Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

Playing on immortal now, since a very long time.
I play the "tiny alternate System" map.
I was wondering what happend to early game maintenance? Because Anarchie now has no upkeep at all, which allows you to settle as many cities as you like.
Pretty much the only constrain is that you have to defend them, since the AI gets aggressive quite fast. But if you have a lot of secure area you get a huge edge.
My two main issues with that is that you don't need much careful planning now when to expand, and also that Chiefdom now became stricktly worse than Anarchism and there is no reason at all to adopt it. The small benefits are just too small compared to the increased upkeep.
Interesting, I'm not having that experience. At 4 cities (playing on I think emperor with a huge map) I had to stop because I nearly put myself into strike. I've been slowly and gradually building up enough for more cities but it's been an uphill climb to be able to financially support them.
 
Brought this other from the original thread, as I just realized this one existed :p Context below!

Question, but is it just me, or is Federal actually not worth taking if you're already a Meritocratic Democracy? The civic seems completely useless because its packed to the brim with negatives (maintenance costs, unhappiness and, worst of all, unhappiness per 25% tax rate) but doesn't really have any bonuses to speak of whatsoever: the only positive difference between it and Meritocracy is an extra 5% great person generation, and that doesn't outweight the fact that Meritocracy has +10% research, +5% espionage and +5% wealth in every city, not to mention food and production bonuses and no maintenance cost.

In fact, I'd say that pretty much all the civis you get from Representative Democracy are really underwhelming and could do with a buff: only Democracy vs Republic works out well because its basically a straight upgrade over the earlier civic, but Seperation of Powers is full of downsides for relatively few positives (extra unhappiness per 6% tax rate (!), +20 maintenance from number of cities, +20% war exhaustion for +1 happiness, 5+ culture, espionage and wealth and 25% bonus to great person generation) and would actually be inferior to Legislation if it wasn't for the fact that Legislation's buildings get obsoleted in the Renaissance because Legislation gives you a six unit draft, 20% military production bonus and Polis Councils that give you -10% maintenance in the building city and, best of all, the House of Parliament national wonder that reduces maintenance in nearby cities like another capital and has a +25% great person rate built in. Sure, the wealth bonuses are nice as Legislature only affects the capital with +5% wealth, but that wealth gets soaked up for a net loss anyway by the increased maintenance costs and the civic upkeep, as Legislature is only a medium upkeep civic, yet Seperation of Powers is a high with twice the upkeep cost...and whilst the great person bonus is nice, there are plenty of other ways to get a similar bonus without the costs.

Similarly, Paper Money seems very, very bad as a civic: why would you want to switch to it from Bank Notes, when Bank Notes has 5% inflation, +10% gold from banks, +5% single coin and +5% coin stack (not sure what the difference is?) and +5 foreign trade value...when Paper Money has 20% inflation, +5% single coin and -10% foreign trade value, and needs you to build a building to get that same +5% coin stack bonus that Bank Notes has built in? Its outright worse than a civic you get in the previous era :p

1) If a civic is worse in 3 ways but better in 1 way you can still choose it for the one better way.
The problem is Paper Money is outright worse in every area; there's no area where it is better than Bank Notes, which is superior in every way. There's literally no point in having the civic on the tree, because no one in their right mind would ever use it - even the AI themselves seemed to have clued in that "actually, that's a trash-tier choice" and are ignoring it and are probably skipping it to go directly to Gold Standard like I have.

2) historical immersion.
If I wanted historical accuracy, I'd be playing Hearts of Iron with the Black Ice mod or some other Paradox title :p All the other civic lines have viable alternative choices (ie, Corporate Farming vs Privatized, for example, is balanced by the fact that whilst Corporate Farming has higher yields via the Mega Farm, it produces an enormous amount of pollution and sickness that Privated doesn't, even if both are superior to Guild Farming) to give them some strategic depth towards the choice, which is good for gameplay, but I honestly can't think of any possible situation in the game that would have anyone pick an objectively inferior civic to one that is seemingly outright superior in every regard.

