1.16 released

[Simon_Jester]

Alas, my BTS CD has gone missing; I won't be able to play the new releases for some time, until I find it.

Dagnabbit.

 

[Xyth]

A quick update on what I've been doing for 1.17:

My big task this version is to go through all the unit art, replacing some with new art that's become available. In particular, the Tamil finally get their own set and several other civilizations have updates, ranging from one or two units replaced to all but one or two units replaced! For a few civilizations I'm also doing a bit of texture swapping and editing to help make certain units or eras match better with the other art.

However, the most important goal of this 'unit art pass' is for performance; removing unnecessary textures and models, scaling oversized textures, sharing art between civilizations where there's minimal artistic difference, etc. I haven't done a review this in-depth since way back in 0.5 so although it's quite time-consuming I think it's going to be worth it. Even counting all the new art I've added, so far I've reduced the overall size of the unit art files by about 20%. And I'm not done yet! This will hopefully translate to some noticeable memory and performance improvements when finished.

 

[wanderm]

regarding inflation, I may be the only one experiencing it because I dont see anyone posting about it and I doubt the game is playable with this inflation rate. my first game was with vikings/saga/emperor and by like turn 350 (like 200 AD) my inflation was over 180 gold per turn with about 18 cities. inflation rate was like 60%, which can be compared to late soviet russian inflation before it collapsed. worst thing is, the crap keeps increasing faster than my economy. It may not be game breaking but very annoying so I deleted all the inflation and raised tech cost by 50% and the game is much better now from my point of view.
if anyone knows where and how to edit the compound interest of the financial trait to make it unlimited and not depend upon era please post here, I will be most grateful

Looks like I have stuffed up the inflation calculations. It's too high and it's amplified the slower the gamespeed you're playing. On Odyssey it's pretty much double what it should be. Attached is a fix, the file replaces the one at /History Rewritten/Assets/XML/GameInfo/CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml. As always, be aware that swapping a file like this can potentially break games in progress.

I suppose the intention is to have it running in the background, but I am interested as to how the human player (or for that matter the AI) can manipulate and/or temper inflation?

My best guess is that it could be, in gameplay terms, a function of army size and/or introduction of currency/banking etc?

As this possibly is an interesting subject, I was wondering whether anybody could share the parameters of "inflation" as a HR mechanic? For example: would growing or shrinking population/improvements/army size have an impact? What about improving resources or overproducing workers?

 

[Xyth]

I suppose the intention is to have it running in the background, but I am interested as to how the human player (or for that matter the AI) can manipulate and/or temper inflation?

My best guess is that it could be, in gameplay terms, a function of army size and/or introduction of currency/banking etc?

As this possibly is an interesting subject, I was wondering whether anybody could share the parameters of "inflation" as a HR mechanic? For example: would growing or shrinking population/improvements/army size have an impact? What about improving resources or overproducing workers?

Inflation isn't something the player or the AI has any influence over (though there is one random event that can affect it I think). It's not really meant to be a simulation of how real world inflation works, it's just a game mechanic to stop costs becoming trivial and empires becoming unfeasibly large later in the game. Its rate is determined by both gamespeed and difficulty level it doesn't kick in for a defined number of turns (called the offset), which I've set to be turn 100 on Normal (it's turn 80 in BTS). I try to keep both the rate and the offset proportional to what it is in BTS.

 

[wanderm]

Okay: should have known it was already in BTS. Rookie mistake.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Xyth]

I've been out of action for a few days due to the hard drive in my MBP dying. Everything was backed up though so nothing was lost. Huzzah for Time Machine!

