[BtS] DIPLOMACY: a mod for Diplogames!

[AbsintheRed]

I vote for leadership for Paladins and blitz for Tarkan.

The only thing 'cause I don't like this is that the Paladin's are already too powerful, as they come early in the game. I think the Leadership is much more powerful than Blitz in the long run,
that's why I would give it to Tarkans. And since Tarkan is a noble title in reality I imagine that can be easily connected with better skills in leading armies

Marae as a Colosseum replacement makes zero sense.

The UB could be called a Marae or a Wharenui (Falenui in Samoan) depending on what graphics could be found/created. Really, the perfect building it could replace would be the Palace but I do not know if that's feasible/possible. Barracks, Lighthouse, Courthouse or even Library (centre of oral rather than written tradition) could work though. Whichever is chosen it should definitely give a bonus to culture and maybe experience to naval units as well.

Then I think the best solution would be to make the Marae a lighthouse replacement with +2 culture and +3 xp to naval units.
Also, we already have great graphics, so this is the easiest way art-wise.
Early culture boost compared with lighthouse is very useful if you have a couple of coastal cities.
Maybe we can change Salamasina from Creative to something else to make this even more powerful.

Actually IMO the perfect bonus for a waka is to make them galley replacements but allow them to travel on ocean tiles and maybe increase their movement a little. I'd also reduce their cargo space to 1 and reduce their strength to compensate. So it would be less a military unit (even waka taua were mostly used as transport, the actual battles tended to happen on land) and more a way of quickly exploring and settling in otherwise inaccessable landmasses in the early game. This would be quite a unique UU, sort of like the Fast Worker, and although it would be quite situational I think Polynesia is a very unique civilization, dependent on the sea like no other.

I like the idea of Waka very much. I agree with the others though, it's way overpowered the way you suggested it. But what if we allow them to enter ocean tiles, with a 30-40% chance of sinking?
This way it's possible for Polynesia to colonize some close lands, but it's -very- risky to send settlers and everything to continents far away or to circumnavigate...
I hope it's doable in python, it would get back something from the good old feeling from previous civ games

Till then or if we decide to stick with Koas, I suggest to give them free Amphibious promotion instead of Shock.

Thanks for the feedback Xyth. Here are the problems though, as I see them. I am fine with making the name better on the UB (honestly I just copied the UU and UB from the VD module), the reason the Colosseum replacement was appealing to me was because there aren't many Colosseum replacements.

Um, that's not true. There are already 5 colosseum replacements right now, and there is still quite a few coming in the modpacks.
In fact I think the most common UB replacements are Colosseum, Courthouse, Monument and Theatre. There are also many Barracks, Castle, Library and Granary, but not as much as the previous 4.
So whenever there is a good idea for another building replacement (apart from those above) that suits the civ very much, then we should go in that direction for flavoring reasons.

It's mostly for flavor, you can only use inquisitors in another civ if they are your vassal and they have your state religion, and you can only use an inquisitor if it is the same as your state religion. So you wouldn't be in that situation anyway.

So only the inquisitor from your state religion will be useable. Then I suggest to make only those buildable too, it makes no sence to have Aesir inquisitors when your state religion is Voodoo

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot to mention. It looks like the Flavian Amphitheatre is going to get the axe. I am going to make one last-ditch effort to save it by looking into the Assimilation mod and figuring out if maybe I see something that could salvage it there. If not I can either get rid of it altogether or I could use Tsentom1's Topkapi palace wonder. I'm not sure precisely how it works, but according to Tsentom1's thread you have an X% Chance of creating another civ's UU. What this means basically is if you are building an Axeman there is an X% chance you will build a Dogsoldier or a Phalanx (don't worry I'll rename it Hoplite in the mod) instead. I'm not sure if it only uses the UUs of civs in the game you are playing or if it uses every UU available in the whole game or what but I think that this would be a suitable replacement if I can't get Flavian to work the way I had envisioned. Any thoughts about this?

Ehh, so much problem with wonders
I will check soon what would be the best solution with the UU and UB wonders then...

Like I said. By post count? We're #3 in the forum. The only two threads with more posts are FFH and FFH2.
I'd imagine you can get your own sub-forum. One look through of the mod subforums will show that mods with less to show and less downloads than this have managed to get 'em. (Which is actually kinda sad, it's sort of half mod graveyard.)

