Caveman 2 Cosmos

[JosEPh_II]

Also, if you're playing without Fight or Flight or Size Matters, some of it may not seem like it has quite the point it displays when those options are on. Scouts, for example, are very hard to dispatch for their XP if you don't have a unit with decent pursuit going after them.

I don't use either as to see how the base game flows. I don't have the perceived problems Taxman is complaining about. Is it a challenge yes. Is F or F or SM needed to survive the early game, No not at all.

Taxman impo is feeling a bit pushed and for the game to be right That is how it should be.

Mostly it's game setup and How you use your early units. It's also about being prudent when selecting your target. And what unit you chose to attack or defend with. Early single units won't last long far from home. You have a small window of unobstructed exploration to get a small area around your 1st city scouted out. After that it takes pairs and/or triples of mixed units. And I play with Stay Out OFF and most of the time Reckless Animals On. So even that 1st gatherer needs some luck and protection to get that 1st food improvement done. And All the AI in my games seem to be able to survive the early game as well. In fact I can't remember a game where I've seen a neighbor get wiped out by barbs or neanders. Another aggressive neighbor once in a great while.

I've had 1 game so far in the last 2 months where I came close to losing my starting city. I posted about it in one of the threads but atm I don't recall which thread. And it really doesn't matter I survived and then flourished later on. Was it tense for a bit, yes it was. But isn't the game supposed to be that way from at least time to time? Cakewalks I do not want.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

In my opinion I'm finding that the early barb and neanderthal units are appearing before the player has reached a tech level to be able to compete with them. Clubmen and spiked clubmen just cant deal with 4 str neanders or 3 str barb slingers or even 4 str stone axemen/macemen. This also seems to apply to naval units having rafts to deal with war canoes.

I got fed up with wandering barbarians being way stronger than me and just turned them off. I set NEANDERTHAL_SPAWN_MODIFIER and BARBARIAN_SPAWN_MODIFIER to zero in A_New_Dawn_GlobalDefines.XML.

I still get the city based ones but at least they are of about the same tech level as me whereas the wandering ones were usually twice as strong as my units.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I got fed up with wandering barbarians being way stronger than me and just turned them off. I set NEANDERTHAL_SPAWN_MODIFIER and BARBARIAN_SPAWN_MODIFIER to zero in A_New_Dawn_GlobalDefines.XML.

I still get the city based ones but at least they are of about the same tech level as me whereas the wandering ones were usually twice as strong as my units.

Didn't Sparth make these? And didn't he make them at T-brd's request?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Was part him part me.

Good advise DH. I often forget that can be done.

 

[Taxman66]

I got fed up with wandering barbarians being way stronger than me and just turned them off. I set NEANDERTHAL_SPAWN_MODIFIER and BARBARIAN_SPAWN_MODIFIER to zero in A_New_Dawn_GlobalDefines.XML.

I still get the city based ones but at least they are of about the same tech level as me whereas the wandering ones were usually twice as strong as my units.

I may have to do that, but I'd rather not.
Mostly I think they are just showing up too early. Nothing more. I'm not trying to complain, just offering my opinion.

T-bird:
Clubmen can't even defend against them even with 75% terrain, and I started seeing them before I even got clubmen.

Spiked clubmen can defend if given the right terrain, but have no hope of clearing them out.

Promotions require XP. XP that you need Warrior's Hut and Stick Combat, before then (note I don't use any Traits as they aren't balanced) the only XP is from combat. They aren't going to survive enough combats to get promos.

I admittedly haven't used the Sophistication (anti-barb) promo, so I don't know it's prereqs offhand. If it shows up earlier enough I'll consider it. The other option is Combat I to get Shock. Combat I and Shock are not enough for regular stone axeman to start clearing out their numbers reliable, particularly since they also get to use the terrain bonus to defend themselves.

I wanted to use roving defenders for the hunters but if I have to escort them I can try that. Still that means hunters don't get to use their 2 movement and can't go after animals in 0% terrain unless it is verified not next to advanced barbs or 4 str neanders, even with spiked clubman defender along.

