A few questions

[Rezca]

Alright, I'm hoping this is the proper forum, but since the thoughts on my mind covered a few different topics I wasn't sure where to put it or if I should have placed it in an existing thread. If it's out of place I apologize (I'm fairly new to the C2C forum ^^; )


Alrighty. So here goes.

I'm using the 7231 Build, having recently updated (My second update so far) and am playing through a new game on a Perfect World map. So far I'm only in the Ancient Era. I had fully cleared the cache by deleting all the files inside, and completely removed the mod before updating.

My first question is: I enabled 'Start as Minors' and had 'Divine Prophets' disabled. After researching Tengriism nothing happened. No message saying it was founded, and it never showed up anywhere. Druidism and Shamanism never got founded either, so I was assuming the AI skipped them for some reason, yet they never showed up when I tried to research them afterwards either. The question I have is if Minors can found a religion or not?
*EDIT* Right, was playing further and got a message saying Mesoptomasim was founded, so I guess one of the two AIs that started off-continent might have gotten Druidism and the others. I was fairly positive I was the first to Tengriism's requirement techs though, but I guess I was wrong? Both of the off-continent AIs got killed by barbarians fairly early so I suppose I'll never know until the game's over.

Second: Is the sieging of cities at all practical before the arrival of catapaults and ballista? Currently - and in previous games - it was all but impossible at times since the AI would have dozens and dozens of defensive units in each city even in the Ancient Era, and the only real way I was ever able to take them was by bringing a horde of archers to archery bombard the city before hoping for the best. After the first time I updated C2C, this actually proved problematic because of an unintentional change that made the game pick the worst possible unit matchup when sending a group into combat, forcing me to pick the units to send in by hand and individually. (By this I mean the combat odds will display 80 or 90, but the combat log after the loss will display a chance of 20 or worse)

Third: When playing with Revolutions, when can I typically expect rebellions popping up? Late Ancient to Early/Mid Classic? This is assuming slow expansion and little to no actual warfare.

 

[Rwn]

My first question is: I enabled 'Start as Minors' and had 'Divine Prophets' disabled. After researching Tengriism nothing happened. No message saying it was founded, and it never showed up anywhere. Druidism and Shamanism never got founded either, so I was assuming the AI skipped them for some reason, yet they never showed up when I tried to research them afterwards either. The question I have is if Minors can found a religion or not?
*EDIT* Right, was playing further and got a message saying Mesoptomasim was founded, so I guess one of the two AIs that started off-continent might have gotten Druidism and the others. I was fairly positive I was the first to Tengriism's requirement techs though, but I guess I was wrong? Both of the off-continent AIs got killed by barbarians fairly early so I suppose I'll never know until the game's over.

If I'm not mistaken, with Divine prophets you don't directly found the new religion when you're the first to research a religion, but you gain a Great Prophet instead. This Great Prophet is then able to found the religion (or any other that you've discovered and that is not founded yet) in a city.
Read too fast, I thought you had Divine prophets enabled, not disabled.

Second: Is the sieging of cities at all practical before the arrival of catapaults and ballista? Currently - and in previous games - it was all but impossible at times since the AI would have dozens and dozens of defensive units in each city even in the Ancient Era, and the only real way I was ever able to take them was by bringing a horde of archers to archery bombard the city before hoping for the best.

I had mostly the same experience. In my game, I quickly ran over an enemy with obsidian weapons before he had archers, but afterwards it was much more difficult. Try bringing several rams to soften up the city (beware, they will most likely be killed in the process) and do not target the capital (which is usually very well defended).

 

[JosEPh_II]

<snip>
I'm using the 7231 Build, having recently updated (My second update so far) and am playing through a new game on a Perfect World map. So far I'm only in the Ancient Era. I had fully cleared the cache by deleting all the files inside, and completely removed the mod before updating.

My first question is: I enabled 'Start as Minors' and had 'Divine Prophets' disabled. After researching Tengriism nothing happened. No message saying it was founded, and it never showed up anywhere. Druidism and Shamanism never got founded either, so I was assuming the AI skipped them for some reason, yet they never showed up when I tried to research them afterwards either. The question I have is if Minors can found a religion or not?

Yes you can found religions with SaM. The reason you have not founded Tengrii yet even though you researched it 1st is that you Must have a Religion Civic active that allows a State Religion. This usually means that Divine Cult and then Prophets are the 1st to allow a religion to be Founded. I too usually try to get Tengrii 1st and then beeline to get Divine Cult so that I can activate ie Found Tengrii.

