Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

[Spatzimaus]

EDIT: False alarm. I'm still getting some unaccounted-for bonuses, like every specialist saying that it's generating an extra one or two culture, despite the fact that nothing I have should be giving that bonus. But the wonders aren't getting crossed, so all is still well with the world.

 

[Darsnan]

> The KGB is too good, or else I'm just insanely lucky with it, but I was getting a good number of techs with it.

I won't disagree with your assessment: I've been going the route of Louvre/ KGB/ Cristo Ridentor which has been paying very big dividends in my games.

> Anecdote:
The clear #2 civ in my game was England.

This leads into my first question for this evening, which is "who are typically the most interesting AIs to play against?". From my experience (starting out games in the Industrial era), why its been the French and Siamese who have typically given me the most heartburn. From the French side I think its their Foreign Legions which do the most damage (i.e. I typically get a bad case of Legionaire's Disease once a game - ha ha). The Siamese typically manifest themselves via the C-S, a good example of this would be what I experienced this evening when I encountered a new (i.e. previously undiscovered) C-S but couldn't "meet" this C-S (and gain its benefits in gold) because the Siamese had already recruited it to war on me!

Other notes from this evening's playtesting:

1. Should embarked Barbarian Workers be allowed to heal?

2. I made it to the Nuclear era via the KGB free tech in turn 408. At that time I was gaining +29 Gold, and was at +9 Happiness.

3. Question: do you plan on an aquatic version of the Culture Bomb?

D

 

[Spatzimaus]

No, no one else has launched a ship yet. Not that it really matters, I can't stop Alexander from getting a Diplomatic Victory

The thing about a diplomatic victory is, the number of votes needed is based on how many civs and city-states STARTED the game. I changed the math behind this; now, if even a handful of city-states get conquered, then it becomes mathematically impossible for anyone to win a diplomatic victory without some liberations happening.
In the vanilla game you only need 35-50% of the votes to win, so it becomes fairly easy for a diplo-heavy civ like Greece to win it. But in this mod the threshold is more like 50-67% depending on map size.

For instance, my current game (Standard map) started with 8 major civs and 16 city-states. So 25 total votes, once you count the +1 from the U.N. To win, you need... 15. Sixty percent. That means, even if you build the UN, you'd need 13 of the 16 city-states to ally with you, since the major civs won't vote for you unless you liberated them in the past, and even that's iffy. So if even four city-states get conquered along the way (OR are locked into alliances with some other civ, like YOU), a diplo win is mathematically impossible.

(This was deliberate. It means that if someone's being really aggressive and conquering lots of minor factions, you can't use diplomacy to make the world peaceful until you free the nations that were conquered.)

So to stop Alexander from winning, you just need to conquer and/or ally with a few city-states yourself.
--------------
Back to the original point: do you HAVE the Centauri Ecology tech?

Also, looking at the actual files, the Apollo Program doesn't become obsolete at Breakout, only the SS parts themselves do. So nothing I've done should have disabled the Apollo Program itself; the only thing I can think of is that you disabled the Science victory at the main menu. Just because the Space Race no longer ends the game doesn't mean it's not still in the Victories table.

It's easy to check: go into FireTuner, and type

print( Game.IsVictoryValid(GameInfoTypes.VICTORY_SPACE_RACE) )

(Remember that you have to switch to InGame mode first.)

It should say "true". If it's false, then that's the problem. If you don't have FireTuner, then there's not much I can do. (Sending me your save file wouldn't help, because the version I'm playing with now is basically the next version, #21.)

 

[Spatzimaus]

This leads into my first question for this evening, which is "who are typically the most interesting AIs to play against?". From my experience (starting out games in the Industrial era), why its been the French and Siamese who have typically given me the most heartburn.

It's ironic, because the French SHOULD be the worst in an Industrial start, since their unique trait (the culture boost) STOPS at the very first tech you'll research. But yes, you've got a great offensive UU with a very aggressive leader who still believes in infrastructure.

Siam and Greece are both extremely tough because city-state bonuses are so important. I'd say Greece is more of a threat, as long as Siam isn't ALSO in the game; too few AIs value city-state alliances, and Alexander also has high values for infrastructure development, which pays off in the long run.

England's a pretty solid opponent, since Elizabeth puts a lot of effort into expansion and infrastructure, although on a Pangaea she's not as good. Not as aggressive as the rest, though.

