CCM - An introduction to a great mod

[ThERat]

As mentioned in the sucession games forum, I am planning to start a SG for this brand new mod that at this stage is still in beta mode due to some stability issues.

Thus, I am starting this introduction game, which hopefully will make you curious about this mod and serves as some sort of guide as well. CCM has a lot of new elements, which will make gameplay rather different. However, just reading about it in theory is very different from following an actual game.

So, here we go:
I started a new game yesterday which will hopefully highlight a lot of the new elements. I will start with visual uploads tonight. For now, let me talk about the settings that I chose for this game.

CCM is meant to be played on huge maps with 30 opponents. It play reasonably fast on such maps. Thus, I chose a huge 70% continent map. I go for Canada with their mounties in the latter game as their UU. As a new world nation, Canada does not below to a traditional religious group. Thus, we will need to 'aquire' religion from other nations. Religion is a new element in CCM that I will explore further later on.

As for difficulty, I do not want to overrun the opponents, and thus choose emperor as a nice challenge. I also decide to beeline for a new government type called theocracy. It has the advantage of no war weariness and getting us a unique building that can serve as a barracks and library at the same time. Barracks are hard to come by in CCM. As I plan to take over the world, a no WW government with good barracks seems the right choice.

I hope you are curious enough to follow this thread which will be filled with pictures soon.

 

[vmxa]

By huge do you mean the standard 160x160 or some custom size? I will take a ringside seat sir.

 

[Matt_G]

Looking forward to reading this one.

 

[ThERat]

@vmxa, huge here is different from standard huge...it's a little bigger than that.

Ok, off we go anyway. As I mentioned before, I chose Canada.

You can see that every game starts with 2 settlers and 1 worker. According to the creator of CCM, this is because in Civ2, he also liked the game to start with 2 settlers. Since settlers will be autoproduced, this seems reasonable. In case you wonder why a nomadic settler and a normal settler? Well, if there are 2 settlers, there would be 2 workers as well...game mechanics of C3C.

Since both stand on a BG, I move the settlers first and found my first city across the river.

This triggers the palace mini wonder to be produced instantly. Why did I mention this? Look at the description. Settler will be auto produced here every 20 turns. In addition, the palace serves as a barracks. This is important as barracks aren't available from the start and depending on the government type you choose, can be very hard to come by.

So, say bye bye to settler spamming and ICS, you can't afford it at all. In fact in all my test games I initially try to space cities apart to maximize land use as settlers will be rare. I really like this departure from the standard game.

How about the next change, the auto-production of workers. You have to build workers houses first that will then produce a worker every 12 turns. Wow, add to this the fact that a mine needs 8 turns to be built, you are restrained with workers actions initially and might want to source for slaves elsewhere.

Take note too, that workers will move and start their action the same turn as they do in Civ4. Also, roading takes the same amount of turns (three) whether on flat land, hills or mountains, a welcome change here.

A last overview at the beginning, the tech tree of the ancient era. It's not as bloated as RaR but still not as short as for the standard game. I choose the bottom part of the tech tree to go for philo and religion which will enable me to go for theocracy. It also leaves em the option to go for literature and the Great Library. This is demigod and I don't expect to build too many wonders as there is no more palace prebuild.

 

[ThERat]

I move the second settler a little further away and while founding my second city, get another tech from a hut. I chose barbs as sedentary as maps tend to be big with empty land initially. I personally can't stand barbs and do not wish to see them here. You will fight off invisible enslavers and priests early on, that's enough to worry about.

After a few turns, the capital finishes worker houses. I want workers to be produced as fast as possible though one might want to build this in the second city as it also functions as a barracks. You can see I chose to go for writing at maximum research. I hope to get this tech as a trade bait. One more thing, maximum research rate in despotism is 80%.

I produce 2 scouts and one of them runs into Austria pretty soon, we seem to have close neighbors, which I don't mind for early fights and enslaving.

A few turns later , my first worker is produced, note the upgrade button. This folks just like settlers need to be upgraded first before using them. If you forget that just like I did the first time, you will be fuming later on when you realize you can't use them

In the south, I run into another nation, the French in dark blue

Now, with a few AI's nearby, it is essential that I protect my cities as well as my workforce. Don't let your precious workers work alone and get caught by those invisible enslavers. Protect what you have and don't say, I didn't warn you.

I get a settler and upgrade it before sending it out. I decide to go for the coast as we want some boats to explore too.

