Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[pi4t]

It's been a few years since I last played C2C. I think last time I played we'd just had the big update to the prehistoric era. What are the big changes since then? How is the late-game nowadays?

 

[Somebody613]

It's been a few years since I last played C2C. I think last time I played we'd just had the big update to the prehistoric era. What are the big changes since then? How is the late-game nowadays?

The changes are quite huge, and I wouldn't focus on the latter eras in the first place, lol.
Prehistory is quite cool all by its own value.
(In fact, I was a while ago discussing the possibility of a modmod that would limit the entire game to Prehistory-only, and that is still a rather sound idea, mind you.)

 

[pi4t]

The changes are quite huge, and I wouldn't focus on the latter eras in the first place, lol.
Prehistory is quite cool all by its own value.
(In fact, I was a while ago discussing the possibility of a modmod that would limit the entire game to Prehistory-only, and that is still a rather sound idea, mind you.)

As I recall, at the time I played before, the later eras were basically unplayable. Both for technical reasons - slowdowns, MAF problems, etc - and because there was a major lack of content. So it wasn't really "to cosmos", just "to medieval times" at best! How much has that changed?

 

[Somebody613]

As I recall, at the time I played before, the later eras were basically unplayable. Both for technical reasons - slowdowns, MAF problems, etc - and because there was a major lack of content. So it wasn't really "to cosmos", just "to medieval times" at best! How much has that changed?

Probably not much, but "unplayable" is caused by factors that have very little to do with any Eras beyond Ancient.
Basically, it's just the number of cities (cue Settlers) and the number of units (cue horsehockey (LOOOL!!!) AI).
The technology level has absolutely zero effect on memory consumption, or at least it's low enough to not matter visibly.
Well, it does so now, not sure how it was a few years ago.

 

[pi4t]

Probably not much, but "unplayable" is caused by factors that have very little to do with any Eras beyond Ancient.
Basically, it's just the number of cities (cue Settlers) and the number of units (cue horsehockey (LOOOL!!!) AI).
The technology level has absolutely zero effect on memory consumption, or at least it's low enough to not matter visibly.
Well, it does so now, not sure how it was a few years ago.

Well, yes, but the number of cities and units goes up as the game progresses and civilisations' economies develop. So you always find that the game needs more memory as it progresses. It's why you tend to get memory-related crashes (if you get them at all) in the late game rather than the early game.

 

[Somebody613]

Well, yes, but the number of cities and units goes up as the game progresses and civilisations' economies develop. So you always find that the game needs more memory as it progresses. It's why you tend to get memory-related crashes (if you get them at all) in the late game rather than the early game.

It depends.
There might be a slight effect of accumulated buildings over time, maybe, but the most major factor is the number of units - and that one applies even in Prehistory, given enough turns.
The stupid AI will inevitably build a comparable amount of SUPERFLUOUS UNNECESSARY units, regardless of whether those are Neanderthals or Mechas, or so it seems for now.
Haven't played much in Eras past gunpowder, so I'm mostly theorizing, but I have no reason to assume that AI gets any smarter with technological progress, lol.
It still fails to evaluate unit worth and necessity correctly, so there shouldn't be much change in pointless hoarding between Dogs and Super Dogs, ya know.

 

[Maltazard]

You can safely play on standard size maps into the future eras, it is easier if you control most of the world by then to limit AI's units to a reasonable amount. There are some standard sized space maps in the maps subforum that allow you to also experience the space colonization eras.
There are also a bunch of different in game options that affect complexity, turn times and whatnot, but it's best to playtest them and choose as you go.

Now if you play on the ginormous earth map with 500+ cities by the renaissance then yes, the game becomes unplayable.

 

[Somebody613]

You can safely play on standard size maps into the future eras, it is easier if you control most of the world by then to limit AI's units to a reasonable amount. There are some standard sized space maps in the maps subforum that allow you to also experience the space colonization eras.
There are also a bunch of different in game options that affect complexity, turn times and whatnot, but it's best to playtest them and choose as you go.

Now if you play on the ginormous earth map with 500+ cities by the renaissance then yes, the game becomes unplayable.

Which is why I'm pretty much dreaming of the impossible miracle that would be Modern Engine Civ4 C2C, lol.
Because it's undoubtedly much LESS complex than stuff like Crusader Kings 3, so it shouldn't be thinking sooo ssslllooowwwlllyyy...

 

[BlueTemplar]

The Player's Guide does either cover it itself or link to it. Search that first page (f5) for Invisibility and you should quickly find it there. The wording has been changed since then to Veil and Spot rather than Invisibility and See Invisibility but the ideas are roughly the same. There's been some math changes I think to the system as well since I designed it. I'm not sure if I could explain those adjustments or not but it has to do with same tile visibilities and where the veil amounts begin to apply then fall off.

