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

[Vinnz]

I've just played a few games with your v17 (my previous games took place last july with v15 I think). Your barabarian system makes the uncivilized places of the map more interesting.
I also read with interest your news for the future phase 3.

Anyway, all of this is quite promising.

 

[Calavente]

Still working through policies. And I haven't added favored techs and enabled polices for all civs yet (got tired about half-way through).

Favored Techs affects knowledge maintenance for known techs, so the benefit continues even after you learn them.

You've never heard of the Kingdom of O?

in response:
-I've seen that... I was "only" pointing "errors", not the lack of policies or even lack of boni for some civs.. I supposed that those would either : come later OR are already here but took too long to write here so you chose efficiency over total accuracy.

-nice

-nope... didn't knew that one... not being US might have something to do with that; and not having tv since 6th grade might be the other reason.
but nice to know it was not a typo

 

[Pazyryk]

I'm splitting up Plantation into 3 different improvements. I had already split-off Vineyard. But after adding some new luxuries and new techs, it seemed useful to split this up even more. Here are all the base plantation resources plus some new ones, with plantation type and prereq tech:

Vineyard (Zymurgy): Grapes->Wine*
Plantation, textiles (Weaving): Cotton Trees->Cotton, Silkworms->Silk, Dye
Plantation, orchard (Irrigation): Bananas, Berries, Citrus Trees->Citrus, Sugarcane->Sugar
Plantation, exotics (Calendar): Incense, Spices, Tobacco, Tea, Poppies->Opium

[*Arrow notation used when the map resource has a different name than the resulting trade resource.]

All of the tech prereqs are 2nd tier requiring Agriculture, with Calendar also requiring Writing. One nice thing is that you can improve/trade more of these without Writing now. Bananas and Berries are "bonus", meaning good food yield but not tradeable. All others are luxury.


Also, I never could figure out a graphic for Reagents (never knew what they were exactly). So I'm replacing that with Moly and Cinnabar->Quicksilver. Moly is a magical herb that you can see only with the Witchcraft policy, improved by Gatherer's Hut. Cinnabar is visible with Alchemy and improved by mine. Both have a sparse, strategic distribution and are tradeable. They don't allow any units (for now) but will be consumed by some new buildings that are enabled by Alchemy and some arcane techs. Quicksilver's main function is to be transmuted into other things, like gold or silver, with appropriate tech and buildings.


There may be more additions later. But these cover all my immediate needs for balance and new mod mechanics.

 

[Terror666]

Hi Pazyryk,

I've got an error message, see the attached lua.log.

I cannot see the command panel (for workers, units) I see only the little icon for GP's. Maybe there is the problem.

 

[Vinnz]

In V17a, it seems that I can't produce (neither purchase) a settler from a loaded game (it worked properly in the "original" game). The settler isn't in the choice list (the other buildings and units are there).

Just noticed it with man eleutherios, and a savegame from turn 46 (but I remember something similar with Sidhe in a longer game).

 

[Lplate]

In V17a, it seems that I can't produce (neither purchase) a settler from a loaded game (it worked properly in the "original" game). The settler isn't in the choice list (the other buildings and units are there).

Just noticed it with man eleutherios, and a savegame from turn 46 (but I remember something similar with Sidhe in a longer game).

I remember something like that in a much earlier version. I don't think Settlers are allowed until after your Civ has a name.

 

[Vinnz]

I remember something like that in a much earlier version. I don't think Settlers are allowed until after your Civ has a name.

I agree.

However, I'm reporting not being presented the possibility to build a settler with a named civilization (Eleutherios) and a leader.
I tried to play further with my capital only (up to turn 150), and I didn't see any new city from my neighbour (Ys) neither so I suppose the unit was blocked for them as well.

--
Edit:
I reproduced the behaviour. I played a new game until getting a name (Cruitni, turn 33), and checked that I could build settlers. Then I saved , exit to main menu, and loaded my save. The settlers were not in the production list anymore.

I don't think investigating this bug is a priority, since the work is now on moving towards the phase 3. But I'm interested if somebody else had this problem, and possibly a workaround?

