Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

When you start a game, how important is your starting point? I personally regenerate if I don't have a river nearby. I sometimes restart if by gathering and scavenging I have no resources in my city vicinity. What's the bare minimum you'll "take"? I started a deity game last night, quit when I realized I had no resources (and only desert and no flood plains in initial borders).
I take the starting point I'm dealt 99% of the time; it is not very important unless you start on a small island isolated from other landmass by sea/ocean; or if you start a place where all you can see is permafrost/barren and peaks even after 2 turns of moving the settler.

Getting the worst starting location of the X best locations picked for the X amount of starting players is part of being on the highest difficulty among all the players; it's a handicap factor used in the code I mean.
Each plot has a starting plot suitability score (based on yield + bonuses and a river, coast and hill factor, within the fat cross of the plot) and the algorithm tries to pick a set where it maintains a good distance between all the starting plot as well as maximizing the total score of the set chosen. Then the plots, from high to low score, are given out to players from low to high difficulty.
 
I take the starting point I'm dealt 99% of the time; it is not very important unless you start on a small island isolated from other landmass by sea/ocean; or if you start a place where all you can see is permafrost/barren and peaks even after 2 turns of moving the settler.

Getting the worst starting location of the X best locations picked for the X amount of starting players is part of being on the highest difficulty among all the players; it's a handicap factor used in the code I mean.
Each plot has a starting plot suitability score (based on yield + bonuses and a river, coast and hill factor, within the fat cross of the plot) and the algorithm tries to pick a set where it maintains a good distance between all the starting plot as well as maximizing the total score of the set chosen. Then the plots, from high to low score, are given out to players from low to high difficulty.

That explains why I always get bad starts on higher difficulties... if its coded into difficulty, I will be starting a deity game, and only restarting if I'm isolated (that 1% of the time you're referring to).
 
MAF errors every few turns
I got a crash that came from a groupCycleNode. Just before that I got a FAssert about a CvSelectionGroup.
The code around where the crash happened is already full of extra debug stuff. The exact spot was actually some code that is only in _DEBUG dll. I think because I was using debug dll, the bad CvSelectionGroup that was detected got deleted but the groupCycleNode it was in did not. I'm not 100% sure.
 
With respect, there is no kudos available for pretending to be a Deity player. Drop down to your real level of Monarch or Emperor. And play the map you're dealt...:old:
Careful there... there are in fact kudos for rerolling to get certain starting location traits. The most creative and effective and respected civ4 players on Civfanatics use a tool called MapFinder (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=mapfinder) in some of their efforts. Now, I haven't ever used it, isn't fun for me, but if someone wanted to try out a certain strategy or game experience (frozen north, desert oasis, mountainous, etc.), or try to see how quickly they can overflow the economy, or whatever, the tool can make sense even in C2C. To the point, though, much of the continuing popularity of Civfanatics (and its kudos) can be traced back to Diety+ level players using this tool, which basically reloads the map if it doesn't have certain resources.
That said, thus far in my Nightmare Eternity games I have played, there doesn't seem to be much benefit to my play style to settle in place, and wandering for the first 20+ turns before settling seems to create an advantage, so I don't regenerate at all, except alone on a small island (don't want that game experience right now).
In other words, in spirit, I agree with Yudishtira. But nobody, even Yudishtira, will tell you that you shouldn't play how you want. Have fun!
 
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Careful there... there are in fact kudos for rerolling to get certain starting location traits. The most creative and effective and respected civ4 players on Civfanatics use a tool called MapFinder (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=mapfinder) in some of their efforts. Now, I haven't ever used it, isn't fun for me, but if someone wanted to try out a certain strategy or game experience (frozen north, desert oasis, mountainous, etc.), or try to see how quickly they can overflow the economy, or whatever, the tool can make sense even in C2C. To the point, though, much of the continuing popularity of Civfanatics (and its kudos) can be traced back to Diety+ level players using this tool, which basically reloads the map if it doesn't have certain resources.
That said, thus far in my Nightmare Eternity games I have played, there doesn't seem to be much benefit to my play style to settle in place, and wandering for 20+ turns seems to create an advantage, so I don't regenerate at all, except alone on a small island (don't want that game experience right now).
In other words, in spirit, I agree with Yudishtira. But nobody, even Yudishtira, will tell you that you shouldn't play how you want. Have fun!
I'm well aware that using all sorts of exploits and cheats can get you "kudos" in vanilla Civ4, when you then pretend to be a Deity-level player. I have nothing positive to say about that sort of thing, so don't get me started on it... I don't expect I will ever play vanilla or BtS again. They are deeply flawed games with negligible replayability which compare unfavourably to eg. some of the Total War series, Age of Wonders III, and a few others. As well as to C2C and the enhanced Fall from Heaven family of mods (RifE, EitB, MoM, etc.).

I suppose for Hall of Fame competition, using a map finder makes sense. Although Hall of Fame competition in general makes less sense as a result.

I gave my opinion when it was asked for. It's one I hold strongly, and stated (moderately) emphatically. I hope it's persuasive, but it was not intended to control anyone or countermand anything.:lol:
 
@Toffer90 How feasible would a WB function that improves all resources under certain conditions be (does it have a route, do techs allow it to be harvested, etc)?
 
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@Toffer90 How feasible would a WB function that improves all resources under certain conditions be (does it have a route, do techs allow it to be harvested, etc)?
Quite feasible, I'll add it to my toDo list.