Come on, you literally wrote these guides, just link to them instead of sending people on forum trawling !

Btw, is there a comprehensive guide to Hide and Seek and all the stealth stuff? I looked through the various mod descriptions and change logs, trying to find something that is current.

The most current one that I'm aware of :

C2C Combat Mod Option: Hide and Seek

C2C Combat Mod Option Hide and Seek @All (Players/Modders): Brilliance or Madness? You'll have to decide for yourself. Hide and Seek attempts to capture a deeper sense of strategic realism when it comes to visibility rules in Civ IV. The primary changes it introduces is to give units not...

forums.civfanatics.com

(Pretty recently updated too, only 18 months obsolete as of this post !)

3 wilderness spotting and 2 crowd-spotting (if that are the terms.)

This is one issue that could perhaps be handled better - I don't think we actually have these names anywhere in the game itself (?), which makes it hard to talk about them - they only exist buried in a post (which is at least linked from the player's guide...)

 

[Thunderbrd]

Come on, you literally wrote these guides, just link to them instead of sending people on forum trawling !

Takes a lot more time to do that than it does to just spit out an explanation. I tend to get distracted if I leave or add pages and tabs to what I'm currently paying attention to and usually I should be focusing on other things to begin with than giving an answer to a question here. The amount of things I'm juggling at once is usually quite a bit as it is. I appreciate your help in guiding more directly to the answers requested. Its nice to have the game supported by a village.

 

[pi4t]

Size Matters question. I've built a bunch of clubmen, and combined them into three companies. I now want to combine those three companies into a batallion, but the game isn't giving me that option. Is this working as intended?

Also, completely unrelated question: where do you see how close you are to getting a new trait with developing leaders?

 

[Guvnor]

After playing for several months, there are a few minor tweaks I would dearly love to see added in future versions:


1) An option to have all non-combat units move first in the action queue... or just the option to specify the order in which you want units to cycle yourself. Ideally the order should probably be something like Workers/Workboats ==> Missionaries/Great People ==> Hunter/Explorer/Scout Units ==> Siege Units ==> Combat Units. But other people may have preference for what type of units they like to move first.

Yes, I know I can turn on worker automation to speed up the game, but I hate losing them because they're too stupid to get out of the way of advancing enemy hordes or that invisible Rogue who's been lurking around. I can (and do) manually hit "/" to cycle to the next non-combat unit, but one of the biggest time wasters later in the game comes when you've got a sprawling empire that is trying to juggle road building and other infrastructure with moving your army around the map. In most cases, you always want your worker units to move first so that they can build the roads that the other units need to travel on to get them to your western front faster. Yet every time I tell a worker to build something the next unit it automatically skips to is invariably a combat unit on the completely opposite side of the map. I shouldn't have to hit the / key between every move to keep shifting the focus back to my workers.

2) A button to switch focus back to the unit you just moved (or at the very least, the camera). This is another one of those issues of the camera always wanting to jump to some unit on another continent as soon as you complete an action. Sometimes, you stick your foot in it and end up with a worker unit one tile away from an creaturely penguin, or that seemingly assured victory leaves your with a wounded unit just waiting to be picked off in the next round. It'd be useful to be able to skip back to where you just were, so that if you happen to have another unit nearby you can move them into position to try to complete what you were doing or defend the unprotected unit that's vulnerable.

3) A slider/pulldown option to delay X seconds after giving a unit orders before auto-advancing to the next unit. Same reasoning as above. If you stick your foot in it, it's nice to be able to look around and see if there's another unit in close proximity that can help you before you get catapulted over to Greenland and have to manually move the camera and try to locate your the unit that's now in danger.


4) Consider adding a red "Build Up" option for workers similar to what combat units have to work existing tile improvements for bonuses. I am really surprised nobody has implemented this mechanic yet. (Unless it exists later in the game and I simply haven't gotten to it yet) Normally, you want your workers out building roads and improvements, but what happens during those time when you're between road upgrades or there's nothing left to improve? Workers just stand around doing nothing. Those freeloaders should be off working the existing tiles for extra bonuses! It would be nice if idle Worker units had a red Build Up option just like combat units that would allow them to spend their idle turns in a worthwhile manner, and depending on what resources the tile had to begin with, extract one extra food, gold, or production yield up to a certain maximum (no more than 10%) dictated by their experience level as a field/hill/forest/tundra worker. Perhaps they could also have the option of "working" tiles like cottages/mines/lumbermills/seasonal camps to speed them along faster to their next upgrade. The bonus from doing this should always be should be small, but potentially worthwhile to smaller nations who had the misfortune to get boxed in on an island or peninsula and have to try to make the most out of the limited territory they've got. This would make keeping a large labor force around more useful later in the game, plus open up some interesting strategic elements because having a bunch of workers permanently hanging out on all your tiles can give your nation a bit of a boost, but those poor helpless saps are just waiting to be picked off by enemy units. Perhaps there could also be an accumulative "overworked" danger similar to flammability which if you're unlucky and work a tile too hard, could temporarily or permanently damage it, reducing it's yield.

