Community Call to Power Project

[DocBuchanan]

Fires, I like the basis behind your system. The method civ uses now is not satisfactory. I want to help with the design, if you'll have me. I've spent the last 8 years active army and have an affinity for military history. Also I suck at resource placement.
I would say first that the most important thing about a military unit is not their equipment but their ability to use it to deadly effect. Morale and training must be somehow mimicked for a true combat system.
I would say second that every unit present in civ could be broken down into dozens of different categories and within those categories could be dozens of different units. I know we can't go that far, but for a player to be able to make the army he envisions he must be given more choice.
Lastly, while the ground army has always ruled in civ, in real life navies often decide armed conflict. We must come up with a fun and important naval system.

I'm at work so I'll go but please respond if you can.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.459844,-98.415482

 

[Horem]

Epic Speed Mod updated, after I broke version 4

 

[nathanglevy]

@nathanglevy:
Am I correct that in your proposal having buildings in a certain branche also affect research into that branche? I.e., if I have 10 military buildings and having those 10 makes me "elite", I get a bonus researching military techs?

Correct, Military PRP will also be generated by military buildings. You could also boost your PRP from battle (per XP gained, etc.). You'd be elite if you were to build every single building possible as soon as you can, AND battle as much as you can AND ally military CS. Since the PR cap will be relatively high (as any other area), to become elite, you truly need to deserve it.

Note to all: I'm finalizing a Excel document where I show two examples of two players, one not specializing on culture and one who is to show you how the PR gauge would work. It's coming along nicely . Also included are columns showing his tech tier, no. of cities, and activity during the turn.

To be shared sometime today/tomorrow!

 

[FiresForever]

Fires, I like the basis behind your system. The method civ uses now is not satisfactory. I want to help with the design, if you'll have me. I've spent the last 8 years active army and have an affinity for military history. Also I suck at resource placement.
I would say first that the most important thing about a military unit is not their equipment but their ability to use it to deadly effect. Morale and training must be somehow mimicked for a true combat system.
I would say second that every unit present in civ could be broken down into dozens of different categories and within those categories could be dozens of different units. I know we can't go that far, but for a player to be able to make the army he envisions he must be given more choice.
Lastly, while the ground army has always ruled in civ, in real life navies often decide armed conflict. We must come up with a fun and important naval system.

I'm at work so I'll go but please respond if you can.

Its always better if you do what you like so if this suits you more than resource placing then that's cool , will just now have to convince daniel to do the rest

Like i said earlier we need to keep it to about 50 new promotions, however if you want to redesign the whole system we can probably do a complete /delete and clear the whole table leaving you with about 180. I will have to look into this though as i am sure removing them all will destroy something .

Will be interesting to see what you come up with, so we can work from there

 

[FiresForever]

Correct, Military PRP will also be generated by military buildings. You could also boost your PRP from battle (per XP gained, etc.). You'd be elite if you were to build every single building possible as soon as you can, AND battle as much as you can AND ally military CS. Since the PR cap will be relatively high (as any other area), to become elite, you truly need to deserve it.

Note to all: I'm finalizing a Excel document where I show two examples of two players, one not specializing on culture and one who is to show you how the PR gauge would work. It's coming along nicely . Also included are columns showing his tech tier, no. of cities, and activity during the turn.

To be shared sometime today/tomorrow!

I am in a hurry so i will keep it short:

Since you are doing all this work i think i should throw something into the mix , Basically a new feature "Ministers" you can have a number of these active at any time (5 maybe), they will be given out as you reach certain levels of PRP in a field, military, culture, etc. Using them boosts your PRP in that area but has a negative effect on the others, being the first to reach a Breakthrough or building a wonder will give you a special named version of these ministers that has a higher buff.

 

[DocBuchanan]

I had an idea for a system regarding military units.

