Challenge - I dare you to find a good idea to Improve C2C!!

[rightfuture]

This is a thread to create a competition to encourage everyone to participate in improving C2C in their own way.

I dare you to find a good idea to improve Caveman2Cosmos and even the game of Civilization, even if it means improving someone else's idea.

The best ideas win by making their way into C2C.

The challenge basically works like this -
1. Post your idea on improving C2C. No idea is too small to be important. Sometimes the little ones make the biggest difference.
2. Everyone comment on the idea - it's hard to know why an idea is a good/bad one without some evaluation - speak up - we'd all like to hear it!.
3. Champion an idea, pick your favorites and do what you can to get them into C2C. Even if you're not a modder it is motivational to remind people why an idea is a good one. You might even inspire it to get into C2C even quicker.

You can even think of this competition in 3 different ways as you like.
1. Play King of the Hill. Prove yourself. Can you come up with a better idea than any of the ones people have come up with? What ideas will survive. I Dare Ya!
2. Can you come up with a totally new idea that blows people away. Can you impress one of the modders enough to work on it and get it into C2C. I Dare Ya!
3. Even if you aren't a modder, can you come up with an idea we haven't heard before? We'd all like to hear what idea you think is even better! I Dare ya!

Have at it. I dare you. Are you up to it?
Challenge on.

 

[rightfuture]

reserved 1 - list of ideas

 

[rightfuture]

reserved 2 - highlights

What are you waiting for?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well one problem we have had in C2C is the lack of unit graphics. While we can reskin existing units an even sometimes make 3D graphics we are very limited to the stuff we can make. However I saw a Star Wars mod (for Warlords) that got past this by having a 2D Board type unit and then when re-textured it could look like any 2D image. Think of it like having a cardboard cut out of a unit. Its not animated mind you but at least you could make units that are too hard to make otherwise.

Basically this means any 2D image of a unit could be turn into a playable (non-animated) unit. At the very least they could be used as placeholders until a real unit could be made and since they are not animated, and are 2D their files are extremely small. (2KB model and 275KB texture)

EDIT: Here is the file. Note the texture they use is a stormtrooper.

 

[crazyewok]

Well Im makeing a Air unit mod.

Idea is to add realistic Aircraft developmnet and production.

 

[Faustmouse]

My big dream would be that eras are different - not just in form of buildings, techs and units, but much deeper!
For example, in the Renaissance you should really get a feeling of discovery new worlds, establish new scientific methods... In the TH era you should face problems like pollution, uncontrollable population grow and starvation, global warming while on the other hand you should be amazed by the new "magic like" stuff that is developed.

 

[IronClaymore]

I'd like having all buildings that grant free promotions grant them to units that stay in the city, not just that are built there. The idea being that the high experience heavy swordsman that began life as a mere brute back in 49000 BC doesn't have to be deleted merely because all the new units I build start out loaded with free promotions, especially morale, and so he slows down the whole stack. Why can't the old guy be retrofitted?

Passive training would be nice too, for similar reasons. This is where rather than starting out with 100+ experience in the city where I put all my great generals and the Asatru holy city, a unit begins with very little experience and slowly gains some for every turn it is inside cultural borders, due to training and wargames and so forth, until reaching the maximum set by wonders, traits, buildings and settled great generals. It's partially for realism (no way can a fresh soldier become so invincible in a mere month of training, no matter how many generals are breathing down his neck), but again, mainly so we don't have to delete city guards or other generally passive units every era.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'd like having all buildings that grant free promotions grant them to units that stay in the city, not just that are built there. The idea being that the high experience heavy swordsman that began life as a mere brute back in 49000 BC doesn't have to be deleted merely because all the new units I build start out loaded with free promotions, especially morale, and so he slows down the whole stack. Why can't the old guy be retrofitted?

Passive training would be nice too, for similar reasons. This is where rather than starting out with 100+ experience in the city where I put all my great generals and the Asatru holy city, a unit begins with very little experience and slowly gains some for every turn it is inside cultural borders, due to training and wargames and so forth, until reaching the maximum set by wonders, traits, buildings and settled great generals. It's partially for realism (no way can a fresh soldier become so invincible in a mere month of training, no matter how many generals are breathing down his neck), but again, mainly so we don't have to delete city guards or other generally passive units every era.

1) CAN be done but not sure we have consensus to do it.

2) That's a portion of the Combat Mod that has been programmed but not yet implemented - I suppose I should explain how it works so that I can get some help with the xml on that. If anyone wants to help me to design it out and include it in the xml I'm about to reach the main goal that stands as a setup prerequisite so it can now begin going into play. I was going to optionalize it too but that won't be tough to do along similar lines as I've done with other combat mod options so far. Yes... might be time to start putting Ongoing Training into action here.