 

[Pazyryk]

I don't think investigating this bug is a priority, since the work is now on moving towards the phase 3. But I'm interested if somebody else had this problem, and possibly a workaround?

Here's a possible workaround:
Start Fire Tuner
Select "EaMain" state
Type:
BlockUnitMatch(0, "UNIT_SETTLERS", "NoName", false, nil)

Assuming that works, you'd have to do it for all AI players too (the 0 is the player ID).


@Terror666
I can see that it's some kind of data corruption in a loaded game. I won't even try to fix this since I'm 2 months into phase 3.


Thanks all for the feedback. I'll be (mostly) ignoring bug reports now for phase 2. I've got the engine all in pieces again for phase 3, and it's going to be a while to get it all back together again...

 

[Vinnz]

Here's a possible workaround:
Start Fire Tuner
Select "EaMain" state
Type:
BlockUnitMatch(0, "UNIT_SETTLERS", "NoName", false, nil)

Assuming that works, you'd have to do it for all AI players too (the 0 is the player ID).

Thanks, it works.

If someone else needs it: fire tuner is a part of the civ V sdk, which can be installed from steam tools. I had to modify the civ 5 config.ini as well (EnableTuner = 1).

 

[Pazyryk]

Éa III Sword & Sorcery update:

Lead Charge by Warrior GPs is now much more "real and natural". The GP selects the action (requires combat unit with melee attack on same plot), and then is immediately in the melee attack interface mode. The GP attacks -- a real attack with animations! -- then the same-plot melee unit follows automatically attacking the same unit (with a big morale boost). There is no more separate "risk" involved: the GP dies if reduced to 0 hp. The sequenced two-attack animation looks really good (just like this).

What I'm trying to do with GPs (in general) is make them feel more "real and natural" in the game. They now stay on the map (rather than disappearing between turns). They can still enter foreign cities and pile into their own cities without 1upt restriction. They can be seen by adjacent units and can be attacked. When this happens, they just escape to a nearby plot. I will modify that in the future, but it works for now with the AI's lack of understanding in avoiding enemy units.

The cost of all of this is that Éa is becoming a dll mod. It's easier and better to modify core rules (like 1upt and prohibition on entering foreign cities) in the dll rather than piling on more Lua hacks. This allows me to remove existing Lua hacks (probably 5000 lines of code already) which were not completely invisible to the player. The dll thing is bad news for Mac users though...

 

[Pazyryk]

Update:

There's an Éa dll modding thread here if anyone wants to follow along on C++ coding. I've tried some of this out in the current Éa III Sword & Sorcery build and it is much smoother. No more leader scene "flicker" when you meet a civ but don't have a leader yet so aren't supposed to contact them. GPs (or really all civilians) stack without limit, and move in and out of foreign cities (or through foreign units) smoothly. Best of all, GPs don't "disappear" between turns. That was one of many Lua hacks that are no longer needed.

I put out a new mod with just the civilian rule changes (link in my signature). I never understood why 1upt was applied to civilians in base Civ5. It's just a micromanagement nuisance and source of human exploits that adds no positive value to gameplay.

 

[Killzerslaul]

Not much I can contribute but I wanted to say I am still following the progression of this mod with interest and very much looking forward to the next release (at least then I can try to be helpful by testing). Good luck.

 

[Pazyryk]

Thanks Killzerslaul! Encouragement is always welcome...


Question for players: Would you rather see Research Maintenance imposed as a -x% research modifier (as it is now), or as increased cost of techs?

The reason I'm asking is that I can now do it either way. Dll modding allows that. With Lua-only modding I was constrained to do it a certain way.

There is a modest gameplay difference from the two systems. The -x% modification causes hi-tech civs to become more reliant over time on big core cities, where buildings counteract -x% research from KM with +y% research from buildings. With the second system, all cities would still contribute but to increasingly higher tech costs (so low-tech versus high-tech doesn't really play into Tall versus Wide decisions at all). Imho, this favors the existing system (-x%) as inherently more interesting from a strategic point of view.