The new city gets the fitting name Vancouver, though this time not on the west coast

 

[ThERat]

The next set of turns starts with me acquiring writing. This is essential as the 3 AIs that I met so far (Spain now as well) have already quite a lead in technology on me.

I use this to trade techs getting wheels and BW for better defenders. Wheels are important as they allow a new mini wonder to be built that can produce great early attackers. It is called Royal stables and auto produces a chariot every 7 turns. However, the chariots need to be upgraded before they can be used and one needs horses to do so. The wonder can be built without horses though.

I set my second city to try for the Temple of Baalbeck, I great wonder that would give me prophets that are very powerful early on. I can always try to bag this wonder and then if this fails, settle for TGL. Thus, I also depart from my path to philosophy and go for literature first.

One more issue, with polytheism, I can now get a slavers hut that will produce an enslaver every 10 turns. I need those guys to get my work force up and running and to irritate the AI's

If you say, I didn't warn you, in the next image you can see that one of my defenders is attacked by an invisible unit and it sure is an enslaver. Lucky, mt spear holds out (the enslaver isn't that strong with 2/1/2)

I really need to protect my workforce and cities and any settler that I might want to send out. In Vancouver, I connect spices. Not only do they serves as a happy resource, but now I can build a supply center which auto produces caravans that we can cash in later on.

Then, bad news strike as someone else finishes the Temple of Baalbeck

I scramble to find a tech trade to get a wonder that I can insert for a turn before heading for the TGL. I was about to lose a lot of shields here as there is no more palace prebuild.


Ok, I got my first enslaver and some Spanish victim in the form of a warriors passes by, ideal for an attack. I succeed to take it out and get a slave to boot

I am in the process of slowly building the TGL with 400 shields not an easy feat here.

 

[ThERat]

So, I am in the midst of gong for the Great Library. I would like to get some horses too, but there are none as far as I can see. You can only spot some way east in Austrian hands. Horses are very important in my mind as the auto produced unit could help me in the first place. Also, many good attacking units need horses. At least I see two iron sources nearby.

Well, I will have to fight initially with slow units and catapults. Thus, starting the siege workshop makes sense.

In the south, there is iron I want to take from Austria. This is also a good area to fish for slaves with my enslavers.

The Royal stables produce my first training chariot that is currently of no use.
In case you wonder why you can fortify these units and are sick of tapping the space bar, you can fortify the whole stack in the city. (took me a while to figure it out)

Moving with a ship west paid for sure as I met Mongols and now the Germans. They are backwards as expected for an isolated start.

A typical scene from CCM, auto produced units in this case. The supply shipment (caravan) gives me 25 gold once shipped to our capital, the clan (settler) will give me iron.

 

[vmxa]

Does the caravan have to be captured to be cashed in ala AoI or is it like Civ2, just send it to a town?

 

[ThERat]

It has to be captured, I guess that's the code of Civ3

 

[Northern Pike]

Thanks for a very informative report so far. But what is the point of this "I've built it but I still have to upgrade it to use it" mechanic, except to frustrate the player?

 

[ThERat]

NP, I do not know exactly the mechanics behind this, but I guess it's the code of Civ3 that makes this necessary. This is only necessary for auto produced workers, settlers and chariots. No other units have this issue.

 

[vmxa]

That is what I figure, but I am not well enough versed in the editor to figure it out. I see apprentice is foot unit/immobile and tactical missile? I think it is due to making the worker house auto build them, that forces this trick.

I have only installed, but not had a chance to try it. One of the things I am a bit shy about is having lots of techs. In Civ 4, I felt they were too many and too many paths. I need to figure out, if one way is better than another and if it is for all nations or some.

Some of the completed scenarios have few choices, it mostly just a straight line, so no need to learn that much, you have no choice in the next tech.

 

[Northern Pike]

OK, if it's a work-around enforced by the code, that's a lot better than if someone actually thought it was a good idea.

 

[sk8boardbob2]

For the chariot I'm guessing the auto produced units don't upgrade without horses. I don't see why it's also with workers and settlers though.

 

[ThERat]

The tech tree isn't overly complicated in my mind, it is by far not like Civ4's tech tree.

Maybe civnator can help us explain why the settler and workers needed this work around.

 

[Civinator]

ThERat, thank you very much for doing this CCM introduction story. It´s great to read and I´m very interested in the progress of the game. For all civers watching this story: Please don´t forget that this is a CCM Betatest.

what is the point of this "I've built it but I still have to upgrade it to use it" mechanic, except to frustrate the player?