Yeah, it's very needed. Hope we can have it today.
It was a pain in the ass this way to get through and react to everything you guys posted last night

 

[Shiggs713]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't have your own sub forum. There are Mods in that section that aren't even really mods, just hopeless pipe dreams, so I don't see any reason why you shouldn't have one. I would have already pushed for one for ACW myself, but I'm just gearing up for civ5 and don't really care that much about having an ACW forum for civ4 anymore.

 

[The Capo]

The only thing 'cause I don't like this is that the Paladin's are already too powerful, as they come early in the game. I think the Leadership is much more powerful than Blitz in the long run,
that's why I would give it to Tarkans. And since Tarkan is a noble title in reality I imagine that can be easily connected with better skills in leading armies.

I was thinking of doing a couple things here, the first one would be to move the tech from Theology back to guilds. The other option would be to force a state religion or religious building (like a Monastery or something) but again, that isn't so terrible and if you know that is the requirement you would have already had those things in the city you want to build them in. So I'll probably just move it back to Guilds. It isn't that I think the Paladin should have leadership more than the Tarkan should, it is that I think blitz suits the Tarkan better than the Paladin. And I played some games with the Huns, their UU was pretty dominant.

Then I think the best solution would be to make the Marae a lighthouse replacement with +2 culture and +3 xp to naval units.
Also, we already have great graphics, so this is the easiest way art-wise.
Early culture boost compared with lighthouse is very useful if you have a couple of coastal cities.
Maybe we can change Salamasina from Creative to something else to make this even more powerful.

It doesn't make much sense to make the Marae a lighthouse. If we had a lighthouse-type building I'd want it to, at the very least, be on the coast. I'm also fine with changing the name of the Marae as Xyth suggested. I think the Pa UB should also be considered.

I like the idea of Waka very much. I agree with the others though, it's way overpowered the way you suggested it. But what if we allow them to enter ocean tiles, with a 30-40% chance of sinking?
This way it's possible for Polynesia to colonize some close lands, but it's -very- risky to send settlers and everything to continents far away or to circumnavigate...
I hope it's doable in python, it would get back something from the good old feeling from previous civ games

Till then or if we decide to stick with Koas, I suggest to give them free Amphibious promotion instead of Shock.

Good call, again, I literally just took all of the stats from VD's Polynesia module.

Um, that's not true. There are already 5 colosseum replacements right now, and there is still quite a few coming in the modpacks.
In fact I think the most common UB replacements are Colosseum, Courthouse, Monument and Theatre. There are also many Barracks, Castle, Library and Granary, but not as much as the previous 4.
So whenever there is a good idea for another building replacement (apart from those above) that suits the civ very much, then we should go in that direction for flavoring reasons.

I didn't realize that, my mistake. But I think it is more important to get an appropriate building for the civ than attempting to fill the voids. So in this sense I suppose we have three possibilities; the Marae (or a different variation), the Pa, or something tha that has to do with the maritime aspect of Polynesian culture. Then from there we decide on buildings that work. I am going to go ahead and throw Colosseum out for this, and I think that leaves us with Courthouse/Library, Castle/Barracks, or Lighthouse/Harbor. Which is a pretty decent list of possibilities, even if a few of them are done to death.

So only the inquisitor from your state religion will be useable. Then I suggest to make only those buildable too, it makes no sence to have Aesir inquisitors when your state religion is Voodoo

AFAIK that is how it works. You can't build an inquisitor that doesn't share your state religion.

Yeah, it's very needed. Hope we can have it today.
It was a pain in the ass this way to get through and react to everything you guys posted last night

I don't see any reason why you couldn't have your own sub forum. There are Mods in that section that aren't even really mods, just hopeless pipe dreams, so I don't see any reason why you shouldn't have one. I would have already pushed for one for ACW myself, but I'm just gearing up for civ5 and don't really care that much about having an ACW forum for civ4 anymore.

Well, hopefully it happens soon. These past few days of posts have been ridiculous to keep track of, and I'm getting tired of the constant quoting going on.

 

[The Capo]

Oh yeah, I kind of had a thought the other day. Is it possible for a civic to allow X amount of specialists? For instance could I give the Slavery civic "Allows 5 Slaves per city"? and then give the slaves +2 hammers -2 food? So you wouldn't have to settle them in the city, but it was optional to increase them in a given city for a loss of food?

Because I still wanted to kick the cost of Slavery up to High (it should be, I mean I can't speak for all civilizations but I know in Rome and the United States slavery was backed by government enforcment in the form of police actions and at least some form of oversight which I'm sure cost money) in order to make Serfdom more palatable.