1) Type of UNIT will define what basic equipment the unit carries, and how the unit fights (swordsmen carry swords and fight close in). This

2) PROMOTIONS will be granted by buildings and combat, and used to define the level of training and experience a unit has, much as they do now. (promotions such as discipline, accuracy, amphibious)

3) EQUIPMENT UPGRADES will be awarded by minor national wonders available only after certain conditions are met. Once the national wonder is built it will provide the corresponding promotion OPTION to all units eligible. This promotion, once available will cost gold and must be awarded individually by the player (like the current upgrade system)

4) Special upgrades, unique units, and powerful promotions can be unlocked utilizing the civic system. I envision a separate civic screen that features trees for select powerful units from each era. For instance a tree for the swordsman, the knight, the tank, the fighter, etc. Only a few units from each era would be selected. The options in these trees would be made selectable by technological advances or conditions met throughout combat (ten archers on the map or an underdog beating a stronger unit, stuff like that). These options could possibly be purchased using technology points or gold, instead of your traditional civic points, making them more viable options. These trees could also be made to not count towards a cultural victory.

This is a very rough outline providing no specifics, and I'm not sure what's possible and what's not. Can I get some feedback?

 

[cajer]

When I activate the mod and start playing there are no trees underneath the policy branches. Is there a specific manner I should go about install it?

 

[chrome-rome]

When I activate the mod and start playing there are no trees underneath the policy branches. Is there a specific manner I should go about install it?

Hi, welcome to the forums!

If you haven't already, try running the mod without any others active. CtP is notorious for not getting along with others. If that's not your problem, make sure you have the latest patch. Steam should automatically update, but it wouldn't be the first time someone was behind.

Actually, it may just be the design that's throwing you off. You should see three spheres when you open the policy tree. Click on one of these and the trees should appear.

 

[Hyronymus]

I am in a hurry so i will keep it short:

Since you are doing all this work i think i should throw something into the mix , Basically a new feature "Ministers" you can have a number of these active at any time (5 maybe), they will be given out as you reach certain levels of PRP in a field, military, culture, etc. Using them boosts your PRP in that area but has a negative effect on the others, being the first to reach a Breakthrough or building a wonder will give you a special named version of these ministers that has a higher buff.

I think a Great Person covers this best tbh.

 

[nathanglevy]

Shared the excel spreadsheets with PRP examples for the culture Gauge. I'm in a hurry so I'm just posting this now, I'll elaborate later in a new post. If you've got any questions in my next post. Enjoy! Let me know what you think

EDIT: Okay, so there are two files in the culture.rar file. Culture.xlsx is an example of a player that put emphasis on building culture buildings and allying with culture CSs. Culture2.xlsx is an example of a player that was more general, not hurrying monuments or cultural wonders.

The first 4 columns are:

1. Generated PRP during given turn, this is essentially your culture income -1 given by capital.
2. The PR Guage, an average of the your PRP income over the last ~10 turns. Is calculated by: (Previous turn's PR * 7 + Current turn's PR) / 8.
3. The PR Cap, basically the goal for perfect culture elitism. Nearly impossible to reach, and is calculated by: (Tech Tier's max culture * (No. of cities + 1) - 1).
4. The research bonus, basically a percentage bonus the player recieves to culture research. Calculated by: ((PR Guage / PR Cap) - 0.2) * 100. Notice that the drop-off point is anyone with under 20% average PR from the cap. In other words, if the outcome of the equation is negative, the player does not get a bonus. The reason for this is to cancel out "residual" points from just playing the game. A player under 20% is in no way exceptional in that area, so no bonus points.

The next column is notes, here I noted what the player built or did in that turn, and where there are several cities I noted which city build what (eg. (1) archer).

The next 2 columns are No. of Cities and the Tech Tier Cap modifier, I used these columns to calculate the PR Cap. The Tech Tier Cap modifier will simply be the sum of the amount of culture you could possibly gain through culture buildings in that Tier. Tier 1 would be 2 for a monument, Tier 2 would be 4 since it's +2 for temple, and so on...

I also included 2 graphs showing the progression of PRP generation, the PR cap, the PR gauge and the resulting research bonus so you have an idea of how it works out.

You can even play with the graphs and equations in the SECOND SPREADSHEET (the graphs only correspond to the 2nd sheet). If you like, you can keep track of your actions and plug them into the sheet and see how you'd fare.

