Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Yeah i just looked and it says i need the Enclosure or Myth of cats or something like that . . ugg

Always has done. But thanks for reminding me that it should be any of the cat myths or enclosures. I had forgotten that as I was adding in the new ones.

 

[strategyonly]

Always has done. But thanks for reminding me that it should be any of the cat myths or enclosures. I had forgotten that as I was adding in the new ones.

thats what i am here for, umm, let me know again, lol .. . SO

 

[Khadras]

Please make units more dependent of resources. Spearman to wood (lumber), Pikeman to Iron or Copper or Obsidian (it is best to have Copper Pikeman, Iron Pikeman, Obsidian Pikeman with different strength), airplane to oil and aluminum or oil and iron, tanks to oil and iron, laser weapons need gems or gas, robots need electronics and iron or titanium, rockets need aluminum and oil, nuclear rockets need aluminum and oil and uranium, and so on...
It is not correct to build airplane when you do not have any oil or refined oil, or aluminum.
Buildings and Wonders need resources too. Especial stone, lumber and iron, and in modern era glass and plastic.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Minor point - planes were built with wood, rope and cloth. Although most do require some oil based products to run, which I think kerosene represents in game

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

This is a big reason why I would prefer crime to not even start before Code of Laws; Disease not before Sedentary Lifestyle, Tourism not before Theology and Pollution not before Industrialisation.

 

[Noriad2]

This is a big reason why I would prefer crime to not even start before Code of Laws; Disease not before Sedentary Lifestyle, Tourism not before Theology and Pollution not before Industrialisation.

If crime doesn't exist there is no reason to make anti-crime laws. Disease has always existed but plagues that target whole populations need a minimum population density.

Regarding late game random events that throw you off-balance (which the video recommends as a solution), an alien race that starts throwing asteroids at the largest and most developed cities on Earth might qualify, forcing the most advanced civs to scramble and build a make-shift space fleet to deal with the threat.
Or the aliens start "terraforming" Earth to be more suitable for the aliens' biological needs: In the game Aurora 4X you can alter the atmosphere of planets, and putting a terraforming space ship in orbit that pumps chlorine gas into the atmosphere is a good way to lower hostile populations.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

1.missed the point. Having those things start later makes for more strategy and less of the same old tactics.

If I see a city requiring a crime fighter/disease controller/... I just get the city that builds the best to build enough for one in each city and then send them out. Same tactic I use in normal Civ with defenders and spies. Boring. Probably why I see the properties as not adding anything much to the game when they had so much potential when first discussed.​

2. No aliens allowed to quote Hydro. Though I did start to set up a "War of the Worlds" style event set. The main problem with it was that the Mars terrain would have to be generated after the event occurred (or did not occur) so that the map either matched the event or our science today.

 

[tmv]

The anti-crime laws outlaw certain actions, so very few crimes should precede Code of Laws. But the crime property seems to be something different. I think this property mostly reflects the "I don't care if I hurt anyone" attitude.

This is reduced by society adopting the "You will care if we hurt you" response - at least in the beginning this is the usual response to crime.

 

[Thunderbrd]

If crime doesn't exist there is no reason to make anti-crime laws. Disease has always existed but plagues that target whole populations need a minimum population density.

Having those things start later makes for more strategy and less of the same old tactics.

The disagreement seems to be summed up in a game design argument vs a game is a model of human progress argument. I usually side with the 'game is a model of human progress arguments'.

However, to address the game design argument, that's why we should probably introduce crimes and diseases to come into play differently at different points in the game, bringing with them unique challenges with each one.

DH is also making a good point about the management being a little static but that's why I wanted units (preferably sent by rivals but if not the game can still supply some if you drop your guard or get distracted) to be able to randomly (or I should say unexpectedly) throw monkey wrenches and unexpected surges, surges that could then suddenly have you losing control in horrific ways.

This is why I'm totally onboard with diseases that can start at ridiculously low disease thresholds so that no amount of preparation would ever make you immune, just more prepared if you're a good administrator. And why I designed Hide and Seek to make it nearly impossible to keep criminals out of your cities for sure but then accompanied that with the arrest function that keeps criminals from being completely unaddressable.

Perhaps those of you playing on the latest assets right now will start to feel the occasional sting of unexpected criminal infiltrators from other nations now that the AI is built for them (and hopefully is working properly.)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Which is why I like the diseases by Euribus(sp?).

• Smallpox is a big shock to the system affecting big players and cities much more than small ones but does not have a big long term affect on the game as it affects you and your neighbours at the same time and even in normal civ the population lost is soon recovered.
  
  
• The war based unit disease is similar but happens more often. It mainly affects units in large stacks when at war, reducing their ability to attack and defend as well as their health. It is even worse when sieges occur.

 

[Justin Cray]

I read this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/v38-design-planning.608148/ and noticed nobody is fixing the long turns or the lag when you click building butttons, instead we'll get even more buildings and more calculations during the AI's turn. Are you guys satisfied with the speed and responsiveness of the actuall playing of the game?

 

[JosEPh_II]

What long turns and what lag when clicking building buttons?