*EDIT* Right, was playing further and got a message saying Mesoptomasim was founded, so I guess one of the two AIs that started off-continent might have gotten Druidism and the others. I was fairly positive I was the first to Tengriism's requirement techs though, but I guess I was wrong? Both of the off-continent AIs got killed by barbarians fairly early so I suppose I'll never know until the game's over.

See previous answer.

Second: Is the sieging of cities at all practical before the arrival of catapaults and ballista? Currently - and in previous games - it was all but impossible at times since the AI would have dozens and dozens of defensive units in each city even in the Ancient Era, and the only real way I was ever able to take them was by bringing a horde of archers to archery bombard the city before hoping for the best. After the first time I updated C2C, this actually proved problematic because of an unintentional change that made the game pick the worst possible unit matchup when sending a group into combat, forcing me to pick the units to send in by hand and individually. (By this I mean the combat odds will display 80 or 90, but the combat log after the loss will display a chance of 20 or worse)

Early game taking of cities is a bugger and impo too hard as Archers get too big of a city defender bonus for any other units, even Massive stacks Horse and Elephants to overcome. I've had some discussion with ThunderBrd about this, but don't know if it's really been addressed properly.

Third: When playing with Revolutions, when can I typically expect rebellions popping up? Late Ancient to Early/Mid Classic? This is assuming slow expansion and little to no actual warfare.

Can't answer this one. I don't use REV.

JosEPh

 

[climat]

AFAIK, there is no civic requirement for founding religion.
You can get religions before Divine Cult. You just can't make it State Religion until Divine Cult.

 

[Rezca]

I was already running a civic that allowed for using religions when I researched Tengriism though

Druidism, Shamanism, and the others all showed the little prayer icon in the corner saying they hadn't been founded yet, and the Religion Advisor never showed any religions either.

There were two AIs not accounted for (Toku and someone else) but they got killed by Barbarians somewhere along the line. I found this out when I was using the World Builder to spawn in those three religions. I guess they started alone on a continent and thus got overwhelmed by barbarians.

I would have gotten a 'Founded in a distant land' message though, but I don't think I ever did. Really not sure what happened there.

 

[Acularius]

I was already running a civic that allowed for using religions when I researched Tengriism though

Druidism, Shamanism, and the others all showed the little prayer icon in the corner saying they hadn't been founded yet, and the Religion Advisor never showed any religions either.

There were two AIs not accounted for (Toku and someone else) but they got killed by Barbarians somewhere along the line. I found this out when I was using the World Builder to spawn in those three religions. I guess they started alone on a continent and thus got overwhelmed by barbarians.

I would have gotten a 'Founded in a distant land' message though, but I don't think I ever did. Really not sure what happened there.

When in doubt, check the religion tab, it will tell you if a religion is already founded or not without looking up a message. It won't tell you who until you discover them, but its a start.
It will also give a good idea of how much of the world's population are its adherents, and until a sleuth of religions start appearing near the end of the classical - medieval era, its a good indicator of your opponent's control over the world's population.

 

[Rezca]

When in doubt, check the religion tab, it will tell you if a religion is already founded or not without looking up a message. It won't tell you who until you discover them, but its a start.
It will also give a good idea of how much of the world's population are its adherents, and until a sleuth of religions start appearing near the end of the classical - medieval era, its a good indicator of your opponent's control over the world's population.

I already checked the Religion Advisor though - nothing showed up there. I checked it right after I "researched" Tengriism and it was completely empty. No message about it being founded, no sounds or videos, and it never showed up in any city. I checked the world builder too - no cities anywhere in the world had any form of religion. So I added them in myself - giving me Tengriism, my AI neighbor Druidism, and the AI across my shores Shamanism. THEN they showed up on the religion advisor screen, but they never did get "founded" =/

I retired this game and checked the replay and there was absolutely no mention of those three religions being founded at all
Toku was overtaken by barbarians in 32,750BC (Wow), on the same turn I built the Venus 'wonder', and the Minoans exited the game in 19,750BC. No mention of any religion founding before or after then - except for the Mesopotanian Gods in the last 20 or so turns of the game. Oh and that fun little bit about the Barbarians being the first to discover Sedentary Lifestyle

 

[Flinx]

Sometimes the AI uses the Great Prophet to trigger a Golden Age.

 

[Rezca]

Sometimes the AI uses the Great Prophet to trigger a Golden Age.

Divine Prophets option was disabled though.

 

[Rezca]

Started a new game and religions are getting founded. I don't know what was happening (I checked and Divine Prophets *was* disabled in the other game, so I really don't know...)



