Acularius' GEM for Caveman2Cosmos
- Thread starter Acularius
- Start date
Acularius
King
Hmmm, well I still think reptiles should not be able to go up to the tundra, permafrost and ice regions...
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
They shouldn't, nor should Rockhopper penguins be able to enter rocky plots not next to the ocean.
I'll look at the reptile ranges.
man o man does this map need ancient start, prehistoric is jaw droppingly boring, especially if you start as minor, you have to go through 500+ turns before you can really do anything and even then you are nowhere near writing.. its just frustrating, not fun at all.
If you *really* want to just get past prehistoric, you can do an rather easy work around. Just go to the world builder. There is an option "Add tech by era" where you just pick prehistoric for everyone (it's a bit annoying especially because you have to go through so many nations, but after you're done you can make a save to go back to later).
Now everyone starts in ancient era. I'm not sure if there are any negative side effects in the long run, but I don't think there should.
Also, if you play as a middle eastern nation, minor start is REALLY fun
Yeah ive done this b4, the only problem is if you save it to use later, the one civ you picked is on immortal difficulty (my one) whereas all others are noble, so you have to use same civ. Also it takes a long time going through 46 civs adding all prehistoric techs, but yeah point taken.
Guess i could just play as noble then edit and save and then when i play use flexible difficulty
Guess i could just play as noble then edit and save and then when i play use flexible difficulty
If you *really* want to just get past prehistoric, you can do an rather easy work around. Just go to the world builder. There is an option "Add tech by era" where you just pick prehistoric for everyone (it's a bit annoying especially because you have to go through so many nations, but after you're done you can make a save to go back to later).
Now everyone starts in ancient era. I'm not sure if there are any negative side effects in the long run, but I don't think there should.
Also, if you play as a middle eastern nation, minor start is REALLY fun
I'm playing Persia in my current game, and I also thought prehistoric went by (well I'm still in it, but really the bit up to tribalism - it's ok after that IMO) a bit slow. It's not necessarily that there are too many turns, it's just that the tech tree is a little sparse in terms of the impact new techs have (partly this is due to a lot of it being there to support nomadic starts which isn't fully enable yet, so it may be a transitory condiiton, though certainly a concern for V23).
A bigger problem (at least IMO) is that it just seems too easy. On Imortal with increasing difficulty (so diety fairly fast) I have the lead in all demographics and the tech lead (though that's close) well before sedentary lifestyle (I'm still some way from that). I can see at least 3 factors that are causing this:
- AI isn't hunting actively enough, and is devoting too much energy to pointless squabbling when there is so much unclaimed land
- Related to the above, the AI is over-aggressive, but ineffectually so. I get AI attack stacks that are not ridiculously weak, but just aren't quite enough to get past my defenses, every 50 or so turns. The net effect is to waste the attacking AI's resources and promote my great generals
- Again related to the above, the AI really really sucks at handling great commanders
- I have been able to (easily) support 5 cities in Anarchism, even though that causes me 6 extra unghappy people in every city, and I'm on diety base happyness. That's down to a ton of happyness produsing buildings and resources (my capital has +9 from buildings, +7 from resources and I'm noweheer near sedentrary yet, so this is all very early stuff)
So, I think work is needed in the following areas:
- Make the AI (when at war only through minor-civedness) less aggressive, and increase its resources devoted to hunting instead.
- For those AI that do decide to be aggressive (we want some variation after all) increase the threshold at which it decides it has adequate force. It also needs to take a hard look at what units it has in it attack stacks (too many trained dogs still)
- Improve Great Commander AI
- Make some balance changes so that happyness isn't so ridiculously easy to manage. Happyness directly from resources needs curtailing somehow, and so does the amount of happyness available on buildings early on. We might need percentage happyness mods or fractional ones. I'm not sure on the best way to address this.
Obviously the AI work falls to me. Hopefully the team at large can come up with somethign on the last point (balancing happyness better)...
yeah i don't use great commanders for this reason, u can abuse them way too easy, i also feel start as minor stuffs AI up. A good strategy is never to go to war unless you have no room to expand or a neighbour is easy picking, but AI seem to think its a good idea to goto war with civs of similar power and thereby stagnate there progress.
