1.23 Development and Discussion

[DragonMastrNova]

Speaking of the modern era...
I was thinking of something to bolster the modern and future eras, there could be a few future techs and units available, as well as possible future paths.

Basically, my idea when you reach the future era you have the option to go down a certain path technologically and culturally. Whatever path you take will have it's own benefits and detriments.

Say, for example, I play my usual game, huge map, max number of AI, and I'm playing as the good ol' USA. I hit the future era and seek to use technology to make everyone's lives better, maybe with a bit of military and space faring on the side. I keep my military all-volunteer and limit cloning to medical use only.

Because I chose the path that I did, I might get bonuses to happiness and health, additional options for espionage thanks to my meddling in space, along with advanced military techs like powered armor and railgun tanks. However, I don't have access to clone soldiers, which may be produced fast and cheaply, and overall my armies will be more expensive to produce.

Another example, my dear friend Meiji may choose to revel in economic and environmental techs, so he will have large bonus to commerce, trade and health, maybe he will be able to build improvements without clearing any natural features a tile may have. However, lets say he neglects his military so it lags behind technologically.

One last one, Mao Zedong and Yosef Stalin decide to bolster their ranks with cyborg clones and eugenics techs, giving units additional strength and makes them cheaper. However they may suffer unhappiness from the populace and increased crime and dissent.

I've really wanted to see a mod do this to some extent, and I think History Rewritten could benefit from it, because hey, once history has been rewritten, why not continue writing?

 

[Xyth]

Sounds good. Yeah, I thought about Feudalism but that is a very problematic word, at least it was when I was in school. Some quick internet browsing suggests it still is lol, especially for a concept that might apply to other cultures outside of Europe. But Clientelism, Tributary, Manorialism, Patronage, Elitism, these and other options are also fairly specific and perhaps don't really cover in a broad sense the kind of complexity actually found in the various societies. Maybe Feudalism is the best word among unsatisfying choices?

Yeah, there's all sorts of problems with the term 'Feudalism'. Will avoid it if possible. The term I'm currently considering is 'Hegemony'.

When I think about Equal Rights, it seems more related to Citizenship, the idea that all members of a society, no matter how stratified or culturally diverse, would have recognition as 'equal' before the law. I don't have a problem with it in the Legal category, it makes a lot of sense. However, Egalitarianism seems more like a general and broader social paradigm that could--and has--influenced authoritarian, theocratic, democratic, and various other forms of government and differing economic systems. I guess that is why it seemed like a good one for Society.

If Egalitarianism were to go in the Society category, it would replace/incorporate Multiculturalism. I need to figure out what I want to do with the Law category before deciding.

Speaking of the modern era...
I was thinking of something to bolster the modern and future eras, there could be a few future techs and units available, as well as possible future paths.

Basically, my idea when you reach the future era you have the option to go down a certain path technologically and culturally. Whatever path you take will have it's own benefits and detriments.

Say, for example, I play my usual game, huge map, max number of AI, and I'm playing as the good ol' USA. I hit the future era and seek to use technology to make everyone's lives better, maybe with a bit of military and space faring on the side. I keep my military all-volunteer and limit cloning to medical use only.

Because I chose the path that I did, I might get bonuses to happiness and health, additional options for espionage thanks to my meddling in space, along with advanced military techs like powered armor and railgun tanks. However, I don't have access to clone soldiers, which may be produced fast and cheaply, and overall my armies will be more expensive to produce.

Another example, my dear friend Meiji may choose to revel in economic and environmental techs, so he will have large bonus to commerce, trade and health, maybe he will be able to build improvements without clearing any natural features a tile may have. However, lets say he neglects his military so it lags behind technologically.

One last one, Mao Zedong and Yosef Stalin decide to bolster their ranks with cyborg clones and eugenics techs, giving units additional strength and makes them cheaper. However they may suffer unhappiness from the populace and increased crime and dissent.

I've really wanted to see a mod do this to some extent, and I think History Rewritten could benefit from it, because hey, once history has been rewritten, why not continue writing?

I like this idea, but I decided quite a while back that HR won't have a dedicated Future Era. Indeed, one goal of this late tech tree review for 1.23 is to try make more space for the 20th century at the expense of the future era. I've only got so much time I can devote to modding and the future era interests me much less than earlier eras. A few 'near-future' techs are okay, primarily to support spaceship victories, but I wish to avoid anything anything too futuristic or sci-fi. Sorry.

