For me it is a sort of anti-climatic feeling, as I am at a point in my life where my gaming will necessarily wane. But finally, through this mod which Grave and his friends have worked so hard to produce, we have the best Civ simulation game ever. I can remember playing Civ 1 so long ago, and imagining how all the important facets of a realistic simulation COULD maybe, someday be made part of a playable game. I would say that the HiTM mod is 90% there.
In this note, I just want to write down for posterity my ideas about what would make HiTM an even better mod by making it a bit more like operational wargames (e.g., Matrix Games War in the Pacific or Forge of Freedom). Until now, I did not have any inclination to try my hand at modding. pre-BTS was still only half a game IMHO, and even BTS before HiTM was still so far from being 'complete' that I just didn't have the courage to dive into modding.
Sadly now, I'm more or less 'out of time' because I've got to focus on getting tenure these next few years, compounded by the fact that I have already made a committment to be a beta-tester for a Matrix Game.
Maybe I'll make some headway on modifying my own copy of HiTM and playing around to see if any of these ideas work or not. But then again maybe I won't. I know I'll fiddle with it a bit this afternoon, but the next time I'll be able to work on modding could be a while. So if any of these ideas are of interest to any of you, I welcome you to take them and use them yourself!
Anthropoid's ideas for modifications to the History in the Making mod
Seven Goals
1. Fundamental changes to how units operate:
(a) make units much harder to completely destroy (whole units, even brigades, do not evaporate so easily) primarily by giving nearly all units in the game some probability to "withdraw" from combat in the way that pesently only mounted units have. Specifically, at present horse archers have a 20% withdrawal chance, and chariots 10%. Instead, make 25% the basic level for virtually ALL units (with some exceptions like Elephant units that perhaps should have a lower % or perhaps no chance at all to withdraw). In addition give all the mounted units that already have withdrawal percentages, that percent on top of 25%.
So, warriors would get a 25% chance to withdraw, Berserkers 25%, pikemen 25%, infantry 25%, etc. Chariots would be 35% at base (prior to any flanking promotions), horse archers 45%, cavalry 55%.
Arguably, certain units that represented historic milestones in military science (e.g., Legionnaires, or Scythe Swordsmen) which were the best units of their era should get a slight bonus compared to other units of their historical era (maybe 5%?). Also, modern units (rifleman and above) should have increasing opportunities to train through experience to have more capacity to withdraw from combat; basically at some point, the flanking promotions should become an option for most types of units, probably nearly everything post rifleman.
Tanks should automatically get some fairly substantial level (40%?) and Mech Infantry should automatically start out quite high (60%?). Thinking throuh exactly how this MAJOR change would manifest in each and every unit in the game is beyond the scope of time I have at this moment, but I believe it would make for a more realistic game. I believe (or rather suspect) that because of how the combat outcomes are already coded to calculate, this fundamental change of making combat withdrawal the norm instead of the exception would effectively make combats more realistic: units would not evaporate in one single battle. Instead it might take two, or maybe three engagements to kill most of the units in an initial stack and this would also allow for fighting retreats instead of theatre level combat in the game AlWAYS being determiend by a few single Battle Royales in which entire stacks are destroyed.
(g) make units generally slower to heal, and make unit healing more reflective of the contextual factors likely to affect ability to bring recruits from the homeland (distance to roads or railroads), else to recruit or conscript locals (culture level level in a tile, population in a tile). Keep all the existing healing factors (medic promotions, hospitals, etc.) as they are at present, but add in the factors I describe here, basically reflecting recruitment and replenishment of casualties. I think it would be a good idea for the rate of healing inside home territory to be modified by some indicator of population in the tile in which the unit is healing. So for example, a unit in a size 10 city (even without any Medic promoted units, or hostpitals etc.) with 200 culture should heal units faster than a size 5 city with 100 culture. In order for the preceding rule (f) to work right, the overall rate at which units heal should be slowed down in general, and the current rates should only be achievable under conditions of substantial culture and population in a tile. I'm not aware of what the rate of healing is at present, but just to promote other guys who are more familiar with the code thinking about it, I'll assume that the base rate of healing inside home territory with no other factors (no medics, no hospitals, etc.) is 10, with 0 being a total lack of healing, and 100 being 10 times faster than "10." Here are some ideas for how this rate could be adjusted:
