CCM1 (epic mod)

[Hazem]

Hello All.. Want to have a look on my videos?? I am pretty much better now with the railnetwork done things turn really great I needed the coal long time ago .. Have a look and watch CCM mod modern ages in action

 

[nc-1701]

Hey so I download this and I'm on my second game now (Currently in the late industrial age).

Here are some comments:

First the things I loved about it:
1) I think the auto produced settlers idea is pure genius, it makes the early phase of the game much more interesting and generally improves everything. I love it.
2) Enslavers are also genius, from an RP perspective I thin of them as Barbarians that are loosely aligned with your civ, but functionally they help sow chaos and keep the ancient age interesting.
3) I love all the auto-produced units and variety of wonders, it's really cool.


Problems:
1) AI use of artillery is terrible since they are usually left unprotected. In fact the net result is just as bad as the original bombard artillery.
2) AI seems to just let luxury shipments pile up in there capitol instead of actually using them.
3) Stat escalation in the industrial age is so slow as to be pointless, 1900 infantry are 8/8/1 while WW2 infantry are 8/9/1. That's almost pointless.
4) AI tech advancement collapses once they can't trade anymore in the industrial era.

Bugs:
Workers require no population to build (in the industrial era once you can), but can be added to the city for free population.


Overall the ancient era in this mod is more fun than any other mod I've ever played, but the industrial era just doesn't come together nearly as well.

 

[Civinator]

Hi nc-1701, thank you very much for your kind words about CCM and also thank you very much for your constructive criticism about some parts of CCM in the industrial age.

1) AI use of artillery is terrible since they are usually left unprotected. In fact the net result is just as bad as the original bombard artillery.

Most CCM prebetatesters had the impression, the CCM stats fo AI artillery are an improvement compared to the completly spoiled AI routine for landartillery in the standard game (quotation: at least now the AI artillery is "on the map"). I agree, the AI frequently moves the landarty unprotected, so the explore option in the unit settings is removed and the unit doesn´t have the explore tactics. The "needs escort"-flag doesn´t work for landunits.

Therefore the protection for landartillery must be included in the unit itself. Unfortunately "escorted artillery multiple units" that are combining artillery and escorting musketmen or riflemen of the same era are not created yet (or I´m not aware of them). This would be a type of unit as it was created for CCM with the "escorted bomber raid". The CCM concept of advanced autoproduction of artillery units would leave enough space to integrate such a type of unit without problems. Such a unit would have the CCM artillery settings combined with the defensive factor of footunits of that time.

The next version of CCM will have many of imperator´s wonderful artillery units (but without integrated musketmen/riflemen protection). These units will have a risen defensive factor according to the attack factor of mounted units of the last era.

2) AI seems to just let luxury shipments pile up in there capitol instead of actually using them.

The AI has problems with handling the supply shipments well, especially when these units are autoproduced in the capital. On the other side the prebetatests showed, that it is a nice feature fo the human player. To keep these facts somewhat in balance, the value of a supplyshipment in CCM was set to only 25 gold, equaling the value of conquering a randomly poping up barbarian village.

3) Stat escalation in the industrial age is so slow as to be pointless, 1900 infantry are 8/8/1 while WW2 infantry are 8/9/1. That's almost pointless.

In my eyes the stats escalation of the infantry and other units in the industrial age of CCM isn´t "pointless". The philosphy about unit stats in CCM is, that even an older unit should have the option to bring the more modern unit in troubles (the modern battleship Bismarck was knocked out by a biplane). This methode also avoids, to push the attack and defense values of units up to astronomic heights when climbing up the techtree.

The average attack and defense levels for infantry units in CCM are:
Riflemen (starting about the era of US civil war) 7A, 7D, WWI infantry (or 1900 infantry) 8A,8D and WWII infantry 9A, 9D. There will be +/- 1 in these stats according to the equipment, training and historical performance of that unit.

The infantry units have the best defensive values of normally produced units of their time to assure, the AI will build these units. They are mostly used defensively by the AI, meaning the escalating defensive value of infantry units is multiplied by the defensive factors in the game (walls, rivers, fortresses, terrain and so on). This can be the difference if a city can be successfully defended against an attack of early tanks, or if that city will be conquered.

4) AI tech advancement collapses once they can't trade anymore in the industrial era.

The problem is the other way around: If techtrading wouldn´t be limited in the industrial age, the AI would finish the techtree much too early and many of the nice units in CCM would never appear in gameplay. In CCM normally much more civs reach the industrial age than in a standard Civ 3 game. When all these civs have contact with each other, techtrading becomes a monster to the time scale. The AI tech advancement does´n´t collapse, it is only slowed down.