I started a game as otto's immortal diff and game was basically over shortly into ancient in my opinion, i had already killed persians had like 10+ cities and was way ahead in techs and had nearly every wonder etc. So im playing as england now but my god is it boring lol
Those governor pets buildings that can be built by literally any animal (i think) which give +1 happy each could be changed I feel, they give culture and less likely to revolt i think, this is enough.
I started a game as otto's immortal diff and game was basically over shortly into ancient in my opinion, i had already killed persians had like 10+ cities and was way ahead in techs and had nearly every wonder etc. So im playing as england now but my god is it boring lol
Those governor pets buildings that can be built by literally any animal (i think) which give +1 happy each could be changed I feel, they give culture and less likely to revolt i think, this is enough.
If you are playing as England I strongly recommend you switch the auto-end-turn option on. I actually added that option while playing England in a GEM game myself!
Acularius
King
Once I got to ancient as Siam, I was literally just looking down on every other nation. I essentially taught the Chinese 'monarchy' and they finally stabilized
Would the ai be just as effective if I turned off the aggressive options?
I do enjoy minor civs as it gives a pretty good feel, although with the new tech tree I think writing is too far away now... you could probably push it a little earlier now.
Granted I stopped that game accidently by saving over it, but the only difficulty I had was securing Iron and copper, but managed to get them early on.
Actually I think the AI doesn't understand the expansion limits placed on it by the civics, I've seen way too many AI overexpand and suffer unhappiness to the extreme due to the mismanagement of their expansion. They should be able to realize that -3 happiness across all their cities is a bad thing.
Actually China was doing great with 3 of her 'core' cities in the Yangtze Delta being at incredibly high populations, and she proved to actually be a technological competition until civil war destroyed the population centre of the one. Then she fell apart until I stabilized her with despotism and later monarchy. [Due to overexpansion and mismanagement of her happiness. :/ ] (Seems to me a common problem that the AI can not handle.)
So better happiness management for the AI should help them out a bit.
Would the ai be just as effective if I turned off the aggressive options?
I do enjoy minor civs as it gives a pretty good feel, although with the new tech tree I think writing is too far away now... you could probably push it a little earlier now.
Granted I stopped that game accidently by saving over it, but the only difficulty I had was securing Iron and copper, but managed to get them early on.
Actually I think the AI doesn't understand the expansion limits placed on it by the civics, I've seen way too many AI overexpand and suffer unhappiness to the extreme due to the mismanagement of their expansion. They should be able to realize that -3 happiness across all their cities is a bad thing.
Actually China was doing great with 3 of her 'core' cities in the Yangtze Delta being at incredibly high populations, and she proved to actually be a technological competition until civil war destroyed the population centre of the one. Then she fell apart until I stabilized her with despotism and later monarchy. [Due to overexpansion and mismanagement of her happiness. :/ ] (Seems to me a common problem that the AI can not handle.)
So better happiness management for the AI should help them out a bit.
I have aggrssive AI turned off in my game. They are still too (strategically) aggressive.
The AI does understand the city limits, and should never spam itself into unhappyness. If you see an AI do that then you need to post a save game. Also I strongly recommend you run with AI logging turned on (it's a BUG option now, which I added a few weeks ago) so that we can get some clues as to what is happening, even without save games, in cases like that.
strategyonly
C2C Supreme Commander
@Hydro/DH, i believe this issue really falls in you'll purview areas. Mainly Hydro in the PreH Era. What do you think of this?? Might want to re-look how Johny Smith had his era set up?
@KL: On the Great Commander stuff do you think maybe take them out completely and just move the Nobles etc closer and with the GC promotions available to them, or do you think you can address the AI to better resolve the GC issues?