Before I never built Bruits or Stone Throwers and usually just a single wanderer. Now I don't see a reason to build clubmen. I'll still build that single wanderer to try and snatch any nearby good huts that the starting stone thrower finds before he gets killed.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Promotions require XP. XP that you need Warrior's Hut and Stick Combat, before then (note I don't use any Traits as they aren't balanced) the only XP is from combat. They aren't going to survive enough combats to get promos.

You don't have to have either to get XP in the early game.

You have to use the wanderer/ST combo or Wand/wand combo and get xp from the lower animals 1st. Then when you get clubman you should also have chasers. That combo will allow for a bit better animal to kill/subdue and get the woodsman 1 1st for defense when you get caught by a neander Wanderer. I can usually survive those. Chasers don't hang around long before you have trackers. Upgrade the chaser to tracker asap. Then by the time you have Spiked/tracker you have an effective combo that can level up on animals pretty fast. Then the neander brute str 2 (brwn/blk flag) and Homo Neander str 3 (barb flag) can be had. You will lose some but you will start winning more.

Really this is all very doable, even with out F or F or SM or Stealth or any other Combat Mod Option. I have game after game where I do it every game.

 

[Taxman66]

How do the clubmen get xp if the hunter unit is killing the animals?

 

[Thunderbrd]

How do the clubmen get xp if the hunter unit is killing the animals?

Dont have the hunting unit always kill all the animals... Build up the fighter with some of those easier kills for xp. Yes, sophistication is very powerful.

Brutes actualy are good too for weakening foes. They get a natural bonus vs barbs and that does count against neanders too.

 

[JosEPh_II]

And don't keep hunting with an early unit that is down to 60% of it's str value. Get it back home and heal it up. Live to fight another day.

As T-brd says let the fightin unit taken on the weak animals on low defense terrain. Or if the hunting has wounded one that has withdrawn and if it's level is down to less than 30% str let the fighting unit pick it off.

But when you spot a neander or barb unit that is stronger pair back up and head for best defensive terrain available. Or keep moving towards home if you can.

You used to be able to set a tracker on a forested hill put it on Trap hunting and have animals come to you all day long. Doesn't work well that way now. You can still get some animals but not like it used to be. Even sitting on a forested hill with the Pursuit/chase down mode the animals won't come to you like the older version unless you have reckless Animals on. And it's still not the same. Now you have to keep chasing the animals all over the place. As you have found out.

 

[Thunderbrd]

sitting on a forested hill with the Pursuit/chase down mode

Is that still showing on non-Fight or Flight games? That REALLY would be a bug. I've tried to fix that so if it still shows up I have a bigger problem somewhere.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Is that still showing on non-Fight or Flight games? That REALLY would be a bug. I've tried to fix that so if it still shows up I have a bigger problem somewhere.

Perhaps the "easiest" way of ensuring promotions only appear when the right options are on would be to use the GameOptions tags, but I don't know if they are available on promotions and promotion lines.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Is that still showing on non-Fight or Flight games?

If you mean as a choice when you click the Red Shield? Then yes it still shows up there as a choice. Thought that was normal. You saying it's not???

 

[Thunderbrd]

If you mean as a choice when you click the Red Shield? Then yes it still shows up there as a choice. Thought that was normal. You saying it's not???

Pursuit values are all removed from play when Fight or Flight is off so a Buildup (the term for a choice you can select when you click the red shield) that gives Pursuit would actually do nothing. When a unit is set to this Buildup, does it actually accumulate any promotions? And if it does, do those promotions show that they do anything in the pedia when you're playing a non-Fight or Flight game? Or are they 'empty' of any effects?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Perhaps the "easiest" way of ensuring promotions only appear when the right options are on would be to use the GameOptions tags, but I don't know if they are available on promotions and promotion lines.

They are available, and they should be in use here, which indicates we may have a bug with them showing up anyhow. The bug would probably be on the promotionline OnGameOptions tag.