Persia's really strong in this mod, mainly because the Satrap's Court. It's a Bank that also gives +2 happiness AND +2 gold. Given how tight money and happiness are in the Nuclear era... the x1.5 golden age length is just icing on the cake.

The dark horse candidate for biggest threat? Askia. There's a reason he's standing in front of a city on fire... the guy LOVES them nukes. Most of the other warmongers are so predictably aggressive that you know by the time you reach the nuke phase they'll be ten techs behind, but not the Songhai. (Usually.)

Least threat? India, China, Russia, Arabia, Ottomans. (Although Russia sometimes does well on the tech side of things.)

1. Should embarked Barbarian Workers be allowed to heal?

The problem is that Barbarians don't seem to have a "Rest" command at all (or if they do, the AI will never use it), so I can't give units +2 or +3 HP if they do nothing for a turn like a normal civ would get. So I just made it a flat +1 every turn (2 if you have Regeneration I, full heal if you have Regeneration II), no matter what else the unit does. And yes, that means embarked units heal; so do units that just attacked someone.
I rationalize it like this: a "normal" unit heals by going home, replenishing its stocks and replacing broken equipment, and bringing new recruits in from the home territories. Taking a turn off to rest and getting more HP makes sense. Barbarians, on the other hand, recruit and pillage as they go; there's no home base they're bringing recruits in from, no centralized source of equipment. So a constant, low-level restoration of combat power makes sense.

This is also noticeable with naval vessels; barbarian ships heal 1 HP per turn even in enemy territory, while YOUR ships need to go home to heal unless they have that promotion. But it was the only way to get the barb ships to heal at all.

2. I made it to the Nuclear era via the KGB free tech in turn 408. At that time I was gaining +29 Gold, and was at +9 Happiness.

Sounds about right. The Happiness will go way up as you start building stadia, but the money's going to get REALLY tight until you reach Energy Banks.

3. Question: do you plan on an aquatic version of the Culture Bomb?

I wasn't planning on it. It'd be nice if Great Artists could do that while embarked, but I can't see a good way to do it without them and have it still be balanced.

The only aquatic thing I was still thinking of is the Kelp Farm. (My latest idea for keeping it balanced? Have it require the Atoll, and cost a Work Boat. Think about it.)

Now, if I ever get the All-Terrain promotion (the one that's supposed to let land units go across water) working, it brings up an interesting possibilities: at some point in the future (probably when you build the Ascetic Virtues), your Great People gain the ability to walk on water. (Seriously, I'd give them a promotion that gives +2 MP and give All-Terrain. It's sad that right now, they're SO slow; it's especially a problem for Great Generals, who just can't keep up with your hovering units. The walk on water joke just came naturally.)

 

[Faerillis]

The thing about a diplomatic victory is, the number of votes needed is based on how many civs and city-states STARTED the game. I changed the math behind this; now, if even a handful of city-states get conquered, then it becomes mathematically impossible for anyone to win a diplomatic victory without some liberations happening.
In the vanilla game you only need 35-50% of the votes to win, so it becomes fairly easy for a diplo-heavy civ like Greece to win it. But in this mod the threshold is more like 50-67% depending on map size.

For instance, my current game (Standard map) started with 8 major civs and 16 city-states. So 25 total votes, once you count the +1 from the U.N. To win, you need... 15. Sixty percent. That means, even if you build the UN, you'd need 13 of the 16 city-states to ally with you, since the major civs won't vote for you unless you liberated them in the past, and even that's iffy. So if even four city-states get conquered along the way (OR are locked into alliances with some other civ, like YOU), a diplo win is mathematically impossible.

(This was deliberate. It means that if someone's being really aggressive and conquering lots of minor factions, you can't use diplomacy to make the world peaceful until you free the nations that were conquered.)

So to stop Alexander from winning, you just need to conquer and/or ally with a few city-states yourself.
--------------
Back to the original point: do you HAVE the Centauri Ecology tech?

Also, looking at the actual files, the Apollo Program doesn't become obsolete at Breakout, only the SS parts themselves do. So nothing I've done should have disabled the Apollo Program itself; the only thing I can think of is that you disabled the Science victory at the main menu. Just because the Space Race no longer ends the game doesn't mean it's not still in the Victories table.

It's easy to check: go into FireTuner, and type

print( Game.IsVictoryValid(GameInfoTypes.VICTORY_SPACE_RACE) )

(Remember that you have to switch to InGame mode first.)