Personally I love the GC mechanic, and it's already a game option so I see no reason to remove it. I'm sure I can improve the AI's use of it when I get time (probably not until v25though, since I expect I'll be working on mutli-maps and massive m,ap scalability issues during the next cycle)
Acularius
King
Russia's middle area, aside from the mountainous region is actually pretty temperate, and I was chalk it up to have temperatures that I've witnessed in Nothern Ontario in the Thunder Bay region, however less rocky and with more readily arable ground (and its the steppes, so more pasture land). So that's why that area looked right to me and I never did anything to it when I went around making the Mexican area and Tibetan area spruced up a bit. [Pretty sure the area is 'plains', which matches up with some information I can find of the area. http://www.rusnature.info/reg/13_3.htm ]
As for the Ainu and the Japanese, I was sincerely hoping that one might conquer the other (for an early city gain), BUT, I've only played one game with them... so I can't base everything on the one game I had going.
I just can't bring myself to delete the civilizations in the Middle East area, as it proves VERY interesting, last game the Byzantines conquered it all, but it could very much have gone another way. HOWEVER, the Arabians need some loving as I've never seen them go far at all, and I'm tempted to just remove them.
I do have terrain damage on, so maybe the AI is less willing to deal with that than myself the player.
As for Spain and Portugal, I might get rid of Portugal, however, I don't really want to do this as it tends to gears the AI towards expanding off the Iberian penninsula VERY early whereas with Portugal around, they usually fight one another until the death and THEN proceed to make forays into Europe.
As for the Ottomans in my last game. They didn't do much. The Chinese actually set a city right on their borders essentially and I instantly thought that the Silk Trade route was built, for the Chinese, in actual form.
I'm going to get another game going, and then work on the map again.
EDIT: I also heard that SO was shortening the Prehistoric Era so, good news all around. I enjoy it, but it does seem to drag on at points. (Essentially I get to a point where I'm essentially 'waiting' for Tribalism and Chiefdom)
EDIT 2: To be fair, the most fun I have is usually playing the Middle East, but recently I tried a game in Siam until I accidently overwrote my save.
So now I'm going to give the Japanese a shot, or the Ainu, I really do dislike the amount of choice for the Japanese leaders given. Korea could have some more choices as well.
[Not much on Aggressive/Deceiver, I much prefer philisophical or something.]
EDIT 3: My stance though from Paradox Interactive forums has never changed though, I much prefer Historical 'Plausibility' (what ifs are easier to deal with in Civ 4) than Historical 'Accuracy' (Train track this is holy writ and thus must be. Does not take into account of player intervention and can lead to wierd situations and scripted events.0
The changes i made are not necessarily recommended. Just an alternative to your map for someone who can't be bothered doing it themselves who wants a fair chance for all civs and also provides an ancient start.
I agree that russian lands aren't all ice its just that its this big area that otto's can go to on a city building spree with. Games i've played otto's get 30 cities while most need to war to get beyond like 10 or 12.
I agree that russian lands aren't all ice
its just that its this big area that otto's can go to on a city building spree with. Games i've played otto's get 30 cities while most need to war to get beyond like 10 or 12.
Acularius
King
The changes i made are not necessarily recommended. Just an alternative to your map for someone who can't be bothered doing it themselves who wants a fair chance for all civs and also provides an ancient start.
I agree that russian lands aren't all ice
That's a legit reason, I just don't seem to have games where the ottos dominate like yours do.
Not saying they don't as all games are different, but the Ottos seem to do it regularily for you.
(Whereas they have never done it for me, I say this and now the game I started will see an Ottoman Empire )
Acularius
King
Russia and the Huns usually do squabble up until one gains an upper hand in gaining a barbarian civ.
The Mongols and Koreans usually fight over a barbarian city that spawns in the area of Port Arthur, essentially on the border of Korea and Manchuria... China, as I remarked earlier did remarkably well, and faced some problems from the Koreans and Mongols harassing their Northern borders, and the Chinese actually expanded over that desert and set a city next to the Ottomons. I think the Mongolians were actually expanding in the Ural direction, but didn't quite make it that far.
I think this game the Ottos were sufficiently kept under control, but I'm not 100% here.
Granted it could have ben me but the Tibetans just stayed in Tibet until they were eventually conquered by the Indians. China and I aggressively expanded north and south respectively and India grabbed the barb city that spawned in the Bengal area early on thus cutting off Tibet from any possible southern expansion routes.
Now I'm beginning my Japanese game and its fairly early to make any judgements at the moment. I am noticing a severe lack of hunting that made my other games more successful.
Similar threads
- Poll
