CCM1 (epic mod)

[djolecorp]

Hello again!

I've found few, lets say, glitches in game.
Early submarine and dreadnought are not upgrading although they should be.
I have never managed to get galleon unit but AI can build them.
There is missing line in tech tree, in modern age, to develop ballistic missiles you need also researched jet propulsion (one above it, if i missed name of it).
If you capture German town, with their artillery school, you are able to get practically two of them in game.
Scandinavians are practically able to build marines since berserks may upgrade to marine and can be build anytime.
Babylon doesn't need spearman since they have enkidu warrior.
About AI, they are kinda dumb and not making enough military as they maybe are supposed to.
They are always sending stack of catapults/trebuchets/bombards/cannons in first offensive line and get easily destroyed. Just declare war on someone, don't move from your territory and you'll see... Only if they out-tech you, they might have some chance.
I am easily beating monarch level, have a bit problem in emperor in the start of game since AI is cheating a lot but later on, they have no chance.
Yeah, where is espionage?!
There is no information about Polish winged hussars that they have blitz ability (that is important since regular hussars don't have it). I think that is also missing in civilopedia blitz ability for chariots and war elephants.
No input for enkidu warriors to which unit are they upgrading (although they upgrade to pikeman). Not a single information in civilopedia about landsknecht, I've just figured out that they are only available for Germany as replacement for late pikeman.

And for the end of this post I present (legal) picture taken from my current game. Probably some expel from their territory went wrong, well, you'll see.

Cheers!

 

[Civinator]

Thank you all very much for your input in the last posts. I hope I have the time to answer your posts this weekend.

 

[Civinator]

So what is the final word on these?

I'm in biq 1.7 and I see messages about various people having MAs. I don't recall who they are; just sorta jealous that they have them and I do not. I will take note of the next MA pop-up I see, though I expect it to be France or Britian.

It seems like they were out, then added back in for Britian and France and then taken out (to be taken out ?) again.

Things I miss:
Military Alliances
Armies
Sun Tzu's instant barracks
Pyramids instant granaries (but not as much as the barracks; too many AW games!)
CxxC city spacing for early defense (another AW inspired reflex)
No building maintainence
Three movement-point Cavalry

Things I like:
Two movement-point workers (when you can build them)
Two movement-point settlers (when you can build them)
You can cross a border with a two move settler AND build a city, all on the same turn woohoo
Enslaving by invisible units

Things I'm learning to deal with:
Limited early growth potential
Lack of late game tech trading
Is that slave a Move 1 or a Move 2 unit?
Bloodier/more costly wars
Artillery is very different, but Move 2 is a nice feature
Fewer things to do with an MGL.

And, oh, yeah, it is Fun!

Hi CommandoBob, thank you very much for your input here and in the CCM succession games, which also have a high influence to the further settings in CCM.

This said, I have to state that it seems you are a warmonger (what isn´t bad in Civ 3). But what would happen, if all the settings in CCM would be done as they are wished above? You would finish the games even more early as you do it even now and this is not the kind of experience I wanted to achieve with CCM.

That´s why in CCM I tried to dim down all concepts that give huge advantages to the human players and disadvantages to the AI. This should make the game a little more challenging so the AI itself is still dumb enough.

Military Alliances:

You are right, they were out, then added back for Britain and France and then taken out again - and it seems this is the final word about them in CCM.

The main reason are the annoying popup-windows in the later phases of the game that announce a civ has formed an alliance with another civ or that such an alliance became obsolete. In the early phases of a game with only a handful of civs that have contact, these popup-windows wouldn´t be a problem. But in the later phases of the game this becomes a pain in CCM. Please don´t forget that in CCM in era 3 and 4 you mostly have much more civs in the game than in a standard Civ 3 game and nearly all these civs are in contact with each other. In my eyes these masses of popups are really no fun.

