Armies

[Stalker0]

Expanding on it: Either that or not allowing players to enter the next era until at least someone has completed all of the techs in an era? So if there was a run away leader .

I would be opposed to requiring all techs in an era to be researched before a new era was opened. That said, you could require more prereq interaction among the techs to enforce general teching a bit more, instead of the beeline.

Also, one thing I think Civ IV did better than Civ V was military prereqs were such that powerful new units required a lot of techs. Infantry for example required rifling, as did calvary. Thal fixed the infantry problem but there are other areas where you can get access to military units....even though their real life required technologies don't have to be researched.

 

[lord_graywolfe]

you do not have to make the game require the completion of a tech era to slow down the tech rush. you can bottleneck the tech tree at a few spots, making a certain tech required for most techs after it and that tech would have a few prereqs to get before you could research it. you can still beeline to areas of the tech tree but it will slow you down. there should be the chance of getting a good lead on tech or units, the question would be if you would be able to use them effectively and would it be enough. example WWII germany developed jets and rockets way ahead of the rest of us but it was not enough to stop the standard military forces of the time from winning.

one thing from IV that i miss was tech brokering, where we could disable the outright tech trade and tech broker options. i liked the tech broker where you could only trade tech you personally discovered.

 

[Txurce]

I think that racing through the bottom section of the tech tree so that you have Rifles whilst everyone else is running around with sword is pretty crazy as well.

I never see Rifles vs Swords, or any disparity that large.

Generally Real Life Tech races are your tank is better than my tank so I am going to build a better tank, or your jet is better than mine, not my Tanks are going to wipe out your Pikeman.

Again, I rarely see tanks taking out pikemen. RL generally is about my tank or my tactics or my numbers being superior to yours, but Civ is not that detailed of a war game.

Beelining to another tech in another era just so you can get some sort of advantage on the other civs is gamey. Progress should move along at a relatively fixed pace and the Science driven nations should be able to bank more techs off the beaten path, but the majority of nations should be on the same basic level.

Beelining without artificial aids like vanilla GS's is gamey only in the sense that it's how the game called Civ works. It's also what creates variety, as some civs and human take different paths to achieve the various VC's.

Without being able to purchase advanced weapons from others, trade or steal Techs it simply becomes a who can get more buildings and population first race!

Yes, if you can't get techs or advanced weapons from others, then you have to research them yourself. Again, that's what the game is. I see the elimination of tech trading as a big improvement. It was way, way too easy to beeline for the designated obscure tech and the trade it to the AI for a raft of techs, thereby catching up. I'd much rather earn my techs by building infrastructure.

 

[Ahriman]

Agree with Txurce. The flexibility of different tech emphasis is part of what makes Civ fun. Locking players out of any kind of technological flexibility would make the game less interesting.

There are already some bottlenecks, where there are important techs that have to be researched for a large set of later techs. We don't need to lock players into a straightjacket.

 

[bwoww78]

I agree with the two above posts and would also add that maybe an easy way to help the ai vs human combat disparity would be to hardwire the ai to use its (almost always) mountains of gold reserves to upgrade obsolete units. I almost always see monte holding on to at least a handful of jaguars while he has rifles as well...

If this ends up hurting their economies due to increased maintainence costs, that could be adjusted for ai (based on difficulty), right?

I'd also say VEM's balance for counters plus the vanguard line is at a great balance right now as is.

 

[Txurce]

I agree with the two above posts and would also add that maybe an easy way to help the ai vs human combat disparity would be to hardwire the ai to use its (almost always) mountains of gold reserves to upgrade obsolete units.

This is a definite future to-do... but access is needed to the game code.

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah if the ai started to spend its gold, I think you would see a massive increase in difficulty.

 

[Dunkah]

Currently a country does not need to know how to manufacture an AK47 or an Anti-Aircraft missle in order to be able to use it, or have them in it's arsenal. Certain techs should be able to be skipped outright if a means to get them without it is present.

If I am a peacefull artistic nation I don't want to spend my time researching weapon techs. Being a peacefull nation I am probably going to have lots of friends any of whom should be able to either sell me weapons or supply me with that technology.

Currently the Tech system doesn't come close to reflecting that. Bottlenecks are just as much a hindrance to those lesser tech nations. It means they have to build a whole mass of techs before they can get to the counter of the weapon that you are currently producing.

The part you are missing here with my suggestion is that there should be fringe techs. Like advanced rifles, or bomb sights or bow rings etc. These would give someone who was advancing faster a slight technological edge in the era that they are in, perhaps in the form of a combat bonus or level up.

One off techs that can be skipped by slower advancing Civs. So that faster nations will get some benefit but the Galley vs. Battleship effect won't happen. You could still beeline within the Era. Also if you are beelining to the fringe techs and another player unlocks the era, now all of a sudden you will need to complete the basic techs to catch up.

You could even base the unlocking of the next era on those fringe techs. Build say 4 fringe techs to open the next era for eveyone. If the slower Civs still haven't caught up by then they will get left behind. After all there would still be a tree. There would still be route to follow. Prerequisites.

 

[Txurce]

The part you are missing here with my suggestion is that there should be fringe techs. Like advanced rifles, or bomb sights or bow rings etc...

You could even base the unlocking of the next era on those techs.

As Thal likes to say, these suggestions would be a separate mod, not VEM.

