Civ4 Realism Mod (Extended Gameplay and tweaks)

[Fixius]

help me! im trying desperatly to get this mod working! i have tried everything! i load the mod and it says realism in the top left hand corner of my screen, im thinking yay but i select play now and start a new game, nothing seems different at this point. so i started playing through and everything is the same, are there any signs at the start of the game that show the mod is in effect. how much should a settler now cost at the start of a game on war lord if the unit is 25% more expensive, as the norm is 25turns??? perhaps im being a complete tard but any help or suggestions would be appreciated, i just want to see what all the fuss is about

 

[evirus]

look at tool tip requirements for the cottage, in the mod its monarchy(winery's now only require pottery)

 

[Krafweerk]

I like the developement of this mod and where it could be heading.

So I thought I'd share a few ideas.

Tech
As said by Simetrical earlier I think the tech tree should be designed from the ground up as well as expanding the modern era with more techs.

I think by expanding the tech tree and not so much of how long it takes to get would probley help slow the pace of the game.

An entirely new tech tree, not based on the same paradigm would be nice. Say something with actual branches of research. So you had independant paths...possibley to where you could master one branch while completely ignoring others...depending on the situation and what you want from your civ.

Something like:

Civil, which would open up with roads, barracks, harbors, granarys, basically all of your public works, and city infrastructure.

Military, which would be your progression of units. Also including special units and icmbs

Labour, which would all your out of city tile improvements, as well as fishing.

Pure scientific, which would get you things like +1 trade routes, etc. All bonuses, no new units or buildings...these would be the most costly, and wouldnt be tied to a "research this first to research that" system. If you wanted you could research something like +4 XP for all units (could call the tech warrior society or something) from the first turn of the game...itd take you 120 turns to research it, but you could.

Each "path" would have its own civic options available at different stages. There also wouldnt be any cross path dependant options...you wouldnt have to research archers to get camps, or you wouldnt have to research fighters to get airports.

There should be a nuke that must be transported via land, air, or sea before ICBM's, like the one they dropped in Hiroshima.

If the above method was used (for research) a Pure Science tech could be "nuclear equiped military" that could give a collateral damage strike to your bombers, fighters, subs, etc. Would simulate the low yield nuclear weapons.

I think many of the units that need oil should require iron and or copper. They seem to be not too important in the current modern era. But in real life iron is a very valuble asset.

After a certian point, say replaceable parts, or manufacturing, you should have to build a steel mill, or smelter. Wraught Iron stopped being used around the turn of the 20th century. Steel took over. Much like how riflemen dont require gunpowder anymore, since it was so common by then...a steel refinery should provide all the steel youd need for units, even if you dont actually have iron in your territorial borders.

Biplanes should come before the fighter.

I dont think Biplanes are signifigant enough to be represented...also they would be replaced in just a few turns by fighters.

Explores should become zeplines, like they were used in WW2 for recon and spotting.

I think you should look into blimps and zepplins....they were a catastrophic failure.

The only thing balloons were good for in world war two, was attaching very heavy steel cable to them, and floating them at various altitudes above cities to discourage low altitude bombing, and dogfighting right over the city. Recon was better left to ground soldiers, spies, and aircraft like the He111Z, Arado 200, and Dehaviland Mosquitos. Very light, very high altitude aircraft, or jet engined aircraft.

Buildings and Wonders
Heres a few I thought i'd mention. THe numbers are just for suggestions

World Trade Organization HQ

Grant bonuses to all trade agreements​

Give a +1 to all civs realation to you​

World Bank is already in the plans

Per my idea:

A world bank would make a great new wonder...it would work like the UN works, except there would be no elections.

The civilization with the most buying power (Manufactured goods, minus imported goods, times gross national product, minus matience would be the best and most simplified formula) would receive a +1 to relations with all other civs, and a 3.17 percent increase in tax revenue. (or in traderoute earnings, that might be more realistic) That would simulate countries putting thier money into a country that has the least risk for radical inflation or change. With the forumala above (im not sure exactly what the numbers are, but civ generates outputs for all of them) smaller civs with more industry (forges, factories, windmills) more population, but few coastal cities, would still be able to compete with larger, less industrialized nations. Much like germany, sweden, and france compete with russia, or china.

