I've been working on a way of stopping the temples from being too powerful too early in the game. I have the idea of linking them to other improvements so that they cannot be built until other key buildings are present in the city. Combined with the resource requirements for many of the temples this should make buildings like the Theatre and Ampitheatre worthwhile building.
There is a basic progression from Agora ->Theatre -> Ampitheatre. I think of these as the basic skeleton of improvements.
The Agora allows you to build a temple to Hades, Hermes, Dionysus and Demeter, as well as other buildings like the library, court and Gymnasion.
The Theatre allows you to build the temples of Hera, Aphrodite and Apollo.
The Ampitheatre allows you to build a temple of Zeus, and a Hippodrome.
Temples of Poseiden require a Pharos.
Temples of Hephaestus will require a forge.
Temples of Ares will require a barracks.
How does this sound to anyone? Suggestions are welcome as always.
With emphasis on my knowledge of south Asia:
While many of these are luxuries, some may work for bonuses as well (ie + to commerce or shields in city).
You could split the incense: Things like myrrh and frankincense (the little globules of dried resin) tend to come from arid places like Yemen and the Horn of Africa, while Sandalwood (basically powdered wood) comes from the forested part of India. There are also aromatics (perfumes and essential oils - well-developed in south Asia). And medicinal herbs.
Glass, in the form of bottles, etc., blown into wooden molds, was a highly prized and valuable trade item throughout the Classical world. Ceramics in the form of Amphorae were also traded to India. Glass beads were also traded, with techniques such as millefiore being closely held secrets.
Some animals, such as monkeys or gibbons, were also traded. Birds such as peacocks and parrots also.
Cotton was an important export of India. Raw cloth, Batiked cloth, and carpets of cotton or wool from India, Kushan Empire, as well as Persia.
Spices could also be split up - pepper from India, saffron from the tropic isles, etc. Sugar loaves from India were sent as gifts to the emperor of China, so it would be a reasonable choice as luxury.
Ivory, carved and raw, was sought after in the west. Rare woods like ebony and teak were also imported for use temple furnishing in the west.
I've been working on a way of stopping the temples from being too powerful too early in the game. ...
How does this sound to anyone? Suggestions are welcome as always.
The temples are changed to require various other improvements. I've added a gymnasion and Shrines to Patrokles (in Abydos) and Cyrus (in Pasargadae). Cotton has been added as a bonus resource, mainly around India. Does anyone know if it was found in Egypt at this time in history?
I'll have a bit of a think about the splitting of spices and incense and stuff. Could be something I'd run with - it would encourage the player to trade for luxuries early in the game to keep people happy. Then olives and wines and gold and stuff like that could be downgraded to bonus or strategic resources. I'm not going to be doing this for the next patch though, maybe later.
I've added Greek Fire as the first air unit in the game. It gives a powerful bomard attack, but is a one shot unit. A catapult can carry one pot, and a siege engineer two. I'm going to get rid of the ballista I think, maybe replace it with a siege archer for the Persians. Persian Levy Cavalry will be replaced by a horse archer unit, I realised that it is probably not that realistic having the terms 'Levy' and 'Cavalry' together in the ancient era.
I've added the Tamil civ, but they are fairly undifferentiated from the other Indians at the moment.
Is this one of your favorite threads? I'm pleased indeed. I've got Papyrus in around the Nile, yes. It was going to be a strategic resource, but got downgraded to bonus during the efforts to crack the resource overflow bug.
How is your secret project going? I hope that we will get some clues or perhaps a preview soon.
Not so secret. I'm trying to use the Civ engine to (1) model historical forces, (2) begin with a historical basis which is relevant to the present day, and, (3) give the Player a full "Civ experience".
I begin in 1071 CE - after the Norman Conquest, and before Manzikert (where the Turks crushed the Byzantines) as I feel a decent power in Anatolia is necesary. And there's still the possibility that the Turks will turn against the Empire - or east against India.
Aside from what I've mentioned, starting at that year offers quite a few other advantages, including building religion into the game (more on that at some future date - although I do have some tricks I'm quite proud of: for instance, in Constantinople, there are two Great Wonders called "Hagia Sophia": one doubles the effect of Cathedrals, the other of Mosques).
- Oh, so much more to follow. I HOPE I can decently start a thread on (and devote some more serious time to) this project come April.
Not so secret. I'm trying to use the Civ engine to (1) model historical forces, (2) begin with a historical basis which is relevant to the present day, and, (3) give the Player a full "Civ experience".
I begin in 1071 CE - after the Norman Conquest, and before Manzikert (where the Turks crushed the Byzantines) as I feel a decent power in Anatolia is necesary. And there's still the possibility that the Turks will turn against the Empire - or east against India.
