Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[raxo2222]

You are becoming offensive with your lack of understanding and lack of respect for others. And your erroneous assumptions, especially towards me. I will ask, tell you this just One Time, Do Not do it again. Understand?

With military, junior college, and full time college I have over 200+ hours of completed course work. With a 3.55 grade avg. I do not have a degree though because of finances and switching majors from Computer and Information Sciences to Math Education. While at the same time raising a growing family of 4 children.

You are a bit of an *ss raxxo and you need to realize that. I have warned you so I will say no more.

I just meant technical changes to mod, not everything. Otherwise you wouldn't argue with TB and others.
Everyone is good at something and bad at something else.

Also my English isn't very good, so sometimes I can sound much harsher, than I try to say.

 

[ecawilson]

Thank you for moving the Unit Upkeep Modifications thread, Browd (not using @, because a mod doesn't need more spam).

There is a famous book (not necessarily high literature, but it is one of the more well known examples of this principle, so I will use it) by the name of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The book starts out with the catastrophe of a man's house being destroyed by the town council. It was for a good reason (or maybe not?), but it was still the man's home. The notice had been posted, and the council said that if he had objections he should have spoken up much sooner... but the posting was somewhere that the man would rarely go (the cellar of the planning office), and certainly wouldn't expect a notification of his home being torn down to be found there. In the second chapter, we find that basically the same catastrophe is happening to the entire earth.

I'm going to suggest here, whether any change is good or not, necessary or not, that posting the change and making sure all engaged parties were aware how it was impacting their work before it goes live is a better long term strategy for development of this mod. On the other hand, it is not a programmer's job to act or think like a project manager. I don’t know whose job it is, but I certainly don’t think it is @Toffer90 ‘s.

I can think of a few ways that can happen more efficiently here, but I am not running the show. I just want to point out that heated discussion and lost goodwill is not always due to personality differences or deep disagreements. Sometimes it is because the manager is distracted. Or, sometimes, the manager is unable through no fault of their own.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Thank you for moving the Unit Upkeep Modifications thread, Browd (not using @, because a mod doesn't need more spam).

There is a famous book (not necessarily high literature, but it is one of the more well known examples of this principle, so I will use it) by the name of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The book starts out with the catastrophe of a man's house being destroyed by the town council. It was for a good reason (or maybe not?), but it was still the man's home. The notice had been posted, and the council said that if he had objections he should have spoken up much sooner... but the posting was somewhere that the man would rarely go (the cellar of the planning office), and certainly wouldn't expect a notification of his home being torn down to be found there. In the second chapter, we find that basically the same catastrophe is happening to the entire earth.

I'm going to suggest here, whether any change is good or not, necessary or not, that posting the change and making sure all engaged parties were aware how it was impacting their work before it goes live is a better long term strategy for development of this mod. On the other hand, it is not a programmer's job to act or think like a project manager. I don’t know whose job it is, but I certainly don’t think it is @Toffer90 ‘s.

I can think of a few ways that can happen more efficiently here, but I am not running the show. I just want to point out that heated discussion and lost goodwill is not always due to personality differences or deep disagreements. Sometimes it is because the manager is distracted. Or, sometimes, the manager is unable through no fault of their own.

hmm... Yellow...

 

[ecawilson]

hmm... Yellow...

lol
Yes. Shall I expect to next find you lying in the mud, in front of the yellow bulldozer?

 

[Thunderbrd]

lol
Yes. Shall I expect to next find you lying in the mud, in front of the yellow bulldozer?

If I haven't been whisked off to the Pub for an even more difficult discussion, yes.

I personally try to keep announcements going on my projects and although I'm not guiding the actions of others, I would request that the team do try to make their project plans known as soon as they are known to themselves - as much as possible anyhow. If we're going to do something major, we should probably make it clear and open things up to the ability for others to voice disagreements. That said, I also understand how thoughts on a subject can demand immediate action. This team is not under a strong concept of authoritarian project management unless conflicts demand it. I do, however, try to make sure I read every single post here and would hope that other team members also strive to stay on top of what's going on in every corner of the C2C forums.

 

[ecawilson]

My experience is that a project manager brings value. And that a bad ("authoritarian"?) project manager ruins it for the rest of us.
My experience is also that, when it is everyone's job, it is no one's job.
My experience also tells me that it is pretty much just project managers, or those tasked with a PM's job (if not title and pay), that think of making sure these sorts of communications happen and are effective.
And my experience tells me that, when no one takes the role of manager, or takes the time to make sure that communication is happening, individual commitment and engagement are reduced or lost. In both commercial and volunteer endeavors.