 

[mitsho]

I agree, that would be a fantastic addition to the Civilization Game World, but it's totally out of scope for this mod. "Technology" in any case seems to be a simplification in any case. There are either "mechanical"/engineering modernization, be that a catapult or a railroad, but there are also just "ideas" that boost something, f.e. crop rotation, but still relate to "nature". And then there are ideas of the human mind, philosophical schools and those relate mostly to society and organization. In civV, these are social policies, and it's badly done. Separate trees (but with links), one for military techs, one for "building" and one for "society" would imho be a clear advantage, but I am getting way off topic!

 

[Dunkah]

As Thal likes to say, these suggestions would be a separate mod, not VEM.

Thal has made some pretty major changes in this mod all ready. The whole Culture Victory system and Social Policy system has been altered. The Research Agreements and Open Borders agreements have been altered. All for the better.

This is not too far from any of those changes. It simply makes the Science Victory more unique, it causes Science based nations have to persue a longer Science path to the end game then other nations, it keeps Civ's closer to one another in basic techs and gives armies in the field more parity with less of a chance of a Battleship vs. Galley type event.

If you are the far and away leader in tech then yes it limits your choices. But for everyone else you will need to carefully pick your beelines within the era, or play it safe and stick with just the basic techs before grabbing at fringe techs.

Back on topic: Army wise you could still beeline a type of unit within the era, and start building that unit before other nations, but the amount of time you had that advantage would be shorter. And if you grabbed a fringe tech to enhance that unit you would enjoy an advantage into the next era. Especially if you had a gold advantage or manufacturing advatage as well.

 

[Ahriman]

What you are talking about would be a major, dramatic change in the design of the mod. It would redesign the tech tree, it would change combat, it would need AI code for the AI to understand when to get "optional" techs and when to ignore them.

None of these things belong in the main VEM mod.

 

[Jaybe]

I would think this would be in the Technologies thread.
Ramble:
Ideas are harder to block against than is trade, and trade has always leaked through closed borders (well, perhaps not between warring countries since 1900). Smugglers.
end ramble

Instead of having to add more complications to the tech tree, simply provide for the leaking of technology as was done (at least in some mods) in civ4:
The higher the proportion of civs have a tech, the more research points for that tech are leaked to those that haven't got it. With a limit (e.g., 90-95%) so a civ has to do SOME of it themselves.

I know, "That can only be done with access to the Core Rules that only Firaxis has access to."

--
I am bitter about Thal's research agreements: it speeds research progress more than in vanilla (because completion benefits aren't stoppable); I believe I preferred it when it was based on friendship agreements. As it is I've reduced the benefits from 3 to 1%.

 

[Txurce]

Instead of having to add more complications to the tech tree, simply provide for the leaking of technology as was done (at least in some mods) in civ4:
The higher the proportion of civs have a tech, the more research points for that tech are leaked to those that haven't got it. With a limit (e.g., 90-95%) so a civ has to do SOME of it themselves.

I know, "That can only be done with access to the Core Rules that only Firaxis has access to."

Actually, Thal can more or less do this, and I believe has. Originally it was in a separate mod called Tech Diffusion.

I am bitter about Thal's research agreements: it speeds research progress more than in vanilla (because completion benefits aren't stoppable); I believe I preferred it when it was based on friendship agreements. As it is I've reduced the benefits from 3 to 1%.

I really doubt it's faster than vanilla, which gives you an entire tech, no matter what the tech.

That large point aside, I much prefer a system that doesn't penalize players for the AI's byzantine DoF decision-making process.

 

[Atlas627]

Vanilla hasn't given you free techs for a while. When was the last time you played Vanilla?

Also I think gamey is fine. CiV is a game, not a simulation. And that is what most of the CiV haters hate about it. CIV was more like a simulation, but CiV has a good balance of number of choices and meaningful choices.

Beelining a tech is fine, its a decision you have to make and it has importance. Trading techs was always annoying for game balance. Adding fringe techs could certainly work, but it would be (in my opinion) needlessly complicated. If you wanted to put in fringe techs, that would be another mod, not this one.

 

[Txurce]

Vanilla hasn't given you free techs for a while. When was the last time you played Vanilla?

As you might have guessed, when GS's gave you free techs.

 

[Ahriman]

As you might have guessed, when GS's gave you free techs.

Same here. VEM is better. I don't know why I'd play vanilla.

Of course, the problem is, this makes it harder for me to enjoy any other mods, because they're still mostly based on vanilla mechanics. What do you mean, Maritime city states give bonus food in every city?!?

 

[Jaybe]

Last night (uh, 2 bleeping' AM this MORNING ) I was finishing up a game ... space race victory by one part
... and decided to delete a guided missile unit. My net income seemed to shoot up by 10gpt so I tried it again, only to find that it increased by 20gpt (which was confirmed by 3 additional tests).

I thought the maintenance cost was supposed to be ONE gpt for guided missiles.

----
Glitch in my game database or documentation glitch (or short circuit in my own biological memory)?
----

 

[Txurce]

Last night (uh, 2 bleeping' AM this MORNING ) I was finishing up a game ... space race victory by one part
... and decided to delete a guided missile unit. My net income seemed to shoot up by 10gpt so I tried it again, only to find that it increased by 20gpt (which was confirmed by 3 additional tests).

I thought the maintenance cost was supposed to be ONE gpt for guided missiles.

----
Glitch in my game database or documentation glitch (or short circuit in my own biological memory)?
----

Sounds like a bug. Why don't you post it in that forum?

 

[Jaybe]

Sounds like a bug. Why don't you post it in that forum?

Suggestion taken, thank you. Entitled "Guided Missile Maintenance Cost"