There was a time when I thought, two civs that only trigger a limited number of these nerving popups could be introduced to CCM and I gave the ability to form military alliances to France and Britain as a trait for these civs - but gameplay showed, that this ability was abused by human players, who tried to push these both civs always against their own enemies. In fact this ability didn´t favour these civs but mostly weakened them.

So military alliances for all civs are out in future CCM.

Armies:

Armies are another big exploit in favour of the human player against the AI. As posted above, due to a bug the AI is not able to use armies as they are concepted in Civ 3. As said, the AI in Civ 3 (and all other versions of civ) is even dumb enough against the human player. So there is no need to enlarge that advantage of the human player even with 1-unit-armies. So the AI does handle them (not too good), the human player does this much better. As armies (in every form) favour the human player and shorten down the game and the suspense in the game, in my eyes they are "no-fun"-units and Moosezilla is right when posting above, that the human can easily exploit this w/multiple armies and the AI needs the break found here in CCM.

Sun Tzu's instant barracks:

A lot of players don´t notice it, but barracks are the most powerful buildings in Civ 3. That´s why I limited them in CCM. The "Sun Tzu Wonder" in my eyes is much too overpowered and woukldn´t harmonize with the balance of gameplay found in CCM. So things would become much more easy if you own this massive overpowered wonder. Please don´t forget, that it doesn´t make the game more fun, as you loose a lot of the strategic part of the game.

Pyramids instant granaries:

I never could get the argument, why the pyramides should give granaries. I think the pyramides that give an additional settler, is a much more interesting solution for CCM if you take into account, that the production of settlers is limited in CCM.

CxxC city spacing for early defense:

You could do this in CCM - but in fact this wouldn´t lead to optimal results. I think it´s not bad, if CCM here allows another strategic thinking.

No building maintainence:

Yes, this is a shortcome in CCM. I got rid of these costs to short down the calculation time in the later phases of the game massively. Without this meassure, CCM with lots of civs and tons of units in the later phases of the game on big maps would be practically nearly unplayable. With this cut, it is playable (so the later turns still can last some time). Here some civers could say "for me these AI-turntimes wouldn´t matter", but please don´t forget, that I did this mod for me and I prefer playing CCM on big maps with less AI calculation time.

Three movement-point Cavalry:

Always the same: It seems you want to finish the game after the first turns - but I don´t think this would be more fun. In my eyes there should be a difference between horses and armoured cars. 3 MV landunits in Civ 3 are a huge step ahead in landwarfare- and to top this later with 4, 5 or 6 MV landunits would bring the game out of balance when taking into account, that the scale of the Civ 3 games is limited. I think CCM here made a good decision when to introduce MV 3 landunits.

Two movement-point workers (when you can build them)
Two movement-point settlers (when you can build them)
You can cross a border with a two move settler AND build a city, all on the same turn woohoo
Enslaving by invisible units

I´m not astonished that you like the feature with the two move settler and I agree: All these listed features make the gameplay in Civ 3 smoother without loosing anything in fun.

Limited early growth potential
Lack of late game tech trading
Bloodier/more costly wars
Artillery is very different, but Move 2 is a nice feature
Fewer things to do with an MGL.

All these features have their sense and contribute to CCM becoming a very unique and -I think interesting-mod for Civ 3.

Is that slave a Move 1 or a Move 2 unit?

This can be solved by using another unit graphic for the slave in the next upload of the CCM mainfile.

 

[Civinator]

djolecorp, thank you very much for your good observations about CCM.

Early submarine and dreadnought are not upgrading although they should be.

Early submarines can upgrade to normal (modern) submarines in era 4. In era 3 you have deal with them as most parts of that era symbolize the periode of WW I and WW II.

It is intended, that there is no upgrade for WWI dreadnoughts to modern WW II battleships.

I have never managed to get galleon unit but AI can build them.

Yes this is a known bug in the CCM setting (due to not deleting the king-flag that I gave that unit for testing reasons), that will be fixed with the next biq.

There is missing line in tech tree, in modern age, to develop ballistic missiles you need also researched jet propulsion (one above it, if i missed name of it).

