0.9.5 released

General issue: for 0.9.6, I think we need to put at least a little thought into rewriting the calendar. If you research technologies at a fairly uniform pace, it seems to me like it's very difficult to develop the medieval techs 'on schedule' (i.e. 500-1000 AD).

What's the current breakdown of turn length in the game? Maybe we need to, say, push back the beginning of "2 years/turn" or "1 year/turn" by a number of turns, and start having turns go by more slowly in the early game.
 
Here's the default BTS calendar settings which HR still uses. They vary by gamespeed:

Marathon

• 4000 BCE: 15 years per turn (100 turns)
• 2500 BCE: 10 years per turn (300 turns)
• 500 CE: 5 years per turn (170 turns)
• 1350 CE: 2 years per turn (201 turns)
• 1752 CE: 1 year per turn (129 turns)
• 1881 CE: 6 months per turn (180 turns)
• 1971 CE: 3 months per turn (264 turns)
• 2037 CE: 1 month per turn (156 turns)
1500 turns total


Epic

• 4000 BCE: 25 years per turn (140 turns)
• 500 BCE: 15 years per turn (90 turns)
• 850 CE: 10 years per turn (40 turns)
• 1250 CE: 5 years per turn (90 turns)
• 1700 CE: 2 years per turn (70 turns)
• 1840 CE: 1 year per turn (100 turns)
• 1940 CE: 6 months per turn (220 turns)
750 turns total


Normal

• 4000 BCE: 40 years per turn (75 turns)
• 1000 BCE: 25 years per turn (60 turns)
• 500 CE: 20 years per turn (25 turns)
• 1000 CE: 10 years per turn (50 turns)
• 1500 CE: 5 years per turn (60 turns)
• 1800 CE: 2 years per turn (50 turns)
• 1900 CE: 1 year per turn (120 turns)
• 2020 CE: 6 months per turn (60 turns)
500 turns total


Quick

• 4000 BCE: 60 years per turn (50 turns)
• 1000 BCE: 40 years per turn (30 turns)
• 200 CE: 30 years per turn (20 turns)
• 800 CE: 20 years per turn (30 turns)
• 1400 CE: 10 years per turn (25 turns)
• 1650 CE: 5 years per turn (40 turns)
• 1850 CE: 2 years per turn (65 turns)
• 1980 CE: 1 year per turn (70 turns)
330 turns total
 
Cool, thanks.

I think the problem is that HR front-loads the tech tree: it costs more to develop all the ancient and classical techs, relative to your ability to do the research, than it used to. So those ages wind up stretching out another, oh, 40-50 turns... or about a thousand years of game time. That might contribute to the numerous complaints about running out of things to build, too- it's not that you're building faster, it's that you can't invent enough of the things you would normally be building.

I could be wrong about this, though...
 
Hey there. Just recently downloaded HR. I must say I'm quite impressed with both the quantity and quality of the work that's gone into things so far. While I don't doubt that there are a lot of little issues still to work through, especially regarding balance, it seems like a pretty complete mod. And fun at that!

That said, I will agree that some work needs to be done on getting the tech tree and calendar to mesh. I played a couple games where nobody had gotten out of the Classical Era by 100 AD. I decided that an Advanced Start might solve a lot of those issues, and indeed even the backwards civs were at least close to where they should have been, but the AI doesn't seem to handle Advanced Starts very well. I'm really not sure what exactly they spent their points on, but it didn't take long before I was well ahead of all of them. And of course once I established a tech lead, nearly all the Wonders went my way (I didn't try for Stonehenge and got beat to the Great Wall but otherwise I ran the board) which set me up for a pretty easy Culture Victory in the early 1800's.

So I guess the question is, what is the real problem? Is it that the calendar needs readjusting to give more "early game" turns and fewer later, or do tech costs need to be reduced so that they match up with the current calendar? Basically, are people getting to today's techs by the endgame, or are there just too much research that needs done?
 
Caesar Augustus said:
So I guess the question is, what is the real problem? Is it that the calendar needs readjusting to give more "early game" turns and fewer later, or do tech costs need to be reduced so that they match up with the current calendar? Basically, are people getting to today's techs by the endgame, or are there just too much research that needs done?
Click to expand...

HR has approximately 1.5x as many techs as BTS does and also approximately 1.5x the total research cost of reaching the the Future Era. Personally I'm not keen to lower the cost of techs as I feel that the scheme I've developed is well balanced 'within itself' (kinda hard to explain) and a more effective option would be to adjust the amount of commerce and/or research available to the player so that they can progress through it at an enjoyable rate.