Static sam sites would be nice. I hate having to build a ton of sam infantry and run up my unit cost protecting all of my cities.

Though it still wont be as effective as good fighter cover.

 

[evirus]

in regards to "the nuclear military idea" how about depleated uranium shells? does increased damage, ilness points added after city attack and so on

 

[Krafweerk]

in regards to "the nuclear military idea" how about depleated uranium shells? does increased damage, ilness points added after city attack and so on

Thats a great idea too...

You could have two upgrade techs (maybe even more) Depleted Uranium for gunships, infantry, tanks etc, and Nuclear Capability for Bombers, Subs, and Battleships.

If you wanted, you could even have Fission unlock new upgrades for certain units, then with a barracks, or theocracy, you could pick your upgrade. Depleted uranium shells (more strength, or collateral damage, or whatever) Nuclear Powered (+1 movement or range) Nuclear Capable (subs could launch short range icbms, bombers could drop an icmb)

 

[Trubadurix]

SAM sites

Bonuses to air def​

A little hint here, have a look at the NASAMS system. SAM sites aren't necessarily stationary (not that you claimed it to be, I'm just mentioning)

I've been stationed with one of these buggers for a year now, and can pretty much operate one blindfolded (which I won't, because that would probably injure and possibly kill me in some very nasty ways)

Kongsbergs NASAMS info
Pretty much the same as above, but nicer pics
Wikipedia entry
(i have more private pics if anyone wants)

This system should be just about the ultimate anti aircraft platform available today (apart from SLAMRAAM, which is only an updated hummer-mounted version of it)

oh, and a side note, the US is currently having a look at these, last I heard there were plans to send some lucky crews over the pond to teach them how to use them properly

Just my two cents of inside info about SAMs...

GREAT MOD!

 

[Trubadurix]

in regards to "the nuclear military idea" how about depleated uranium shells? does increased damage, ilness points added after city attack and so on

don't know if this is what you meant by illness points, but usage of such shells should reflect the major health problems that soldiers firing the shells experienced after operative duty...
Should be plenty documentation about this available, even if the US still denies it...(last I heard, anyway)

edit: typo

 

[SlayerofDeitys]

don't know if this is what you meant by illness points, but usage of such shells should reflect the major health problems that soldiers firing the shells experienced after operative duty...
Should be plenty documentation about this available, even if the US still denies it...(last I heard, anyway)

edit: typo

The US military denying that something they forced there troops to use could cause long term health problems without so much as warning... No you have to be kidding right /end sarcasm.

 

[evirus]

plus theres napalm and that new "imitation napalm" called white phosperous i think...i ment added ilness points to the city which was attacked, not exactly healthy to have those shells lieing around your back yard you know, but it should only last a few turns at most... not the hole game

 

[JakeCourtney]

More Powerful spies and Sub launched Tatical Nukes and Biological weapons would make everyones day.

 

[Hemperor]

An entirely new tech tree, not based on the same paradigm would be nice. Say something with actual branches of research. So you had independant paths...possibley to where you could master one branch while completely ignoring others...depending on the situation and what you want from your civ.

Something like:

Civil, which would open up with roads, barracks, harbors, granarys, basically all of your public works, and city infrastructure.

Military, which would be your progression of units. Also including special units and icmbs

Labour, which would all your out of city tile improvements, as well as fishing.

Pure scientific, which would get you things like +1 trade routes, etc. All bonuses, no new units or buildings...these would be the most costly, and wouldnt be tied to a "research this first to research that" system. If you wanted you could research something like +4 XP for all units (could call the tech warrior society or something) from the first turn of the game...itd take you 120 turns to research it, but you could.

Each "path" would have its own civic options available at different stages. There also wouldnt be any cross path dependant options...you wouldnt have to research archers to get camps, or you wouldnt have to research fighters to get airports.

If the above method was used (for research) a Pure Science tech could be "nuclear equiped military" that could give a collateral damage strike to your bombers, fighters, subs, etc. Would simulate the low yield nuclear weapons.

Thanks for expanding on the idea. Going for a more indepth tech tree as you mentioned is just what I was geting at.

 

[mayonaise]

I think theres too much throwing around of completely random ideas... Maybe I'm just a rigid thinker, but this is how I see it.