It should say "true". If it's false, then that's the problem. If you don't have FireTuner, then there's not much I can do. (Sending me your save file wouldn't help, because the version I'm playing with now is basically the next version, #21.)

Ok, I don't think I have to run FireTuner here. I know what the problem is. I figured to get the new victory you couldn't have the science victory and I disabled it (d'oh)

And sorry about the miscommunication, I didn't mean Alexander was unbeatable I just didn't expect a Diplomatic victory and didn't have enough of a military to take out enough city-states, so he won that round.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Ok, I don't think I have to run FireTuner here. I know what the problem is. I figured to get the new victory you couldn't have the science victory and I disabled it (d'oh)

Nope. The Space Race "victory" is still in the game, it just doesn't declare you the winner if you "win" it like it used to. Disabling the victory disables the spaceship. I'm honestly not sure how you'd get Centauri Ecology then; I might have to code something in for that.
The Transcend victory can't actually be triggered through normal mechanisms; I have Lua code that overrides that the hard way. So there's no way, at the main menu, to turn off the transcend victory, although disabling that victory condition through Lua would disable the Project itself.

You should be able to use FireTuner to turn that victory condition back on. There was just a thread here a couple days ago about that.

 

[Faerillis]

That's very accommodating of you, but I think at this point it is better for me to just restart.

 

[dinobot386]

Slight suggestion on my part, could you possibly make a way for the whole "your friends have found reason to denouce you" wear off? Since its unrealistic and also irritating for someone who I met across the ocean to hate me in the digital age because spain denouced me in the classical

 

[Spatzimaus]

It already does wear off. I think it's 30 turns? They added this in the last patch, and I've seen the message come up a few times already.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Timing update: it's unlikely that I'll have a new version tonight. Wednesday or Thursday is looking most likely; besides the fact that I have many real-life time commitments at the moment, I'm currently dealing with a major problem with the new terraforming logic. (Specifically, the Monolith. I know a way to make it work, but I have yet to implement the fix, let alone test it.)

In the meantime, today's discussion topic is Projects.

In the core game, all of the Projects fall in the modern era: Manhattan Project, Apollo Project, and four spaceship component subprojects. Obviously, to this list I've added the Transcendence project.

The question is, should I add more? Projects have a few interesting features:
> They can be incremented, acting as counters. The only vanilla example of this is the Spaceship Booster project, since it requires three boosters to be completed, but so much more can be done with it.
> They can be used as a prerequisite for units, empire-wide, despite only being built in one city. (Building requirements must be local.)
> On the down side, they do not have yields or any other wonder-type effects. Any additional effects or linked buildings must be triggered through Lua.

So I was trying to think of what could be done with this. Here's what I've come up with so far.
1> Add a new Project at Ethical Calculus (mid-Fusion) to unlock Titan units in the same way the Manhattan Project unlocks nukes. Originally I was going to use the Ascetic Virtues for this, but I think it's better to keep it separate. Unfortunately, the only wonder/project in SMAC I haven't used is the Voice of Planet, which doesn't really fit here, so I'd have to make it a sci-fi reference. (Gundam project, maybe?) Alternately, I could simply remove the effects of one of the existing Wonders of that era and use it. Something like the Network Backbone, Self-Aware Colony, or Nano Factory. Technically, I wouldn't even HAVE to remove the original effect; create a building, create a project, and if the building is built then trigger the project as well.
This would effectively create a larger gap between the Gravtank and Bolo, since beelining for Digital Sentience wouldn't be enough to build the superunits. One of the things I wish I'd changed in my original design was that I should have put a larger gap before the Titans started unlocking. But I don't want to insert any more techs into the three, because that would probably require adding a fourth new era. (Eventually this might happen, but not any time soon.)
2> Remove the Anarchy component of transcendence, using the project counter as the new timer.
3> SDI. Since its entire effect would be handled through Lua, most likely, there's little reason to make it a Wonder. Making it a Project would notify you when your opponents built it, which is probably a good thing. I'm almost definitely going to try this one in the next version (22, not 21).
4> Probably not worth the effort, but one thought was to make the Gravship be constructed like the Alpha Centauri spaceship, with component parts that get assembled in your capital. Once it's complete, you gain the ship. (Remember, no more than one per empire!) If I did this, I'd have to make the unit even more powerful. In fact, I could probably use the same pieces as the spaceship. The only question would be what happened if it got destroyed; would you have to build the parts again to get another, or would one spawn at your capital for free?