 

[Shiggs713]

Possible? of course. Easy, maybe not. You could alternatively use the SpecialistValids tag like caste system does. I don't see a big difference in unlimited slaves allowed and 5 slaves allowed, especially with -2 food.

 

[The Capo]

Possible? of course. Easy, maybe not. You could alternatively use the SpecialistValids tag like caste system does. I don't see a big difference in unlimited slaves allowed and 5 slaves allowed, especially with -2 food.

Good point. So what does everyone think?

 

[robertb]

i am ashamed to ask
But where do i dowload it.

(i beg every one pardon. I read trhu several pages but i can not see any answer)

 

[The Capo]

i am ashamed to ask
But where do i dowload it.

(i beg every one pardon. I read trhu several pages but i can not see any answer)

Well, the old mod was for 3.17, I'm not sure if it is still up (I think FileFront dropped it again so I stopped uploading it) but if you want to try you can check out the database. If you have upgraded to 3.19 already then the old mod won't work anymore and we are talking about a new one now. It is (sort of) almost finished, so if you just wait a few more weeks it should be done (probably more like a month).

 

[robertb]

ohhh, not ready yet. Well now i am even more ashamed. i saw on the first page that it was coming but then i read that they download and played. It was the old one...........
Ok then i will wait and wait

Thanks for answering stupid me.

 

[AbsintheRed]

No you were not stupid at all, it wasn't the old one. We were talking about the playtest.
You could not possibly get that if you read only the last few pages.
We are sort of beta testing the mod before the official release

 

[AbsintheRed]

Oh yeah, I kind of had a thought the other day. Is it possible for a civic to allow X amount of specialists? For instance could I give the Slavery civic "Allows 5 Slaves per city"? and then give the slaves +2 hammers -2 food? So you wouldn't have to settle them in the city, but it was optional to increase them in a given city for a loss of food?

Because I still wanted to kick the cost of Slavery up to High (it should be, I mean I can't speak for all civilizations but I know in Rome and the United States slavery was backed by government enforcment in the form of police actions and at least some form of oversight which I'm sure cost money) in order to make Serfdom more palatable.

Free slave slots in every city? I don't like that too much.
Settling them would be so much better. I asked this a couple of times before, but you probably did not notice that because of the huge amount of post: There is no chance to solve that way? To add bonuses to only the settled slave specialist under slavery?

On the upkeep I totally agree. It should be high with this many features. But then you can leave the chance for getting slaves at about 30-40%


EDIT: Just an idea: What if settling the slaves in the city allows one more amount of slave specialist?
If you settle one, than you your slave slots increase to one, one more, then increase to two, etc.
Of course you can have slave slots only in slavery, so this way they would disappear when you switch out.
It's the same thing you suggested, but still keeping the settling procedure too! Slavery allows X amount of specialsts, X is 0 in the beginning, and every settled slave increase X by one

 

[The Capo]

The mechanics don't allow for that. Basically I want to avoid still having the slave specialist in the screen if you are under another civic. And while allowing slave specialists in the city isn't optimum, it also isn't historically inaccurate. Oftentimes in Rome you would become a slave (as a Roman citizen) in order to pay a debt, so turning some of your citizens into slaves would be the same as doing this, the -2 food would be a natural barrier on overslaving (you'd have to have an excess of food, or your city will starve in order to use them). It would sort of be the equivalent of the Egyptians forcing their citizens into working in that they couldn't produce food (but are still eating it). That seems to me to be the only way to keep the slave specialist in effect. I could just as easily get rid of it, I just like the way they look and think it would be a unique feature. So for the purposes of playtesting the next one, and I'll go ahead and cut you in too robertb, I'll leave the slave specialists in for slavery and we can determine how overpowered it is at that point. The one thing I'm still worried about, however, is not the specialists. It is that it seems it is rather easy to get slaves to begin with. Although I will say it doesn't guarantee much, you can only rush buildings with slaves, although it could still be overpowered.

I think I have the Flavian Amphitheatre issue fixed, but I'll have to check on that a little later tonight (if I have time)... I have some brand new units to put into the mod now...

 

[cybrxkhan]

I have some new units to put into the mod now... some new un-released units... some new un-released units made by an extremely talented unit-maker...

I'm such a douche...

Hey! I haven't even seen those units yet, and still, I want those units too!

 

[The Capo]

I may have said too much.

Well I can't give them to you, but if the playtest comes out before they are released then I suppose you'd have them. I don't know that they are finished yet, he's just going to be one of the playtesters and didn't want to delay the playtest.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Nah, no problem about it, Bakuel has given me units way ahead of when he released them.