Workers require no population to build (in the industrial era once you can), but can be added to the city for free population.

The setting for normally produced settlers and workers needing no poulation points was an experiment in dealing with the houseboat-bug. I had forgotten to reset the population points for those units again. In the next version of CCM this is fixed. Thank you for reporting that error.

 

[Hazem]

Hi nc-1701, thank you very much for your kind words about CCM and also thank you very much for your constructive criticism about some parts of CCM in the industrial age.



Most CCM prebetatesters had the impression, the CCM stats fo AI artillery are an improvement compared to the completly spoiled AI routine for landartillery in the standard game (quotation: at least now the AI artillery is "on the map"). I agree, the AI frequently moves the landarty unprotected, so the explore option in the unit settings is removed and the unit doesn´t have the explore tactics. The "needs escort"-flag doesn´t work for landunits.

Therefore the protection for landartillery must be included in the unit itself. Unfortunately "escorted artillery multiple units" that are combining artillery and escorting musketmen or riflemen of the same era are not created yet (or I´m not aware of them). This would be a type of unit as it was created for CCM with the "escorted bomber raid". The CCM concept of advanced autoproduction of artillery units would leave enough space to integrate such a type of unit without problems. Such a unit would have the CCM artillery settings combined with the defensive factor of footunits of that time.

The next version of CCM will have many of imperator´s wonderful artillery units (but without integrated musketmen/riflemen protection). These units will have a risen defensive factor according to the attack factor of mounted units of the last era.



The AI has problems with handling the supply shipments well, especially when these units are autoproduced in the capital. On the other side the prebetatests showed, that it is a nice feature fo the human player. To keep these facts somewhat in balance, the value of a supplyshipment in CCM was set to only 25 gold, equaling the value of conquering a randomly poping up barbarian village.



In my eyes the stats escalation of the infantry and other units in the industrial age of CCM isn´t "pointless". The philosphy about unit stats in CCM is, that even an older unit should have the option to bring the more modern unit in troubles (the modern battleship Bismarck was knocked out by a biplane). This methode also avoids, to push the attack and defense values of units up to astronomic heights when climbing up the techtree.

The average attack and defense levels for infantry units in CCM are:
Riflemen (starting about the era of US civil war) 7A, 7D, WWI infantry (or 1900 infantry) 8A,8D and WWII infantry 9A, 9D. There will be +/- 1 in these stats according to the equipment, training and historical performance of that unit.

The infantry units have the best defensive values of normally produced units of their time to assure, the AI will build these units. They are mostly used defensively by the AI, meaning the escalating defensive value of infantry units is multiplied by the defensive factors in the game (walls, rivers, fortresses, terrain and so on). This can be the difference if a city can be successfully defended against an attack of early tanks, or if that city will be conquered.



The problem is the other way around: If techtrading wouldn´t be limited in the industrial age, the AI would finish the techtree much too early and many of the nice units in CCM would never appear in gameplay. In CCM normally much more civs reach the industrial age than in a standard Civ 3 game. When all these civs have contact with each other, techtrading becomes a monster to the time scale. The AI tech advancement does´n´t collapse, it is only slowed down.



The setting for normally produced settlers and workers needing no poulation points was an experiment in dealing with the houseboat-bug. I had forgotten to reset the population points for those units again. In the next version of CCM this is fixed. Thank you for reporting that error.

Well done and Logical answer I love this sentence "even an older unit should have the option to bring the more modern unit in troubles (the modern battleship Bismarck was knocked out by a biplane)" I ve exprienced that a lot on my defenses against The Monsterously dangerous Deity AI ..

 

[jlvfr]

Hello again. If I'm still in time, I'd like to propose 2 changes for the next version of CCM:
-lawyers & getting artists: this is a bit overpowered. I had 3 lawyers gnawing at multiple stack of low defence enemy units (bowmens and such) and now have 25+ artists; teh lawyers were gaining artists every 1-2 atacks! This means I can plop 1-2 artists into any new or conquered city, massively speeding up my conquest and ground grabbing efforts. Is there a way to lower the conversion rate, lowering the number of artists we get?

-the Matilda tank upgrades into the US Sheridan. In the interest of keeping the brit line "pure", maybe switch the upgrade to the british Scimitar? Found the model here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=72548

 

[Moosezilla]

Try saving your Apprentices after about 16 are upgraded to workers, when they can upgrade to Partisans you will be able to stockpile a bunch. An effect similar to Lawyers. Whole stacks of Barbarians are a favorite target. Tech superiority is a burden?