What I hope HR currently feels like (and I'd really like feedback on this) is that individual techs feel reasonably similar to (or a possibly a little harder than) BTS in terms of turns taken to obtain them. It's just that there's a lot more techs to get and they're more tightly linked (a little too tightly in 0.9.5) so that eras are more distinct and last longer. If individual techs feel like they're taking considerably longer to obtain than in BTS then I definitely want to increase the amount of commerce/research at the points where it feels like this.

As for the calendar, it will definitely need to be adjusted to reflect HR's considerably more even distribution of techs to eras (compared to BTS). I strongly suspect that this will also involve increasing the number of turns each difficulty level has. After all (by BTS standards) we're effectively trying to squeeze ~750 turns of research into 500 turns (on Normal speed).

So in summary, I believe four factors need to be adjusted:

1) a more evenly distributed calendar
2) increased number of turns for each gamespeed
3) more commerce/research available at slow points
4) some 'relaxing' of tech prerequisites (a la Masonry ---> Property)​

Feedback and suggestions for each of these is most welcome.
 
Calendar Fix

To relax the calendar... hmm. OK, we've got 500 turns to play with. In terms of advances to be discovered there are, what, effectively seven ages? Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, Modern, and 'Future,' where 'future' is the period where you're researching advances like Bionics that are cutting edge technology as of today in the 2005-2015 time scale- of which there are fewer than there are of techs in any of the other ages, so we can give it a bit less in the way of turns. And the game starts in 4000 BC and ends in 2050 AD. Right?

Our priorities are to have each 'age' begin and end at approximately the right historical date, AND to have each age take roughly the same length of time since this is History Rewritten!

(Stops newly inserted Greek leader from kicking a Persian worker unit into a pit ;) )

OK. To make it add up we need each of the first six ages to take about 75 turns, with roughly 50 left over for the final "Future" Age.

Now, on to the good stuff- the calendar. This is based on wanting 70-80 turns per age, and to have each age end roughly "as scheduled."

Thinking about it, and trying very hard to remember different parts of the world developing on different schedules in the pre-industrial period, when should each age begin and end? "Classical" civilization (characterized by widespread use of iron working, literacy and the beginnings of philosophy, and increased trade and contact over distance scales of a thousand kilometers or so) can reasonably be said to have arisen some time around 1000-500 BC. "Medieval" times (characterized not just by the European dark ages, but also by the rise of Islam, advancing technology and the Chinese dynastic cycle in the Far East, et cetera) would arguably begin around 500-600 AD. The "Renaissance" (intercontinental sailing, gunpowder, and for most parts of the world the beginning of the colonial era one way or another) starts around 1400-1500 AD. The Industrial era definitely starts around 1750-1800, the Modern era around 1900-1920, and the "Future" Era around 2000-2020.

Let's go. [maths]

4000 BC: 50 years/turn (70 turns for the 'ancient' era)
500 BC: 15 years/turn (80 turns for the 'classical' era)
700 AD: 10 years/turn (70 turns for the 'medieval' era)
1400 AD: 5 years/turn (80 turns for the 'renaissance' era)
1800 AD: 2 years/turn (70 turns for the 'industrial' era)
1940 AD: 1 year/turn (90 turns for the 'modern' era)
2030 AD: 6 months/turn (40 turns for the 'future' era)

The progression stops being so regular at the end because I was running out of wiggle room.

Anyway, how does that sound? Wiggling the dates around gets tricky, but is doable, though I invite anyone who really wants it done to try it themselves. :D

Rate of Research

I submit that this "70-80 turns per era" figure should also act as your guideline for how long it should take to invent each technology and advance through each age, Xyth. Science production should roughly scale with the eras, so you can either tinker with the cost of advances or tinker with the available amount of research- but remember that this tinkering should extend to the ancient period as well; it does no good to tack on more tech buildings in the Industrial Age if it takes 400 of the game's 500 turns to reach the Industrial Age.

So we'd need buildings coming online in the Ancient and Classical eras that meaningfully accelerate research, relative to the rate at which research normally takes place in those eras. I'll leave thoughts on that to other posts later on.

Or you could simply redefine the "normal" game to take more turns, which would also solve the problem well enough- I'd be happy to hear your opinion on that. If we need to adjust the game to take 750 turns to accommodate 750 turns of research, that's fine, and it creates a world that is in some ways more like the real world, in which by the end of the Iron Age in a given region there was very little of what might be called 'unclaimed wilderness' on the planet.
 