Aside from what I've mentioned, starting at that year offers quite a few other advantages, including building religion into the game (more on that at some future date - although I do have some tricks I'm quite proud of: for instance, in Constantinople, there are two Great Wonders called "Hagia Sophia": one doubles the effect of Cathedrals, the other of Mosques).
- Oh, so much more to follow. I HOPE I can decently start a thread on (and devote some more serious time to) this project come April.
Sounds good. A more thorough critique will be released when your preview thread comes to light. Good luck with it anyway.
I've moved to getting some more content into the final era of the scenario, and this quote from wiki will give everyone an idea of where I'm heading.
Spoiler:
Alexander's testament
Some classical authors, such as Diodorus, relate that Alexander had given detailed written instructions to Craterus some time before his death. Although Craterus had already started to implement Alexander's orders, such as the building of a fleet in Cilicia for expedition against Carthage, Alexander's successors chose not to further implement them, on the ground they were impractical and dispendious.
The testament, described in Diodorus XVIII, called for military expansion into the Southern and Western Mediterranean, monumental constructions, and the intermixing of Eastern and Western populations. Its most remarkable items were:
The completion of a pyre to Hephaestion
The building of "a thousand warships, larger than triremes, in Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and Cyprus for the campaign against the Carthaginians and the other who live along the coast of Libya and Iberia and the adjoining coastal regions as far as Sicily"
The building of a road in northern Africa as far as the Pillars of Heracles, with ports and shipyards along it.
The erection of great temples in Delos, Delphi, Dodona, Dium, Amphipolis, Cyrnus and Ilium.
The construction of a monumental tomb for his father Philip, "to match the greatest of the pyramids of Egypt"
The establishment of cities and the "transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties." (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historia, XVIII)
So, in civ terms, how do I implement these? Some ideas:
There will be a Great Port of Side, which will auto-produce Trieres or Penteres, to enable the player to take on the naval power of Carthage in the west. To complement this, Carthage will get a similar harbour that produces Triremes. Big naval battles are on the way.
The Pyre to Hephaestion and Tomb for Philip are fairly simple - Great Wonders that are limited to a particular city.
The Great temple building project is slightly more difficult, with so many Great Temples it would be rather difficult to make them all Great Wonders. I'm running out of things for them to do, so many improvements already produce various units, reduce corruption locally, increase ship movement, reduce War Weariness and make citizens happy - what could all these Great Temples do?
Movement of population - another tricky one. I guess I could make a unit available, migrant, like a settler but costing more pop, that can join cities but not found them. The establishment of cities - I guess I could make a few of the Great temples produce settlers, to allow for the expansion into empty territory near the end of the game. Another idea - I could use dummy cities as bonus resources, that give really good bonuses and let cities grow really big, but they would only be revealed by some of the late techs. This would represent the hellenistic expansion without increasing the micro-management burdon on the player.
The North African Trade Route - Again, tricky. I can allow a special worker late in the game that will be able to build roads on desert terrain, that is just the start of it though, how can I convince a non-historically minded player (will any of these go near a scenario like this anyway?) that they want to build a long road to no-where in particular along te North African coast? I guess I could use a strategic or luxury resource trick to make useful resources available only if you complete a good section of the road along the North African coast. I just thought too, that I could make the big Phalanx armies and Argyaspides incapable of loading into a transport ship. That would more or less force the player to build the road to get their forces over to Carthage. It would mess some of the other map features up though.
Finally, I'm thinking about getting rid of the port and river port improvements and replacing them with a number of Great Wonder ports, rather like Nile Alexandria, Carthage and Alexandria Charax already have. Thoughts? Any ideas? Help.
Well, considering the feedback that I got from the last post I've gone ahead and added most of that stuff in. There's more to do in the fourth era now. I think that I have also got all of the Victory Conditions working properly too, so you can now actually win the game.
But I have hit a problem. One of the Victory types was for the Alexander unit to be upgradable to an Alexander's Sarcophagus unit near the end of the first era - then the player would have to get the sarcophagus back to one of the VPs in Macedonia or Nile Alexandria. To make this more interesting I was going to have a load of powerful units spawned at this time by various civs around the map, which would hopefully go rampaging through the Alexandrian Empire and stop this Victory type from being a cakewalk. The problem is in making sure that the spawned units can only be spawned if the player goes down a particular route in the tech tree.
To clarify:
If the player chooses to research the Death of Alexander tech then nearby civs should get some serious firepower.
If the player chooses to research other techs from the fourth age then nearby civs should not get this firepower.
Only one (rather clumsy) way of doing this occurs to me, but it depends on one thing - if the human player researches a tech that makes a wonder (owned by an AI civ) obsolete then does that wonder become obsolete, or does the AI civ have to research the tech too? Hope that question makes sense - I seem to have the talent of making the simple sound complicated.