 

[artyom]

from what ive read in some bts thread, higher maintanance speeds up inflation greatly. so having many cities will not only make your maintenance higher, but will also speed up the gain of the inflation. also i read that buildings like courthouses reduce the inflation upon being built. I havent confirmed this though as I have completely deleted inflation from this map, and the other mod that I play basically doesnt have it (rhyes and fall of europe)

 

[Xyth]

from what ive read in some bts thread, higher maintanance speeds up inflation greatly. so having many cities will not only make your maintenance higher, but will also speed up the gain of the inflation. also i read that buildings like courthouses reduce the inflation upon being built. I havent confirmed this though as I have completely deleted inflation from this map, and the other mod that I play basically doesnt have it (rhyes and fall of europe)

The inflation rate is a percentage, so having higher maintenance costs means proportionally higher inflation costs. The actual inflation rate isn't affected in any way by maintenance though, it just increases steadily as a game progresses.

 

[Aldernablou]

To XYTH & his Chums



Amazing Work !!! All is Good : beautifull graphs , greats new concepts and a really good trip for the gameplay

Merci à toute la Team d'History Rewritten pour ce Super Mod offert pour les Macgamers !

testé & adopté par un Civ H.R. Fanatic

 

[Xyth]

To XYTH & his Chums



Amazing Work !!! All is Good : beautifull graphs , greats new concepts and a really good trip for the gameplay

Merci à toute la Team d'History Rewritten pour ce Super Mod offert pour les Macgamers !

testé & adopté par un Civ H.R. Fanatic

Merci beaucoup! Very glad that you're enjoying HR

 

[Xyth]

A quick note to mention that I'm treating the end of March as the deadline for the release of 1.17. Saying that publicly hopefully means I'm more likely to make it happen

 

[Skidizzle]

A quick note to mention that I'm treating the end of March as the deadline for the release of 1.17. Saying that publicly hopefully means I'm more likely to make it happen

This means I'll have to make this last Odyssey game a quick one

 

[Eucalyptus]

I find that I tend to get higher scores using the HR mod than with BTS.

I played for the first time as Napoleon, and he lived up to his reputation as a tough conqueror! Being able to access Standing Army and Monarchy in 4000BC is a strong advantage, and only helped by the access to Confederation after the first few cities have been taken.

The attached save shows a new personal record high score playing HR1.16 as Napoleon at Immortal level on a crowded Odyssey Standard Mixed map: A Domination victory in 230AD, for 738851 points. As usual, I switched off all the silly victory options, and only left Conquest, Domination and Time on. I've never played Immortal before, but the game felt fair and well-balanced: I only managed to catch up in technology shortly before the victory. Some of my conquest decisions were, with hindsight, late --- so the victory could probably have been earlier, and have yielded a higher score.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Maybe you are aware of this, I started a game as the Polynesia Leader Te Rau,
who is Traditional, and I did not see the extra happiness in my capital.

 

[Xyth]

Maybe you are aware of this, I started a game as the Polynesia Leader Te Rau,
who is Traditional, and I did not see the extra happiness in my capital.

Just checked this and it seems to be working as expected.

 

[Xyth]

1.17 Progress update:

Very nearly there. Just hunting down a few elusive crashes that I know about and doing some tests to see if there are any that I don't. The Anasazi are done but I still need to finalize a UB and UW for the Kongo. I've done some preliminary work on Brazil and the Mississippians but they won't be in 1.17 sorry.

Once the above has been done the last thing I need to do before uploading 1.17 is to run it in Windows BTS via virtualization to ensure I haven't broken anything on that side. I'm going to need to reinstall Vmware Fusion and Windows 7 before I can do that (I lost them when I had to wipe and restore my hard drive the other month), hopefully that process won't be too time consuming.

The unit optimization process has been huge. To give some perspective on it; despite adding two new civilizations and well over 100 new unit models, the size (on disk) of HR_Units.fpk has been made 25% smaller. And each civilization's unit art selection is looking more attractive than ever.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I SO wish I knew where my disk had gotten to...

 

[Keinpferd]

And each civilization's unit art selection is looking more attractive than ever.

Quite believe it. Meanwhile, you have the agony of choice. By now, you could field two alternative Celt armies with two different sets of unit art garment. But even the good unit makers sometimes go for quantity rather than quality, just to fill the ranks of a particular civilization quickly. Maybe they feel, that too few people really mind the difference, or that unit art makers don't get the reward they deserve, or both. Most of the feedback sounds rather respectful and thankful, that a certain unit art is "available", rather than honestly appreciative. A good "selection" can make up for this a bit.