I have been doing some experimenting with the calendar based on a game that's 600 rather than 500 turns long (on Normal speed). Each of the 6 full eras* is 100 turns in length (200 on Epic, 300 on Marathon and 400 on Odyssey) and the calendar adjusted accordingly. I think there is still some room for improvement but I thought I'd post this to see if people think this might be worth pursuing.

I think this will be a much closer fit to HR than the current BTS calendars, though there will still need to be adjustments made to how the rate of research scales across the gamespeeds and mapsizes. It will certainly require a lot of testing.

I haven't bothered doing anything with Quick gamespeed as no-one seems to ever play it anyway and I've added an 'Odyssey' speed, even slower than Marathon. This was for two reasons: firstly a few people have requested a slower speed setting, and secondly, I accidentally started working on Marathon with the wrong numbers and figured I might as well keep the result anyway as it worked out pretty well. I've also changed Epic to be halfway between Normal and Marathon, in BTS it's only 1.5 times longer than Normal.

Code: 
[B]Normal[/B] (600 turns)

Ancient:	4000 BCE - 3000 BCE	 20 turns	50 years per turn
		3000 BCE - 1000 BCE	 80 turns	25 years per turn
Classical:	1000 BCE -    1 CE	 50 turns	20 years per turn
		   1 CE  -  500 CE	 50 turns	10 years per turn
Medieval:	 500 CE  - 1500 CE	100 turns	10 years per turn
Renaissance:	1500 CE  - 1750 CE	 50 turns	5 years per turn
		1750 CE  - 1850 CE	 50 turns	2 years per turn
Industrial:	1850 CE  - 1950 CE	100 turns	1 year per turn
Modern:		1950 CE  - 2050 CE	100 turns	1 year per turn


[B]Epic[/B] (1200 turns)

Ancient:	4000 BCE - 3000 BCE	50 turns	20 years per turn
		3000 BCE - 1500 BCE	150 turns	10 years per turn
Classical:	1500 BCE -  500 CE	200 turns	10 years per turn
Medieval:	 500 CE  - 1500 CE	200 turns	5 years per turn
Renaissance:	1500 CE  - 1700 CE	100 turns	2 year per turn
		1700 CE  - 1800 CE	100 turns	1 year per turn
Industrial:	1800 CE  - 1900 CE	100 turns	1 year per turn
		1900 CE  - 1950 CE	100 turns	6 months per turn
Modern:		1950 CE  - 2050 CE	200 turns	6 months per turn


[B]Marathon[/B] (1800 turns)

Ancient:	4000 BCE - 1000 BCE	300 turns	10 years per turn
Classical:	1000 BCE -  500 CE	300 turns	5 years per turn
Medieval:	 500 CE  - 1000 CE	100 turns	5 years per turn
		1000 CE  - 1400 CE	200 turns	2 years per turn
Renaissance:	1400 CE  - 1700 CE	300 turns	1 year per turn
Industrial:	1700 CE  - 1850 CE	150 turns	1 year per turn
		1850 CE  - 1925 CE	150 turns	6 months per turn
Modern:		1925 CE  - 2025 CE	200 turns	6 months per turn
		2025 CE  - 2050 CE	100 turns	1 season per turn


[B]Odyssey[/B] (2400 turns)

Ancient:	4000 BCE - 3000 BCE	100 turns	10 years per turn
		3000 BCE - 1500 BCE	300 turns	5 years per turn
Classical:	1500 BCE -  500 CE	400 turns	5 years per turn
Medieval:	 500 CE  -  750 CE	 50 turns	5 years per turn
		 750 CE  - 1450 CE	350 turns	2 years per turn
Renaissance:	1450 CE  - 1850 CE	400 turns	1 year per turn
Industrial:	1850 CE  - 1950 CE	400 turns	1 season per turn
Modern:		1950 CE  - 2050 CE	400 turns	1 season per turn


* I'm not counting the Future Era as its really just there for those going for a Space Victory or similar. I'll probably add a bit more content to it in time but I don't intend to go for any sort of full-fledged sci-fi era or anything like that. Basically bonus stuff for players that are quite far ahead in the tech race.
 
I am at war with Abu Bakr of Arabia. (does not have the Protective Trait.)
At first I could pillage his fishing boats.
Then I could not; instead the icon for patrolling would show up.

Annoying!

I have attached a game save, which may help you figure out what is going on.
 

Attachments

Howard Mahler said:
I am at war with Abu Bakr of Arabia. (does not have the Protective Trait.)
At first I could pillage his fishing boats.
Then I could not; instead the icon for patrolling would show up.
Click to expand...