But, my experience may not be relevant here. There is always a chance I will be gone in a week. So the best I can hope is that this is read for what it is: a tip from a well meaning fan of your work, and not derision from an overbearing interloper.

 

[Buffalo Solider]

That's not really something ive experienced...which SVN version are you using?

I downloaded latest version of caveman2cosmos and haven't changed anything about mods.
I don't know how to check that, but my changelog starts with :
# CHANGELOG

## v40.1.1351 - 2020-02-11

So I'm using 40.1.1351 I guess.
I'm using defaultly-configured wine on linux tho. That might also add up to problems. I think whole thing might be too heavy for my PC. Menus with lots of icons from all epochs usually freeze me for 1 - 3 seconds, in some menus times are much worse. But when I was playing I had no performance issues. A lot of buildings are not avaiable yet, so not that much icons to display, and game alone in itself is working fine, moving units, clicking turn displaying map is delay-free.

Entering map editor and revealing lots of tiles is when my problems begins and clicking something in pedia or opening menu with all buildings/units - this is where my problem lay. I guess city menu have even more data to process than just icons of buildings.

What's also interesting - adding new unit for country reveals terrain for it an is delay-free, but if I use build-in "reveal territory" brush it freezes for 30 seconds from click no matter if I use 1x1 or 7x7 brush. It's kind of weired than some simple things take more time than some more complex things.

 

[Toffer90]

So I'm using 40.1.1351 I guess.

That is v40.1 which is SVN revision 11114, latest revision is 11201

https://github.com/caveman2cosmos/Caveman2Cosmos/wiki/Using-SVN

 

[rwglaub]

The building screen in WorldBuilder is very clunky. The old one was much easier to work with.

 

[Toffer90]

The building screen in WorldBuilder is very clunky. The old one was much easier to work with.

I don't know how the old one was, nor how the new one is, so you gotta give some details if you want me to make any changes to it.
As of yet, I've only rewritten the WB tech screen and the WB game option screen.

 

[rwglaub]

In the old city screen you could click on a box for any number of things all at once and then save and close. On the new one you have to do one item at a time and then wait up to two minutes to do the next.

 

[JosEPh_II]

In the old city screen you could click on a box for any number of things all at once and then save and close. On the new one you have to do one item at a time and then wait up to two minutes to do the next.

Please screenshots really help here.

 

[Toffer90]

In the old city screen you could click on a box for any number of things all at once and then save and close. On the new one you have to do one item at a time and then wait up to two minutes to do the next.

I see, gives me an idea of what needs to be done, I'll put it on my todo list to revamp that WB screen.

 

[lobosan]

I've already added a late turn autosave option to BUG settings that works. I did that in PPIO.

Though the original request from lobosan was that we add another autosave between the begin-turn-autosave and the late-turn-autosave. So that there are three different autosaves each turn.

There is a quick save function in the game, though I've forgotten the hotkey for it.

Followup: 2 autosaves per turn (civ4 ini autosave and C2C Bug Late Save) seem to work well once I realized I had to modify the CivilizationIV.ini to autosaveinterval = 1. Thanks Toffer for the feature and for giving Late Saves a distinct name!

 

[Joij21]

Since you guys are working on fixing excess gold in the later game, why don't you switch the majority of the gold producing buildings to commerce? That seems to be the actual source of the excess gold problem. In order to prevent research from skyrocketing all you would have to do is disable the gateway techs and make the negative education bonuses be active from the start. That way due to the lack of education sources you have in the beginning it will offset the new research from commerce. This would then be combined with the new new unit costs and maintenance to finally give the player the choice of whether they want research at 100% or tax to provide for the excess costs. Thus the only viable way to keep at 100% research would be to reduce the amount of cities and units you have.

 

[Snofru1]

That sounds like a great idea! Having again the choice: Gold or research (or culture or espionage).

 

[Thunderbrd]

Since you guys are working on fixing excess gold in the later game, why don't you switch the majority of the gold producing buildings to commerce? That seems to be the actual source of the excess gold problem. In order to prevent research from skyrocketing all you would have to do is disable the gateway techs and make the negative education bonuses be active from the start. That way due to the lack of education sources you have in the beginning it will offset the new research from commerce. This would then be combined with the new new unit costs and maintenance to finally give the player the choice of whether they want research at 100% or tax to provide for the excess costs. Thus the only viable way to keep at 100% research would be to reduce the amount of cities and units you have.