I'll be honest, I haven't actually done a strict follow through with playing the game and tracking my culture and/or what I build, this was just an example. I hope I'll have time to actually follow my own gameplay and see how I'd fare. If anyone would like to try it for fun, be my guest....

Anyways, all this is just speculation on how I see it. Chrome can decide whether he likes this or not, what he wants to take into account or not. If you guys likes something or think something should be changed, I'd like to hear it, I love great feedback. I hope you enjoy !

 

[nathanglevy]

@Doc:

I'm not quite sure I understand how this would work. Would all of these basically be promotions that a unit gets? If there is an equipment upgrade that "costs money", why not simply build the unit with that upgrade with hammers? Upgrading with gold would be like building a warrior and the wasting gold on making him a spearman... No? Also, I'm not sure it's possible to have more than 1 upgrade branching off a unit, but I'm not sure about this. Either way, this would ruin the current existing upgrade system... I think it would have to be a separate system.

I like the idea of certain national wonders providing a set bonus, maybe you could have like mini "Project Manhattan" wonders, only it would be "project leather armor" or "project chainmail", and building these would give all new units a promotion...

The idea of a civic tree for units is interesting, but I'm worried this would be difficult to balance. How many bonuses could you possibly add to a unit? I fear we'd be seeing units with +40 strength before even beginning the medieval era. Also, all these promotions would give an enormous advantage to the military might civs, who are doing quite alright as they are. Maybe we'd have to seriously nerf units to make this work... And even then, hard to balance. Thoughts?

I'd like to see promotions and military with more diversity, kudos to all those working on the idea!

 

[DocBuchanan]

The current upgrade system (aka upgrading a warrior to a spearman) would not necessarily be replaced. Instead you could purchase an "upgrade" in the form of a promotion. In game terms it would show as a promotion... But it would be like upgrading an archer to give his unit flaming arrows, instead of having to make an entire new archer unit for that simple upgrade.

These "upgrades" would be made available through the construction of buildings, the choosing of civics, or the discovery of technologies. The player would have to purchase the promotions, however, to simulate the cost a nation would really have to pay for such upgrades (with a flaming arrow we're talking about pitch, tar or oil, and heavier shafts, as an example). Making players pay for each promotion individually also makes them choose the promotions they want wisely, and prevents overpowering by allowing the player to equip all his frontline musketmen with rifled barrels overnight, for instance.

The civic idea originated from another idea I had to offer "minor" civic trees for major technological advancements. Big ones. Like gunpowder, agriculture, flight, mathematics, etc. Each tree would give players the option to specialize their empire in a certain technological field. For instance, Egyptian guys really knew how to make rocks into squares, Japanese guys really knew how to make awesome swords, and American guys got really good and blowing things up from really far away.

When I thought about it, I figured the same thing could apply to the major units of the game. This would allow a player to have REALLY good units of his choosing, giving the ability to have a sort of unique unit of his own making each game, for each era, should he choose to spend the money and time required.

My biggest drawback was that I didn't want the player to have to spend precious civic points to buy minor unit promotions. However, a player could purchase them with money, or even technology points. I don't know how to code that but I'm willing to bet you could make something cost "-10 science for one turn" or something.

Anyway I'm ranting.

P.S. YES military units would have to be significantly nerfed to make room for improvement. Most of their power would have to come from their promotions.

@Doc:

I'm not quite sure I understand how this would work. Would all of these basically be promotions that a unit gets? If there is an equipment upgrade that "costs money", why not simply build the unit with that upgrade with hammers? Upgrading with gold would be like building a warrior and the wasting gold on making him a spearman... No? Also, I'm not sure it's possible to have more than 1 upgrade branching off a unit, but I'm not sure about this. Either way, this would ruin the current existing upgrade system... I think it would have to be a separate system.

I like the idea of certain national wonders providing a set bonus, maybe you could have like mini "Project Manhattan" wonders, only it would be "project leather armor" or "project chainmail", and building these would give all new units a promotion...