Since 1.17 is on the home stretch, I better keep in mind my other idea, that I actually was going to propose.

(I'm really looking forward to see some jet fighters in a game again, I don't get to see them often.)

 

[Simon_Jester]

Ahem. While we're on the subject of civilization-specific jet fighters...

Some hero just did this.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=457539

We now have distinct 'skins' of the MiG-21 jet fighter (one of the world's most prominent combat aircraft during the mid-Cold War) for "Cambodia (for Khmer), China, Egypt, Ethiopia, 2 for India, Iraq, Mali, Mongolia, and Soviet Union."

Perhaps the Iraq fighter skin could be used for the Mesopotamian civs?

 

[Xyth]

Quite believe it. Meanwhile, you have the agony of choice. By now, you could field two alternative Celt armies with two different sets of unit art garment. But even the good unit makers sometimes go for quantity rather than quality, just to fill the ranks of a particular civilization quickly. Maybe they feel, that too few people really mind the difference, or that unit art makers don't get the reward they deserve, or both. Most of the feedback sounds rather respectful and thankful, that a certain unit art is "available", rather than honestly appreciative. A good "selection" can make up for this a bit.

Yeah, with some civilizations we are spoiled for choice, while for others there is very little or nothing of quality. One of the reasons 1.17 has taken so long is that I've taught myself some of the basics of unit making and have been making a number of improvements to lower quality units and have even produced quite a number of effectively brand new units. Nothing too fancy, I'm not messing around with Blender or 3DMax or such, but I'm able to tweak and swap textures and some simple parts around until something new comes out of it.

For example, the English civilization finally has an ancient/classical units that resemble Anglo-Saxons instead of some strange Germanic Celtic hybrid. I found a few Anglo-Saxon units in Realism Invictus and from those constructed the fuller range of units that HR requires. In a similar way I used some left over Celtic units to create some decent ancient Dutch units, replacing the current set that look like they're a bunch of renaissance Dutchmen playing with swords and axes. I've managed to fill gaps in many civilizations this way.

The Anasazi are probably the best example in 1.17. No-one's ever made any Anasazi units before so I assembled an entire pre-Renaissance set from 'spare parts'. They're not historically accurate of course, but they look cohesive and I'm pretty proud of them. My main issue with them is that most of them have shaved heads which is probably a bit inappropriate but hopefully I'll be able to go back and add some hair to them sometime in the future.

Ahem. While we're on the subject of civilization-specific jet fighters...

Some hero just did this.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=457539

We now have distinct 'skins' of the MiG-21 jet fighter (one of the world's most prominent combat aircraft during the mid-Cold War) for "Cambodia (for Khmer), China, Egypt, Ethiopia, 2 for India, Iraq, Mali, Mongolia, and Soviet Union."

Perhaps the Iraq fighter skin could be used for the Mesopotamian civs?

I saw those. There's quite a range of aircraft varieties and skins out there. I've even seen jet fighters emblazoned with SPQR hehe! With all the optimisations made in 1.17 I think the time has indeed come to look at adding some variety to those modern vehicle units that so far have none. Aircraft seem as good a place to start as any so lets try get some in for 1.18.

Where you and everyone could help me most is by constructing a list of which aircraft type is most appropriate for which civ (feel free to start a new thread for it). So for example, I imagine the English would have Spitfires for Fighters, the Americans would have a B-17 or B-52 for Bombers and the Russians would have some variety of MiG for the Jet Fighter. I'm happy with (in fact I'd prefer) several civilizations sharing the same model where appropriate. Note that I'd like to add a Biplane unit at some point too, so please include suggestions for those.

Slightly different topic: I'd like to add a Drone/UAV unit, which would unlock at Cybernetics. I'd like suggestions for how such a unit could be best implemented (Gunship-like? Bomber-like?) and what stats and abilities it could have.