broken wonders/world projects

[gdambrauskas]

I play a lot of multiplayer(~3 years) and eventually had to sit down and modify wonders/projects that basically mess completely multiplayer games balance. Things like hindu special building with its 10% extra on commerce/research etc in every city, theory of evolution(cheap and crazy % increase), shwedagonpagoda (allows atheism super early) etc What is usually a nice balanced game ends if one of players exploits broken wonders(and if 1 player is ahead, usually they are first to get broken wonders leading to snowball effect of brokeness).
What do people think?

 

[SargontheGreat2]

What I think about this is that if you have a large empire, the benefits are the reward of building that empire. Projects additionally usually provide crazy benefits. But they might have to be toned down a little.

 

[gdambrauskas]

My changes basically increased cost and made % from 20->5 (if you play realism invictus you'll notice that their buildings are very refined, gives 2-5 % of extras at most and all the broken wonders/projects are removed from the mod alltogether if they couldn't make it balanced). Things like hindu Brihadeeswarar I made them give 20% extra, but not global, only in the city they are built. Those changes made games much more balanced.

 

[SargontheGreat2]

Ok. I'm just against the idea that the smaller empires have to be equal with the big ones. Ever heard of Sullla? Not the Roman Dictator, the Great Civ Player? He was too.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

My changes basically increased cost and made % from 20->5 (if you play realism invictus you'll notice that their buildings are very refined, gives 2-5 % of extras at most and all the broken wonders/projects are removed from the mod alltogether if they couldn't make it balanced). Things like hindu Brihadeeswarar I made them give 20% extra, but not global, only in the city they are built. Those changes made games much more balanced.

If you can post files with just your changes in them I will look and see if "I" think they are good for going into the core or maybe make a mod mod so that people can try them out and comment on them. Or you could make a mod mod, it is not that hard.

• Create a folder in the Modules folder with your name
• Edit the MLF file in the Modules folder to load your folder
• For each file you change
  • copy it to your folder and rename it with a prefix of your folder name
  • copy the schema file to your folder and rename it with the prefix of your file name
  • remove all entries that you don't change
  • remove all tags except the type, class and tags you do change
  • rename the schema file in XML to point to the schema file you renamed

The advantage of this is that you will not need to make the same changes every time you update C2C.

We are not Realism Invictus and there is one of the basic thing in that mod which makes it unplayable from my perspective. Their attempt to get latter religions to spread better fails the early religions badly. We and almost every other mod has the same problem due to a basic assumption in BtS and no one is willing to fidle with it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

We and almost every other mod has the same problem due to a basic assumption in BtS and no one is willing to fidle with it.

I realize this has probably been discussed by you before but what basic assumption are you talking about here?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I realize this has probably been discussed by you before but what basic assumption are you talking about here?

All religions are the same and equally valid. Whereas most people think that the "modern" religions should replace the "old" religions. The mechanic in base BtS is that each religion has a chance to spread but only to cities which currently don't have a religion. The multiple religion spread option, by Afforess, in RoM - AND and C2C goes a long way to over coming this perceived problem.

However it does not consider that some religions evolve and that some nations are known to have two state religions. One the state's religion and one the peoples. EG Japan today (Buddhism/Shinto) or any of the early religions. The "Rapture" mod tried to address this differently allowing religions to evolve to some extent. Early religions/cults would be city based to start with. Each city having its own cult/divinity. Then these would be merged into a state based religion with a professional priesthood and missionaries. It would have a period of expansion when many missionaries would be available but this would trail off over time. Schisms may occur between the same religion in different cultural groups or nations. Reformers, a Great Prophet or similar, would reunite sects or start new ones.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've considered a lot of that and they are great ideas (really fantastically good) which I'd love to help get put in place eventually... its just going to take some added programming and planning. We'll approach it together in an upcoming version I'm sure.

You've been talking about the Faces of God mod too and I'm wondering what the key features of that are (but maybe this isn't the right thread for this chat... lol)

 

[Sgtslick]

I delete encyclopedia after i update svn every time since its so ridiculously overpowered (another example).

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I delete encyclopedia after i update svn every time since its so ridiculously overpowered (another example).