The other consideration is purely aesthetic. Would you rather see constant tech costs, with cities producing smaller and smaller amounts of science (the current system)? Or would you rather see your science output continuing to go up throughout the game, but tech costs going up too? I think aesthetics alone probably favors the second system, but I'm not sure.

Note: In either system, the number of techs you can get is going way up in phase 3, since I've doubled the number of techs.

Note2: I'm a bit more relaxed now about constraining your tech advancement. Before, I took it as non-negotiable that no civ would ever complete the tech tree. My feeling now is ... fine ... if you want to play 5000 turns, you can do it. The goal is that all players have to think hard about how they want to develop in the tech tree (you can't have everything, ...well, not unless you want to play a long long time). The main point of going "high-tech" is to reach one or more tier 6/7 techs in the new tree in a reasonable game length. The main point of going "low-tech" is that you can reach certain tier 3/4 techs faster while expending resources on other things besides research infrastructure (like conquering the world ... but not limited to that).

Note3: Pacing is much faster now. Standard speed feels like Standard rather than Epic. Techs and policies come in every 8 turns or so at start. It should role along like that for quite a while now before KM becomes really noticeable. If you like the current slow feel (~24 turns per tech/policy), just play on Epic.

 

[Razadlac]

I would like the costs to increase, it is just too depressing to go into resaearch and getting like no science at all later on

Keep on, i already love the mod and can't wait for the update!

 

[imperator0]

Hey long time lurker here - just played your v17 and went to dig up my old CivFanatics account name and password to say that what you have so far is great even as an alpha and that I hope you continue the inspired work on this mod. Looking forward to watching your progress and playing each update you release.

Also loving the tunes in the media pack

Keep up the terrific work, mods of this genre are my fav!

 

[Shadowling]

I would like the costs to increase, it is just too depressing to go into research and getting like no science at all later on

Keep on, I already love the mod and can't wait for the update!

I fully agree with this.
Besides, it never made much sense to me from an immersion perspective. Like more and more scientists would just quit their jobs after every major breakthrough

 

[Lplate]

I think that most players would prefer the illusion of progress, where they generate more and more research as their civ develops, even if all those beakers are meaningless when compared to the increased costs of researching something new.

 

[Pazyryk]

OK, we'll have increasing tech costs from KM. It will look like base Civ5's increase in tech cost from number of cities (which we don't have in Éa).

Civilization Favored Techs and Tomes will decrease that cost for applicable techs. It should all be transparent in UI, with number of turns to each tech being correct.

 

[BrokenSky]

So now high tech/low tech is not directly connected to tall wide?

Also there are still several techs in the tree which do, or on the tech tree at least appear to do, nothing. Possibly aside from the magic branches, will this still be the case when the sword and sorcery update comes out? Also what does CEnology mean?

 

[Pazyryk]

So now high tech/low tech is not directly connected to tall wide?

Less directly. But you still need research infrastructure to contribute significantly, at least for the higher tier techs, and that will mostly come from your core cities. Peripheral cities will always contribute >0 now, but that doesn't mean it amounts to much.

Hopefully the way it will work is that population (by itself) will provide enough research to work through many low tier techs, and maybe even get to one of the "primitive" high tier techs (like Mumakil Riding) though it will take a good long while. I'll try to make research infrastructure matter more (in proportion to population) so that you really need to do something to advance through higher tier techs at any reasonable rate. By do something, I mean develop one or more big research-specialized cities (with Libraries/Universities amplifying population effect), or a lot of research "outposts" (Laboratories & Observatories that provide fixed +x points), or generating a lot of Sages. (All of these should have opportunity costs, as you could have done something else instead.)

All the empty techs will be filled. Some existing things are getting spread around, since I had >5 items for some techs. Spells will appear as separate items. And there will be more buildings. Three I just added a few days ago:

• Cinnabar Roaster (Alchemy; requires nearby Cinnabar) +2 Quicksilver; -10 Health
• Chrysopoeia Reactor (Transmutation) Converts one Quicksilver resource to Gold
• Argentopoeia Reactor (Transmutation) Converts one Quicksilver resource to Silver

Œnology, not CEnology.