Not just that, but is it even historical to have Paper Money as its own civic? Its role in game serves as a stop gap between Bank Notes and FIAT currency/Gold Standard, which makes Paper Money seem rather...redundant, as what is Paper Money if not either a bank note or part of the FIAT system or the gold standard? Why - thanks to being redundant both historically and from a gameplay design perspective - can it not be axed in two, with its unique building folded into FIAT Money to make it more competitive vs the other two. The civic slot could then be replaced with, say, the Silver Standard, which would serve as a hybrid between the Gold Standard and FIAT Money from a gameplay perspective and was, historically, quite a big deal for centuries: the United States and Imperial Germany both used a silver standard until the second half of the nineteenth century, China used it for thousands of years and most famously of all, the Great British Pound Sterling, which was formally backed by sterling silver until 1821.

Thus, removing Paper Money as a civic - and just, say, folding the essence of it into the other two or maybe putting it as a technology of its own linked from Economics from which paper money mills are acquired, plus some trade bonus or something - not only fixes a gameplay issue, it adds to the historical value of the mod itself.
 
I don't think it's your ini file. I remember that bug complaint being made a while back and one of the more advanced computer guys said it had been broken for a while and had not been able to determine why. It's way outside of my ability to put a theory to it.
My bet is: hard drive is dying or full or there is rare bug in Civilization 4 engine
That is something causes INI file to reset for no reason.
I have backup of this file for that reason.

Here is what my ini looks - I have autosave for every turn and 10 autosaves max.
Also I have memsaver and windowed mode enabled.
Civ4 is very slow to tab out in fullscreen mode.
Code:
[CONFIG]

; Allow Mouse Scrolling in Windowed mode
MouseScrolling = 0

; Enable Trilinear Filtering for the Minimap
MinimapTrilinearFilter = 1

; Enable Tree Region Cutting
CutTrees = 1

; A non-zero value overrides the FIELD_OF_VIEW parameter from GlobalDefines.xml
FIELD_OF_VIEW = 0

; Allow Camera Flying
AllowFlying = 0

; Dont show the game background during movies - may speed up movie playing
HideMovieBackground = 0

; Don't skip frames if falling behind
BinkNoSkip = 1

; Copy entire image each frame, not just dirty pixels
BinkCopyAll = 1

; Show movies using hi-color, not true-color (may be faster)
Bink16Bit = 0

; Copy ever other scanline during movie playback (faster)
BinkInterlace = 0

; Specify whether to play in fullscreen mode 0/1/ask
FullScreen = 0

; Set max frame rate clamp (0 means none)
SetMaxFrameRate = 60

; Set to 1 to put PitBoss to sleep when no players are connected
PitBossSleep = 1

; Set to 1 to page units out when non-visible
DynamicUnitPaging = 1

; Set to 1 to page unit anims out when the unit is non visible
DynamicAnimPaging = 1

; Set to 1 for no on-screen event messages
NoEventMessages = 0

; Set to 1 for no tech splash screens
NoTechSplash = 0

; Set to 1 for no intro movie
NoIntroMovie = 1

; Set to 1 for no python exception popups
HidePythonExceptions = 0

; The maximum number of autosaves kept in the directory before being deleted.
MaxAutoSaves = 10

; Specify the number of turns between autoSaves.  0 means no autosave.
AutoSaveInterval = 1

; Enable Audio
AudioEnable = 0

; English(0),French(1),German(2),Italian(3),Spanish(4) - Defaults to user-installed language
Language = 0

; Determines which user profile is loaded on game start
UserProfile = Default Profile

; Sync input to smooth interface (may run slower)
SyncInput = 0

; Force numlock always on while playing
ForceNumlock = 0

; Disable caching of file system (may slow initialization)
DisableFileCaching = 1

; Disable caching of xml and file system (may slow initialization)
DisableCaching = 1

; Specify a Mod folder (Mods\Mesopotamia), '0' for none
Mod = Caveman2Cosmos

; Don't show minimum specification warnings
HideMinSpecWarning  = 1

; Random seed for map generation, or '0' for default
MapRandSeed = 0

; Random seed for game sync, or '0' for default
SyncRandSeed = 0

; Email address from which Pitboss reminder emails are sent
PitbossEmail = 0

; SMTP server authentication login for Pitboss reminder emails
PitbossSMTPLogin = 0

; SMTP server for Pitboss reminder emails
PitbossSMTPHost = 0

; Number of seconds to accept live game list updates from GameSpy (-1 for initial snapshot only, 0 for no live updates
GameUpdateTime = 0