If I remember well, ballistics shouldn´t have jetpropulsion as a perequisite. I will have a look into the techtree. Nevertheless this is an error that will be fixed with the next biq. Than you very much for reporting it.

If you capture German town, with their artillery school, you are able to get practically two of them in game.

This is another error. Again, thank you very much for reporting it. The settings for the artillery producing buildings (and especially for the machine gunner producing buildings) was very tricky. The german artillery school needs to be set as a SW or a normal building with a culture point, so it becomes destroyed, when the city where it is located, is conquered.

Scandinavians are practically able to build marines since berserks may upgrade to marine and can be build anytime.

I have to take a look into a game as Scandinavia. It shouldn´t be possible for Scandinavia to produce marines when berserkers are available and we never had such early Scandinavian marines in our testgames. If this is possible, this would be a massive error and of course must be fixed.

About AI, they are kinda dumb and not making enough military as they maybe are supposed to. They are always sending stack of catapults/trebuchets/bombards/cannons in first offensive line and get easily destroyed. Just declare war on someone, don't move from your territory and you'll see... Only if they out-tech you, they might have some chance.

It´s a problem, that in all games of the civ series the AI is dumb -here Civ 3 and CCM that is based on Civ 3, is no exception. The AI artillery in CCM is working better than in standard Civ 3. Even settings that are described in threads in the last year for artillery units as barbarians or with high movement rates and blitz option (that let work one out of about a dozend of arty units as it should), seem to give no sense for an epic mod based on random maps.

It´s true, that the AI frequently uses these arty units as a kind of scouts due to the limited AI tactics that can be set in the editor. But I think it´s better to have AI artillery on the map than to have it as it is in standard Civ 3.

May be a solution could be to make the arty unit a multiple-units unit, with some defense infantry escorting it in the same unit graphics. May be Wotan could create such units. Are there any suggestions how such a combined multiple-units-unit could be named ? For catapults? For bombards? For cannons and for guns?

Yeah, where is espionage?!

In CCM there are only (enlarged) diplomatic actions. As there are no maintainance costs in CCM, there would be a lot of money to catch a lot of techs by spying against civs you are in war with. This is cut off in CCM for reasons of balancing gameplay.

There is no information about Polish winged hussars that they have blitz ability (that is important since regular hussars don't have it). I think that is also missing in civilopedia blitz ability for chariots and war elephants.

I will have a look into these entries.

No input for enkidu warriors to which unit are they upgrading (although they upgrade to pikeman). Not a single information in civilopedia about landsknecht, I've just figured out that they are only available for Germany as replacement for late pikeman.

It is a backside of the advanced methode in creating techtrees that allow the integration of all kinds of unique units to be upgraded to common units, that the hardcoded entries in the civilopedia only describe the correct upgrading path for the units of the player´s civ. Despite it would be a lot of work to add manually a description for every unit in CCM to what unit it upgrades, this information would be written twice for the civ of the player (one time by the manually addition and one time by the hardcoded entry of Civ 3).

And for the end of this post I present (legal) picture taken from my current game. Probably some expel from their territory went wrong, well, you'll see. Cheers!

Yes, this funny situation sometimes appears in Civ 3 (but it´s no speciality of CCM).

 

[vmxa]

Civinator some of the positions that address large numbers of civ are not valid, if compared to C3C with the same number of civs. I mean 31 civs and allowing alliances does not lead to any great discomfort late in the game.

As you see strong players are going to go out and kill nations. This is true in CCM and C3C non CCM. Having 15-18 nations left in the late 3rd age is not a problem and it is at that point that the human starts to really run over the AI and eliminate nations.

I will grant you that armies are too strong as used by the AI and removing them is a reasonable choice for any scenario. It makes it harder on the human at the top two levels, but not impossible.

Sun Tzu is not an issue in C3C when played at Sid as the humanis not going to build it. Not having the ability to make barracks is not a huge handicap either and has some offsets such as being Rome.

