy;culture 4.17/5(+0.08)(Tradition opener, folklore, scholasticism, Theism opener); 12 faith(+1); 4 GP alive (2.3%)(dual artist/sage, sage, artist, priest)
Units: 2 warriors, 1 worker
Cities:
Croton (capital)
pop=4,(25-20)f14p12g7.29s1f3c
Buildings:Library (no specialist), monument, smokehouse (currently building stoneworks)
Resources:centre 4f1p, improved horse 5f2p,improved sheep 5f1p1g, improved horse 5f2p, unimproved cow on marsh 4f1p [+unused marble, +unused stone]
Gopul (founded year 96)
pop=1, (8-5)f3p,1g0.81s;
no buildings (currently building monument)
resources:centre 4f1p, unimproved deer 4f1p, [unused 2*unimproved deer 4f1p,unimproved sheep 2f1g)

I could found the Aŋra on year 108 and convert some city states, but due to a crash on year 155, did not use it much...

Turn by turn log:

Spoiler :

Random notes:
- To my knowledge, the production (and every other yield) stayed in control in the game.
- A central concept religion Aŋra with an uncommon letter ŋ is weird form a documentation point of view... The search functions in most text viewers (html, pdf...) cannot recognize it if spelled with a variant (such as Anra which you use, or Angra which would be more consistent with the usual transliteration).
- My game was suboptimal on many points (researched Drama but did not build the amphitheatre, was up to attack cities with warriors + fallen priest).
- Most of the naming conditions reached by AI are "first to policy" conditions. Probably a consequence of the impossibility to decline a name/trait for now.
- Not sure of what happened when building the Great library (some delays due to short production, death of the builder GP, finished instantly by the next GP who gave its bonus). I don't know if it's fine, I didn't check regularly.
- The 50 or so turns feel a bit like a race to naming condition. Do you mean it to be penalizing if a player gets its name late (say not before turn 70, because of bad luck such as being second to the tech)? Similarly, do you think that (in this game) the Ninkasi (named on turn 30) got advantaged compared to the Partholon (named on turn 49)? What about the names which are longer to get (such as Aldebar which require three techs)?
- Didn't see advanced units from other civs

Pazyryk · Mar 12, 2013

Thanks again Vinnz.

Ah! the ŋ! You'd be appalled to know how much time I've spent on that already. Such a little thing to get hung up on.

I want there to be some stress about getting a name. You need this to build settlers and to generate GPs, which then gets you a leader and enables trading with other civs. So there is supposed to be motivation to prioritize this -- otherwise players will go on too long as "Village of Man".

However, my idea is that there should be enough different names that it is rare to be beaten to one. I know that's not exactly true now. But it can be with some adjustments to policy/tech progress (so policy civ names aren't so common) and to AI priorities. Also, there are in many cases (not all) some sort of backup names. For example 3 associated with Horseback Riding: 1st to tech, 1st to unit, and 1st to tech + Commerce policy.

Back to modding soon. I've been busy with other stuff lately...

400cats · Mar 12, 2013

Alright, so I just found out how to enable mods on my mac and immediately downloaded and played a game of Ea. Even in early Alpha, it's pretty awesome and definitely playable despite the current lack of victory conditions. I took some notes on my first game, which I started after briefly skimming the Guide. I probably did a lot of stupid things! But anyway, here's the log:

Spoiler :

I'm still not very well-versed with the mod's workings and dynamics so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but here are some things I noticed after one game:

-Somehow, I ended up with 5 simultaneous GP as Man. I know the guide said that you should usually get 3 at a time at the most. I think that by binding some GP with my cities, they were discounted from my total GP count. It could just be a fluke as well.
-Barbarians didn't seem to factor in certain buffs that my units received, causing them to kamikaze into my slightly-wounded warriors without regard for defensive bonuses, morale, etc.
-There were a lot of tightly-clustered resources on the map. Judging from how resources and tiles function, this definitely seems intentional (and also really cool).

I had a blast playing this mod and figuring out what policies did what, which spells there were, how not to completely ruin your city (building improvements and then going pantheism was NOT a good idea), and just generally taking in the lore. This mod almost plays like an entirely different game from Civ; the city placement is extremely cool in this mod. I love the idea of having powerful, rich resources contrasted with unworkable plains and grasslands, so that you have to carefully plan your cities rather than just spreading randomly across the map. I've only scratched the surface with the GP generation, but what I did experience was incredibly complex and entertaining. From a story-telling standpoint, I love how you found your civilization based on what policies and techs you go after, sort of like religion in Civ 4. The "tech shrubbery" also seems to work really well in terms of letting the player create a unique civilization, rather than just researching everything possible. I'll keep posting logs whenever I finish a game. Keep up the awesome work!

Calavente · Mar 13, 2013

I love the
"89: I saw a "Prophecy of Va" button on Bragi's ability list and it looked cool, so I clicked it. Apparently, an unknown civilization immediately founded "a ra" religion. Also, it seems like everyone who was Azz has been converted to A ra. I think I may have accidentally made everyone evil?"
ahahah

Pazyryk · Mar 13, 2013

5 GPs is not out of the range of normal. They are generated based on a shrinking probability that really starts to shrink after you have 3. I'll fix up the explanation a little.

47: Flod(?) civ named
-Azz religion founded!

That was The Hod, which is the name given to the first civ that adopts Theism. They get a priest so immediately found Azzandarayasna. IIRC, they have about a 20% chance of going for Maleficium, which is definitely a turn for the worse (otherwise they will avoid it forever -- as most AI civs do). When you made the Prophecy of Va, you didn't "make them evil." More accurate to say that you "revealed them as evil". It's sort of a Schrödinger's Cat situation: the Prophecy of Va is like opening the box to look in. It's one necessary step for either of the "good" and "evil" victories (Protector and Destroyer). If you didn't do it, someone else would have anyway.

Thanks for the feedback. You're all motivating me to put aside my other hobbies and get moving on this again. (Coming up on 3 yrs working on Éa now. Sometimes I drop it for up to a month but I always come back to it.)

Éa, The Ageless and the Divine (phase 2, alpha)

Chieftain

Warlord

Deity

Deity

Deity

Warlord

Chieftain

Warlord

Deity

Chieftain

Deity

Richard's voice

Deity

Warlord

Deity

Chieftain

Deity

Chieftain

Richard's voice

Deity

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