That's a bug with the Galleass. I posted a fix in another thread, but only apply it before starting a new game, it would break a game in progress.
 
Here's my Calendar idea, based on the concept of a 1000-turn game. I've given each full age 150 turns, with 100 left over for the Future Age. I think the strength of this system is that each age lasts for a nice, round number of years (3000, 1500, 1000, 300, 150, 75, & 25, respectively) , with the exception of the Modern and Future. This would allow the calendar to be more easily scaled to the desired number of turns for different speeds, with the wiggle room mainly coming from redefining where exactly the border between Modern and Future lies [it could realistically be set anywhere between 2010 and 2030, IMO] and hence how many turns the Future gets.

Ancient: 4000 BCE - 1000 BCE @ 20 years/turn for 150 turns

Classical: 1000 BCE - 500 CE @ 10 years/turn for 150 turns

Medieval: 500 CE - 1000 CE @ 10 years/turn for 50 turns
1000 CE - 1500 CE @ 5 years/turn for 100 turns

Renaissance: 1500 CE - 1800 CE @ 2 years/turn for 150 turns

Industrial: 1800 CE - 1950 CE @ 1 year/turn for 150 turns

Modern: 1950 CE - 2025 CE @ 6 mos./turn for 150 turns

Future: 2025 CE - 2050 CE @ 3 mos./turn for 100 turns

Here's an alternative, which would be 650 turns, 100 turns/age with 50 for the Future. I would imagine this would be the new "Normal" Speed, which very closely maintains the relationship of 2:3 between Normal and Marathon, if the 1000 turn option I just outlined were Marathon.

Ancient: 4000 BCE - 1000 BCE @ 30 years/turn for 100 turns

Classical: 1000 BCE - 1 CE @ 20 years/turn for 50 turns
1 CE - 500 CE @ 10 years/turn for 50 turns

Medieval: 500 CE - 1500 CE @ 10 years/turn for 100 turns

Renaissance: 1500 CE - 1800 CE @ 3 years/turn for 100 turns

Industrial: 1800 CE - 1900 CE @ 2 years/turn for 50 turns
1900 CE - 1950 CE @ 1 year/turn for 50 turns

Modern: 1950 CE - 2000 CE @ 1 year/turn for 50 turns
2000 CE - 2025 CE @ 6 mos./turn for 50 turns

Future: 2025 CE - 2050 CE @ 6 mos./turn for 50 turns
 
Ooh I like that, nice and tidy. I've made a slight tweak to it, so that it matches the way I've done the other calendars:

Ancient: 4000 BCE - 1000 BCE @ 20 years/turn for 150 turns

Classical: 1000 BCE - 500 CE @ 10 years/turn for 150 turns

Medieval: 500 CE - 1000 CE @ 10 years/turn for 50 turns
1000 CE - 1500 CE @ 5 years/turn for 100 turns

Renaissance: 1500 CE - 1800 CE @ 2 years/turn for 150 turns

Industrial: 1800 CE - 1950 CE @ 1 year/turn for 150 turns

Modern: 1950 CE - 2000 CE @ 1 year/turn for 50 turns
2000 CE - 2050 CE @ 6 months/turn for 100 turns
Click to expand...

This change would make it reach 2050 in the Modern era like the other calendars do (see my reasons further back in this thread for why I'm not counting the Future era as a formal part of the calendar) and give a total of 900 turns. This fits in perfectly with the current scheme I have going:

• 600 turns (Normal)
• 900 turns (?)
• 1200 turns (Epic)
• 1800 turns (Marathon)
• 2400 turns (Odyssey)​

It's probably worth adding a 1500 turn (250 turns per era) speed in there as well. Anyone have any suggestions for names?


EDIT: I'll call one of the speeds 'Saga'.
 
If you're going to get rid of the Quick Speed, I suppose you could just call the 600 turn one Quick and go from there instead of coming up with yet another name.

If you want, I can do up options for the 1200, 1500, and 1800 turn Speeds in addition to the 900 and 600 that are easily made by combining the Modern and Future Ages in my other 2 examples. Should actually be easier than either of the other 2 as extra turns mean extra flexibility. I'm not really sure how well the system would work beyond 1800 turns as by that point pretty much the entirety of the last 2 ages would be 3 month turns but I can give that a try too if you really think it'd be worthwhile.

