CivIVRedux - A Slower Mod

[CdGGambit]

CivIVRedux v0.1 BETA

Global Changes:
*All research costs twice as much on all size levels.
*Base cost for first 5 tiers of techs halved to ease early play before tech trading.
*Legendary Culture levels reduced to 10k/20k/30k so that cultural victories are more plausible with slower research.
*Roads and Railroads take 3 times longer to build.
*Civics cost twice as much.
*Default number of players on each size increased.
*Julius Caeser no longer offers you salad. :F

Units:
*Swordsmen (and Praetorian) gain +50% vs. melee and cost 10 more hammers (50).
*Axemen lose +50% vs. melee, cost 5 hammers less (30).
*Macemen lose +50% vs. melee, cost 20 hammers less (50).
*Frigate enabled at gunpowder.
*Machine Gunner enabled at Assembly Line.
*Crossbowman reduced by 20 hammers (50)

Buildings:
*Drydock enabled at construction.

Technologies:
*Combustion base cost up 600 to 3000.
*Railroad base cost up 300 to 2500.
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The first three games of CivIV I played included Tech Trading and I thought the game was just way to fast. It felt like I was building tanks just ten turns after getting gunpowder. Did not make any sense to me, so I played without Tech Trading. I started working on this mod to remove the need for No Tech Trading and came up with something that works fairly well.

There's also some other baisc changes that I made "because I felt like it". Just some simple things that didn't seem to make sense to me.

The mod is stable, but not thoroughly tested. If you play it, let me know how it goes.

The mod is 1.5megs: http://infohost.nmt.edu/~gambit/Files/CivIVRedux.rar

 

[wooga]

I'm with you on the rapid tech pace of Civ4, especially as it affects military units.

I think tripling road cost and halving early tech costs is too extreme.

What game "speed" setting would you recommend?

 

[CdGGambit]

I've been playing it on normal, and it seems to do pretty well.

As for the early techs, they are doubled in the gamespeed xml sheet, and their base cost is halved. This translates to them costing the same amount as normal, while all other techs are doubled. I tried playing with everything doubled from the beggining, but I quite literally ran out of things to build. All cities had full improvements and I was running out of money from unit upkeep.

As far as roads are concerned, this makes it so that the player (and ai) don't build roads everywhere because it's so cheap. I'm thinkign about reducing it to just doubled however.

 

[Richosh]

Interesting, I´m gonna try this one.
One thing, I always play on epic for I like a longer, more realistic game, would you then still say that I should use this mod?

 

[CdGGambit]

The mod is designed to substantially reduce the tech tree advancement, which I've noticed is always to fast. I haven't played it on epic, but it should work there as well. Lemmie know how it goes if you play it.

 

[ShroudedMist]

Another way to impact road building would be to have them possess a maintenance cost within city limits. People would think twice before connecting every single tile merely because they can.

I like the ramping up of later tech costs. However, I'm unsure if I like the specific changes you made to swordsman, axeman and maceman. Nice job all around though.

 

[King Jason]

The praetorian is now way too powerful. At the time of his discovery he is the only unit on the field with 8 strength.

the +50% to melee makes him the most powerful unit in the game (scaled to their particular eras).

Also have you taken into acount the +10 city attack that swordsmen have? you have nulled the need of Axemen since swordsmen have the city advantage AND melee advantage.

I don't mean to come off overly critical, but that drew all of my attention the second I saw it. I do like your idea to reduce the early tech costs in essence speeding them up before tech trading so you can actually experiance that part. It's an odd way to look at it, It's sort of something I was considering.

I was planning on speeding the cost of the first lvl of techs (the techs that make up the starting techs for each nation) so that people can learn the essentials of farming, roadbuilding, fishing, etc. first, THEN jump into the slow game. It also solves the problem of workers having nothing to do.

in any case - good work. I think we'll be seeing alot of different gamespeed mods coming out over the next weeks.

 

[CdGGambit]

The praetorian is now way too powerful. At the time of his discovery he is the only unit on the field with 8 strength.

the +50% to melee makes him the most powerful unit in the game (scaled to their particular eras).

Also have you taken into acount the +10 city attack that swordsmen have? you have nulled the need of Axemen since swordsmen have the city advantage AND melee advantage.

It's exactly what I wanted to do. Axemen/Macemen were always better than Swordsmen (and Praetorians), didn't need iron and axemen were cheaper to begin with. Seems kind of silly to me. Axemen and Macemen should now be a backup unit in case you don't have iron. Axemen are also 20 hammers cheaper (40%) than swordsmen. I always thought that the iron sword should beat the bronze axe. Also, I did remove the +10% city attack that swordsmen and praetorians get, I just forgot to document it. I'll update that.

And no need to not be critical, a good mod needs to be able to defend it's changes.

 

[Richosh]

The mod is designed to substantially reduce the tech tree advancement, which I've noticed is always to fast. I haven't played it on epic, but it should work there as well. Lemmie know how it goes if you play it.

Alright, so I tried, and played. What I experienced was a very slow tech development, I was still developing iron casting in 400AD or so, well, very late at least and that is one epic at least very slow, for epic also has this lenghten effect on the game.

In short, not good for epic games in general if you like a realistic tech pace. Yet the games goes to fast, tech episodes are way to short and units are very interchangeable. So maybe soething in this would be bettter.

 

[CdGGambit]

I'm currently playing Rhye's world map with this mod on Normal/Monarch and it seems to be working perfectly. The year is 1665 and I'm about to get riflemen (already have frigates) which seems to me to be right about where it should be.

What difficulty settings are you playing on Richosh, and did you make contact with all the other civs? Are they very far advanced? Thanks for the reply.

 

[Gufnork]

I rarely build axemen as it is, with these changes they'll be useless and Praetorians overpowered, being unstoppable until you hit Machinery. While I am desperatly in search of a mod that effectively slows down the pace of the game in a good way, those changes makes this mod unviable.

 

[Richosh]

I'm currently playing Rhye's world map with this mod on Normal/Monarch and it seems to be working perfectly. The year is 1665 and I'm about to get riflemen (already have frigates) which seems to me to be right about where it should be.

What difficulty settings are you playing on Richosh, and did you make contact with all the other civs? Are they very far advanced? Thanks for the reply.

Currently Noble, the thing I wanted to tell is that on epic the tech pace is already slower due to the much higher number of turns. This combines to a very tech slow tech pace.

I always make ontact with almost at least half the civs on the map. they are always at leastas far advanced as I am, sometimes in another direction, thus allowing the player missing techs getting by trading.