The spacing does make the game less attractive to me, but with a limited settler production you are forced to accept the spacing the AI gives you as you capture towns. In fact you are forced to capture, rather than razed. I personally do not care for this aspect of CCM, but if you did everything as it is in C3C you would not really have a scenario. You would just have a custom map.

Maint as implemented is nearly a must for CCM as otherwise there would be a serious problem for the human at high levels. They have no army to reduce losses, no bonus to start with extra units, so they need the cash to pay support for the larger numbers required.

It does deminish the strategy as you do not have to think about what to build where, you just have to think of the order. Even that is not really required. You are going to build everything everywhere. No so in C3C, if you are wise.

3 move cavs. I do not care about that issue, but I dislike your responese to it. It seems to be a slap in the face to CBOB, rather than just point out your reasons. Stick to your reason that is enough.


Edit: for the record I think CCM is the best scenario by far of all c3c offers.

 

[Moosezilla]

It is apparent that as the game progresses the player civ is way to much for the AI civs. Perhaps an "only raze" option (and continued settler limits w/upgrade to 2mv) or increased AI aggression or negative human rep or something(?) could cause more the effect of larger, more able AI civs? For the first time I have avoided filling wilderness w/cities. I am nearing the 4th era but I am 10x the size of nearest rival. If I filled the wilderness the game would end!

 

[Civinator]

3 move cavs. I do not care about that issue, but I dislike your responese to it. It seems to be a slap in the face to CBOB, rather than just point out your reasons. Stick to your reason that is enough.

Sorry CBOB, this was really not intended.

 

[CommandoBob]

It is apparent that as the game progresses the player civ is way to much for the AI civs. Perhaps an "only raze" option (and continued settler limits w/upgrade to 2mv) or increased AI aggression or negative human rep or something(?) could cause more the effect of larger, more able AI civs? For the first time I have avoided filling wilderness w/cities. I am nearing the 4th era but I am 10x the size of nearest rival. If I filled the wilderness the game would end!

I don't think I've reached this stage yet.

I'm researching Torpdedos at the moment, 1881 AD (Monarch level, pangea map) and have about 23 other AIs still in play. The city max has been reached (512) and I have about 130 of them, mostly by conquest. IIRC, I'm into this game about 128 hours, but I will check on that.

With the city max reached, the game is more manageable and combat settlers really make a difference once a city has been razed, even if it one of my own.

 

[CommandoBob]

3 move cavs. I do not care about that issue, but I dislike your responese to it. It seems to be a slap in the face to CBOB, rather than just point out your reasons. Stick to your reason that is enough.

I didn't take that way.

And even if I had, I probably deserved it. My questions on the Military Alliances, depending on how I read them back to myself, even now seem a bit sharp and pointed. I try to avoid that 'tone' in a post, but sometimes it sneaks in.

And then again, it may have been a light-hearted response, a little bit of joking. I certainly didn't pick up any bad or ugly vibes from his response.

I'm stating my likes/dislikes and Civinator is responding with the reasons why. There is bound to be some friction over the difference in ideas and ideals; like discussing why the Dallas Cowboys are so bad: is it Jerry Jones or the players? But I don't think it is personal.

 

[Civinator]

 

[M60A3TTS]

Since UUs don't trigger GA's, is it possible then that a civ will never get one? I don't see a uniquely American wonder that would trigger one as an example.

 

[tom2050]

It´s a problem, that in all games of the civ series the AI is dumb -here Civ 3 and CCM that is based on Civ 3, is no exception. The AI artillery in CCM is working better than in standard Civ 3. Even settings that are described in threads in the last year for artillery units as barbarians or with high movement rates and blitz option (that let work one out of about a dozend of arty units as it should), seem to give no sense for an epic mod based on random maps.

I have to disagree. You can make tremendous use of the artillery captured from barbarians. Some initial worries were that in epic games, AI doesn't upgrade the artillery, so it was found AI would be stuck with catapults into the modern era. Other worries were that the bombard strength would not be sufficient since it would have to be the same throughout the game.