Like the Kahina hero, he probably gave me that a couple of weeks before it was released.

 

[The Almighty dF]

A thought, Capo.
If nothing else, Slaves could be simply slightly improved workers. I mean, if the current ideas don't work out.
Personally, I'd been thinking about this a long while back. A system where you have a tiny percent (maybe 10) chance of getting a "slave" unit, which can complete jobs a bit faster than a normal worker, but would "die" shortly after. I'd imagine that'd also be impossible to do, though. A unit that only lasts a set number of turns.

 

[The Capo]

A thought, Capo.
If nothing else, Slaves could be simply slightly improved workers. I mean, if the current ideas don't work out.
Personally, I'd been thinking about this a long while back. A system where you have a tiny percent (maybe 10) chance of getting a "slave" unit, which can complete jobs a bit faster than a normal worker, but would "die" shortly after. I'd imagine that'd also be impossible to do, though. A unit that only lasts a set number of turns.

Well, I personally like the rushing production feature of the slave. So what I could do is leave that (and possibly upgrading to a Gladiator, I could remove that too) but have the slave work slower too. I mean, there isn't really a need for the slave specialists, truth be told I only want to keep it because I went through the trouble of making the artfiles for it. A slave may not work slower than a regular paid-worker, but I can almost guarantee you they wouldn't take as much pride in their work, so it would probably be shoddier. There are examples from even the modern-era; people in German work camps would intentionally leave parts out of some of the things they made. If the slave died after completion of a terrain improvement people would only use them for rushing, maybe I could have them die after the terrain improvement but build it in one turn?

EDIT: And I can confirm that the units Bakuel made are not finished by the way.

 

[Xyth]

Apologies if this comes over as a minor thread hijack or anything but I've a made a thread about a bunch of leader traits that I hope to use myself. I realize that you may not decide to make any trait changes but perhaps there's an idea or two in there that might appeal when it comes time to look at them.

The thread is here if anyone is interested. I'd appreciate some feedback on balancing

I'm afraid I've lost track a bit of the slaves discussion (bring on the subforum!) but I really like the concept of slave specialists that do nothing unless under the slavery civic. It is a problem that they never disappear though. I know that in Python it is possible to add and remove specialists/population from a city but unfortunately I don't see any obvious way of triggering this with a change in civic. I'm pretty sure it could be done via a building, wonder or project though. I'm only tentatively learning Python however so others may well know better than I.

 

[Vortilex]

I found that the maceman and the archer have the same button/icon, both in the interface and in the production queue. I'm playing as Germany under Bismark.

Am I right in assuming that Tamerlane is a warmonger? He's been at war with everyone and he likes to go to war if you ask him. He also charges a lot if you want him to sign a peace treaty with someone else.

I got a notification in-game saying that the infamous pirate Blackbeard is plundering Polynesian shipping. I saw about five privateers and a Barbarian frigate, but I didn't know if that was Blackbeard and some kind of fleet. I wiped it out (Polynesians aren't very good about defending their shipping it seems) but never got any bonus for defeating him...is this going to be further explored?

Also, there are many religions, but they all have one tech and they can't be founded. Are they still in a kind of holding tech while you allot them?

 

[The Capo]

I found that the maceman and the archer have the same button/icon, both in the interface and in the production queue. I'm playing as Germany under Bismark.

Which one has the wrong button?

Am I right in assuming that Tamerlane is a warmonger? He's been at war with everyone and he likes to go to war if you ask him. He also charges a lot if you want him to sign a peace treaty with someone else.

That sounds about right to me.

I got a notification in-game saying that the infamous pirate Blackbeard is plundering Polynesian shipping. I saw about five privateers and a Barbarian frigate, but I didn't know if that was Blackbeard and some kind of fleet. I wiped it out (Polynesians aren't very good about defending their shipping it seems) but never got any bonus for defeating him...is this going to be further explored?

I am going to enhance Pirates, yes. But there won't be a bonus for defeating them. Potentially a relations boost with other civs, but that's it.

Also, there are many religions, but they all have one tech and they can't be founded. Are they still in a kind of holding tech while you allot them?

You have to go to custom game, and select 'choose religions' to get the new religions. Only seven religions will be founded in a game, but this time you (and the AI) get to choose their civs. Which means Saladin will choose Islam, Nebuchadnezzar will choose Anunnaki, Brennus will choose Druidism, etc.