 

[Spatzimaus]

In honor of my 1000th post on Civfanatics, it's time for the all-important, long-awaited version 21! 88 people downloaded v.0.20, but this one should be a significant improvement.

Before we get started, I want to note that a LOT of balance things have changed in this version. Gold, especially, will need to be examined closely, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. I've also tried to reduce the impact of nuclear weapons in several ways, so hopefully the game won't degenerate to a nukefest QUITE so much. But I'm currently trying to code something much more intricate into the game; right now, the nuke defenses only really help if your cities are targeted but don't protect the countryside, and I'm trying to fix that.

v.0.21:
BALANCE:
> The Stadium was changed from +2 gold to +10% gold. It was also reduced from +3 happiness and +1 culture to +2 happiness and +2 culture. I will most likely revert the happiness change once the negative-happiness buildings work correctly in the Content mod. Until then, there was just a bit too much happiness in the Nuclear/Digital eras.
> The Research Lab (which had been reduced from +100% science to +50%) gained +10% gold.
> The Broadcast Tower (which had been reduced from +100% culture to +50%) gained +10% gold.
> The Recycling Center’s gold output was raised from +1 to +2.
> The trade route equation was reduced slightly; instead of 1.25 gold per population for the city, it’s now only 1.20.
> The Military Base (defensive building) reduces nuke damage by 20% in addition to its normal +12 defense.

CONTENT:

SPECIAL MENTION:
In the Content mod, I’ve added (finally) the Doppelganger unit, at Retroviral Engineering; it’s a little cheaper than the powersuit/vertol/skimmer type units, but it’s still 500 hammers so it’s not cheap by any means. It’s a 40-strength combat unit with only 3 MP that gains XP at half the normal rate but starts with +10 XP. More importantly, every time it enters combat, if the opposing unit has a promotion that it is eligible for, the Doppelganger will take it automatically (BEFORE combat is resolved, so if it’s something that can help in this fight&#8230, and it gains this promotion permanently. So over time you can end up with some very strange promotion combos. The unit starts only with the Synthesis promotion (this ability) and the Commando promotion (use enemy roads).

Note the “promotion it is eligible for” part. Right now, the logic is:
1> If the promotion has the “Lost with upgrade” flag (generally the negative promotions), then you can’t steal it, ever.
2> Assuming you pass #1, then you CAN take the promotion if one of two things is true: if the promotion passes the Unit:CanAcquirePromotion check (which means the unit will EVER be able to get that promotion), OR the promotion has the “Cannot be chosen” flag.
3> Also, obviously, the other unit has to have the promotion, and you have to NOT have it.
Once it’s assembled a list of which promotions it can take with these criteria, one is selected at random. So you might get something great like Regeneration II, or something horribly weak like Anti-Helicopter.

Bottom line: it's a fairly weak unit that can very quickly gain some impressive combinations of abilities, especially if the player is smart about what he fights with it. I'm still testing to see how well the AI handles it, though.