The main overview of it is to utilize the UnitCombatOngoingTrainingDurations tag:

<UnitCombatOngoingTrainingDurations>
	<UnitCombatOngoingTrainingDuration>
		<UnitCombatOngoingTraining>UNITCOMBAT_COMBATANT</UnitCombatOngoingTraining>
		<iUnitCombatOngoingTrainingDuration>10</iUnitCombatOngoingTrainingDuration>
	</UnitCombatOngoingTrainingDuration>
</UnitCombatOngoingTrainingDurations>

What this tag means (and it goes on a building like, for example, a barracks) is that every 10 rounds, the unit that has so far received the least ongoing training awards among the least experienced local units of that particular combat type will be awarded 1 exp. It will re-evaluate which unit has been awarded the least ongoing training points among those with the least experience in total each time it goes to award an xp.

If more than one building affects ongoing training for a given Combat Class (unitcombat) is in the city, only the one with the shortest duration will be used. So if you had another building in the city that gave out an xp to Combatants in addition to the one listed above but that one had a duration indication of 8, then instead of 1 xp being given out to the most qualifying combatant every 10 rounds, the city would be awarding it every 8 rounds and the building with the 10 rnd duration becomes moot.

I wanted to get the full unit combat spread worked out before this went into effect. My immediate project here is now to start getting the xml done on that since Nimek seems to have blanked out of the scene for a moment - was waiting for his xml writing tool to make the project easier.

But here's the deal... We have a lot of training oriented buildings. They first need to be identified and isolated and some consideration might want to be put into fleshing them out for ignored types of unitcombats. Then we can work out the unit combats and durations on those buildings. The intention is to start off with very gradual, like 10 round, durations then step it down so that in the very late game they can start getting much more. Wonders could also offer very quick training durations to make them far more desirable.

So yeah, this represents a call to enlist any assistance in spreadsheet plotting out the ongoing training structure to fit in with the buildings we currently have that would be pertinent to this project. Anyone? Nimek might've liked this task... Faustmouse? How about you IronClaymore? You were the one to remind me of it

 

[Azurian]

Similiar to the astrological signs we can have random chance free promotions for animals called Natural Selection. examples can include Alpha, (+100 % attack) , Friendly (easier to subdued) , Overweight (extra food when hunted) , Agilitty ( higher withdrawl) ,Intelligent ( +1 movement). the chance should be like 3%.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I like that idea of having random traits. Good idea MrAzure!

 

[Sparth]

In past I have idea to add monarchy dynasties/political parties to the game.
In start of every era player choose (or its random choosed) political leader for the new ruller for civilization and this ruler have completly different sets of traits.

I think this add some dynamic to the game. Even most peacuful civs can be sometimes aggresive and vice versa

 

[Faustmouse]

Sparth, you may want to check out the Cultural Heritage Project: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=454186

I think this is still a VERY cool idea but it is way beyond my skills to implent it.

Another idea from me: Add a Hotkey to butcher animals or "Butcher all animals in city".
I hunt pretty intensive and have easily 5-10+ Animals per turn!

 

[anunknownman]

Iv'e had this idea for a while that immigration should play a part, basically random events might spawn nomadic civilizations that will settle near\on your lands.
I think this will make the game more dynamic since you will have to choose how to manage with them aside from your usual activities.

Not the most developed of ideas, but still intresting in my opinion

 

[Thunderbrd]

In past I have idea to add monarchy dynasties/political parties to the game.
In start of every era player choose (or its random choosed) political leader for the new ruller for civilization and this ruler have completly different sets of traits.

I think this add some dynamic to the game. Even most peacuful civs can be sometimes aggresive and vice versa

I've got something like this on the plan list... set to go into production after some combat mod devel and some further developing leaders design work.

 

[Azurian]

I like that idea of having random traits. Good idea MrAzure!

Promotion| Attack | Defence | Movement |Subdued|Withdrawl|Stat (Extra on Hunting Kill)
Alpha (5% chance for large predators) |+100% |+33%|+1|+50%|+25%|+ 2 +1 +1 +1 +1

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Promotions can affect the chance of subduing animals but not the returns from a hunting kill!

 

[IronClaymore]

So yeah, this represents a call to enlist any assistance in spreadsheet plotting out the ongoing training structure to fit in with the buildings we currently have that would be pertinent to this project. Anyone? Nimek might've liked this task... Faustmouse? How about you IronClaymore? You were the one to remind me of it

Sure, I'm able to do that and I guess I have time. What would it involve? A spreadsheet listing every training building currently in the game and their current bonus to experience for whatever unitcombat, and proposed values for their ongoing training durations? And if approved, an updated BuildingInfos.xml?

The only difficulty would be a lot of these buildings are hiding in Modules, so some might be accidentally skipped. Also, will there be a second xml tag for maximum experience gained through Ongoing Training? The way you've explained it, units will keep gaining experience forever, which is fun but a bit odd.