 

[DenkMal]

My suggestions after a couple Monarch/Saga games:

-I think the city defense bombardment needs to be re-added to Catapults because the AI can't seem to handle Rams very well. I have seen them walking around with SoDs mostly consisting of Rams.

-Artillery is a bit too strong in general. Very high retreat chance and good damage. If you leave their current strength, I suggest adding a siege-counter unit for each era (Saboteur?) that is able to reduce the damage units on the tile take and/or is able to pick out a siege unit from the enemy SoD and attack it directly. Or make Drill I reduce damage taken, and Drill II reduce for several/all units on the tile.

-I think it was already the case in Civ4 (I honestly don't remember) but why are chariots and horsemen still available after Horse Archers are teched? It just clutters the build tab. I realize Horsemen could be regarded as the cheaper alternative, but chariots are entirely obsolete.

-On Saga, you get 6 turns anarchy + 2 for each further civic. Yeah, not gonna change after Slavery for a very long time ... It's unfortunate because the early-mid game/mid game civics seem interesting.

-This might seem the most controversial opinion, but I think a lot of techs are filler that serve no purpose except to stretch the era. This mod is still much, much better than most total conversions that add hundreds of techs just for bloat's sake. But I think techs like Dogma, Guilds, Welfare, etc. could easily be merged into other ones, and in turn make those techs more meaningful. Right now, because of the scatter, I often have the feeling the only must-have techs are military ones.

-I honestly find that there are too many religions. This takes out A LOT of diplomatic tension when every civ has it's own religion anyway, and it's also lore/roleplay-wise meh.

-Since all civs have 2 or more leaders, I think it would be neat if the civ that separates in a civil war actually remains the same civ, but with a different leader. Not sure if it's technically possible, but would be pretty sweet and solve some gameplay headaches (foreign culture, unique buildings, etc.)

 

[dretnoth]

Xyth
Industrial Era -> ??? Era -> Digital Era

How about Combustion Era?

Or consumer Era? (The most of curent global economic is set on consumer (somthing))
Computer Era?
Electrific Era? / Electrified
Space Era?
scientific
Corporate Era.

Concrete Era. (And we have the Winner.)

Question:
Will be Refinery (NW) grain the city a acess to oil?
If empire dont have it alredy. Like artifical oil (WW2 germans) or Organic Fuel?

 

[ales_]

-I honestly find that there are too many religions. This takes out A LOT of diplomatic tension when every civ has it's own religion anyway, and it's also lore/roleplay-wise meh.

-Since all civs have 2 or more leaders, I think it would be neat if the civ that separates in a civil war actually remains the same civ, but with a different leader. Not sure if it's technically possible, but would be pretty sweet and solve some gameplay headaches (foreign culture, unique buildings, etc.)

-There is a Fewer Religions option.

-If you take examples from history, you'll see that in most of the cases a new civ was formed.

 

[Xyth]

-I think the city defense bombardment needs to be re-added to Catapults because the AI can't seem to handle Rams very well. I have seen them walking around with SoDs mostly consisting of Rams.

-Artillery is a bit too strong in general. Very high retreat chance and good damage. If you leave their current strength, I suggest adding a siege-counter unit for each era (Saboteur?) that is able to reduce the damage units on the tile take and/or is able to pick out a siege unit from the enemy SoD and attack it directly. Or make Drill I reduce damage taken, and Drill II reduce for several/all units on the tile.

It's been quite a while since I reviewed Siege units. Some plans I had for them never eventuated, so balance and the AI is a little off. On my todo list. Mounted units (except Chariots and Horse Archers) are the dedicated Siege counters.

-I think it was already the case in Civ4 (I honestly don't remember) but why are chariots and horsemen still available after Horse Archers are teched? It just clutters the build tab. I realize Horsemen could be regarded as the cheaper alternative, but chariots are entirely obsolete.

It's a side effect of allowing Chariots and Horsemen to upgrade to either Horse Archers or Heavy Horsemen. Once you've unlocked both, Chariots and Horsemen won't appear in the build options anymore. Also allows Chariot and Horsemen UUs to stick around a bit longer.

-On Saga, you get 6 turns anarchy + 2 for each further civic. Yeah, not gonna change after Slavery for a very long time ... It's unfortunate because the early-mid game/mid game civics seem interesting.

I'll be trying to fix this for 1.23.

-This might seem the most controversial opinion, but I think a lot of techs are filler that serve no purpose except to stretch the era. This mod is still much, much better than most total conversions that add hundreds of techs just for bloat's sake. But I think techs like Dogma, Guilds, Welfare, etc. could easily be merged into other ones, and in turn make those techs more meaningful. Right now, because of the scatter, I often have the feeling the only must-have techs are military ones.