As for the rest of the mod:
> Terraforming options have been re-enabled. However, they work slightly differently than before; now, the improvement is not replaced with the appropriate Feature or terrain changes until the end of the turn. At the end of each turn, the game checks to see if any new copies of each terraforming improvement were added, and if so, it scans the map hex-by-hex and changes any it finds into the appropriate Feature or Terrain. On turns where no terraforming improvements were completed, this’ll take no time at all.
As a result, most of these now have better placeholder terrain graphics; the Plant Jungle and Plant Forest actions, for instance, will look like Sugar and Spices, respectively, until they’re complete. In other words, it's not quite as instantaneous as before, but it'll actually WORK for the AI now.
> The Wonders that were giving +100 units of resources were lowered to +10. For now, their civilopedia entries will still say that the quantity is “unlimited”. I'm trying to get the balance right on these. The original idea was that building certain wonders would basically remove resource rarity from the balance, but it ended up being a bit too strong when the tech leader could just churn out Nuclear Plants ad nauseum.
> Improved the rarity of Uranium slightly.
> The Ascetic Virtues now, in addition to its other benefits, has all Empath specialists in your empire gain +1 Production. They were the only specialists without a boost at the Hollywood/Wall Street tier. If I ever get the Happiness part working, I'll make this be the food bonus instead.
> To make room for the Doppelganger at Retroviral Engineering, the Clinical Immortality wonder was moved up two tiers, to Ethical Calculus (T19). Its effect was increased slightly as a result; instead of a flat +5 food, it now gives +1 food per 2 population to the host city.
> To make room for that, the Ascetic Virtues was moved up one tier, from Ethical Calculus to Homo Superior (T20).
> To make room for THAT, the +2 science boost for the Academy was moved to Intellectual Integrity (T22), making it the last GP improvement to be boosted (instead of the first).
> The Golem’s cost was increased from 200 to 300. It’s still far cheaper than other units in that era, but being a 2-movement 40-strength unit its combat utility is pretty minimal.
> When a new unit is created, it temporarily gains the Rookie promotion. Until it finishes one fight, it gets –25% to all combat but +100% to XP. After the first fight, the promotion goes away. This was necessary to fix an abuse with the Ranger, Troll, Psi units and Titans where they could get more XP than they were supposed to.
> The Commando promotion (the Ranger and Doppelganger) now allows you to enter rival territory, in addition to the ability to use enemy roads. Not sure if this actually works, though.
> Because of a typo, Isles of the Deep were incorrectly being allowed to spawn on inland spore towers, which would cause them to move to the nearest water tile on the following turn. Towers not adjacent to water are not supposed to spawn them at all.
> If you start a game in the Digital Era or later, Spore Towers would previously begin spawning immediately (although there would be no Breakout event). Combined with the existing barbarian camps, this was just a little bit much to deal with. So now, Spore Towers will not begin spawning until 20 turns have passed since the start of the game. You can still have Barbarian camps, with psi units, but no spore towers until the grace period ends.
> The UnitCreated event that gave the Ranger, Troll, Psi units, and Titan units their bonus XP was triggering every time the units would embark or disembark (since it’s a UI-based event). A check has now been added to only add the XP if the unit’s original creation turn matches the current game turn AND the unit doesn't have the Rookie promotion. There are still a couple ways to abuse this, but it's not something the AI will do by accident, and if the player wants to cheat, well, he has FireTuner.
> A few existing promotions were given the CannotBeChosen flag. This won’t have a practical effect, except that this allows the Doppelganger to steal them. This includes things like IgnoreTerrainCost, Paradrop, and the ability to see submarines.
> A few existing promotions were given the LostWithUpgrade flag, despite the fact that it’d rarely make a difference. This primarily includes the temporary Wonder-given promtions, like the Hacked (Hunter-Seeker Algorithm) or Orbital Drop (Space Elevator) promotions. This won’t have a practical effect, except that this bans the Doppelganger from stealing them (since it’d be harder to remove).
> Previously, the Monolith would place an Improvement for +4 food, and a Feature with +3 happiness and –2 food, for a net +3 happy, +2 food. Now, works a little differently; there are TWO Monolith improvements; each adds food, gold, and culture. The game looks to see if the first one exists, and if so places a Feature that adds 3 happiness, sets the tile’s base yield to 0/0/0, and swaps the first improvement with the second (so that it won’t find the first when it searches, or else you’d get this happening every turn). The second improvement is mainly needed for the tech yield increases and for graphical purposes. This complexity was necessary for the new terraforming code.
Bottom line: building a Monolith will change a tile’s yield to 2 food, 2 gold, 2 culture, regardless of what terrain type it was, plus the two tech yield increases listed below. Any resources will add to this (so building a Monolith on cows makes it a 3-food tile). On the first turn the yields might be a bit screwy, but once the Feature is in place it should work correctly.
> Monoliths now get +2 research at Centauri Ecology, and +2 production at Centauri Psi. Since the only way to have a Monolith before Centauri Ecology is a single Liberty policy, it’s effectively an always-on bonus; I just didn’t want it to be possible to get that research bonus in the ancient era.
> The Anti-Tank promotion of the gunship (+100% vs Armor) is now lost with upgrades, because the Vertol has +50% vs Armor (but with a higher base strength, so you still come out ahead). A gunship that was promoted was getting both, for a +150% bonus.
> Mindworms now start with the Woodsman promotion, giving them doubled movement through forests or jungles. The other Psi units did not need this, as the Chiron Locusts and Nessus Worms already have all terrains costing 1 MP.
> In a previous version, I’d boosted the range of the Paradrop action from 5 to 6. I’ve set it back down to 5 for the base paradrop (which is what the Paratrooper gets, and in my mod the Colony Pod as well), but added in a range-10 “Improved Paradrop” (PROMOTION_PARADROP_2) for use by the Scout Powersuit and Assault Powersuit. This should allow powersuit units to cross bodies of water with ease, making them an excellent beachhead reinforcement unit.
> America’s custom trait wasn’t giving the Sentry (+1 visibility) bonus to Energy, Psi, or Titan units. This has now been fixed.
> The five new early-era national wonders have been added to the “banned” list for the Barbarian and Minor civs. I'm really tempted to un-ban them, though; it was kinda neat to see an ally build Wall Street and suddenly gift me one of every strategic resource. And it'd definitely help city-states specialize a bit more. But I need to examine the balance of this first.
> The Mindworms were increased in power from 45 to 50, Isle of the Deep from 45/100 to 50/100, Chiron Locusts from 60 to 70, and Nessus Worm from 130 to 150. Remember that psi units adjust their power by +/-25%. So a Mindworm fighting a Laser Infantry will still be a 45; the difference is that they'll now put up more of a fight against the heavier stuff.
> Decreased the amount of neutronium slightly; the number of supplemental deposits are now N/3 large and N/3 small instead of N/2 for each.
> The Planetary Transit System was changed from +33% trade route income to something a bit more balanced: +10% trade route income, and your land units all gain +1 movement as long as they started the turn within your territory. Combat units won't get nearly as much utility out of this, but it'll make your workers far more mobile.
> The +2 Embarked Movement boost at Doctrine:Flexibility was moved down to Advanced Ballistics
> At Doctrine:Flexibility, I’ve added the SDI Project, which gives a flat 50% chance of intercepting any nuke targeted on your empire. I’m in the process of replacing it with a more dynamic system, but that still has some technical issues.
> The Perimeter Defense reduces nuke damage by 10%, Gravity by 40%, and the Orbital Defense Pod by another 30%. Added to the Military Base change above, and a city can be entirely immune to nuke damage by the end of the Fusion Era.
> The Stasis Generator reduces nuke damage by 100%, regardless of what else the city has.
> The Bulk Matter Transmitter adds only 33% to trade route income, instead of 50%.