Also, I recall something about a feature called 'Attack from Behind' or whatnot, that was causing weak units to throw themselves against enemies that they had no chance to beat when attacking in a group (Which the mouse-over odds would not calculate properly i.e. have a stack of eight units: two axes, two spears, two maces, and two chariots. You attack some stone spears and the game tells you have a 91% chance to win. You send the group in and the chariots attack and die, with the Combat Log stating you had a 6% chance to win, instead of the axes being sent in.)
This made combat frustrating and tedious since I'd have to pick out each of the units and manually send them in one-by-one and guess which ones in a large stack would be the best, sorting through until I found them. I have to hold down CTRL now the whole time since the Combat Modifiers (+% against Melee, % Withdraw chance, # First Strikes, etc) are hidden by default now =/
(It's nice that the large amount of text about the 'Wields this/that, has this armor, is this large' is hidden, but was it necessary to hide the standard modifiers too?


Was this bit about the 'Attack from behind' something that was hard-coded into the mod or was it a 'hidden option' that could be disabled by editing the save file? Is it difficult to disable or would disabling it just break something else?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Started a new game and religions are getting founded. I don't know what was happening (I checked and Divine Prophets *was* disabled in the other game, so I really don't know...)



Also, I recall something about a feature called 'Attack from Behind' or whatnot, that was causing weak units to throw themselves against enemies that they had no chance to beat when attacking in a group (Which the mouse-over odds would not calculate properly i.e. have a stack of eight units: two axes, two spears, two maces, and two chariots. You attack some stone spears and the game tells you have a 91% chance to win. You send the group in and the chariots attack and die, with the Combat Log stating you had a 6% chance to win, instead of the axes being sent in.)
This made combat frustrating and tedious since I'd have to pick out each of the units and manually send them in one-by-one and guess which ones in a large stack would be the best, sorting through until I found them. I have to hold down CTRL now the whole time since the Combat Modifiers (+% against Melee, % Withdraw chance, # First Strikes, etc) are hidden by default now =/
(It's nice that the large amount of text about the 'Wields this/that, has this armor, is this large' is hidden, but was it necessary to hide the standard modifiers too?


Was this bit about the 'Attack from behind' something that was hard-coded into the mod or was it a 'hidden option' that could be disabled by editing the save file? Is it difficult to disable or would disabling it just break something else?

The problem was... 'what IS a standard modifier?' Couldn't be easily answered. Sometimes it is 'standard combat modifiers' that are causing the display overload. I know it's less than optimal but there's some very frustrating limitations on what can and cannot be done in that display hover! A project to come may enable some condensing enough to allow the current 'combat modifiers' page to be the upfront default.

Lead from Behind... I'm really going to need to research how that 'option' is setup - I can't seem to find out where it's enabled/disabled either but I haven't looked in some ways I can in code evaluation. It is nice in theory but nothing should suddenly change which unit is attacking from the display you're shown in the combat help hover - on that we're agreed and find it equally frustrating. It's just not as straightforward what's taking place in the code and I haven't focused in on the issue enough yet to figure it out.

 

[Rezca]

The problem was... 'what IS a standard modifier?' Couldn't be easily answered. Sometimes it is 'standard combat modifiers' that are causing the display overload. I know it's less than optimal but there's some very frustrating limitations on what can and cannot be done in that display hover! A project to come may enable some condensing enough to allow the current 'combat modifiers' page to be the upfront default.

Lead from Behind... I'm really going to need to research how that 'option' is setup - I can't seem to find out where it's enabled/disabled either but I haven't looked in some ways I can in code evaluation. It is nice in theory but nothing should suddenly change which unit is attacking from the display you're shown in the combat help hover - on that we're agreed and find it equally frustrating. It's just not as straightforward what's taking place in the code and I haven't focused in on the issue enough yet to figure it out.

Ahh gotcha. I could probably just write them down I suppose - some are fairly easy to remember - axes slay melee, swords raid cities, maces are a hybrid. Some mounted units and tanks had real long modifiers for a variety of terrains and situations, so I suppose it is better this way.


It's not really much of a problem in the Prehistoric and Ancient eras, where combat is pretty simple - with the possible exception of city raiding. Armies aren't usually very large, nor very diverse, so it's pretty simple to hover over an enemy stack to see if you have a favorable outcome and then try and find which unit(s) in your group was the one providing those odds.
I know very very little about coding (Ruby's the only language I made any real effort in learning), and even less about CivIV modding, but I do know how difficult it can be to go bug hunting and troubleshooting things. I wish there was more I could do to help but alas.


That bit about city raiding... I really love early warfare, but with how fast defensive units can be made even in C2C's Prehistoric era (My favorite along with the Ancient), it's pretty hard to break a city before the advent of catapaults and other siege weapons. Rams can reduce a city's defenses, but there's not many units with [decent] collateral damage before catapults. I'd say it's impossible, but I have gone on a few conquering ventures without catapults before. It's difficult, but possible.