How I understand your suggestion:
All resources within owned borders get improved if plot owner has unlocked improvement that can harvest the resource, and then the best unlocked route is built from that resource to nearest city.
I could make it player specific with an additional option to toggle it for all players.
 
Quite feasible, I'll add it to my toDo list.

How I understand your suggestion:
All resources within owned borders get improved if plot owner has unlocked improvement that can harvest the resource, and then the best unlocked route is built from that resource to nearest city.
I could make it player specific with an additional option to toggle it for all players.
Pretty much, the only thing I have to counter is that it's probably not necessary to connect it to nearby cities since it's not that tedious doing routes by hand (compared to improvements at least lol) plus a less complicated code.
 
Starting a new game on the latest SVN and somehow I did not notice this until now.
Custom Game > Options > No Random Events: "No Random Events will Occur. Events are currently unsupported - may be buggy and unbalanced."
Events are my favorite mechanic when playing a single player campaign in Strategy and Role Playing games. Please revamp/fix by v42 I don't know if I can play anymore while knowing this. :sad:

EDIT: Remember reading somewhere about adding 'native populations' feature for people who play in 'start in old world' maps. ETA on that?
 
Starting a new game on the latest SVN and somehow I did not notice this until now.
Custom Game > Options > No Random Events: "No Random Events will Occur. Events are currently unsupported - may be buggy and unbalanced."
Events are my favorite mechanic when playing a single player campaign in Strategy and Role Playing games. Please revamp/fix by v42 I don't know if I can play anymore while knowing this. :sad:

EDIT: Remember reading somewhere about adding 'native populations' feature for people who play in 'start in old world' maps. ETA on that?
If you played with events before, you can still play with them.
Just know, that they are unsupported - situation with events is unchanged for several years.

Also that native populations thing never was done, maybe it was abandoned.
 
EDIT: Remember reading somewhere about adding 'native populations' feature for people who play in 'start in old world' maps. ETA on that?
The Revolutions mod component has always had a native population mechanic that can even be configured a bit in the BUG settings. That barb cities in the new world won't turn into a regular civ before A: an old world player land a unit on the new world B an old world player settle a city on the new world, and C: an old world unit discovers the new world (map reveal of new world land), then there's options about tech level and military strength that affect the new players created from barbs in the new world that only applies for the new world barbarians.

In my experience that new world native uprising feature has been working pretty well all along.
 
Events are generally fine unless you're playing on Multiplayer games. They aren't incredibly balanced appropriately at times but that's not unique in this mod.
 
The Revolutions mod component has always had a native population mechanic that can even be configured a bit in the BUG settings. That barb cities in the new world won't turn into a regular civ before A: an old world player land a unit on the new world B an old world player settle a city on the new world, and C: an old world unit discovers the new world (map reveal of new world land), then there's options about tech level and military strength that affect the new players created from barbs in the new world that only applies for the new world barbarians.

In my experience that new world native uprising feature has been working pretty well all along.
I was thinking about Indigenous Community improvement here - it is affected by Education tech in medieval era.
Nothing happened with it forever.

Its seems to be placeholder - nothing can place it but its referenced by Extra Diplomacy module.
 
I was thinking about Indigenous Community improvement here - it is affected by Education tech in medieval era.
Nothing happened with it forever.

Its seems to be placeholder - nothing can place it but its referenced by Extra Diplomacy module.
Oh yeah, that, I have no idea what was intended for it.
 
Oh yeah, that, I have no idea what was intended for it.
It was part of one of DH's projects. Not sure if it was meant for the Nomad start as it was a precursor to the Nomad idea getting started. Hope I'm making sense to you all.
 
It was part of one of DH's projects. Not sure if it was meant for the Nomad start as it was a precursor to the Nomad idea getting started. Hope I'm making sense to you all.
Oh right... that! It was pretty cool even as it was - it came up in response to revealing a goody hut and was intended for later use with diplomat units. You would be able to take those units to that location and do things to 'negotiate' with barbarians, like buy mercenaries from them and so on.
 
On the note of new world natives, I find a great option is to just turn on barbarian world and the option that allows barbs to become minor civilizations. By the time they become even minor civs, they are well behind. In my recent game that I uploaded in the bugs and crashes section (I had to abandon it due to some memory leak error), the new world had several minor civs, and major civs that hadn't even developed bronze working (IIRC).
 
The Win For Losing and Tech Diffusion options should be useful in helping them catch up/keep up.

I have these options on (off for human players), but I personally find it more fitting for a new/old world scenario. The most developed civilization of the (pre-Columbian) Americas was the Incan empire, I think the only one to develop bronze working. They also hadn't developed writing or even the wheel (though an argument can be made with their rope system for recording language). Other civilizations, like the Aztecs, were even less developed... so I think it is rather fitting to have new world civs behind others.

If you want new world civs to be on par with old world civs, just have civs start in both worlds.
 
I have these options on (off for human players), but I personally find it more fitting for a new/old world scenario. The most developed civilization of the (pre-Columbian) Americas was the Incan empire, I think the only one to develop bronze working. They also hadn't developed writing or even the wheel (though an argument can be made with their rope system for recording language). Other civilizations, like the Aztecs, were even less developed... so I think it is rather fitting to have new world civs behind others.

If you want new world civs to be on par with old world civs, just have civs start in both worlds.
They were clearly late Ancient to early Classical civs (btw the Maya certainly did have writing). The absence of individual techs proves nothing. This sounds a bit like the racial superiority propaganda started by the genocidal conquistadors is still being got away with (and the amount of damage they did, it would not be surprising if there were a number of techs that they destroyed all evidence of).
 
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