While your arguments are sound, it's:
1) no small review task to go through and make that sort of change
2) the end of the experiment we're using in this mod to make gold have an identity outside of just commerce and thus being pretty much the same as research, such as it was in Vanilla, which seemed quite flawed really. If you wanted to up research, build a market.

If the system is better balanced, you can still achieve the benefits you're talking about. The problem is that gold hasn't been hungry enough to force you to cut in to your research to feed it.

However, I'm open to some compromise because I do feel like the commerce pool is a little too small so that once you need gold, you're usually compelled to be either all in or all out. SOME things being changed from gold to commerce might help, but we have to figure out thematically what the difference should be for only some buildings to work in commerce rather than gold.

As it stands, gold from buildings is government income that is purely in terms of money and not just the body of potential work that can be devoted to by the people (commerce). As AIAndy has pointed out, RL economics isn't very easily modeled in any way with the basic structure we have of what 'value' is in these base game definitions of yields and commerces.

If you can find a building theme that can take some third or even 1/2 of the gold production in the game and turn it into commerce instead, I'm interested to hear what one would propose could be thematically divorced from gold alone.

 

[Joij21]

such as it was in Vanilla, which seemed quite flawed really. If you wanted to up research, build a market.

I think civ4 was based on the economic theory that if people have wealth then they have more time to pursue intellectual pursuits, and afford higher forms of education. This of course is a more pro-capitalistic theory of thought however, and probably why it is absent in later installments of the game in favor of a more "politically correct" system. Later games instead use the amount of population you have to determine research, with a higher population yielding higher research. While this second system is valid in the sense that more people equals more brainpower, it also doesn't take into account the fact that if most of that population was in poverty than most likely they wouldn't have the opportunity to contribute intellectually to society.

The only reason I believe the second system was ultimately adopted was probably because it is the most divorced from an economic reality, and thus making it viable for one's society to have more leftist forms of economics, such as communism. Generally if your conservative chances are you like the old system from civ4 and before where as if you are liberal you probably prefer the new system from civ5 and beyond.

However currently C2C has neither but rather a more arcade style of wealth accumulation. Very similar to age of empires or an online strategy game where gold is seemingly pulled out of nowhere and serves more of a gameplay purpose. A gameplay purpose that is often used to slow the game down or simply be a different resource to acquire in a game that only has a few other resource slots.

Nevertheless even now the market gives the same yield as it did in vanilla in this mod. So if you want to raise research upwards in C2C it still makes sense to build that market, however every other building is essentially acting as a market as well so hence why your research is always at 100% throughout the whole game. Which is why I prefer to add massive research penalties into the game either through civics, worldviews, properties, or buildings in order to offset this discrepancy.

 

[Esfera]

I think civ4 was based on the economic theory that if people have wealth then they have more time to pursue intellectual pursuits, and afford higher forms of education. This of course is a more pro-capitalistic theory of thought however, and probably why it is absent in later installments of the game in favor of a more "politically correct" system. Later games instead use the amount of population you have to determine research, with a higher population yielding higher research. While this second system is valid in the sense that more people equals more brainpower, it also doesn't take into account the fact that if most of that population was in poverty than most likely they wouldn't have the opportunity to contribute intellectually to society.

The only reason I believe the second system was ultimately adopted was probably because it is the most divorced from an economic reality, and thus making it viable for one's society to have more leftist forms of economics, such as communism. Generally if your conservative chances are you like the old system from civ4 and before where as if you are liberal you probably prefer the new system from civ5 and beyond.

However currently C2C has neither but rather a more arcade style of wealth accumulation. Very similar to age of empires or an online strategy game where gold is seemingly pulled out of nowhere and serves more of a gameplay purpose. A gameplay purpose that is often used to slow the game down or simply be a different resource to acquire in a game that only has a few other resource slots.

Nevertheless even now the market gives the same yield as it did in vanilla in this mod. So if you want to raise research upwards in C2C it still makes sense to build that market, however every other building is essentially acting as a market as well so hence why your research is always at 100% throughout the whole game. Which is why I prefer to add massive research penalties into the game either through civics, worldviews, properties, or buildings in order to offset this discrepancy.