Depends on your strategy. There's definitely a number of filler techs, but they're there for game pacing and for future additions.

-I honestly find that there are too many religions. This takes out A LOT of diplomatic tension when every civ has it's own religion anyway, and it's also lore/roleplay-wise meh.

Have a read through the Religion concept article in the pedia. Religion has changed a lot in HR, and religious diplomacy is very different, based on Tenet choices. There's also a 'Fewer Religions' game setting.

-Since all civs have 2 or more leaders, I think it would be neat if the civ that separates in a civil war actually remains the same civ, but with a different leader. Not sure if it's technically possible, but would be pretty sweet and solve some gameplay headaches (foreign culture, unique buildings, etc.)

Much more challenging from a technical point of view. Considered it, but in the end decided entirely new civilizations was more straightforward and fun. Incidentally, foreign culture is meant to be a headache; unless you're going for a cultural victory, culture was pretty undervalued in BTS. With HR's dissent system, and further changes coming in 1.23 (e.g. cultural dispersion over trade routes), you neglect culture at your own peril.

How about Combustion Era?

Or consumer Era? (The most of curent global economic is set on consumer (somthing))
Computer Era?
Electrific Era? / Electrified
Space Era?
scientific
Corporate Era.

Concrete Era. (And we have the Winner.)

My current choice is Global Era. See post #39 for my reasoning.

Question:
Will be Refinery (NW) grain the city a acess to oil?
If empire dont have it alredy. Like artifical oil (WW2 germans) or Organic Fuel?

No. I don't want to make it easy to opt out of oil dependency. Might add Biofuel Plantations late in the techtree, if I can find art.

 

[lindsay40k]

I don't like the lack of defence on Coast tiles. Coming out of a 50% battle unharmed is not extraordinary, and sending two Galleys to attack intercept a Barbarian created a monster. To put the boot in, a Caravel appeared in 800BC (how?); I was relying on Amber for happiness and it basically choked my growth until it lost interest anyd trolled the AI.

Also: Domestic Advisor should be able to list cities by loyalty.

 

[Xyth]

I don't like the lack of defence on Coast tiles. Coming out of a 50% battle unharmed is not extraordinary, and sending two Galleys to attack a Barbarian created a monster. To put the boot in, a Caravel appeared in 800BC (how?)

A Barbarian Caravel?

Also: Domestic Advisor should be able to list cities by loyalty.

You can on the Dissent page. Sorting isn't retained when switching pages though. That's something I'd like to fix if I can.

 

[lindsay40k]

Yeah, definitely a caravel. In frustrated desperation I threw a galley at it when it returned in 150BC from its trolling tour; my galley now has movement 4. Handy, but not worth the years of lockdown on my fisheries.

 

[schargiel]

I like the mod a lot. It is really done well.

2 Problems i noticed (playing in multiplayer mode):
- we cant get stone and marble
- a lot of error messages with eventmanager
- far slower than bts

maybe you can check it,
thx

 

[Xyth]

Yeah, definitely a caravel. In frustrated desperation I threw a galley at it when it returned in 150BC from its trolling tour; my galley now has movement 4. Handy, but not worth the years of lockdown on my fisheries.

Do you still have any saved games from around the time the Caravel first appeared? If so, please post it and I'll see if I can figure out how the Barbarians got it.

I like the mod a lot. It is really done well.

Thanks!

2 Problems i noticed (playing in multiplayer mode):
- we cant get stone and marble

All civs start with the Idolatry tenet, which blocks access to Stone and Marble. Once you've adopted a religion you can reform to a different tenet and get access back if you wish.

- a lot of error messages with eventmanager

Could you please enable logging if you haven't done so already, play till the errors occur and post your logs. I need PythonDbg.log and PythonErr.log. Multiplayer is a bit unstable in 1.22, and very difficult for me to test on my own. Your reports would be a big help.

- far slower than bts

The price of having all this new content and mechanics. I'll keep trying to optimise and improve as best I can. The error you describe above may be slowing your game down excessively though.

 

[Eucalyptus]

Do you still have any saved games from around the time the Caravel first appeared? If so, please post it and I'll see if I can figure out how the Barbarians got it.

I've also seen Barbarian Caravels.

 

[lindsay40k]

I've also seen Barbarian Caravels.

And I don't have any saves from the time when it was knocking around. I'll look out for them in future.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, there's all sorts of problems with the term 'Feudalism'. Will avoid it if possible. The term I'm currently considering is 'Hegemony'.