 

[Taxman66]

Not sure if this is related to your discussion or a separate issue:
I recently had an event that gave a choice of three different free promos for all my hunters. Turns out one of the options (Hunting Strike iirc) had no listed effects on the 'pedia' (no combat options selected). I checked, after I picked 'great hunter' as I was curious what it did and couldn't get to the pedia with the pop up open and no further info/details provided by the pop up.

 

[Taxman66]

T-bird,
In regard to your latest SVN changes (9576), I don't really 'get' many of those 'buildings'. They are devices that you would find in a torture chamber and perhaps better off as 'future equipment', not something the whole city would spend it's hammers on.

I could kinda see the ones that are ment for public display (e.g. Brazen Bull) as they seem in line with the other public punishment buildings (Stocks, crucification, etc...). However items like thumbscrews, don't;

For the record, I really don't want c2c to go down this path. The list of torture devices is rather extensive and horrific. It also leads to even more unpleasent places that would likely make me quit this mod (e.g. genocide techs, civics, buildings)

 

[JosEPh_II]

Pursuit values are all removed from play when Fight or Flight is off so a Buildup (the term for a choice you can select when you click the red shield) that gives Pursuit would actually do nothing. When a unit is set to this Buildup, does it actually accumulate any promotions? And if it does, do those promotions show that they do anything in the pedia when you're playing a non-Fight or Flight game? Or are they 'empty' of any effects?

Don't recall as it's been awhile since I last used Pursuit for all 3 of your questions. I'll try to remember to check this out this evening when I get back to my current game.

Just hit Med Era and still there is plenty of hunting and hunting ground available on the C2C_World map From Toffer. Large map with default 9 AI and I just got introduced to #5, and #6 AI. And 1 of them just Had to be Heke of the Maori The other is Aztotozltl (sp), just as bad as Heke. Of course the "New" Cleopatra helps ease the eye strain these other 2 provide.

 

[JosEPh_II]

T-bird,
In regard to your latest SVN changes (9576), I don't really 'get' many of those 'buildings'. They are devices that you would find in a torture chamber and perhaps better off as 'future equipment', not something the whole city would spend it's hammers on.

I could kinda see the ones that are ment for public display (e.g. Brazen Bull) as they seem in line with the other public punishment buildings (Stocks, crucification, etc...). However items like thumbscrews, don't;

For the record, I really don't want c2c to go down this path. The list of torture devices is rather extensive and horrific. It also leads to even more unpleasent places that would likely make me quit this mod (e.g. genocide techs, civics, buildings)

It's as much Hydro's fault as T-brd's that these are now in the mod. Just more stuff some ppl, like me, will ignore and not use, just like Slavery or Cannibalism.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Not sure if this is related to your discussion or a separate issue:
I recently had an event that gave a choice of three different free promos for all my hunters. Turns out one of the options (Hunting Strike iirc) had no listed effects on the 'pedia' (no combat options selected). I checked, after I picked 'great hunter' as I was curious what it did and couldn't get to the pedia with the pop up open and no further info/details provided by the pop up.

The promotion that gives is only effective on games with the without warning option. Not yet sure how to fix that event selection to be option specific but thanks for reminding me to look into it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

T-bird,
In regard to your latest SVN changes (9576), I don't really 'get' many of those 'buildings'. They are devices that you would find in a torture chamber and perhaps better off as 'future equipment', not something the whole city would spend it's hammers on.

I could kinda see the ones that are ment for public display (e.g. Brazen Bull) as they seem in line with the other public punishment buildings (Stocks, crucification, etc...). However items like thumbscrews, don't;

For the record, I really don't want c2c to go down this path. The list of torture devices is rather extensive and horrific. It also leads to even more unpleasent places that would likely make me quit this mod (e.g. genocide techs, civics, buildings)

It was called the dark ages for a reason. No need to try to live in denial of what horrific things people are capable of. If you dont build them it can be as helpful as if you did.

If it comforts, this is as far as that goes.

I was raised in an extremely sheltering family and it did much more harm than good. People need to understand what happens when we stop caring what our leaders do or when we let go of our ability to rationalize in the face of cultish religiosity. Most of those devices were employed in the name of a guy who's only message was to love each other. Hows that for hypocricy huh?