; Bandwidth options are modem or broadband
Bandwidth = broadband

; QuickStart - SinglePlayer games only!
QuickStart = 0

; Enable/disable background music
PlayMusic = 0

; Allows some memory savings *** ALT-TAB WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION ***
MemSaver = 1

; Use managed interface textures (may be safer but shouldn't be needed, uses more memory)
GUIManagedTextures = 0

; file format (TGA,JPG,BMP), Warning: TGA requires a lockable buffer which can lower performance
ScreenShot Format = 0

; Enable voice over IP capture and playback
EnableVoice = 0

; App Selects Specific IP to use for Multiplayer
SelectIP = 0

; Disable PAK memory mapping (May affect performance)
DisablePAKMemoryMapping = 0

[DEBUG]

; Create a dump file if the application crashes
GenerateCrashDumps = 1

; Enable the logging system
LoggingEnabled = 1

; Enable synchronization logging
SynchLog = 0

; Enable rand event logging
RandLog = 1

; Enable message logging
MessageLog = 0

; Break on memory allocation order #
BreakOnAlloc = -1

; Number of turns to autorun before exit (0 for no limit)
AutorunTurnLimit = 0

; Set App on Auto-Run
Autorun = 0

; Enable D3D9 Queries
D3D9Query = 0

; Custom Screen Height, minimum: 768 - Normal resolutions can be set in-game and will be used when set to 0
ScreenHeight = 972

; Custom Screen Width, minimum: 1024 - Normal resolutions can be set in-game and will be used when set to 0
ScreenWidth = 1280

; Establish connection to Python Debugger
HAPDebugger = 0

; Overwrite old network and message logs
OverwriteLogs = 1

; NetComm Port
Port = 2056

[GAME]

; Modular XML Loading
ModularLoading   = 0

; Main Menu Mods
MainMenuMods = 0

; Move along
CheatCode = chipotle

; Map Script file name
Map = C2C_World

; GameType options are singlePlayer/spLoad
GameType = singlePlayer

; Pitboss Turn Time
PitbossTurnTime = 0

; Max number of turns (0 for no turn limit)
MaxTurns = 0

; Game Options
GameOptions = 0101100000010000010000100100111101100001001111000110110100110010000011000000101000011010000110100001

; Victory Conditions
VictoryConditions = 1100000000

; Handicap for quick play
QuickHandicap = HANDICAP_NOBLE

; GameSpeed options are GAMESPEED_QUICK/GAMESPEED_NORMAL/GAMESPEED_EPIC/GAMESPEED_MARATHON
GameSpeed = GAMESPEED_BLITZ

; Era options are ERA_ANCIENT/ERA_CLASSICAL/ERA_MEDIEVAL/ERA_RENAISSANCE/ERA_INDUSTRIAL/ERA_MODERN
Era = ERA_PREHISTORIC

; Sealevel options are SEALEVEL_LOW/SEALEVEL_MEDIUM/SEALEVEL_HIGH
SeaLevel = SEALEVEL_LOW

; Climate options are CLIMATE_ARID/CLIMATE_TEMPERATE/CLIMATE_TROPICAL
Climate = CLIMATE_TEMPERATE

; Worldsize options are WORLDSIZE_DUEL/WORLDSIZE_TINY/WORLDSIZE_SMALL/WORLDSIZE_STANDARD/WORLDSIZE_LARGE/WORLDSIZE_HUGE
WorldSize = WORLDSIZE_STANDARD

; Game Name
GameName = Civ Simulator

; Save Path - relative to working (Civ4) folder
FileName = 0

; Account Username
Nickname = 0

; Email Address
Email = NoEmail

; DirectIP Host Address
DirectIP = 0

; In-game Alias
Alias = Eternal Leader
 
If I wanted historical accuracy, I'd be playing Hearts of Iron with the Black Ice mod or some other Paradox title :p All the other civic lines have viable alternative choices (ie, Corporate Farming vs Privatized, for example, is balanced by the fact that whilst Corporate Farming has higher yields via the Mega Farm, it produces an enormous amount of pollution and sickness that Privated doesn't, even if both are superior to Guild Farming) to give them some strategic depth towards the choice, which is good for gameplay, but I honestly can't think of any possible situation in the game that would have anyone pick an objectively inferior civic to one that is seemingly outright superior in every regard.

