Concepts and Ideas for a Modpack( suggestions, helps and fans wanted)

[gfurst]

Hello Y'all, so here is the thing, I had these ideas for quite a long time now and they sprung from playing other mods with great ideas as well.

Now, the timing is horrible, because most of the community already moved on to Civ5, and most needed was the help from the great modders and players out there.
The greatest help of all, if you really like the ideas and wish they could come to reality, is to spread the word about this thread and share with people you know and may be able to help as well.

These concepts are still only on paper, but they have a pretty solid foundation, that's why I like for people in here to comment and suggest in them, more importantly, point out possibly flaws, because I know there will be flaws.

Check out below, I try my best to organize them. They're kinda categorized, and separated into different posts because I lots of smiles have a better visual effect, but the forum has a limit of images there can be in a post( doesn't make sense for smiles though).

Keep looking on the update dates for each post, I'm constantly changing them. I also try to rationalize my thoughts, conclusions and decisions in the replies (in case you're interested).

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler Ideas that come together :

Just look at the greatest modpacks out there.
- Legends of Revolutions -
- Community Civ 5 -
- Planetfall -
- A New Dawn -
and others (I have a pretty limited mod playing experience)

These great mods, can be quite different in content they offer, but they have something big in common.
Their ideas and concepts come together. Each new thing an idea brings to the table support the others, its like all these ideas follow concepts that are based one the same principle.
The principle it self is that the ideas will work together to create one game.

And most important of all, the coding of such is also supportive, its having their components truly emerged to be helping each other, not only working as a standalone module.

Spoiler Customization :

Following another principle.
To make every single aspect of the game customizable, this is almost what Firaxis did by opening the SDK for the general public.

Of course this is an unreachable objective, but we can make our best to get close to it.

The point is make it easy for mod modders to add their content, and even easy for the user to change aspect of the game play himself.

Spoiler Streamlined :

"You reach perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"
said a very wise.

This is the principle I plan to follow the most.
May Afforess forgive me, I really like his mod "A New Dawn". But there is something that just pisses me off. Its just so chaotic in content.
Just and example, there are two buildings with the purpose of providing per sea bonus(fish) in the city reach. They both provide , but one provides a + and cost less to be built. Isn't that just chaotic?
( keep in mind, I'm pretty sure Afforess left the mod unfinished, and that may be the cause so much of why it is still pretty unbalanced)

Balance and streamline in focus these are principles that support each other.
They basically mean:
- if this building is giving this bonus, that other one should give another bonus as well,
- if this building has this upgrade, that other one should have a upgrade as well,
- if this unit type has advantage this way, that other one should another advantage as well
- if investment in in this commerce has this result, the investment in the other one should also give a pretty good result

To sum it up, this is keep balance ahead of time, its also to equalize the value of and military units, civics choice and much more.
This way every decision you make, is actually a good one, depending on what your focus is.

The way we have in most current games is to follow the same basic algorithm to have a general success. We always follow the same instructions:
Build libraries and markets everywhere, reach this tech earlier, build archer for defence and swordman for attack.

This greater balance is a way to have more diversity, to break away from these algorithms and to open space for more diverse strategies.

With every concept presented below, I present new meanings and ways for greater balancing.
I will try to reduce content the best way its possible, with a standard game, on standard speed and standard map as object. Leave open space for mod modders, and only later add some of the great content already created.

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler Investment Rates :

The major idea here is to balance the value of commerce, after all, commerce is a major part of what moves an empire.

Right? These are named commerce types... What are they exactly? Spending right?

My idea is to start treating these commerce type rates( how its called in the SDK) what they really represent, the rate of investment of an empire on destined subject (the rates that stays at the top left of the screen).

Consider like this, each thing on your empire would generate , a part of this commerce is collected as tax to the empire, then the empire redirects part of this income back to the cities giving a reason for citizens to live:
=> This part goes to the government coffers to compensate for the cost and to fill the kings purse.
=> Investment in research and education.
=> Investment in infrastructure and citizen well being.
=> Investment in military and espionage purposes, feeding the war machine.

Did you just read what you think you did? Yeah you did, with the concept of Espionage for military and Culture for infrastructure, we give a whole new meaning and importance for these two kinds of commerce that were so overlooked.