Hmm, so Tech A makes it possible to build a wonder that gives you two free techs, and allows the AI civs to make Wonders that spawn units.
Tech A -> Tech B -> Tech C AND
Tech A -> Tech D -> Tech E.
Then the player can either get Tech B and C when they build the wonder, or they get Tech D and E. Tech C would give you the ability to upgrade Alexander to a flag unit, and therefore gives you the ability to win the game. Tech E makes the wonders that Tech A gives you obsolete, so the player would just have to give Techs D and E to the AI civs when it gets researched. Very clumsy, but it might work. Oh how I wish that Civ 3 had an events editor like Civ 2.
I guess that my next job, after putting in so much stuff that is really cool for the player, is to put in some stuff that really hurts the player. I will work on that over the weekend. I may be in a position to release an update, say V0.9 next week sometime if anyone is interested in testing.
The latest version (0.9) is running more or less OK I think. Here's some random ideas that I thought might make things a bit better:
1 - Expand the Thracians to include the Panonians and Illyrians to make them a more major player in Europe. I could then try to get a more flavoured unit line up for them.
2 - I will need to have a look at the geography around Thrace and Dacia. Mirc is working on a large scale map of the area that puts mine to shame in that respect, and considering the amount of Thracians and Dacians on this forum I had better make sure the map is realistic (despite being based on an ancient Greek guy's idea of what the world looked like).
3 - Kataphractoi! The Seleucids didn't really start using them until quite late, about 270 BCE I think. But how about making them available to the Persians, and as a late unit for the Alexandrian civ?
4 - Gaias is back! But how long for? His new Roman Equites will be going in to the scenario. Not really an idea this one, but I wanted to tell someone about it.
Any thoughts on the above? Especially the cataphracts - in or out? And should I keep Thrace, or go with something like 'border kingdoms' or 'subdued barbarians'?
1. Yes!
2. Sure
3. Yes, as a late unit for all Eastern (and Alexandrian) civs
4. I'll look at the unit and get back to you as to how I think it could be used EDIT: How about an updated Prodomii (SP?)?
And keep Thrace, it sounds more formal than the other 2 ideas, and it should also promote Thracian awareness on the forums to people who would otherwise mistake them as literal barbarians...
I think you're safe with the cataphracts, even though IMHO they arrived a bit late on the scene than your scenarion. HOWEVER, there appears to be some scholarly debate on this. To quote from my least-favorite but in this case easiest source, the Wikipedia:
"Vegetius writing in the 4th century described armour of any sort as "cataphracts" - in his day this typically would have been lorica hamata or lorica squamata. Ammianus Marcellinus in the 4th century mentions cataphracti equites (quos clibanarios dictitant) "cataphract cavalry (which they call clibanarii)".
Modern scholars have therefore had trouble determining what exactly cataphracts were in late antiquity, as well as determining whether or not they were different from clibanarii."
Virote - I had been intending to use the Roman Equites by Gaias as a Roman Equites. But actually, your suggestion is pretty good.
On the Cataphracts - OK, I'll put them in. There are loads of cataphracts on the CFC forum - has anyone got a favorite one? (NOT a Byzantine one )
Oz - your sources are Roman, from about 700 years after Alexander. The Clibinarii were more Sassanid era rather Hellenistic, they were rather similar to european knight AFAIK. I think that an early cataphract should be a little less heavily armoured than what we have become used to in modern video games. But one things for sure - there is some healthy debate about what exactly a cataphract was. I even found one person on the Civ4 forums stating that Companions were the same as cataphracts.
On the Thracians - Some unit ideas.
Peltoi light skirmisher
Agrianoi elite light skirmisher
Thureophoroi skirmisher/light infantry
Falxophoroi heavy infantry
Some kind of Hoplite/Phalangite?
Sarissophoroi light cavalry with pikes/lances
Prodomoi Scout cavalry
catapult for artillery
Lots of pirates for the Illyrian cities
Are there any Thracian experts out there? Does this sound plausible? I actually want to play the game with this army now. Perhaps I should make Thrace playable...
Also, Alexander would be able to recruit the Sarissophoroi. One concern I have is that the Prodomoi and Sarissophoroi seem to have been practically the same cavalry, just that they got equipped differently when going into battle. Should I compress them into a single unit or leave them seperate? If I just gave the Sarissophoroi radar and the recon ability then that could represent things quite well, and then I would free up a unit graphic for another cavalry.
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I've got Papyrus in around the Nile, yes. It was going to be a strategic resource, but got downgraded to bonus during the efforts to crack the resource overflow bug.
- what could all these Great Temples do?