If you are looking for the expression of what is traditionally labeled medieval European Feudalism in a social context, you might want to go into the direction of the idea of "estates": Estates of the Realm. For example "Estates System" to contrast with the more rigid Caste System. The fact that Citizenship is also a planned civic makes this appropriate as well, because that is exactly what replaced the estates in Europe after the French revolution.

 

[Xyth]

If you are looking for the expression of what is traditionally labeled medieval European Feudalism in a social context, you might want to go into the direction of the idea of "estates": Estates of the Realm. For example "Estates System" to contrast with the more rigid Caste System. The fact that Citizenship is also a planned civic makes this appropriate as well, because that is exactly what replaced the estates in Europe after the French revolution.

I like that. It applies reasonably well to some non-European civilizations too. e.g. scholars in China.

 

[Xyth]

First draft. Please download the attached PDF and let me know what you think. Some notes:

• Crosslinking (e.g. -> G2) is not done. Will need to be several more in the final version.
  
• Great People preferences have not been applied/reviewed at all. Ignore these for now.
  
• Ancient to Medieval eras are largely unchanged. No changes to techs or connections, but a few items prerequisites have changed to accommodate the new and redesigned civics.
  
• Quite a few tech swaps and structural changes to the Renaissance and Industrial eras, particularly in the lower half of the tree. Wasn't intending to review this far back but glad I did. Several big anachronisms resolved and much better pacing of unlocked items.
  
• Renaming of Modern/Future to Global/Digital allowed an extra column of techs and better spacing of items to unlock. Hopefully I've solved all the anachronisms of the 1.22 tech tree.
  
• The Digital era isn't finished yet, aside from the first column. It's not meant to be a full era like the others, but I'm considering having several different repeatable 'future techs' rather than tapering down to just one. Different fields of research with different repeatable effects. Maybe.
  
• Apart from a few definites (e.g. Biplanes), so far I've focussed entirely on spacing existing content better and not on adding new stuff.

 

[Eucalyptus]

First draft. Please download the attached PDF and let me know what you think. Some notes:

• Crosslinking (e.g. -> G2) is not done. Will need to be several more in the final version.
  
• Great People preferences have not been applied/reviewed at all. Ignore these for now.
  
• Ancient to Medieval eras are largely unchanged. No changes to techs or connections, but a few items prerequisites have changed to accommodate the new and redesigned civics.
  
• Quite a few tech swaps and structural changes to the Renaissance and Industrial eras, particularly in the lower half of the tree. Wasn't intending to review this far back but glad I did. Several big anachronisms resolved and much better pacing of unlocked items.
  
• Renaming of Modern/Future to Global/Digital allowed an extra column of techs and better spacing of items to unlock. Hopefully I've solved all the anachronisms of the 1.22 tech tree.
  
• The Digital era isn't finished yet, aside from the first column. It's not meant to be a full era like the others, but I'm considering having several different repeatable 'future techs' rather than tapering down to just one. Different fields of research with different repeatable effects. Maybe.
  
• Apart from a few definites (e.g. Biplanes), so far I've focussed entirely on spacing existing content better and not on adding new stuff.

(I really like the name Global Era.)

In the draft tech tree, Conservation appears in the Renaissance Era and allows National Park.

I find it difficult to conceive of Conservation as a technology. Isn't it more of a Tenet or Civic?

Would this slot be better filled with Agronomy, the formal study of Agriculture, in harmony with the other sciences-themed technologies in that column. Agronomy can be regarded as leading to a Conservation ethic and a Fertiliser technology (whereas Conservation probably doesn't lead to Fertiliser.)

The first National Parks didn't appear until the middle of the Industrial Era. I can't see a really appropriate enabling technology for National Park, but perhaps Fertiliser would be better than Agronomy. (Facetiously, one could even say Photography!).

 

[Leoreth]

Got stuck on that tech as well, also the fact that it enables the Hudson Bay Company.

 

[henrique_lique]

I Really think another civ in north america is not needed, theres already a lot of civs on this small piece of land.

I really miss A Austro Hungary empire, or at least a Habsburg representative, if u imagine they had existed for at least 500 years. and for me, they re not the same as germans, as u have north italy, venice Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Bohemia, Bavaria and maybe Croatia being part of then.

Also, a Berber muslim would be cool (moors), But not one more north american indian!!!

 

[Leoreth]

North America is a small piece of land, but Europe needs another civilization?

If anything is missing from Europe it's a South Slavic civ (Bulgaria gets my vote), but world wide Native American representation is more important.