Say there is a new Emperor in town, and he decides education is for the stupid, what the people really need is swords and wars, he will tune up the investment at the cost of , would the schools continue to work the way they were?

Commerce and investment will have a whole lot of more importance and abundance and the investment will make a lot more of sense in the next part.

Spoiler Building Outputs :

The way we usually see is most buildings that increase commerce in rates (such as library with +25% ), instead most of them will have a directly output per investment rate, with a additional cost, after all, we don't expect these buildings to work for free.
Which really makes a whole lot more sense.

Try to imagine, you have a little small town in the middle of nowhere, and crazy as you are, you decide to build a Great library there ( +100%:science just for presentation). This town is so up far from anywhere, it doesn't have any trade, no cottages around, no production.
Now guess what, your Great pretty Library produces what? Nothing at all...(100%*0=0)

Now this was dramatization for the sake of demonstration. Most buildings would have direct output on what they supposed to offer, but of course there will be buildings who affect the the overall rate (such as Great Library) but those are more likely to be National or World Wonders, and a few selection of specialized buildings such as Banks.

To get a more touchable idea of this concept:

Library == 1 -1/ 5% Invest. rate​

Invest. Rate == 25% rate​

Output == +5 -5​

The +5 science is a direct output from the library, the -5 gold are counted as maintenance.
Now keep in mind that in this example, the library is a pretty inefficient building, converting directly gold to science, for better efficiency you have to upgrade the building, make options to reduce maintenance, and even further, specialize the city to have a even greater output.

Another example is the barracks:

Barracks == +1xp -1/ 5% spent​

Invest. Rate == 10% rate​

Output == +2xp -2 for new units​

Markets for example, should generated only instead of the +25% rate.
Another idea I have for buildings that aren't specialized(such as market), to give and output relative to the size of the population: +1 commerce / pop.
Considering that the market is the place where people have access to the to the resources, each resource would also produce a +commerce and the usual happiness or health.

The concept also adopts the upgradable buildings feature already seen in some mods( such as A New Dawn), that way output can become even greater when you decide to properly invest in it, by upgrading buildings and directing the empire coin to it.

Spoiler Balance between commerce types :

You may have not noticed, But by giving buildings costs and direct outputs, we get a lot of balance in the greater picture.

Without the buildings, you may still leave the at tops 90% at all. But as soon as they start being built, your cost will sky rocket, but the loss of science you get from reducing the Invest. rate are soon compensate by the surplus production of the buildings themselves, reaching greater scales with more efficient city setups.

I predict that a 20% to 40% will be already a great deal of investment.

As well as infrastructure means, buildings will provide more and for your cities. While, will give direct outputs on xp for military.

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler :

It always felt unnatural to me the way improvements and cottages work on the game.
The concept is to make improvements more important and harder to get, they should become more valuable over time and the effects of pillage should be way more troubling.
Now tell me, don't you just hate when that #$% of a leader pillage that beautiful town of yours that took quite some time to grow. Right?

My idea is to make every kind of improvement upgradable, and along with that, hard to upgrade.
Every improvement would begin with a small cottage, and then grow into something more useful, such as mine, a farm, a plantation, a lumber-mill an etc...

The idea needs to be more polished, but basically, that farm has been sitting along that river for ages, i wish those dumb farms people would put down the Moonshine and improve it, even if just a little. Even so, aren't those cowboys buying anything?
Try to think of it as a farming or cattle community.

The improvement should be upgradable, not only increasing its base resource but also commerce. Its getting hard to write, so I'll give you a example:

Hill

120​

Cottage

121​

Mine 1

132​

Again, this goes along with the concept of a focus on the game.
Giving a little variety of possible upgrades as well balanced and you have a beautiful landscape with little houses where your citizens could live.

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler :

It always made me mad that losing some of the cities of my empire, sometimes makes about... NO difference, none at all to the rest of the empire. Without of course, those very ancient ones you had since the beginning of time.

But the actual concept here is to give individual cities more importance, how?
That's quite hard to answer.
My idea is to make cities larger with tiles workable up to 4 tiles, this should make the overall number of cities greatly reduced without reducing the map size.
Sounds a good idea, han? to go from city A to B the troops would actually have to travel.