This is a very important question and here is the answer:

CCM uses the completely new concept of advanced autoproduction, allowing the same building to autoproduce a lot of different units (which in normal ways wouldn´t be possible). For advanced autoproduction you need a building that autoproduces a “basic unit”, the possibility that the basic unit can be upgraded in the place where it is produced (for land units p.e. the “barracks-flag” in the editor) a setting of unit stats that triggers the AI to upgrade that unit immediately and (mostly) zero-upgrading costs.

For example the SW Royal Stables you have seen above works the following way:

It autoproduces a trainings chariot all 8 turns. As stated above, this basic unit is weak and not very useful itself. But it can be upgraded for zero costs to different chariot units for different civs. The chariot units in CCM are the best attacking units on flat terrain for a long time. In fact they are something like the “tanks of era 1” as they can “blitz attack” (of course CCM uses another term for that option) with a strong attack value and they can retreat.

The autoproduced trainings chariot upgrades to the following units:

a) Chariot (for Italy/Rome, Greece, US, Aztecs, Nubia, Canada, Spain, Austria-Hungary, Carthage, Portugal, Inca and Maya (here in the present biq horses are needed as a perequisite for the upgrade as I forgot to remove that perequisite for that unit. This will be fixed with the next version of the biq).

b) War Chariot for Egypt

c) Asiatic Chariot for China, Japan, Mongol Khanates, Korea and Indo-China

d) Northeuropean Chariot for Germany, Russia, France, Britain, Scandinavia, Netherlands and Poland

e) MidEast Chariot for Babylon/Iraq, India, Persia, Turkey, Arabia and Israel

This methode allows to get lot of flavoured units with sometimes different unit stats from one building. Additionally it allows to receive a good mixture of different units in gameplay, even for the AI. In normal civ versions there frequently was a conflict between the building of horseman and chariots (and so on). Additionally the AI and the human player both tend to only build the strongest possible unit. In CCM the philosophy is mostly, that the player and the AI in normal gamplay only can build the weaker version of a unit or different available units, but with the autoproduction has the option to receive some stronger units, too (p.e. normal infantry with normal defence stats by normal production and some additional machinegunners with much better defence stats by autoproduction).

At the start most units coming from autoproduction are only for “eye-candy”. I like it to see the different workers and settlers done by Plotinus acting on the map and all this functioning very well. In later phases of the game these different units resulting from the upgrading of the same basic unit can have very different stats. For example the upgrading of the basic anti-tank gun to different mechanic tank destroyers produces units with very different stats and possibilities (p.e. an Italian Semovente is very different to a Russian SU-100 or a German Jagdpanther).

 

[Civinator]

Does the caravan have to be captured to be cashed in ala AoI or is it like Civ2, just send it to a town?

The eraspecific caravans (or supply shipments) can move by themselves, but must be captured at least in the turn before moving in the capital, as this feature of CCM uses the "capture the princess"-option.

That is what I figure, but I am not well enough versed in the editor to figure it out. I see apprentice is foot unit/immobile and tactical missile? I think it is due to making the worker house auto build them, that forces this trick.

Yes, it is one of the settings to reduce freezes caused by AI attempts to ship immobile units.

 

[Civinator]

For all, who want to see (and may be read) more about CCM, here is a link to the CCM Introduction Story by kleinerHeldt at the German Civforum:

http://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?t=65670

 

[ThERat]

The game continues with me trading literature for some needed cash. Theocracy will allow cash rushes, thus the money will surely help me

I could trade literature as I was one turn away from this wonder

As for the acquisition of land and resources, I manage to grab the iron near both France and Austria. Oh and by the way, that slave you can see is a former Canadian unit that was enslaved by those pesky Austrians.

This together with a mini wonder giving me catapults every 8th turn should help to finally get more troops and attack someone. By the way, artillery work the same way as it does in Civ4. You throw in the artillery as yet another attacker.

Well, the troops will be needed as in a string of bad news, Japan demands money which I refuse to pay.

And to top it, Japan pulls in our close neighbor France.
I don't mind France as an enemy so much as they are owning a city near the horses. I wouldn't mind grabbing that.

However, I can't afford to have so many enemies at the same time. I decide to pull in Austria to help me out in this war.

At least the siege work shop will help me to fight off France.

Certainly, interesting times are ahead with a first war. Religion will give me the government I want to keep this game, theocracy. And I hope I can finally get some horses too.

 

[Northern Pike]

Civinator, thanks for the full explanation.