Reset the base rate to about 50% what it is at present (so that a unit that would have normaly required 5 turns to heal fully would instead require 10 turns), retain all the existing healing rate modifiers (medic promotions, buildings like hospitals, etc.[also, I suspect that the existing code has different rates for different types of tiles maybe?]) [see ideas for forts and castles below] and then modify the base healing rate as follows:
grassland with no road = base rate
[I'm fairly certain there is already some modifier in place for healing in neutral territory, and for healing in enemy territory whatever those are at present I'd guess they should be fine to keep them as they are]
_In All Territories [Home, Neutral, or Enemy]_
hill with no road = -7%
desert with no road=-9%
forest with no road= -5% (cumulative with hills)
tundra = -10%
"ice" = -20%
ocean = -50%
coast = -5%
jungle = -20%
in a tile with road connection to capital/trade network +12%
in a tile with Roman Road connection to capital/trade network +15%
in a tile with railroad connection to capital/trade network +30%
empty tile [no road or rail] adjacent to road connected to network +6%
empty tile [no road or rail] adjacent to Roman Road connected to network +9%
empty tile [no road or rail] adjacent to railroad connected to network +15%
empty tile [no road or rail] one tile remote from road connected to network +3%
empty tile [no road or rail] one tile remote from Roman road +6%
empty tile [no road or rail] one tile remote from Railroad +9%
empty tile [no road or rail] two tiles remote from road +1%
empty tile [no road or rail] two tiles remote from Roman Road +3%
empty tile [no road or rail] two tiles remote from railroad +5%
empty tile [no road or rail] three tiles remote from railroad +2%
[NOTE: I'm not certain if it works this way at present or not, but occupying an enemy tile with a unit should effectively make any roads, Roman Roads, or railroads in that tile function as if they are part of friendly trade network, as long as the tile remains occupied by friendly forces. This would dramatically alter theatre level combat forcing both AI and human to protect supply lines by leaving columns of units along captured enemy road networks]
+0.75% per culture point in the tile (would include tiles inside enemy borders with the checkerboard pattern) (culmulative with everything else)
_Inside home territory_
+1.5% healing rate per population point for units resting in city tiles (culmulative with everything else)
+3% for any irrigated tile (farm without any bonus resource), workshop, mill, quarry, mine, or pasture
+4% for any plantation or a farm on a bonus resource (wheat, corn, etc.)
+5% for being adjacent to any hamlet, village or town (cumulative with all above)
+10% for a hamlet
+20% for a village
+30% a town
_Inside Enemy Territory_
+1% for any irrigated tile (farm without any bonus resource), workshop, mill, quarry, mine, or pasture
+2% for any plantation or a farm on a bonus resource (wheat, corn, etc.)
+1% for being adjacent to any hamlet, village or town (cumulative with all above)
+4% for a hamlet
+8% for a village
+11% for a town
2. Adjust airship to occur at a more realistic time in the game by adjusting requisite Techs: at present airships and zeppelins require only Physics. Instead make airships require Physics, AND Railroad (which also requires Steam Power).
3. Adjust gunpowder units to better represent real history (there was discussion of this on around pp. 91 through 94 of this thread).
4. Make health in cities more important; instead of a min level of health being requisite only for a city to grow, excess
health should increase hammers, commerce, and happiness, and should also be equivalent to more food, making a city grow
faster.
+1 hammer per 1.5 excess health
+1 commerce per 2 excess health
+1 happy per 2.5 excess health
+1 "food" per 3 excess health
5. Make the tile improvements which produce luxuries, foods, and strategic resources more important.
At present luxuries can give bonus happiness and/or health to all connected cities, as well as commerce,
and/or hammers to the home city.
Foods can give bonus health to all, as well as bonus food, and/or commerce, and/or hammers to the home city.
Strategic resources allow various things to be built in all connected cities and give bonus food, and/or commerce, and/or
hammers to the home city.
(a) make the bonuses in commerce and hammers from tiles with Luxuries and Strategic resources impact ALL CONNECTED
cities, instead of only the home city. So for example, instead of a gem resource giving +1hammer +5commerce only for the city
whose citizens work the tile, give this benefit to ALL connected cities irrespective of if the tile is worked or not.
(b) Each additional Luxury or Strategic resource gives an additional bonus to commerce or hammers. In short, A society that controls 5 Gems would automatically get +5hammers and +25commerce in ALL CONNECTED CITIES, even if the none of the tiles are being worked.