Not only that, but cities would depend on its proximities to have certain capabilities, such as buildings that require specific resource or bonus to be built( this feature is already implemented in AND).

The idea still needs to be worked on and experimented to be perfected.
But basically, larger cities equals less cities.

More battle ground out of walls, more pillaging.​

More strategy on moving troops on open ground.​

Harder and longer Sieges.​

To have lost a unique city could mean the destabilization of an empire (even yours).​

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler :

So I basically hate how every single Civ in the early game puts itself to build as many settlers as he can, and then build as many cities. We've tried to slow this process by increasing maintenance fees, by creating revolutions, and even trying to slow down the AI.

In reality none of these methods really work. Do they?
So when we reached Medieval age, almost every bit of land in the world were already settled and developed. Yeah, I guess not, otherwise we wouldn't know a game from this same franchise called Colonization.

I still have mixed thoughts on how to slow this settling expansion, and I hope, with help of others on this thread, we can come to a better solution.

My major idea was to remove the settler completely from the picture.
As I've said on the post above, Workers are required to upgrade improvements, that are all cottage derivatives, being consumed in the process, we already got a slowed growth right there.
Let's say Workers are people and they are joining the population of that cottage.
Let's say they can also join the population of a city, and there for, also able to create cities. With that in mind let's go to where it gets complicated.

So with Settlers out of the picture, and Workers so needed, I know it would be a pain in the ass to keep building them all the time. But indeed it does mean a much slower growth.
I've tried to come up with a system where Workers are build and generated automatically and passively( as it should be, a passive expansion), and the rate at which those are generated will depend on several factors, such as output and surplus, surplus of and , and finally civics options and leader tendency.

The downside is that could be a pain in the ass to always have Workers spawning, but considering that they are consumable to almost every task and can also join population in cities.
! Epiphany Hit ¡ -- Maybe they would only spawn when the city grows on population, more in the beginning, less when city is big, and could stop when city stops growing.
=End of Major Idea=

Another idea I've is that cities should begin with 0 population (possibly), then they would really only begin growing after more population moves there.

=Moving on=
And of course, we can't have all the game with this staggering growth. You will reach a time, where people realize the need of settlers and works and finally colonizers.
Here we have another punchline: no settlers, only colonizers, and they create what? Yes! Colonies.
Cities created by colonizers will be tagged as Colonies, instead of that stupid rule.
In current games, the factor separating colonies from original cities are a stretch of water, no matter how small, from the continent where your capital is. It's really stupid, cause you can have a city on a little island two tiles away from your capital and it's considered colony, meanwhile you have a city all the way on the other side of the continent and it's considered homeland.

When time comes the real expansion will begin, and of those new brand cities are colonies from the empire that creates them, a settlement to gather specific resource, stretch of land, commerce and etc, all that comes with regular cities with a difference: people will recognize it's different from their homeland.

Being a colony implies, faster beginning for the city, with small population small maintenance, benefits for the early city while a big grown colony will have higher maintenance, and ( guess what?) higher revolution chances. As well it could have a chance (by building or doing something) of it being assimilated as homeland transforming it in a regular city.
=Ugh, long post=

Yeah I've stretched this one a bit, but I guess this topic deserves stretching.
As you can see this one is pretty much in develpment in my head, ideas and suggestions are welcome.
Moving on...

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler :

Ah, Military units getting the respect they deserve, indeed, but how?
My brief games of CivV really inspired me, military there has a whole new meaning, it gave this idea( or idea to copy something).

Combat the way it is, I'm not sure but I guess in normal games the battle runs through ticks with each unit damaging the other with the given strength and modifiers until one of the units dies.
Let's say, if you give a limited number of ticks, units might survive or they might die, sounds quite like CivV, doesn't? I don't know about you but this is something that can make the game much more interesting.

Now, this will need extensive SDK research, maybe the feature isn't doable, and the basic combat mechanics is deeper in the engine of the game.
So any knowledge is appreciated as well as ideas for possible alternatives. I know that giving every unit a escape chance is one, but not quite the same.

Additionally, the unit limit per tile is another feature I like added, not 1/tile of course, instead I would see a limit for unit per type per tile. This sure would give a stop to those damned SoD with the same unit, and would give space to more diverse stacks.
In combination with the concept of bigger cities and more walking space, basic movement should also be doubled allowing more strategies.