 

[Toffer90]

2) A button to switch focus back to the unit you just moved (or at the very least, the camera). This is another one of those issues of the camera always wanting to jump to some unit on another continent as soon as you complete an action. Sometimes, you stick your foot in it and end up with a worker unit one tile away from an creaturely penguin, or that seemingly assured victory leaves your with a wounded unit just waiting to be picked off in the next round. It'd be useful to be able to skip back to where you just were, so that if you happen to have another unit nearby you can move them into position to try to complete what you were doing or defend the unprotected unit that's vulnerable.

3) A slider/pulldown option to delay X seconds after giving a unit orders before auto-advancing to the next unit. Same reasoning as above. If you stick your foot in it, it's nice to be able to look around and see if there's another unit in close proximity that can help you before you get catapulted over to Greenland and have to manually move the camera and try to locate your the unit that's now in danger.

Good suggestions, I'll consider both.

 

[tmv]

Size Matters question. I've built a bunch of clubmen, and combined them into three companies. I now want to combine those three companies into a batallion, but the game isn't giving me that option. Is this working as intended?

Also, completely unrelated question: where do you see how close you are to getting a new trait with developing leaders?

For every era you reach you can merge your units once again. In Prehistory you can merge units only once, in Ancient twice, etc.

 

[BlueTemplar]

3) A slider/pulldown option to delay X seconds after giving a unit orders before auto-advancing to the next unit. Same reasoning as above. If you stick your foot in it, it's nice to be able to look around and see if there's another unit in close proximity that can help you before you get catapulted over to Greenland and have to manually move the camera and try to locate your the unit that's now in danger.

Wait, but auto-advancing to next unit after giving orders has been disabled around v42 or so ??

Otherwise, see the somewhat related :

Issues with the new city build popup

Potentially relevant old thread : https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/incomplete-build-list-for-cities-in-the-popup-at-the-beginning-of-a-turn.674476/ While the new city build popup is very exciting in terms of potential- including the already realized new feature of build history - amazing...

forums.civfanatics.com

Also, completely unrelated question: where do you see how close you are to getting a new trait with developing leaders?

Hover over your flag.

 

[Thunderbrd]

1) An option to have all non-combat units move first in the action queue... or just the option to specify the order in which you want units to cycle yourself. Ideally the order should probably be something like Workers/Workboats ==> Missionaries/Great People ==> Hunter/Explorer/Scout Units ==> Siege Units ==> Combat Units. But other people may have preference for what type of units they like to move first.

Yes, I know I can turn on worker automation to speed up the game, but I hate losing them because they're too stupid to get out of the way of advancing enemy hordes or that invisible Rogue who's been lurking around. I can (and do) manually hit "/" to cycle to the next non-combat unit, but one of the biggest time wasters later in the game comes when you've got a sprawling empire that is trying to juggle road building and other infrastructure with moving your army around the map. In most cases, you always want your worker units to move first so that they can build the roads that the other units need to travel on to get them to your western front faster. Yet every time I tell a worker to build something the next unit it automatically skips to is invariably a combat unit on the completely opposite side of the map. I shouldn't have to hit the / key between every move to keep shifting the focus back to my workers.

2) A button to switch focus back to the unit you just moved (or at the very least, the camera). This is another one of those issues of the camera always wanting to jump to some unit on another continent as soon as you complete an action. Sometimes, you stick your foot in it and end up with a worker unit one tile away from an creaturely penguin, or that seemingly assured victory leaves your with a wounded unit just waiting to be picked off in the next round. It'd be useful to be able to skip back to where you just were, so that if you happen to have another unit nearby you can move them into position to try to complete what you were doing or defend the unprotected unit that's vulnerable.

3) A slider/pulldown option to delay X seconds after giving a unit orders before auto-advancing to the next unit. Same reasoning as above. If you stick your foot in it, it's nice to be able to look around and see if there's another unit in close proximity that can help you before you get catapulted over to Greenland and have to manually move the camera and try to locate your the unit that's now in danger.