Key problems with vanilla Civ:

#1: Game moves way to fast, eras don't get fully played out, especially in the late game. Technologies upgrade faster than you can keep up with.

--my solution: As I said before, and I'll explain further because I see it recieved some criticism. I see the solution to this being fleshing out the technology tree--- in conjunction with adding turns. While I am definitely not suggesting that we actually add hundreds of techs, I think there are a lot of important techs in history that have been left out. Many techs give 3 or 4 upgrades, some of them are very abstractly related to the actual technological advancement. I would suggest these as the easiest targets to break down so that each tech discovery only gives on advancement. I also think there are a few that can be added. I would also suggest that the transitions between eras should be more dramatic. I would even go so far as to say it might be an idea to have to "research" these transitions. Although it is very abstract, from a gameplay vantage I think it would have several benefits. If you made the cost to research these transitions VERY high... i.e. maybe take 5 to 10 times as long as your typical advancement, it would add significant time to each era-- and if dead end techs were included, would give those who chose to flesh out eras more time to actually use them against those who chose to "move on". i.e. there would be a penalty for trying to blitz up the tech tree. I would also think it would be nice, if possible, to make researching this "transition" only so costly to the first civ which discovers it, after which it would have say 50% of the cost. This would help allow smaller civs to "keep up", and again add to the penalty of civs blizting through the tech tree, although it would still have its advantages.

#2: Larger civs are always better civs. Expansion is the key to a successful empire, making your starting location and land area available predetermined outcomes in your game.

This, I think, is one of the biggest flaws in civ4. By year 0 a.d, you can pretty well tell the pecking order for the remainder of the game. I already gave one solution to this listed above. Another solution I would suggest would be to make larger cities much more beneficial, and smaller cities a greater drain on teh overall economy. I think the current money system adequately penalizes over expansion, so I think its proper to look into other parts of the game. One simple solution would be to decrease the number of tiles smaller cities can cultivate to a simple square around them, not allowing further cultivation until a city reaches size 10-12... although I don't know if this is possible. Another suggestion would be to add greatly to the multipliers to scientific advancement and production for larger cities. This could be done by increasing the effectiveness of specialists-- which are much more possible and numerous in larger cities. The idea would be to make one large city better than having 3 or 4 small cities. In fact I think cities should be rather useless until they reach a size of perhaps 5-6 in production and science. This would make building cities a significant investment in time, with much less instant payoff. In fact, they would have to be babysat by your more established cities who would have to provide protection for considerable lengths of time. To avoid stagnation in the early game, these penalizations should not be applied to the capital. This would also make the capital a more powerful city, which would benefit smaller civs. This system would potentially allow a much smaller but advanced and fleshed out civ the ability to tackle a large, unwieldly civ (civs growing too large for their own good has plenty of historical precedent). It would also be good to soften the things that limit city growth to larger proportions (perhaps through techs and city improvements)


Those are the two main problems with civ4 I see in the game.

Ideas of tech advances that could be included:
Trench warfare: All gunpowder units gain a bonus to defense.
Sun Zhu's Art of War: Wonder - +1 Experience for all units created
Satellites: Allows the ability to create invisible units which act exactly as spies, but with 0% chance of failure.
Explosives: Workers increase their speed in building improvements
Radar: Increase interception ability of all units
Colonization: Decrease turns it takes to subjugate a captured city.
National Bank: Decreases inflation rate
Out-sourcing: Bonus to production
Vaccination: Bonus to health in all cities
Automobile: +2 movement on roads
Distillation: + Happiness, - Health
Antibiotics: + Health

anyway you get the idea, thats what i came up with on the top of my head. obviously the techs arent fully thought out for gameplay etc. just ideas. someone would have to take some significant time to tackle it all.

 

[blunt3d]

In my game the french are raping the other civ's with there musketeer's, i guess because no 1 can build musketmen as fast. Where they supposed to require muskets too?

 

[JakeCourtney]

In my game the french are raping the other civ's with there musketeer's, i guess because no 1 can build musketmen as fast. Where they supposed to require muskets too?

Maybe they should, I mean they use muskets don't they? Hopefully he is hard at work developing the new version of this mod. I can't wait for more powerful ICBM's.

 

[Krafweerk]

#2: Larger civs are always better civs. Expansion is the key to a successful empire, making your starting location and land area available predetermined outcomes in your game.