The idea of a civic tree for units is interesting, but I'm worried this would be difficult to balance. How many bonuses could you possibly add to a unit? I fear we'd be seeing units with +40 strength before even beginning the medieval era. Also, all these promotions would give an enormous advantage to the military might civs, who are doing quite alright as they are. Maybe we'd have to seriously nerf units to make this work... And even then, hard to balance. Thoughts?

I'd like to see promotions and military with more diversity, kudos to all those working on the idea!

 

[rulner]

I think this could be very interesting for anybody wanting to help with the mod, it is all XML work so is defiantly possible for most people reading this and is a great starting point

@Fires but also applicable to everyone else working on this Mod, I'm happy to help out doing the mundane stuff like going through and editing XML files providing you tell me exactly what you want me to do. Don't ask me to think but I'm happy to do the repeatable stuff or go through and check for things. I have no modding experience and testing scenarios is not practical for me atm but file editing is fine. It will more than likely get done whilst I'm at work so that'll be between 9 am & 6pm GMT.

 

[rulner]

Policy Bug - Under Parliamentary, selecting Proportional Representation doesn't do anything. It should give you +1 per city connected to your Capital but it doesn't.

This is not helping my -32 in my current game. Not my fault when India decides to pretty much capitulate and hand over loads of cities - You cannot seriously expect me to say no

 

[chrome-rome]

Ok all I have finally caught up with the current discussions here (be so much easier with a section in mod development ). To those who have posted various bugs, thank you, and they will be fixed by next version.

@ Doc and Fires: I can see the upgrade system you are proposing working best as a bonus for being the first to reach a breakthrough. I am a little against the idea of paying for these upgrades, because, as someone said, it would be just as easy to buy the more advanced version (rifle vs musket) from a city. To be fair, when the mod stretches out to the 850+ turns that I have in mind, these incremental bonuses will be very welcome, but even then I would advise that we choose some distinct add-ons. For example, there are plenty of promotions that increase defense (cover, rough/open terrain bonus, etc). Here is an example that I think would make it worthwhile: Rifled barrels (for muskets): Allows this unit to have a ranged attack of 1 hex. In other words, lets give upgrades that changes the way that the unit can be used. In that vein, Flaming Arrows can give the player bonuses against cities, or something to that effect. And yeah, achieving a balance on this would be pretty difficult.

@ nathan: Finally took some time to digest that post of yours. I LIKE! One change that I would push for would be to make the span for calculating PRPs extend to an entire era, not just ten turns. Yes, this will make it harder to achieve a significant bonus, but it does really encourage players to stick with their preferred specialization for a long time. I chose eras because most buildings, units, etc are pretty similar across eras, and once we extend this game a bit the specialization will provide longer dominance. And i think it makes more sense historically. As to Fires' point about the AI getting it, this is why I proposed the system of Flavor modifiers; as they become more proficient in an area, the AI will be more likely to continue in similar fashion.

@ Fires( On your earlier post about base unit stats and promotions stemming from there): Stupid - no. Complicated - probably. Worth it - maybe. I think it all depends on where you want to take this. Personally, I will be happy with the system you and Doc are putting forth. When I really think about it, this can very well evolve into the "Unique Units for all Civs" concept that D was going to add. Depending on breakthroughs and PRPs, one civ could have drastically different promotions/upgrades than another.

@ all: My main concern, after balance, is over-complication. I really do like most of the ideas that have been presented, but again I strongly don't want to add things just for the sake of adding them. Unfortunately, I think this was the path that Decimatus took. In addition to inserting new concepts that hadn't been properly tested, I think these steps led to his civ burnout. Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with looking to the future, but I do think it would be best if we take things one step at a time. Let's balance what we have now, and then we can look to more exciting changes. I know from experience that trying to test several things at once leads to a very unstable system. So, can we start with the basics first?

Right now, I am still working with the Modern Era, mostly looking at the buildings and units. Horem and I are going through the Resource System (not just the Monopolies ). Nathanglevy and leeuw01 are working together on the art for the Government Ideologies. Nuclear Dude and I are trying to re-re-fix lol the policies. Fires and daniel are working on the TSL map. After that, Fires and I will be looking at the Break Through system. I think that's enough for one setting.