Not just that, but is it even historical to have Paper Money as its own civic? Its role in game serves as a stop gap between Bank Notes and FIAT currency/Gold Standard, which makes Paper Money seem rather...redundant, as what is Paper Money if not either a bank note or part of the FIAT system or the gold standard? Why - thanks to being redundant both historically and from a gameplay design perspective - can it not be axed in two, with its unique building folded into FIAT Money to make it more competitive vs the other two. The civic slot could then be replaced with, say, the Silver Standard, which would serve as a hybrid between the Gold Standard and FIAT Money from a gameplay perspective and was, historically, quite a big deal for centuries: the United States and Imperial Germany both used a silver standard until the second half of the nineteenth century, China used it for thousands of years and most famously of all, the Great British Pound Sterling, which was formally backed by sterling silver until 1821.

Thus, removing Paper Money as a civic - and just, say, folding the essence of it into the other two or maybe putting it as a technology of its own linked from Economics from which paper money mills are acquired, plus some trade bonus or something - not only fixes a gameplay issue, it adds to the historical value of the mod itself.
I'm curious who considers themselves the civics guru these days? @JosEPh_II ? @strategyonly ? I know I don't... Maybe someone who would work with these considerations is listening. Maybe it's a resting spot for the mod development right now.
 
Interesting, I'm not having that experience. At 4 cities (playing on I think emperor with a huge map) I had to stop because I nearly put myself into strike. I've been slowly and gradually building up enough for more cities but it's been an uphill climb to be able to financially support them.

Could be because it is a scenario? I don't know if you can modify maintenance in a scenario.
 
38.5 is now available for download. this is the one that should have been the 38.0 release . . .
I think forgot to change this file:
/Assets/Python/Contrib/CvModName.py

before packaging it

Now it will say modVersion = "Vpre39" instead of modVersion = "V38.5"
 
I think forgot to change this file:
/Assets/Python/Contrib/CvModName.py

before packaging it

Now it will say modVersion = "Vpre39" instead of modVersion = "V38.5"

not in the download version. . . i had to do it this way because i cant commit .. .
 
I summarize version changes in the Players Guide. Which is a big part of why this is 38.5 rather than 39. There haven't been rule changes or new assets, just refinements. And based on my current game with Whisperr we have finally nailed balances and challenges. There are still some known bugs but this is clearly the best we have ever been on a lot of measures. Great job team!
 
not in the download version. . . i had to do it this way because i cant commit .. .
I guess sourceforge still has problems.

By the way you should delete two older versions of mod from moddb, so players won't download versions with broken AI.

Yep, SourceForge has problems - tried to commit small text changes as test.

Commit failed (details follow):
Unexpected HTTP status 504 'Gateway Time-out' on
'/p/caveman2cosmos/code/trunk/Assets/XML/Text'
Additional errors:
Unexpected server error 500 'Internal Server Error' on
'/p/caveman2cosmos/code/!svn/txn/10106-8md'

I bet server failure was reason as to why StrategyOnly couldn't login and commit things.
 
Last edited:
I guess sourceforge still has problems.

By the way you should delete two older versions of mod from moddb, so players won't download versions with broken AI.

Yep, SourceForge has problems - tried to commit small text changes as test.

Commit failed (details follow):
Unexpected HTTP status 504 'Gateway Time-out' on
'/p/caveman2cosmos/code/trunk/Assets/XML/Text'
Additional errors:
Unexpected server error 500 'Internal Server Error' on
'/p/caveman2cosmos/code/!svn/txn/10106-8md'

I bet server failure was reason as to why StrategyOnly couldn't login and commit things.
It never fails to screw up on us as soon as we want to do a new version release.
 
Will it be safe for me to update my SVN version without the risk of breaking the game? It's about a fortnight old, so I think it should be fine, but better safe than sorry! :D

Also, any chance of a changelog, or at least a summary of one? Is the Cloud Destroyer fixed (its unbuildable in my version)?
 
Will it be safe for me to update my SVN version without the risk of breaking the game? It's about a fortnight old, so I think it should be fine, but better safe than sorry! :D?
It should be.
 
Top Bottom