 

[Civinator]

jlvfr, thank you very much for your input about CCM.

-lawyers & getting artists: this is a bit overpowered. I had 3 lawyers gnawing at multiple stack of low defence enemy units (bowmens and such) and now have 25+ artists; teh lawyers were gaining artists every 1-2 atacks!

jlvfr, gaining a great artist in nearly every attack done by lawyer in my eyes seems to be a case of massive luck. When playing myself and when reading in the CCM succession games, it seems, normal experiences in gaining great Artist are not so luckily.

--the Matilda tank upgrades into the US Sheridan. In the interest of keeping the brit line "pure", maybe switch the upgrade to the british Scimitar?

In the old mainfile of CCM the Scimitar was used for another duty in the game. In the next version of CCM there are many, many additional units in the game and the upgrading of British tanks will be much more sophisticated.

Attached are two screenshots showing the techtree for Britain in era 3 and era 4. Please be aware, that the modern carriers and missile frigates, some missiles and all aircraft are still not added to CCM, so when you see distortions or gaps in the techtree (especially in era 4) you can be sure that these gaps will be closed by units that still must be added (and my be some buildings).

In the next version of CCM some lines of tanks exist at the same time. Mostly one of the tanks can be normally produced and the other type of tank is autoproduced.

The autoproduced heavy tank line (blue circles) for Britain starts with the Mathildas in the interwar- and early WW2 Phase of era 3 upgrading to Churchills and in era 4 to Conqueror tanks.

The normally produced British tanks (in green circles) start with Cruiser MKI (A9) upgrading to Crusader- and later Cromewell and Comet tanks in era 3 and Centurions, Chieftains and Challengers in era 4.

As with the last screenshots about the CCM techtree these screenshots can only be attached temporally due to reaching the 60 MB upload limit at CFC.

 

[Civinator]

Try saving your Apprentices after about 16 are upgraded to workers, when they can upgrade to Partisans you will be able to stockpile a bunch.

Tech superiority is a burden?

Why is it a burden?

 

[jlvfr]

jlvfr, gaining a great artist in nearly every attack done by lawyer in my eyes seems to be a case of massive luck. when playing myself and when reading in the CCM succession games, it seems, normal experiences in gaining great Artist are not so luckily.

Ooook...

The autoproduced heavy tank line (blue circles) for Britain starts with the Mathildas in the interwar- and early WW2 Phase of era 3 upgrading to Churchills and in era 4 to Conqueror tanks.

The normally produced British tanks (in green circles) start with Cruiser MKI (A9) upgrading to Crusader- and later Cromewell and Comet tanks in era 3 and Centurions, Chieftains and Challengers in era 4.

Veeery cool! I'm a sucker for brit tanks!!

Couple more points:
-freighters are too fast! Ingame they are as fast as warships, which is impossible... late model warships being speed 8-10, freighter should be no more than 6-7 (note: I do not include "luxury liners"; these were always fast).
-why are carriers so slow? speed is actually it's most important feature, after # of planes carried. a slow carrier can't even launch planes! If you want to limit them, cut the hit points.

And speaking of "upgrades": I can't upgrade the Spitfire into the Hunter, despite what it says on the Spitfire's note...

 

[Civinator]

Veeery cool! I'm a sucker for brit tanks!!

jlvfr, in that case I explain you some other British tanks, that will come with the new mainfile of CCM. They frequently can´t be identified in the 32x32 images of the techtree, so I try to improve these very small images when possible:

SPAs: Bishop, M110, FV433 Abbot, AS 90
Scouts/light tanks: Daimler Dingo, Saladin, Scimitar
Crusader-AA, Alvis Stormer
Bren Carrier, Saracen, FV432 Trojan, FV510 Warrior
FV438 Swingfire, FV 102 Striker

and some more with other civs.

Canada and Australia frequently have their own tanks.

Couple more points:-freighters are too fast! Ingame they are as fast as warships, which is impossible... late model warships being speed 8-10, freighter should be no more than 6-7 (note: I do not include "luxury liners"; these were always fast).

"Speed" is one of the most problematic and relative topics in Civ 3, so most civers are not aware of the problem. Speed has the two components time and distance. What you can see on the map is the distance a unit can move in one turn. This turn is the component time. It can be 40 years for that distance, 10 years, 1 year ... and so on.