It was explained in that thread from discussion an easy and exciting way to get over those humps (if it is something a mod chooses to do). The first is to simply use the PediaIcons to change the captured artillery graphic for each era. For the other, if bombard is not wanted, charm bombard can be used, and is sufficient to land strikes throughout all ages (not as good in modern era; but low charm bombard can give attackers a huge advantage no matter what the defense). This setup works great for epic, and it is nice to see AI approach a city with a full group of artillery, defenders, and attackers, and actively bombard/attack your cities, units, and anything else in range.

Furthermore, you can still have roaming basic barbs, just make their defense a bit higher if you wish to postpone the artillery from being captured. I've seen nothing but amazing things with the AI using it in epic games, which it uses it in epic better than scenarios.

---------------
Class is in! Charm 101: Very low charm bombard is incredibly powerful!
For a modern era, you have alot more stacks running around, lots more units. You would be surprised at how often a 1 bombard 2 RoF charm bombard will hit a good sized stack of 18 defense units (it checks for a hit on every unit of the stack). If you have 5 of those artillery units, you will halve defense on units; which is far, far more powerful than knocking some lousy hitpoints off.
---------------

Having AI actively use artillery in the way it is supposed to, with option of AI using land charm bombard, with no major (or minor) issues; and still having roaming barbs (if choosen); and where player can choose how much of this artillery they want in the game (in game setup!); FAR outweighs in benefit over the normal basic barb, adv barb outfit IMHO.

 

[jlvfr]

Can I ask why are european nuclear carriers so slow?...

 

[Civinator]

I have to disagree. You can make tremendous use of the artillery captured from barbarians. Some initial worries were that in epic games, AI doesn't upgrade the artillery, so it was found AI would be stuck with catapults into the modern era. Other worries were that the bombard strength would not be sufficient since it would have to be the same throughout the game.

It was explained in that thread from discussion an easy and exciting way to get over those humps (if it is something a mod chooses to do). The first is to simply use the PediaIcons to change the captured artillery graphic for each era. For the other, if bombard is not wanted, charm bombard can be used, and is sufficient to land strikes throughout all ages (not as good in modern era; but low charm bombard can give attackers a huge advantage no matter what the defense). This setup works great for epic, and it is nice to see AI approach a city with a full group of artillery, defenders, and attackers, and actively bombard/attack your cities, units, and anything else in range.

Furthermore, you can still have roaming basic barbs, just make their defense a bit higher if you wish to postpone the artillery from being captured. I've seen nothing but amazing things with the AI using it in epic games, which it uses it in epic better than scenarios.

---------------
Class is in! Charm 101: Very low charm bombard is incredibly powerful!
For a modern era, you have alot more stacks running around, lots more units. You would be surprised at how often a 1 bombard 2 RoF charm bombard will hit a good sized stack of 18 defense units (it checks for a hit on every unit of the stack). If you have 5 of those artillery units, you will halve defense on units; which is far, far more powerful than knocking some lousy hitpoints off.
---------------

Having AI actively use artillery in the way it is supposed to, with option of AI using land charm bombard, with no major (or minor) issues; and still having roaming barbs (if choosen); and where player can choose how much of this artillery they want in the game (in game setup!); FAR outweighs in benefit over the normal basic barb, adv barb outfit IMHO.

So tom2050, you think these settings even work for epic games with random maps? I have to find that thread and have a very close look into it.

 

[Civinator]

Can I ask why are european nuclear carriers so slow?...

They are not slower or faster than the other carriers coming of that era. 3MV with all terrain as roads are 9 tiles a turn and in my eyes this is really not slow.

The reason for these setting is the blitz long-range heavy bombardement, symbolizing heavy air attacks from these carriers (therefore the main attack animation of the carriers in CCM are the starting planes). By giving a MV of three, the carrier can attack up to three times with heavy air bombardement. If the carrier would have a MV of nine, the blitz flag would allow that ship up to nine air bombardements (what is much too much for reasons of gameplay). Up to three such attacks (and may be additional attacks by planes carried on the ship like on normal civ 3 carriers) seem to be a good setting for this kind of ships. I gave the carriers the additional heavy bombardement attack as the AI frequently doesn´t load aircraft on carriers.