=Military Streamlined =
I don't know about you, but I do hate to see only swordsman attacking cities and only archers defending it.
The way I see it:
- swordsman should be multi-purpose to both defend and attack.
- Axeman are truly the trolls, they find pleasure when their axes find the enemies heads( best at attack).
- Pikeman stands best stopped with his lance aiming for that fool running towards him( best at defence).
- Archers have the advantage of firing at range, as well they supposed to provide support for close units( see below).
- Horseman stands best where they can run and make fools of they slow enemies (best outside cities).
- Scouts, poor scouts, no more, they could become actual scouts, being able to move better behind enemies lines and scout for actual enemy units( partial invisibility, unrestricted movement, high escape rate).

Got the idea?
Now if the ticks thing works out, we can sure make archers with a few first strikes very usable as a support unit that damages the enemy and isn't suicidal. If not, them we could use them as collateral damage, or giving bonuses to units in the same tile, as well as providing first strike as defender.
Scouts could actually be scouting something. I already seem a mod that makes invisibility a probability chance, making the poor scout visible right beside that mad axeman who wishes his blood, but fear not, the scout travels light and has a very good chance of escape, not only that he knows the terrain it suffers not from movement penalties.

These six branches of combat can be carried on from ancient times to modern, keeping on balance and keeping units streamlined. Makes me wonder why no one ever thought of that.

=Promotions=
I have some thoughts on promotions, I think they should e given by initial training instead of selecting after, more on that later, i have to finish writing.

=Resources=
I have thought a lot about this as well, and I'm still open to suggestions, here it comes, don't hit me!
Remove the necessity of resources to build certain units. Ugh! I know you want to hit me. I really mean it, remove all restrictions, why? My last game no one had a horse to ride on, no seriously, not a single horse.

Well let's imagine all units on all Civs on game, its just more fun, besides, this removes the possibility that some Civs may not use they unique unit because the lack of resource.

Additionally, units would all require more production( thus increasing its importance even more), with the specific resource the production would be greatly improved, even further it reduce the maintenance for specific unit type.
That sounds fun, hun? to have Destroyers without oil, you would have to pay dearly for them.

=Moving On =
Well that's it for today, waiting for suggestions, alternatives and critics.

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler :

=Occupied Cities=
You know this symbol right? Now, you've got to believe, I had the idea for occupied cities before CivV came along, but it truly doesn't matter.
Reality is, occupied cities can make the game a lot more fun

The idea really comes from Revolutions and Assimilation mod themselves, like screaming to be noticed and created.
I must be rumbling a lot, not really awake yet... let me slap myself for a second...

The idea it self is that Cities you conquer by military invasion are tagged as Occupied cities( much like a city can be tagged as colony).
The difference about occupied cities to normal:
- They maintenance starts small and then grows exponentially with population growth.
- As well, the revolutionary sentiment will grow radically along with population.
- They wouldn't stop producing their own culture, I mean they've a portion of the output of the city, keeping their nationality a relevant factor.
- Buildings specific for occupied cities, like propaganda or army posts.
- The possibility of assimilation of the occupied city to be recognized as homeland by the empire.

Ain't it a pain in the ass when conquering that final city from your enemy, all those others conquered cities suddenly decide not to rebel any more, they sure are fast to forget the nation they once were part of. The idea is to have the nationality of dead civ to remain, like said before, there will even have production of culture on these conquered cities.
Just think about, once captured a city, the assimilation mod keeps that city with its natural characteristics, original nation art and unique features. Now really the conquered city will be actively a part of the original empire, even if dead, may cause mayhem to your troops.
Remember the Roman Empire, didn't it fall due to the revolutions that occurred on its vastly occupied stretch of land?

=Colonies =
I already discussed a bit of colonies on the Slower Growth post. Summary:
Expansion of cities will be greatly slowed until certain advancements, and then you can build the Colonizer, pioneer of new lands, then construction of new cities will be increased and lot, cities may even be built with initial buildings that help growth (there is something similar in another mod).
The downside of this is that new cities will be tagged as Colonies instead of original homeland cities. The settlers themselves, are only looking forward to resource or economic advantages and plan to get back to the mainland when they can. With time and growth of the colony, people born there will begin recognizing the colony as their own homeland, and them a new culture is born.