As far as getting rid of giving the Future Era time intentionally, I'm not sure I agree with it but it's your mod. The Calendar goes to 2050 for a reason, and while I agree that the point certainly doesn't seem to be to come up with all sorts of weird sci-fi stuff, I worry that if you don't give the Future Era any time at all in your Calendar, people will either have trouble making it to the end of the Modern Era by 2050 or they'll end up reaching each Era just a bit too early to compensate, depending on how you decide to balance tech costs. Now, I could see giving a considerably smaller window of time to the Future than I did for my examples, maybe even 1/3 or 1/5 of a standard Era, but I think it would be a mistake not to give it any. I would think that you would WANT an average player or AI to at least be somewhat into the Future Age by 2050, wouldn't you? These extra turns allow for that.
 
Caesar Augustus said:
If you want, I can do up options for the 1200, 1500, and 1800 turn Speeds in addition to the 900 and 600 that are easily made by combining the Modern and Future Ages in my other 2 examples. Should actually be easier than either of the other 2 as extra turns mean extra flexibility. I'm not really sure how well the system would work beyond 1800 turns as by that point pretty much the entirety of the last 2 ages would be 3 month turns but I can give that a try too if you really think it'd be worthwhile.
Click to expand...

After a bit of testing I think I'll go with the following scheme:

• Normal (600 turns, 100 turns per era)
• Epic (900 turns, 150 turns per era)
• Saga (1200 turns, 200 turns per era)
• Marathon (1500 turns, 250 turns per era)
• Odyssey (1800 turns, 300 turns per era)​

I ditched the 2400 turn one, it was just silly. I've got calendars for each of these now but I'd definitely be interested in what you could come up with too as you're likely to do some parts better than I have.

As far as getting rid of giving the Future Era time intentionally, I'm not sure I agree with it but it's your mod. The Calendar goes to 2050 for a reason, and while I agree that the point certainly doesn't seem to be to come up with all sorts of weird sci-fi stuff, I worry that if you don't give the Future Era any time at all in your Calendar, people will either have trouble making it to the end of the Modern Era by 2050 or they'll end up reaching each Era just a bit too early to compensate, depending on how you decide to balance tech costs. Now, I could see giving a considerably smaller window of time to the Future than I did for my examples, maybe even 1/3 or 1/5 of a standard Era, but I think it would be a mistake not to give it any. I would think that you would WANT an average player or AI to at least be somewhat into the Future Age by 2050, wouldn't you? These extra turns allow for that.
Click to expand...

My reasoning is the number of turns assigned per era should be the average needed. In a tough game a player may not reach or get far into the Modern Era, but if a player is pushing for a Space Victory or is just doing very well they'll be ahead of the curve and reach the Future Era. Obviously it will take a while to get everything tuned as such, but that is the goal.

As Howard mentions elsewhere, more needs to be added to the existing future techs to make them desirable to those not pursuing a Space Victory.
 
Yes; i have trouble 500-turn games as it is, I just can't seem to put in the time before I get distracted by other things. 1800-turn extravaganzas... I'd never even think about actually playing one, to tell you the truth.
 
I've put together a 300 turn Quick gamespeed that matches the scheme and will add it back in.

There's a frustrating hard-coded limit to how many Gamespeeds and Difficulty Levels can be selected in a non-customized game. I didn't realize that people actually played Quick so I cut it but it turns out that I can cut a difficulty level or two instead to solve the problem. Would anyone miss Settler and/or Deity if they were removed...?

Note also that the new Odyssey gamespeed is actually the old Marathon, just with 300 extra turns and a few tweaks to (hopefully) fit HR's progression better. The gameplay won't feel significantly longer, there's just more time available in certain eras. A similar change in concept to the now extended Normal and Epic gamespeeds, only they weren't renamed. The new Marathon is actually an entirely new gamespeed (as is Saga) but I felt that 'Odyssey' implied greater length than 'Marathon' and that's why I've named them the way I did.
 
If you only need to cut one, I'd pick Settler. I doubt that many people who are involved enough in Civ IV to not only still be playing it but to be using a mod like this have any interest in playing at that difficulty. I don't play much above Monarch myself, though I would imagine some grognard is out there who plays Deity...
 
Uhh, when I'm playing this mod I run into a strange problem. Chichen Itza/Temple of Kukulkan is now called "The Pyramids", while the real Pyramids is right next to it in the civilopedia. The Wonder has the correct civilopedia (Describing the Temple of Kukulkan) but wrong name.
Also, are both Artillery and Mobile Artillery supposed to be called "Artillery"? As now in the game former "Mobile Artillery" is now just called artillery. Is this intentional?
 
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