 

[Verticalo]

Thanks, looks great. I'm going to test it right now.

The Terraforming didn't work for me and all the techs you have created is just "TXT_.._.._TXT"

 

[Spatzimaus]

The Terraforming didn't work for me and all the techs you have created is just "TXT_.._.._TXT"

Hmm, sounds like something just didn't load correctly. It worked fine on my machine right before I posted it, but it's possible that something got corrupted in the upload process. When I get home tonight I'll double-check it. In the meantime, you can often get that sort of error with an uncleared cache (or by installing the new version on top of the old one instead of cleaning the old one out first). I only made one or two tweaks to technology text keys, and none to the file containing the names of the techs. So if the techs' names are reading as TXT_KEYs, then it might be a problem on your end.

Also, when you say that terraforming didn't work, exactly what happened? Which particular actions did you try, what was the graphical result, and what did you see when you moved the mouse over the hex in question? I only tested the Monolith, Plant Jungle, Plant Forest, and Terraform actions last night, and didn't check the other two (deep mine and raise hills) since my initial check after I'd changed them last week.

------
For those of you who don't want to read through those huge notes, the bottom line is that three big things changed:
1> Terraforming was turned back on, and should work better than it used to
2> The Doppelganger unit was added
3> Nuke defenses were added, including the SDI project and a few changes to defensive buildings
and the usual other assortment of balance tweaks.

--------------
There's one last building I've been thinking of: the Temple of Gaia. In SMAC, there was the Temple of Planet as a high-end building, and I was thinking of copying it for use on Earth. So at Homo Superior, you'd have a new building that acted like a Garden, as a combination Happiness/Culture/Great Person building. This'd replace the effects of the Ascetic Virtues national wonder, which would now be changed to a Project at Ethical Calculus that unlocks Titan units in the same way the Manhattan Project does for nukes.
But I don't want to add the +Happiness until I've got the negative happiness of the Genejack Factory, etc. working. So I might put it in as a +1 building and bump it to a +3 later on.

 

[Darsnan]

Concerning the below pics: have my old eyes just not caught this before that we can edit the unit names?

Couple other notes this evening:

1. Within about 25 turns from the start of a game I had two adjacent AIs declare war on me. And they brought it, too, quickly ending the game for me. Don't think I've ever had AIs declare war on me so quick in a game.

2. In my current game I've had two instances of multiple Great People being generated on the same turn. I don't think I've ever seen that once in all my other games.