(c) also give the existing bonues to the home city if the tile is worked, effectively giving the home cities double the
benefit. Referring to the above example: Each city with a Gem in its Fat-X could also get an ADDITIONAL +1hammer and +5commerce for EACH Gem Mine tile that is worked (i.e., the way it works in the present rules). So for example, in a society with 5 Gems, with three gems being in the Fat-X for Rome, and two in the Fat-X for Venice: Rome would get (+5hammers & +25commerce) and up to an additional +3hammers and +15commerce for each of the Gem Mines worked. Venice would get (+5hammers & +25commerce) and up to an additional +2hammers and +10commerce for each of the Gem Mines worked. Effectively, what these changes will do, is make Luxuries and Strategic Resources _MUCH_ more important sources of commerce, and production, as I argue they reasonably should be.
(e) a related idea that would involve quite a bit of work would be to have more structures that can be built in a city if it
has access to a resource and which give a benefit as long as the city HAS access to the resource, but which causes some
negative effect if the city LOSES access to the resource (e.g., a city with a Gem Cutter Guild built in it might get +5% commerce for each Gem it has access to, but suffer -2 food and -1 health if it has access to no gems, representing the out-migration if the Gem Cutter's Guild had nothing to work with.
(e) amplify the negative effects of pillaging luxury producing tiles (mines, planatations, etc.), communities (hamlets,
villages, towns), and strategic resource tiles? (e.g., +1 movement in the tile for 10 turns? reduced culture in the tile? reduce health or maybe even reduced population in the nearest cities?). What we need to keep in mind here is what exactly pillaging a tile equates with. Those mines, farms, pastures, and communities are not just little outposts, but centers of population, where thousands if not tens or even hundreds of thousands of people live and/or work. To "pillage" one of those tiles is to destroy or severely damage the infrastructure, and to displace many of those resident people. The result would be many dead people, pestilence, famine, raping and looting, refugees, etc. Thus, the negative effects should be even greater than they are presently IMHO.
6. Make protection of tiles more important: at present the AI is most concerned with protecting cities, the protection of
frontiers has historically been a far more important thing. I suspect that by making the effects of health more important to city productivity, commerce and growth and also making community tiles, luxuries, and strategic resources more important it may cause the AI to adopt more realistic "field" warfare strategies by positioning defensive units outside cities more frequently. In addition to this, adjust the following:
(a) an enemy unit exerts Zone of Control into all adjacent tiles that are not occupied by a friendly unit. Enemy ZOC blocks supply through a tile.
(b) forts provide a %35 defensive bonus
(c) forts increase movement costs for enemy units in all adjacent tiles by +1, and also negate enemy ZOC in all adjacent tiles
(d) forts increase unit healing by 10% [cumulative with all the modifiers described above]
(e) forts can be built on any tile (except water, mountain or a city itself) irrespective of what other improvements
are there [might be a good idea if the worker time/effort to build a fort is increased a little bit, maybe one or two extra turns]
(f) change castles to be a tile improvement instead of a city building
(g) shift the bonus espionage and culture benefits of castles to some other Medieval/Renaissance building(s)
(h) give castles: +45% tile defense; +20% unit healing in tile, and the same effects on enemy movement and ZOC negation
(i) if it were possible, somehow give cities defensive bonuses for remaining connected to at least one other same-tribe city and to resources: (i) +5% defensive bonus for each type of Luxury, Food or Strategic tile improvement to which a defending city retains a non-interdicted trade route; (ii) for every community in their Fat-X to which they retain a non-interdicted trade route [+1.5% per Hamlet, +3% per Village; +5% per Town]; (iii) +25% for having at least one trade route with a city in the same tribe.
In effect, if a city is not "cut off" by having enemy units positioned so as to interdict all incoming trade routes it should retain a substantial automatic defensive bonus. This may well be difficult or impossible to code, but say for example a city automatically gets a 25% defensive bonus if it has at least one non-interdicted trade route to another allied city, and gets an additional +5% for each TYPE of resource to which it retains at least one non-interdicted route. The bonuses for resources would not be cumulative with the number of resources, but simply with the number of TYPES of resources.
So at least one trade route intact with another city (+25%) and having 6 Fish would give only another +5% for a total of +30%. But having at least one intact trade route with a same-tribe city (+25%), having 6 Fish (+5%), 2 Horses (+5%), 1 Iron (+5%), 2 Wheat (+5%), 1 corn (+5%), 1 hamlet (+1.5%), 2 villages (2*3% = 6%]), and 1 town (5%) would give a total defensive bonus of 62.5%.
This would make marching straight up to a city and sieging it in one round with a mega stack very difficult. Instead it would be necessary to disperse one's units so as to interdict trade into the city, thus weakening its defenses and allowing it to be maneagably besieged.
7. Make operating inside enemy territory more costly. Whatever it is, it needs to be increased by 15 to 30% I'd say.