What needs to happen is adding actual economy to civ4. Not just in distance to capital or a rudimentry system that calculates cost on number and size.

Civ outputs numbers for GNP, manufactured goods, life expectancy, etc (check all the screens when you win or lose a game) those numbers should be used in more creative and meaningful ways.

A civ with 8 cities, with 8 forges, 6 harbors, aqueducts, and two tiles of iron, are going to be FAR more productive than a civ with 16 cities, no forges, a few harbors, and one source of iron. At least when it comes to manufactured goods.

Whats completely ignored in Civ is what all those people in your cities are doing. You get notices in civ4 that tell you when you hit a million people and whatnot...though I always find myself asking, heck ive got a million people, everyone else has slightly less or alot less, im the smallest nation city wise, why cant I use my labour force. Im forced to pick tiles that balance between shield creation and starvation. Though one city away I have WAY more food and health +'s than I could ever use...why I cant I use that food to use my superior numbers in labour to outproduce the other guys.

If the largest nations always came out on top...we'd all be speaking russian or chinese by now.

 

[JakeCourtney]

What needs to happen is adding actual economy to civ4. Not just in distance to capital or a rudimentry system that calculates cost on number and size.

Civ outputs numbers for GNP, manufactured goods, life expectancy, etc (check all the screens when you win or lose a game) those numbers should be used in more creative and meaningful ways.

A civ with 8 cities, with 8 forges, 6 harbors, aqueducts, and two tiles of iron, are going to be FAR more productive than a civ with 16 cities, no forges, a few harbors, and one source of iron. At least when it comes to manufactured goods.

Whats completely ignored in Civ is what all those people in your cities are doing. You get notices in civ4 that tell you when you hit a million people and whatnot...though I always find myself asking, heck ive got a million people, everyone else has slightly less or alot less, im the smallest nation city wise, why cant I use my labour force. Im forced to pick tiles that balance between shield creation and starvation. Though one city away I have WAY more food and health +'s than I could ever use...why I cant I use that food to use my superior numbers in labour to outproduce the other guys.

If the largest nations always came out on top...we'd all be speaking russian or chinese by now.

Some nice points.

 

[Mondtiger]

War Elephant is to slow when all Horse and Tank faster in this Mod
Ironclad is to slow, whit the Steamengine can he drive against the wind

 

[slaxton]

you know what id love to see? APCs. infantry-type units would be alot more valuable if you could load 4 of them into an APC which has a movement rate of 3 say...

and someone said they wouldnt like to see hundreds of techs... personally i would. i would rather have tons of techs that have very little effect on their own then the few basic techs in the game.
someone said that biplanes didnt make enough of a historical impact to really be in the game, but additional techs would allow for stuff like that, because then it would take more time to go from bi planes to ww1 fighters.

also, i know im not the first person to suggest this, but id love to see canals in the game, maybe make it so they can only be built of you use something like the road to command, and cant be longer then 4 or 5 tiles, must be built within your territory, and each tile takes 16-20 turns to construct. counts as a road to land units.
or perhaps the canal can only be built between two coastal cities.

i'll probably have a few more ideas for your awesome mod before you finish, keep up the great work

 

[Lightzy]

Krafweerk:

Dunno, man.
For some reason I can't agree with anything you say :>

For one thing, making a new tech tree is completely unnecessary and seperating branches of it (such as military, gov, bio, etc) is simply servered from reality.
Would guns be invented without chemistry, metal working, physics, etc?
biological weapons without medicine and biochemistry?

And secondly..
WE ARE all speaking chinese and russian...
chinese is the most common language on earth.
after that, spanish, and I'm pretty sure that after that -- russian.

Oh, and also, it was the hinderberg disaster that crossed out zeppelins really,
And that's because germany didn't have helium, so they filled em up with hydrogen instead, which is very highly flammable and dangerous. The explosion itself was probably caused by the layer of outer coating on the baloon, which made it catch fire from even slight electrical currents.
Point is, after hindenburg, nobody wanted to be in a zeppelin.

Zeppelins actually have huge potential. You can build flying cities like that.
Loaded with so much heavy weaponry that nothing much is likely to be able to get anywhere near.. you can even build armor casing AROUND the balloon. it doesn't mind.. And even if someone DID manage to blow up the balloon, you could equip the zeppelin with thrusters to give it a comfy landing..