 

[tom2050]

So tom2050, you think these settings even work for epic games with random maps? I have to find that thread and have a very close look into it.

It's implemented in CoMM3... the difference with that mod is that there is no 'industrial, modern era, etc'... so the captured barb artillery stays as catapults throughout the whole game. I have immobile barbs, which makes it so that all artillery doesn't get captured until around turn 200-250. They are set to normal bombard of 10 / 1 or 2 RoF IIRC.

For a mod that changes as time progresses, the other way to go is a workable work-around given above, and charm can give a more interesting and powerful ability than regular bombard. 1 thing to note is this: AI tends to leave some captured artillery laying around until it needs it. So after capturing it, it may sit there for a while until they go to war, in which they bring defenders to it and move it to the war front.

Sometimes in my games, I am tempted to capture them which will cause war; this is sometimes fatal when playing tougher games, because AI has advantage in numbers. I haven't noticed any big balance shifts; because although you know there is artillery like this floating around; it's not exactly cheap or easy to track it down unless it shows up on your doorstep. Plus, AI usually has the ability to hunt barbarians much better than human can do. So in my experience, the advantage humans have to use artillery more intelligently is somewhat negated by AI hunting barbs agressively, the fact they use the artillery, and the fact that early wars are usually bad for human player in early times (if you steal other civ's captured artillery, which won't save you from a large AI force). Stealing multiple civs captured artillery in early game can be a very bad choice also.

Just something to think about or put to a test.

 

[vmxa]

Alright I will take it back. I know Civnator is not trying to be offensive.

Now what is the deal with the small wonder "capitol"? It appears to not be allowed to all. The pedia does not say anything about needing to be in Demo, is that required?

Edit:

after about dozen more techs I finally was able to build the capitol.

 

[vmxa]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but Steel mentions worker units become available. If you select workers for the pedia entry it says that you can build them normally once you learn Explosives.

I am able to build workers with only Steel and not having Explosives.

 

[Civinator]

Since UUs don't trigger GA's, is it possible then that a civ will never get one? I don't see a uniquely American wonder that would trigger one as an example.

Yes, this is possible (as it is possible in normal civ 3, too). In CCM three covered traits are needed to trigger a GA for a civ. For some civs there exist GWs only available to that civ, that automatically trigger a GA in a periode, where that civ in history had a GA, too (if that civ hasn´t received a GA from a combination of other wonders before).

Not all civs have such a special wonder that automatically triggers a GA as in CCM there are 31 civs and each of those civs would need its own GW. So I gave these automatcally GA triggers to the civs I considered the most important of them.

Without doubt, the US are amongst these civs, but as noted, at present they don´t have such a GW. The reason is, that the unique GWs for the US in late era 3 (Liberty Statue and US Cavalry) in my eyes were a little too early and I thought of a special US GW in early era 3 that could trigger such a GW for the US.

But as such a GW for the US in era 3 of CCM never came, may be for the next version of the CCM biq, I change the setting in the traits of the Statue of Liberty to trigger a GA for the US.

 

[cemo1956]

I have to disagree. You can make tremendous use of the artillery captured from barbarians. Some initial worries were that in epic games, AI doesn't upgrade the artillery, so it was found AI would be stuck with catapults into the modern era. Other worries were that the bombard strength would not be sufficient since it would have to be the same throughout the game.

It was explained in that thread

Hmm, I haven´t seen (probably blind) that the AI wasn´t keen on upgrading catapults to better versions when an Epic games roles on.

What thread ?
And what suggestions to clear this devestating thing. If nothing I can´t see anything else than using perhaps the ERA specific stuff in the Pediaicon file. Just like mentioned a new picture.