The mechanics of a colony will be similar as that of a occupied city, being profitable on the short period and expensive on the long period.
In the Revolutions mod, you know when a revolution breaks, suddenly there is a new nation with troops besieging your cities. Instead I think there should be like a anticipation of that new nationality, by creating the new nationality before the revolution actually begins.
The concept is the same with occupied cities, to make them produce a certain nationality culture when requirements are met, factors included are: distance to capital, proximity with other colonies, contentment of the colony, civics and anything else you might think of.
And logically colonies can also be recognized as homeland cities, if the factors are favourable.

=Revolutions=
All I plan to do is give a spice to the revolutions mechanics and make actual effects of them to directly affect the empire and thus the game itself. For example to give the RevIndex value a directly factor to maintenance in said city.

Well I guess much of what needs to be said about revolution has already been said in the above subjects. I will keep this simple for now.

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler :

The Concept it self is to give Espionage and Culture new meanings, and by that giving a whole new importance to better balance the commerce.

So here are the new meanings themselves:

= as Infrastructure=
Think about it, culture is already something like that. Culture measures the reach of the influence of a city, also the proportion of its nationality, and to spend on culture is to spend on citizen well being as a overall.

Just as Colosseum give as a bonus per spending, there could also be a whole range of buildings with improved output when infrastructure is invested upon.
For example, Hospitals should give additional per spending, or a market per say( in this context it gives a output rather than a +rate) and with the excess investment it gives a + or maybe .

The variations are derivatives from the principle applied to existing buildings, and there for, are extensive and plentiful.
I just had lunch and with the belly full, the thoughts escape my mind, feeling sleepy. I will have this completed later.
Meanwhile, on your next game, hopefully a modded game, look at the various buildings and try to figure which are infrastructure implied, that is a building that improves the city itself, in other words, improves:
Now that I think of it, there is wide array of buildings like that, and next try to think on how Infrastructure investments should improve the output of the said building.

= as Military=
I rarely use spies, and mean it, and if I use them it's nearly or post modern age, and I wonder why the hell I do spend on espionage.
The only benefit I see is to be able to see other civs statistics and finally to see their cities, military and projects. And of course that is a great advantage, but still its very limited to what the investment could really mean.

For example, we could have a civic option that raises the free unit limit as a per investment rate.
Also a barracks instead of that 2xp eternally could give +1xp/5% spending.

Let's say we have a building specifically for occupied cities( see occupied cities above), and this building purposes is to keep the population under control via military might, it subtracts points from the RevIndex as per spending rate on military.

Again the variations are can be several, keep an eye out on what could this mean.

I have to stop now, I just had an epiphany on other subject that needs to be worked on.

 

[gfurst]

Spoiler :

To be written.

 

[Voyhkah]

I love these ideas! No really, they're great. I'm not just being polite, they're really quite creative. You should learn to use the SDK so that you can make these ideas real. By the way, can I borrow some for my mod?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Yes, some interesting ideas. You have not mentioned trade yet. Most mods seem to reduce the impact of this, in AND it is almost useless.

 

[LyTning94]

I agree with Voyhkah, these ideas are amazing! I had considered making a mod with at least one of the ideas before (the upgradeable improvements), but the other ideas combined with it make it a whole new concept.

Now it just needs to be translated from paper to the SDK...

and when it does, I will definitely play it!

 

[gfurst]

Yes, some interesting ideas. You have not mentioned trade yet. Most mods seem to reduce the impact of this, in AND it is almost useless.

Yeah trade, I've forgot to add a specific thread for that, but its not needed.

In AND you have quite commerce generated from trade, I plan to make that as well important, since commerce is the focus, trade will be relevant.
I know there should be culture via trade as well.

I do plan to improve trade, but the thing is I have no idea on how trade routes are already implemented. It seems a bit chaotic for now, or maybe too simplistic, the way they work.

So, anyone with knowledge on how trade already work, would be great to be shared with.

 

[gfurst]

I love these ideas! No really, they're great. I'm not just being polite, they're really quite creative. You should learn to use the SDK so that you can make these ideas real. By the way, can I borrow some for my mod?