Very glad Toffer may consider some of this because this stuff is so in and out of the exe I HATE this region of the code.

4) Consider adding a red "Build Up" option for workers similar to what combat units have to work existing tile improvements for bonuses. I am really surprised nobody has implemented this mechanic yet. (Unless it exists later in the game and I simply haven't gotten to it yet) Normally, you want your workers out building roads and improvements, but what happens during those time when you're between road upgrades or there's nothing left to improve? Workers just stand around doing nothing. Those freeloaders should be off working the existing tiles for extra bonuses! It would be nice if idle Worker units had a red Build Up option just like combat units that would allow them to spend their idle turns in a worthwhile manner, and depending on what resources the tile had to begin with, extract one extra food, gold, or production yield up to a certain maximum (no more than 10%) dictated by their experience level as a field/hill/forest/tundra worker. Perhaps they could also have the option of "working" tiles like cottages/mines/lumbermills/seasonal camps to speed them along faster to their next upgrade. The bonus from doing this should always be should be small, but potentially worthwhile to smaller nations who had the misfortune to get boxed in on an island or peninsula and have to try to make the most out of the limited territory they've got. This would make keeping a large labor force around more useful later in the game, plus open up some interesting strategic elements because having a bunch of workers permanently hanging out on all your tiles can give your nation a bit of a boost, but those poor helpless saps are just waiting to be picked off by enemy units. Perhaps there could also be an accumulative "overworked" danger similar to flammability which if you're unlucky and work a tile too hard, could temporarily or permanently damage it, reducing it's yield.

I have considered this and really do want to do some things along these kinds of lines. Specially for eco cleanup - reducing pollution, scrubbing fallout (which I want to become a property later) and other varieties of things. At the time, the AI would've been nearly impossible but a lots been done to simplify worker AI so maybe it's something that can manifest at some point. I really do want, however, to show something C2C has never been able to replicate, which is how bad things can get when the land fertility shifts under your nation's established platforms of food income that can lead to absolute societal collapse as it did for the ancient pueblo... we've gotta find ways to crank down harder rather than making survival softer I think.

 

[pi4t]

Is there a reason why cultures are divided up by real-life continent and you can't build cultures from the wrong continent?

 

[BlueTemplar]

Is there a reason why cultures are divided up by real-life continent and you can't build cultures from the wrong continent?

I'm not the one to answer this, but if it bothers you a lot, you can always comment out these restrictions as you stumble of them...

 

[Somebody613]

Is there a reason why cultures are divided up by real-life continent and you can't build cultures from the wrong continent?

That's not a "bug", but a "feature".
It's basically the first step towards "fully personalized civilization" that would literally only give you a placeholder name at the start of the game.
It already kinda does it, but it's now limited to continents, whereas it's a very small tweak to go one step back to "Human Culture" that would only LATER unlock the "Continental" cultures.
Which would remove the point of having Named Civs altogether, given how you wouldn't be receiving anything "unique" based on that anyways (well, the Leader, but that's also changeable).
What is (hopefully) gonna happen one day, is you starting as a Placeholder Civ in a world of Placeholder Civs, and then unlocking more specific Continental Cultures that you now start with.
I would really like if this let you make your Leader "editable" in the sense of going from "Placeholder" to "Continental" to "Regional" to "National", and also being able to change it in "real time".
That would be outright AWESOME, lol.

 

[pi4t]

That's not a "bug", but a "feature".
It's basically the first step towards "fully personalized civilization" that would literally only give you a placeholder name at the start of the game.
It already kinda does it, but it's now limited to continents, whereas it's a very small tweak to go one step back to "Human Culture" that would only LATER unlock the "Continental" cultures.
Which would remove the point of having Named Civs altogether, given how you wouldn't be receiving anything "unique" based on that anyways (well, the Leader, but that's also changeable).
What is (hopefully) gonna happen one day, is you starting as a Placeholder Civ in a world of Placeholder Civs, and then unlocking more specific Continental Cultures that you now start with.
I would really like if this let you make your Leader "editable" in the sense of going from "Placeholder" to "Continental" to "Regional" to "National", and also being able to change it in "real time".
That would be outright AWESOME, lol.

But what's the purpose in dividing things up by continent at all? Couldn't you just drop the continental cultures, and start with pure placeholder civilisations now, allowing every civilisation to make any culture it meets the technology and geography prerequisites for? Is there some game balance reason not to do that?

Not that this is a particularly big issue for me. I'm just...confused about what purpose it serves.