3. Money and Happiness seem much easier so far, but its still early in the game.

4. Reached the Nuclear Age via research on turn 408. Had a Golden Age going so had +112 Gold/ turn, and had +12 Happiness. Also, because happiness was not such an issue, why I wasn't "focusing" so intently on Happiness buildings and Social Policy choices.

D

 

[Spatzimaus]

Concerning the below pics: have my old eyes just not caught this before that we can edit the unit names?

That was in the December patch, I believe. Of course, you can only do it during the promotion selection process, which kind of sucks, unless you use FireTuner. I mainly use it for when I get a Scout that gets the ruins upgrade to archer, so that I know to NOT use him too much but not to disband him. (No point in taking ranged combat promotions for something that will eventually only have a melee attack, but it's REALLY nice to have an infantry or mech infantry with the scout's movement promotions. So I stick him in my capital for a few millenia.)

1. Within about 25 turns from the start of a game I had two adjacent AIs declare war on me.

I've had that. If you build no new units (very tempting, considering how many good buildings will be on your list), then you'll pretty quickly hit the "too weak" threshold where AIs see you as easy pickings. In a later-era start it's important to build some extra units ASAP (especially cannons/artillery), which to me is just poor AI scripting. Obviously, this also depends on the AI's aggressiveness ratings, though.

2. In my current game I've had two instances of multiple Great People being generated on the same turn.

You sure one of them wasn't an award from a Wonder? I do have quite a few that give free great people, like the Planetary Energy Grid or Supercollider. I thought the same thing in one of my previous games, but it turned out that I'd just built one of these on the turn where I'd get a normal great person.

3. Money and Happiness seem much easier so far, but its still early in the game.

Happiness should be HARDER to get than before. The only thing I did to Happiness in this last version was to reduce the Stadium from 3 to 2... well, and get the Monolith (+3) working correctly, but that's not a big factor. You weren't playing Persia or Egypt, so the only explanation I can think of is that your starting area had more luxuries than normal.

Money, on the other hand, WILL be more plentiful than before, mainly in the Nuclear Era. If it's too much then I can downgrade the Stadium and such from +10% to +5%, or tweak some of the other buildings' costs to compensate. But your numbers were obviously skewed by the Golden Age you were in.

 

[Verticalo]

Also, when you say that terraforming didn't work, exactly what happened?

My bad, I didn't upgrade them to combat engineers.

 

[Spatzimaus]

That'd do it. Yes, the basic Workers can't do any of these actions, and the Combat Engineers can only do the most basic (plant forest and jungle). For the high-end stuff you need Labor Mechs or a Former.

Now that the terraforming seems to work again, I'm willing to consider loosening these requirements up a bit, letting the basic worker plant forests and jungles and letting combat engineers raise and lower hills. Part of the reason I'd restricted these in the first place was that it looked like the terraforming actions were, under certain conditions, responsible for many of the crashes.

But if the new system is more stable than the old one then that could change, so I could definitely use feedback on this. From what people have described, the game can crash any time an improvement is deleted (which'd also include when you replace a trading post with a farm or something), and if so, then the new terraforming code should trigger that just as often as the old stuff. But since it's now an end-of-turn event instead of a serial event, you shouldn't see any crashes during your turn (either when you terraform something, or when moving a unit reveals new terrain), and have MORE during the interturn. So this can help us diagnose the problem.

 

[Darsnan]

and all the techs you have created is just "TXT_.._.._TXT"

I don't think its all techs, however the text quotes for Applied Physics and HEC are broken. FYI.

In the current game (same as last night's) I reached the Digital Era at turn 555. Was getting 55 G/ turn, and was at +26 Happiness.

The Greeks have wiped out everyone else on their continent and seem to be content to build, build, build. I've fought two wars (America, then Persia), both using the approach of sitting back and letting the AIs exhaust themselves on my ramparts, then going over to the offensive. I was also prepared Happiness-wise and so could've continued to war, but settled for peace and a piece of each empire so I could get back to infrastructure building.

Question regarding Energy Bank: considering where it is on the tech tree, then instead of oil and coal, would it make more sense to give more advanced resources?

D

 

[Spatzimaus]

I don't think its all techs, however the text quotes for Applied Physics and HEC are broken. FYI.

Okay, I'll check when I have some free time. Filling out my taxes right now; speaking of which...

In the current game (same as last night's) I reached the Digital Era at turn 555. Was getting 55 G/ turn, and was at +26 Happiness.