Does a destroyer with a speed of 35 knots really move the biggest distance of all the ships in 1 year, or has the ship stop to refuel and be refitted more times than a ship that moves slower? These are complicated questions when trying to integrate these components with the simple options Civ 3 offers for them.

Other important factors are the different movement costs of sea-terrain in CCM compared to normal sea-terrain. Many ships are slower in coastal terrain than in sea-or ocean-terrain (this is one of the reasons why seafortresses work better in CCM than in most other mods and the standard epic game. On the other side the movement penalty for some ships is removed for some sea-terrain (p.e. a destroyer can move through a coastal terrain with half the movement costs compared to a batleship or a freighter).

An additional factor of course is gameplay. As airpower in CCM is working much better than in many other mods, an invasion fleet must have a certain speed, otherwise it will be severly crippled.

-why are carriers so slow? speed is actually it's most important feature, after # of planes carried. a slow carrier can't even launch planes! If you want to limit them, cut the hit points.

Aircraft carriers in CCM are not slow. In fact they are some of the fastest ships in the game. Carriers in era 4 have the "all-terrain-as road"-flag, meaning if they have 3 MV, they can draw 9 fields in a turn. The reason for using that flag is, that these ships have the "blitz"-flag, too and a long-range-bombardment to strengthen the AI with these units. With the normal settings AI carriers are next to useless, so they need some additional power that the AI knows to handle. If the carrier would have a normal MV of 7 or 8 that ship could bombard 7-8 times and that is too much. Therefore the number of MV-turns for modern carriers is limited so the frequency of bombard in a turn is limited, too.

And speaking of "upgrades": I can't upgrade the Spitfire into the Hunter, despite what it says on the Spitfire's note...

I will have a look in that problem when adding the planes to the new CCM main-file.

 

[jlvfr]

SPAs: Bishop, M110, FV433 Abbot, AS 90
Scouts/light tanks: Daimler Dingo, Saladin, Scimitar
Crusader-AA, Alvis Stormer
Bren Carrier, Saracen, FV432 Trojan, FV510 Warrior
FV438 Swingfire, FV 102 Striker

Damn! Now I am drooling!

"Speed" is one of the most problematic and relative topics in Civ 3, so most civers are not aware of the problem. Speed has the two components time and distance. What you can see on the map is the distance a unit can move in one turn. This turn is the component time. It can be 40 years for that distance, 10 years, 1 year ... and so on.

Does a destroyer with a speed of 35 knots really move the biggest distance of all the ships in 1 year, or has the ship stop to refuel and be refitted more times than a ship that moves slower? These are complicated questions when trying to integrate these components with the simple options Civ 3 offers for them.

My point is that fast freighters make amphibious assaults and cargo/troop movement too easy: a quick jump across and boom. Imagine crossing the Atlantic in 2 days... no more convoys needed! This is why I think they should be slow, to make transport harder and more dangerous.

Therefore the number of MV-turns for modern carriers is limited so the frequency of bombard in a turn is limited, too.

Cheers then.

 

[Moosezilla]

Civinator, I was pointing to the fact that Lawyers and Partisans can best take advantage when their civ has these techs well before AI civs. I'm not so bothered by "instant culture boost" and it's utility for conquest. Luck was indeed with jlvfr as I must use my Great Artists carefully.

 

[King Coltrane]

Civinator: everything looks great! just wanted to give a heads up on a potential typo: it should be "Totalitarianism" , not "Totalitarism" as is currently in the era 3 screenshot you posted

 

[Civinator]

Civinator: everything looks great! just wanted to give a heads up on a potential typo: it should be "Totalitarianism" , not "Totalitarism" as is currently in the era 3 screenshot you posted

King Coltrane, thank you very much for pointing to that error. I will correct it at once, so the word is becoming longer and longer and more and more ugly.

 

[clamel]

jlvfr, in that case I explain you some other British tanks, that will come with the new mainfile of CCM. They frequently can´t be identified in the 32x32 images of the techtree, so I try to improve these very small images when possible:

SPAs: Bishop, M110, FV433 Abbot, AS 90
Scouts/light tanks: Daimler Dingo, Saladin, Scimitar
Crusader-AA, Alvis Stormer
Bren Carrier, Saracen, FV432 Trojan, FV510 Warrior
FV438 Swingfire, FV 102 Striker

and some more with other civs.

Canada and Australia frequently have their own tanks.