Unforunately you can't delete in a mod. You could make mod that makes the icost = -1 which would have the same affect. This assumes that Hydro does not have the force override tag set on his buildings. If he does then no one can make a mod of those buildings.

I do not find the encyclopedia to be overpowered. However I rarely get that far in a game with al the testing of stuff I do.

 

[Sgtslick]

So deleting it from projectinfo.xml (or w/e it is) doesn't do anything?

 

[Azurian]

I think the wonder that is available at Controlled Fire should have its production cost reduced by 50% since its available for such a short time, and becomes obsolete at Fire Making.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think the Encyclopedia IS a bit Deuce ex ma-china at the moment and would be better off if adjusted to be a strong bonus modifier to research if you are behind rather than just giving you all techs two other nations have developed. Makes more sense for the lategame internet to accomplish that rather than encyclopedia, which would INFLUENCE the tech level strongly but not be an immediate catch-up to all other countries state secrets! Nevertheless... I usually only end up building it to keep it out of the enemy's hands since by then I'm always ahead since the ai tends to fall behind on tech around then even if they got a sprinting start ahead of me.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

So deleting it from projectinfo.xml (or w/e it is) doesn't do anything?

It does but you have to do it every time you update C2C. If you have your own module you can have all the bits you do each time stored there and just copy it from one version to the next. ou don't even need to do the copy if you use the SVN.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Another thought, this one from my wife: Since we've changed the Maui statues to a World Wonder from a National Wonder, we both agree that it should give a in all of your cities water spaces rather than just the city that built it (comparable to the effect of the colossus.)

 

[Sgtslick]

That would be way too powerful Thunderbrd. Unless it went obsolete quite quickly perhaps
Maybe something like 3 tiles max per city or something, but even that would be too strong i feel.
Personally I would prefer Maui be national wonder again.

It does but you have to do it every time you update C2C. If you have your own module you can have all the bits you do each time stored there and just copy it from one version to the next. ou don't even need to do the copy if you use the SVN.

Isn't the problem with doing something like this is if the xml happened to be changed by you guys in one of the svn I would instead be using my out of date version. Besides, i know exactly how far to scroll down to reach encyclopedia by now anyway

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

That would be way too powerful Thunderbrd. Personally I would prefer Maui be national wonder again.

Unfortunately they have a name which means they can't be a national wonder. At least that is what StrategyOnly and HydrmancerX say.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Unforunately you can't delete in a mod. You could make mod that makes the icost = -1 which would have the same affect. This assumes that Hydro does not have the force override tag set on his buildings. If he does then no one can make a mod of those buildings.

I do not find the encyclopedia to be overpowered. However I rarely get that far in a game with al the testing of stuff I do.

I have not touched encyclopedia.

I think the wonder that is available at Controlled Fire should have its production cost reduced by 50% since its available for such a short time, and becomes obsolete at Fire Making.

It was made hard to get for a reason. its for those who cannot wait for Fire Making tech.

Another thought, this one from my wife: Since we've changed the Maui statues to a World Wonder from a National Wonder, we both agree that it should give a in all of your cities water spaces rather than just the city that built it (comparable to the effect of the colossus.)

The Moai were made unique since they were only found on Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island). We could always give the benefit of it to a new national wonder and give the Moi some other benefit.

 

[SargontheGreat2]

Encyopedia got its ability from the Internet, but the Interent was at the end of the game making it balanced. Was it Zappara of Afforess?

 

[Sgtslick]

Let me put Encyclopedia into context for you. If your playing on a big map with lots of civs. Say 30 for example.
You can build Encyclopedia having planned a city to build it (put all your slaves into this city as citizens) make all +hammer improvements etc.

Once you get it you can switch from 100% science or w/e you had it on to 100% espionage.

Never have to build any science building ever again. Never have to use scientist specialists etc.

Change civics to those that have big negative science but good espionage++ and/or military.

From here you can just sit back for awhile massing your ep points and getting +espionage buildings and maybe even build espionage in some cities too. Then start spamming spies/agents and if you have advanced espionage its gg coz you can simply subvert your opponents cities. Even without this option you can steal all AI's money cause riots etc etc

If there are some techs you fancy from tech leader who is too far ahead to share with your magic "Encyclopedia", just steal it off him or steal all his gold and buy them