Another thing for this is how it would work with wonders. Take something like West Point for example. Currently you put it in your main unit building city so pretty much every unit you build from then on will have bonus experience. Ideally, building this wonder with Ongoing Training will give a bonus throughout your empire. In real life, fresh officers pass through here during training even if the unit they join is stationed in Alaska or whatever. It's not only guys stationed in New York who get trained there. So in C2C, would such a building have a separate xml tag for global ongoing training, or produce an ordinance-type building in every city?

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

Have you guys seen this? It might be a good idea to move the starting date back a ways...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...e-weapons-projectiles-human-evolution-science

 

[Faustmouse]

@Iron Claymore:

Yes, your List should include all the buildings that currently have a training effect (iE Free Promotions / XP Bonus) and also buildings that MAY have a training effect. What these buildings do now would be nice for comparing reasons and suggested stats (for ongoing) would also be nice.
As for the implention: As far as I know we have a Parser that allows us to use the google doc and let the parser create the required tag in the choosen buildings. That means you don't have to do that.
And the global Training is an interesting idea! However, I don't think that ALL buildings that give free XP should have that free XP removed. Some, like Barracks are Basic Camps for Units during their schooling.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sure, I'm able to do that and I guess I have time. What would it involve? A spreadsheet listing every training building currently in the game and their current bonus to experience for whatever unitcombat, and proposed values for their ongoing training durations? And if approved, an updated BuildingInfos.xml?

The only difficulty would be a lot of these buildings are hiding in Modules, so some might be accidentally skipped. Also, will there be a second xml tag for maximum experience gained through Ongoing Training? The way you've explained it, units will keep gaining experience forever, which is fun but a bit odd.

Another thing for this is how it would work with wonders. Take something like West Point for example. Currently you put it in your main unit building city so pretty much every unit you build from then on will have bonus experience. Ideally, building this wonder with Ongoing Training will give a bonus throughout your empire. In real life, fresh officers pass through here during training even if the unit they join is stationed in Alaska or whatever. It's not only guys stationed in New York who get trained there. So in C2C, would such a building have a separate xml tag for global ongoing training, or produce an ordinance-type building in every city?

I'm hoping we can keep things fairly well balanced despite there being no real limit. There's soon to be a lot of new promotions so it gives the units an ability to get into them a bit more and it supports the defensive army that never goes to war above all. Units that have been around for a long time will be the ones that have the most experience so if you're cycling through a lot of new units to replace casualties you'll still have weaker units since they haven't received the benefits of much ongoing training. The attack forces are usually fairly large and where there are a lot of units, the diffusion of xp awards among them will keep things to a minimum so successful offensive forces are still going to have earned a lot more from the battles than they would've through ongoing xp gains. All in all, this is going to make it easier for defenses than it is for offenses. If we find a limit must be established than we'll set one but for now I'm not sure we'll need to.

What I do to find all buildings or all units is a) pull up the core file in notepad++ and b) search for 'Civ4BuildingInfos' throughout the module file. Then select all found results and edit in notepad++ and all files with game objects of that sort are now loaded into notepad++.

If we want to establish a 'Global' training then I'd utilize the building tag that adds a special building in all cities - much like our culture wonders do. Then that special proxy building will add to each city the ongoing training value.

@Iron Claymore:

Yes, your List should include all the buildings that currently have a training effect (iE Free Promotions / XP Bonus) and also buildings that MAY have a training effect. What these buildings do now would be nice for comparing reasons and suggested stats (for ongoing) would also be nice.
As for the implention: As far as I know we have a Parser that allows us to use the google doc and let the parser create the required tag in the choosen buildings. That means you don't have to do that.
And the global Training is an interesting idea! However, I don't think that ALL buildings that give free XP should have that free XP removed. Some, like Barracks are Basic Camps for Units during their schooling.

Still waiting on that parser.

I don't think we should go about this removing any of the core out the gate assigning xp from buildings at all. For two reasons:

1) This whole mechanism of ongoing training should be optional - I'll make the tag that buildings use for it something that turns 'off' when the option isn't in play. If we rebalance the buildings with the expectation that the ability will always be available then we're just stripping some buildings of any meaning at all if the option isn't on.

2) The main purpose of ongoing training is to compensate (perhaps even more than compensate) earlier units that couldn't get the advantages of the amassed free xp they picked up when trained - perhaps they were earlier units when you didn't have that 12th Great General. Or to help units that weren't built in your primary military training city to 'keep up with some quality'. It's also going to make larger armies tend to be less trained and smaller armies more highly trained. All of this means that it's not intended to 'replace' the military production center(s) because those places where you amass your larger forces won't be able to get as much benefit for their troops out of ongoing training as smaller military outposts so they NEED to be able to have access to all those bonus xp on being initially trained to keep things balanced.