 

[rulner]

@Chrome - This is what I was getting at on the last page:

How would you get the AI to understand this concept though – tough one I would imagine or would the flavours be enough. Would you not have to get the AI to evaluate where he is strong enough first so that he could beeline a specific orientation? If so then you would probably need to look at how he could potentially change at some stage. Not all Civs continue being the force they once were in a specific orientation (eg the British are no longer the naval force they once were and are not orientated that way now).

I really have no idea how your flavours work but wouldn't you have to modify how the AI evaluates it's strength in a field. You would probably have to put in some kind of balancing otherwise it would completely bottleneck itself by trying to increase it's eg cultural superiority. Looking at the stats nathan has demonstrated his brilliant idea to us with, at the end of each era even though there is a large drop (shame it's not a gradual fall btw) it doesn't fall to zero and even though I don't know how those values compare to the other areas it would probably choose to continue. I know the flavours would probably influence it but isn't that more random than anything else? (appologies if I've missed the point of the flavours, I was probably off sick that day )

 

[chrome-rome]

@Chrome - This is what I was getting at on the last page:


I really have no idea how your flavours work but wouldn't you have to modify how the AI evaluates it's strength in a field. You would probably have to put in some kind of balancing otherwise it would completely bottleneck itself by trying to increase it's eg cultural superiority. Looking at the stats nathan has demonstrated his brilliant idea to us with, at the end of each era even though there is a large drop (shame it's not a gradual fall btw) it doesn't fall to zero and even though I don't know how those values compare to the other areas it would probably choose to continue. I know the flavours would probably influence it but isn't that more random than anything else? (appologies if I've missed the point of the flavours, I was probably off sick that day )

Yeah, I'm not thinking massive changes, just 1-2 points (on a ten point scale) over the course of the game.

 

[Nuukov]

The Lord then said to them "Thou shalt design better policies!", and behold! Prophet Nuukov and Messiah Chrome-Rome were inspired to design more interesting policies!

*BTW guys, my nickname is Nuukov, I never really liked NuclearDude

Anyway guys, good news! Me and Chrome Rome have been slaving away behind the scence to make better policies for the mod. We both know how horrible it is when devs keep info from the masses, so here is some general information on what is changing!

These we have been working on today, and we shall continue work on Wednesday:


Gov's:

Democracy:
Represention: Half maintenance cost on buildings that give Happiness.
League of Nations: Other Civs that delcare war on you get a penalty.
Fair Trade: Luxary Resources are doubled.
Consensus: Research Agreements cost less and Declarations and Friendship last longer.
Popular Rule: Free Goldern Age, and Golden Ages last 33% longer.


Ideologies:

Imperialism: Unhappiness from Cities reduced by 20%.
Defensible Position: Happiness from defensive buildings.
Command:+1 Happiness from Garrison.
Forcible Imposition (renamed to Colonization): One free Setler at the Capital.
Annexation: Time for Resistence to be crushed is reduced by 50%, and +50% production for courthouse.
Empire: ½ maintenance for Roads and Railroads.


Some details are still being decided on, but this is the general idea.
This will also give Leeuw some more work to do

Anyways, we hope you enjoyed this update. Hopefully should not be too long until the Idoelogies are done, then Governments thereafter.

 

[chrome-rome]

Haha, nice intro Nuukov.

Some of the policies, especially those in Democracy, will probably need some lua support to get working, as there aren't any tags in xml that address other AI civs. If you are willing and able, shoot me a PM and we'll see if it's possible.

 

[rulner]

I like these 2 new policies (especially Imperialism) - nicely done guys.

One thing though, Fair Trade - I don't know if it's worth considering or even doable but how about doubling Luxury and\or strategic resources that are only traded through diplomacy. This would encourage trading which has died somewhat in CTP and falls in line with the term fair trade (though in theory the other party should get double too regardless of their policy... Fair Trade not Free Trade ).

Thanks for the update Nuukov