Guess the Aussies get the FV101 Scorpion. which was the recon vehicle that replaced the Saladin, then came the Scimitar.
Think it´s hard to squeeze in all the new vehicles from Gwendoline.
The Scorpion and the Scimitar kind of overlapped themselves, with the Scorpion getting out of service first.
I hope you don´t have clear upgrades for every units. Like the FV432 still is in use today even if the main APC/IFV is the Warrior.
I would figure that one should be able to build both units at the end of the game, but with different requirements, like you mentioned with the tanks. Perhaps same with US M113 and their Bradleys. And for one thing certain the Russians have both the BMPs and BTRs working together. Perhaps different lines for more clear APCs and another for a more offensive IFV-line. Kind of Lt.tank vs tank during WW2.
You know what a mean

 

[Civinator]

clamel, your guess about the Aussies is correct.

When I have finished the addition of the new units, I will write more about the unit-lines in CCM, as there are alot of them, especially in era 3 and era 4.

 

[Drakarska]

Love your mod Civinator, as I'm taking a break from Civ IV and back to Conquests for a bit. Couple of questions though;

1) Why can AI slavers attack my cities and capture it, but I am unable to do the same?

2) AI RNG. Did you beef this up in favor of the AI? ( I can't seem to find it in my code diving's). Having 4 elite knights get taken out by 1 reg spearmen (and yes, I'm familiar with the spear vs tank rule ) is extremely frustrating, especially on MON diff when every unit counts.

3) Earth map. Looking through this thread, I noticed a vague reference for this, and I was wondering if you have completed it. If not, can an EM be imported via Multi-tool and then set to your mod? I would prefer one that you have made specific for your mod as my Civ III mod skills are extremely rusty, But I suppose I can muddle through .

Anyways, a very well done mod with an excellent concept, kudos good Sir. Look forward to your responses.

 

[Civinator]

Love your mod Civinator, as I'm taking a break from Civ IV and back to Conquests for a bit. Couple of questions though;

1) Why can AI slavers attack my cities and capture it, but I am unable to do the same?

2) AI RNG. Did you beef this up in favor of the AI? ( I can't seem to find it in my code diving's). Having 4 elite knights get taken out by 1 reg spearmen (and yes, I'm familiar with the spear vs tank rule ) is extremely frustrating, especially on MON diff when every unit counts.

3) Earth map. Looking through this thread, I noticed a vague reference for this, and I was wondering if you have completed it. If not, can an EM be imported via Multi-tool and then set to your mod? I would prefer one that you have made specific for your mod as my Civ III mod skills are extremely rusty, But I suppose I can muddle through .

Anyways, a very well done mod with an excellent concept, kudos good Sir. Look forward to your responses.

Hi Drakarska, thank you very much for your kind words. I think this is the first time, a civer with the focus on Civ 4 says something positive about this mod.

Now I try to answer your questions:

1. Slavers and other hidden-nation (HN) units of the human Player can also attack cities, but the human player first has to declare war to the civ that holds the city. It´s hardcoded, that in peace only the AI HN-units can attack cities without declaring war.

2. I´m not sure, if I have understood all your abreviations correctly. In the fight between knights and spearmen nothing was beefed up in favor of the AI.

3. Each Civ 3 Earth map can be imported to CCM. Please take into account, that CCM is targeted to bigger maps and therefore it would be better not to import small maps due to the higher movement factor of units and higher range of aircraft. An earth map for CCM is in the works since a longer time, but unfortunately my time for modding Civ 3 is very limited due to RL. At present I need every free modding minute to work at the new CCM mainfile. Therefore at present the CCM earth map is on hold and work will be continued, when the new CCM mainfile is finished and working.

 

[Civinator]

Vuldacon succeeded in combining RickFG´s terrain files containing RickFG´s desert terrain,Ronning´s grasland, Balthasar´s plains, Ares`hills and mountains and Racc00n´s marshes with Snoopy´s sea-terrain. He worked many days very hard on the new terrain to iron out palette glitches and to harmonize the different graphics. Now the new terrain is completely operable. The new terrain is such a beauty, that I can´t really believe that it is now a reality for us civers. A big thank you very much to every artist who contributed to that terrain.

 

[jlvfr]

Vuldacon succeeded in combining RickFG´s terrain files containing RickFG´s desert terrain,Ronning´s grasland, Balthasar´s plains, Ares`hills and mountains and Racc00n´s marshes with Snoopy´s sea-terrain. He worked many days very hard on the new terrain to iron out palette glitches and to harmonize the different graphics. Now the new terrain is completely operable. The new terrain is such a beauty, that I can´t really believe that it is now a reality for us civers. A big thank you very much to every artist who contributed to that terrain.

WOOOOOWWW!!!!

It is beautifull!!