55 gold sounds about right, maybe a tiny bit high for a non-GA. That +26 is a bit more worrisome, depending on how many stadia you'd built. Just your core cities have a Stadium, or is that with all of your cities developed? Obviously the balance on this will change drastically once I put negative-happiness buildings in, so I'm okay with one era of good happiness (meaning probably a Golden Age right as you're working on the spaceship).

The Greeks have wiped out everyone else on their continent and seem to be content to build, build, build.

Like I said before, Greece is scary because Alexander is one of the few aggressive leaders who also really believes in infrastructure. His cities will get developed heavily, which means a lot of income, which paired with his trait means a huge diplomatic advantage. (Unless Siam is in the game as well and splits the votes.)

I've fought two wars (America, then Persia), both using the approach of sitting back and letting the AIs exhaust themselves on my ramparts, then going over to the offensive. I was also prepared Happiness-wise and so could've continued to war, but settled for peace and a piece of each empire so I could get back to infrastructure building.

Sounds about right on balance. Yes, the AI is dumb and you should win in terms of units lost, but I wanted the player (and the AI) to hit a point where it's not worth the time investment to fight the war to its end; sue for peace, and go back to developing your cities, leaving a now-weakened empire in place.

Also, what map type was this? I've found that the AI does a good job defending against amphibious operations (which makes it very valuable to bribe a city-state near the empire you want to attack), where bombers can't reach well; military offensives are much easier on a Pangaea map, both for and against the human player.

Question regarding Energy Bank: considering where it is on the tech tree, then instead of oil and coal, would it make more sense to give more advanced resources?

Tough question. You see, the logic behind the resource-producing buildings is that I wanted to mirror the earlier Civ games, where after a certain era the resources themselves would go obsolete. So the logic with the Energy Bank is that you've reached the point in the game where you just don't have a shortage of fossil fuels any more, and as your cities develop they become self-sufficient for those resources. They're still being used at that point (Coal for Factories, Oil for Modern Armor and Stealth Bombers), but are not critical for much longer. So it's less about moving forward to the next tier of units, and more about allowing a resource-poor nation to backfill a bit.

The same goes for the Stock Exchange (Iron/Horse) and to a lesser extent, the Fusion Lab (Aluminum/Uranium). These resources are still useful at that point, but only for the PREVIOUS tiers of units (battleships/cavalry, modern armor/stealth bombers); at the point you make a Fusion Lab, you wouldn't be far away from gravtanks and bolos and such, and that's all Neutronium/Dilithium. The Quantum Lab produces those Neutronium and Dilithium, and they're still actively being used for Nanotech-era units, but at that point the game should already have been decided, militarily. So it's almost in the same category.

The only real outlier to this pattern is the Brood Pit, which generates Omnicytes at a point where you're just starting to use them (and the building's other benefit is that it boosts Psi units). But I did this on purpose; I WANT it to be easy to make Psi units. The distribution of Omnicytes on the map is still important because it's a major food resource, but I wanted it to be possible to still make Psi units even if you had no Omnicytes locally.
You see, back when I started this mod, my original intention was that one of the resources (initially dilithium, but I'd thought of omnicytes for a while) would be ENTIRELY building-generated, not appearing on the map at all. This had all sorts of balance issues, plus the technical problem that we didn't know how to generate resources, but I held to the idea that one of the resources should be easy to get for yourself. Omnicytes were the best choice for this for several reasons.

If I were to reverse this pattern and have, say, the Energy Bank generate Uranium, then it'd act more like that Brood Pit. No one would care about uranium on the map; you'd just make what you needed in your cities. This'd also mean that there'd be no way to stop an AI from churning out as many nukes as he needs. But more importantly, every city would get a Nuclear Plant fairly quickly.

Bottom line, I wanted these buildings to overcome an existing need, not prepare for the next phase. So having coal in your empire should be a significant advantage for two eras (Industrial and Nuclear), but then become a non-issue as other empires generate their own supplies. Uranium is a significant advantage for the Nuclear and Digital, then becomes a non-issue (mostly). Deuterium is big in the late Digital and Fusion eras, but becomes plentiful in the Nanotech. And so on.

Really, the only change I was considering lately was to reduce the Fusion Lab and Quantum Labs' research/gold bonuses from 25/25 to 20/20. But other than that, I think they're doing what they're intended to do.

 

[Verticalo]

This is what all your techs look like.