Mayonaise:
I agree with most stuff you said.
Dividing an existing tech into 2 other techs is a good thing to do. I don't agree however to adding techs and wonders that can have too far reaching consequences.
It's just that when people decide to add more happiness and more health and core stuff like that, with every point having huge ramifications, I can just see total game breakage happening.

BTW, does the AI actually take into account new techs?
I mean, I really doubt that it can look at a tech and evaluate whats best to research at any specific point.
unless its hardcoded or something, in which case adding new techs is likely to just confuse the crap out of the AI and ruin the game.
But I have no idea really. anybody know?

 

[Michel Keijzers]

I have not read the complete list yet and not tried the mod tough I will do for my next game, as soon as I have solved some crash problems.

Ideas:
- Promotions depending on action: when a unit successfully attacked a unit inside a city it should gain a free or less costly city raider promotion. Possibly more situations like this can be used (battling in jungle, amphibious etc). Or maybe even gaining experience when a unit walks through jungle a lot by receiving a gain for movement through jungle ... only beware of walking with units only to gain experience ... possibly letting units reside inside city should gain city guard. On the other hand ... it would get very easy to get a city guard promotion. Or it should be a number instead of city guard 1 and 2. but then things go out of hand probably ... guess my imagination is higher than playability. See next part.

Unit promotions as numbers instead of '1' or 2'.
E.g. a unit has City guard value of 30, a City raider value of 10 etc. Promotiosn can also be added by just being part of a team attacking or defending.

- Using barracks (or another building) should be used for training military units. For money and time units can gain experience points without actually battling.
Also a barrack can be used for upgrading units.

- Natural disasters are already mentioned. Some interesting ones:
- Flood: some land tiles will become water tiles.
- Undersea volcanos: some ocean tiles will form a new island.

- Deteriorating promotions
Units that do not battle for a lot of time will see their (promotional) skills being lowered. Tough I may don't like this idea myself it seems more natural.

- Promotions for workers
Workers that build things should be gaining experience in doing what they do.

- Limited resources, new
They are already taken into account; I assume also new resources will be created during play to cover for the removed ones.

- Events
Like the olympics in another mod on this site. I think lots of events will add lots of flavor especially if they/some are not 100% random but depending on buildings, civics, culture, religion etc.

- Advanced battle system
Probably this is way too difficult to implement but these are just ideas:
- Possibility to retreat (all or some units to an adjecent tile away from the attacker). Only if movemement points allow and not attacked or residing between enemies.
- Attacking from multiple sides should be an advantage. Or if that's too difficult to implement (attacking from multiple hexes at the same time), only the existence of units should be enough. Also retreating is not possible if attacking from two opposite sides.

- Acquiring techs from others
When techs are acquired from others (through trade typically, tough getting it by city raiding is also a nice option), a civ can use that tech immediately. While the creator has taken it several and sometimes lots of time to develop. It seems natural for a new owner of the tech that it techs some turns to get acqainted with the tech before it actually can be used. Of course this is made with the assumption that in the original creator of the tech the time to develop it includes the time of getting acquired with it. This time is concurrently with other tech times. I mean: it is possible to currently researching tech A, while tech B acquired from another takes another 5 turns before usable and tech C 7 turns etc. This acquanting time can be depending on science or maybe also culture.

- Sea mines (land mines too?)
To prevent seas becoming too easily to move through, sea mines should be able to be laid (by special ship?) and of course removal also should be possible. Sea mines should be invisible except maybe for some units or units with special promotion.

Tough I know some ideas may possibly have already mentioned and some are too difficult to implement I hope this article is useful. And almost all ideas need to be worked out but I will wait for that until requested or until I get positive reactions. Of course everyone can use this is starting for new ideas (actually that's the first place I made this for), to make so many creative ideas that the implementor(s) of the natural mod can make good decisions what to do and not to do.

Alltough I'm a programmer myself I'm not willing to program in Python since I already work now in C, C++ and dotNet projects and do not want to use another language concurrently. Besides I don't know Python ... maybe in the future I will spend time to learn but time is a sparse asset sad enough.

Greetings, Michel