I agree with Voyhkah, these ideas are amazing! I had considered making a mod with at least one of the ideas before (the upgradeable improvements), but the other ideas combined with it make it a whole new concept.

Now it just needs to be translated from paper to the SDK...

and when it does, I will definitely play it!

Yeah, thanks guys, it really improves moral to know there are people out there liking the ideas.

Voyhkah, you sure can borrow any of my creations. I do plan to make each singular feature modular, so any other modder can use it to his owns means, not only that, but the overhaul mod should be simplistic in content. So if any content modder out there wishes to make a huge mod out of it, for the content lovers, he will be the most welcome.

Anyway, I will get myself to write the rest of the features before the end of the weekend. Right now, I've been playing Galactic Civilizations 2, to see if i can gather some more ideas or perfect mine.

I have little to no knowledge of the SDK, however I'm familiarized with C++ language.
Still I would sure love some help

 

[Voyhkah]

If you know C++, working with the SDK should be easy.

 

[Highwayhoss]

gurst I have a couple of suggestions on trade: One how about being able to trade food and hammers? for example a food rich city could export food to cities with lots of mines so it can work them; that city in turn could export hammers to hammer poor cites to help them build stuff.

 

[gfurst]

Hey guys, I just had an Epiphany while writing some of the subjects.
So keep a look out on the edit date on the posts to see which are update or not.

My epiphany actually was the spotting of a major flaw on the commerce focus subject, specifically how buildings could work with the investments rates.

Let's say library as basic example:
instead of the +25% in addition to the output of the city, I suggested:
+1/5% rate (figurative numbers for demonstration)
The flaw in here is that it doesn't matter whether the city is expending 100 or 10 of in , the output of the library ends up being the same, and that's not in harmony with the concept I attempt to achieve.

So I brainstormed for solutions, and came up with:
1° - +1/1, then if you got like 25 spending on you get a output of 25 total
2° - +5%/5% rate, which is like a middle term result and increases considerably with investment

Now, the second one is considerably closer to the actual output of recent games, the difference with more investment the output increases drastically, increasing the research rate will both increase the original output and the rate multiplier of the output. Thanks to my Calculus skills, I've been able to figure out the result is a square equation, greatly increased in function of the investment variable.

The first solution however, stays more in harmony with the concept itself. The output is directly proportional to the investment. The initial output is greater, but as investment grows, it stays proportional to the investment rate.
Comparing the two, the total output of the second will always be lower than the first, only equalling when investment reaches 100%.

The Second option also makes more sense when comparing to other investment types, such as to , the output of those buildings will always be direct proportional, not the square result of.

To compensate on the surplus output, I've revived another idea, to have a variable tax to the empire, that is: from the overall extracted only a portion of it is actually used to public means, citizens can now get a life of their own.

So I need for people to give your opinion on this changed idea.

 

[gfurst]

Hey guys, look on updated info. Again, help is dearly appreciated, not only work help, but mental help, give ideas and critics to be worked on.
And the greatest help of all, share the word with other people who might be interested.

We need to first consolidate the ideas and concepts before implementing them, this makes work incredibly more effective and makes the final outcome of the project to be the best it can be.

If you know C++, working with the SDK should be easy.

Relatively easy, don't forget how vast is the mechanics of Civ.
One thing I didn't find out yet, is how the SDK makes use of the xml files( I know they are stored as variables), and how the information is exchanged between the python scripts and the main engine.

gurst I have a couple of suggestions on trade: One how about being able to trade food and hammers? for example a food rich city could export food to cities with lots of mines so it can work them; that city in turn could export hammers to hammer poor cites to help them build stuff.

That suggestion is actually about production resources caravans, I thought about it, a lot. But to enable this feature we would have trading units or a special mechanism, and that's overly hard to do, specially teaching the AI.

Instead I thought about buildings the produce and on the cost of , and their output would depend on investment rate.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

In AND Afforess made the mine improvements upgradeable but did not generalise it to the other improvements so some of the code for that idea exists giving you something to build upon.

What I meant with trade is "iron" for "wheat" type trade. Most mods seem to go for every nation having its own source for all resources negating this feature entirly.