My understanding of it is that marketplaces tend to be places of an intense social importance, foreigners and locals get together to discuss all matters, not just the ones directly involved in trading. A good example of this. it was common for Greek philosophers to discuss and debate in the marketplace while drinking coan wine (wine with seawater), Socrates and Diogenes come to mind. But yes, it's understandable that slaves and peasants weren't the brightest, due to poor diets, a lack of free time and (sometimes) not adequate amounts of sleep, some "biological reductionists" also argue about a genetic component and claim that thanks to the upper classes outbreeding the lower classes humanity is now "genetically superior", but the evidence for that claim is borderline non-existing, and while it's common knowledge that nobles had lots of bastards, it's also common knowledge that their inbred genes were far from being superior and bastards were hold in a poor regard by society as a whole, considering them lower in the hierarchy than criminals, so I don't think they were that likely to pass their genes into the next generation.
Now, let's ignore that tangent and go back on topic: The way I see it, the reason why research works the way it works in new editions of Civilization is because it's simpler than in Civilization IV, and in an historical sense isn't that inaccurate, considering how India, Egypt and China were intellectual powerhouses.
If you really think about it, the mechanic of commerce doesn't really make that much sense, sure, open nations tend to see their research boosted, their culture enriched and their business wealthier, but this is something that Civilization V Gods & Kings handles through trade routes and all games of Civilization handle one way or the other through the trade panel of other leaders, perhaps the exception is culture, you can't boost your culture through commerce in later editions of Civilization, but in Civilization V Gods & Kings big nations get penalised anyway and through the mechanic of ideologies those players that adopt certain endgame cultural policies will get punished by other civs and can lose a massive amount of culture if they lose.

 

[Joij21]

My understanding of it is that marketplaces tend to be places of an intense social importance, foreigners and locals get together to discuss all matters, not just the ones directly involved in trading. A good example of this. it was common for Greek philosophers to discuss and debate in the marketplace while drinking coan wine (wine with seawater), Socrates and Diogenes come to mind.

I think that all depends on the personal culture of the elites. During the middle ages educated nobles and monks would never socialize in the downtown market area with all of the peasants unless it were some festivity (which would then exclude the monks ). Even then they would probably just keep their bodyguards between them and the lower classes, only socializing with those of their own class. At later dates we also see how in America the rich and wealthy don't even shop or party at the locations the lower classes do, instead going to personal islands, celebrity clubhouses, gated mansions, etc. American elites also tend to not be educated so there's that as well. But then again they Greeks were are more open society.

"biological reductionists" also argue about a genetic component and claim that thanks to the upper classes outbreeding the lower classes humanity is now "genetically superior", but the evidence for that claim is borderline non-existing, and while it's common knowledge that nobles had lots of bastards, it's also common knowledge that their inbred genes were far from being superior and bastards were hold in a poor regard by society as a whole, considering them lower in the hierarchy than criminals, so I don't think they were that likely to pass their genes into the next generation.

I agree with you that there is little evidence for the biological reductionist claims, however I disagree with you on your claim that bastards weren't able to mate. There's many historical cases of them actually doing so and even having bastards of their own, just take a look at William the Conqueror. The thing about bastards is they often times covered it up throughout their life, and due to the fact having one could tarnish your name as well meant many of the nobility just forced their bastard sons and daughters to marry out into the lesser nobility. Over time the lesser nobility would marry out into the middle and free peasant classes thus losing their riches. As a matter of fact many last names in England have a noble background through bastardship thus making many people here in the U.S. essentially descendants of bastards through later intermarrying.

The way I see it, the reason why research works the way it works in new editions of Civilization is because it's simpler than in Civilization IV, and in an historical sense isn't that inaccurate, considering how India, Egypt and China were intellectual powerhouses.
If you really think about it, the mechanic of commerce doesn't really make that much sense, sure, open nations tend to see their research boosted, their culture enriched and their business wealthier, but this is something that Civilization V Gods & Kings handles through trade routes and all games of Civilization handle one way or the other through the trade panel of other leaders, perhaps the exception is culture, you can't boost your culture through commerce in later editions of Civilization, but in Civilization V Gods & Kings big nations get penalised anyway and through the mechanic of ideologies those players that adopt certain endgame cultural policies will get punished by other civs and can lose a massive amount of culture if they lose.

I only partially agree. There is one thing besides a large population that India, Egypt, and China had in common. An insane amount of wealth and trade. As a result those nations were able to have education systems unparalleled compared to the rest of the world. Yes the amount of brains in your society helps, but obviously they can't due much of anything unless the nation is wealthy. As for later games of the Civ series, I still believe it was a move toward simplification and political correctness.