Please remember Civ IV BtS is a 32 bit engine that is over 10+ years old now. We will never ever play as fast as the new 64 bit game engines.

So over all speed and responsiveness is pretty good. And when a chance for improvement comes up we take advantage of it if at all possible.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I read this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/v38-design-planning.608148/ and noticed nobody is fixing the long turns or the lag when you click building butttons, instead we'll get even more buildings and more calculations during the AI's turn. Are you guys satisfied with the speed and responsiveness of the actuall playing of the game?

I am; but that bit, the UI screen, needs a lot of work before we can start to optomise it. It is over 7000 lines of python code where the code is the documentation. Some of the if tests have over 200 lines of code in them before you get to the else or elif statement. I am experimenting with splitting the code up. To start with I want to make it modular so that more than one person can work on it at a time and then to see where we can improve things by perhaps caching some stuff.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Are you guys satisfied with the speed and responsiveness of the actuall playing of the game?

When regions of the code get reviews I often find ways to optimize and speed things up at the same time. I AM rather satisfied with the speed and responsiveness at the moment in MOST places but there's a few situations I'd like to improve on but the code has done as much as it can and game balance factors would correct them in the process.

 

[Justin Cray]

Thanks for the answers!

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The Shaolin Monk is a very strange unit. Its description says it is for defense and healing but it can only get the first City Defense promotion and can get a number of attack related promotions (long red line in pics). It can also get a number of promotions not associated with defense or healing eg hunting and crime fighting (green lines). Short red lines are others I think strange for this unit as it is already defense only.

Also the wonders that build a route

• Via Appia - paved roads
• Route 66 - highways
  
• Golden Spike - railways

are not very wonderful and are definitely not great wonders because by the time you can build them you workers have already done what the wonder does.

To make them Great again they should do what the Via Appia mod first did, it built the paved roads in every plot with in your cultural borders.

To make them a national wonder remove the building requirements and reduce the cost.

 

[strategyonly]

The Shaolin Monk is a very strange unit. Its description says it is for defense and healing but it can only get the first City Defense promotion and can get a number of attack related promotions (long red line in pics). It can also get a number of promotions not associated with defense or healing eg hunting and crime fighting (green lines). Short red lines are others I think strange for this unit as it is already defense only.

Also the wonders that build a route

• Via Appia - paved roads
• Route 66 - highways
  
• Golden Spike - railways

are not very wonderful and are definitely not great wonders because by the time you can build them you workers have already done what the wonder does.

To make them Great again they should do what the Via Appia mod first did, it built the paved roads in every plot with in your cultural borders.

To make them a national wonder remove the building requirements and reduce the cost.

I agree with the Via, way too late , should be moved backwards?? For the monk, do u think it should be like the TV series (a peace-loving Shaolin monk, Kwai Chang Caine, in the 1970s television series Kung Fu). Thus being able to fight also??

EDIT: @TB, did u figure out yet what it is in the "middle" of the Ancient era that when a person gets there the turn times are doubled??

 

[tmv]

Via Appia requires Paved Roads, which is also the point where the improvement becomes available. You only need to build the "building" Paved Roads a few times, and then you can construct the wonder.

There is a fourth wonder that is supposed to be similar (Silk Road for Roads), but that doesn't seem to work.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The Shaolin Monk is a very strange unit. Its description says it is for defense and healing but it can only get the first City Defense promotion and can get a number of attack related promotions (long red line in pics). It can also get a number of promotions not associated with defense or healing eg hunting and crime fighting (green lines). Short red lines are others I think strange for this unit as it is already defense only.

I haven't adjusted his pedia text but I've added law enforcement to his list of skills. He's really an assassin block unit more than anything. It's not that he should be a replacement for healing or law enforcement so much as he should be a stronger defender against special targeted attacks against these types (such as in stacks or against the assassinate missions.)

I'd not mind seeing him gain more access to city defense but he's a civilian and a non-combatant technically so that's why that's limited. He get's the non-lethal promotions from law enforcement - it's not filtered on defensive only - perhaps that should be a filter check for some promos. He get's a lot of stuff from being LE... arrests (only available to LE units) should be possible to enable an attack even for a 'defensive only' unit. Those Armed Guard promos are not just intended to add defensive only status but to also dramatically enhance defenders meant for escort purposes, just like this unit.

Also the wonders that build a route

• Via Appia - paved roads
• Route 66 - highways
  
• Golden Spike - railways

are not very wonderful and are definitely not great wonders because by the time you can build them you workers have already done what the wonder does.

To make them Great again they should do what the Via Appia mod first did, it built the paved roads in every plot with in your cultural borders.

I'd opt for making them Great Wonders in exactly the manner suggested. They seem to come later than the routes are made available and that feels like a ... problem. I'm saying this without taking the time to research and verify that but going off of vague memory when I made a similar observation a long time back.

 

[Thunderbrd]

EDIT: @TB, did u figure out yet what it is in the "middle" of the Ancient era that when a person gets there the turn times are doubled??

Large unit stacks are the likely culprit. That's about the point in time that starts to take place. I've made some optimizations in AI lately but I've also been adding some AI so the gains vs losses are hard to predict at the moment.