Current (SVN) development discussion thread

[Locutus_Morti]

Just played a bit of an America game, here's what I have to say:

New UP: Love it. Stacking happiness bonuses was a great idea.

New UU: Eh. I enjoy the low cost, but I feel it's a bit lackluster. Unfortunately for America, the problem is not with production, when you have Denver and Chicago. It's better than it was before, but it's not that much of an improvement. And I don't really have a better suggestion for how to change it. Maybe it could start with March?

Didn't get a chance to test the new UB yet, but I imagine it's better.

 

[Leoreth]

Its reduced production cost is meant to help you through the early period where you're probably at war with many European civs and the productive central cities aren't as developed yet. I could add a free March promotion though.

The Mall should be better for cities that rely mainly on cottages, since the +10% commerce comes before gold/science modifiers are applied which amount to around +75/100% in a well-developed city at that stage.

 

[Hippo8085]

While at it, why not make it such that it can be built after assembly line, then upgraded? That way you can have the low production cost into the later game, staying useful past Assembly Line, which is an early tech to go after as America.

Also, currently with the build city on resources giving yields building cities on commerce and production resources is always superior unless you miss something in the BFC, such as with Chicago. If possible, I think it would be better if you could build improvements on cities, such that more historical city spots are still favorable (Palembang/Darmmacraya off the top of my head).

 

[Leoreth]

It's a general rule that you cannot build a unit once you can build its upgrade.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I gather it might be more appropriate to post this in the America Redesign thread
but I playtested your latest version and wanted to show what I found:

Settings:
Monarch, Normal, Custom Scenario Enabled (to allow OCC, nothing else was changed), 600 AD Scenario, Dutch.
I did not interfere with the AIs too much, with the exception of Portugal, whom I did not compete with for colony space
and routinely traded with (slaves) and very few times, techs.



-America is extremely aggressive as a result of its new buffs.
It is taking cities left and right everywhere, it had Iceland, Scotland, parts of Africa, Nanjing, Hanoi and Pagan,
as well as countless Canadian cities leftover by the collapsed British. After the Spanish and Portuguese collapsed, it began to devour their cities as well.
The Ottomans had the same syndrome, although its hardly anything new.

-Portugal was very powerful, in which I'm guessing came about as a result of me playing the Dutch and not competing with them over colonies.
I have come to theorize that some of the colonizers are stabilizing factors
in which of their peers become runaway civilizations or not.

-Mongolia is confirmed to require a nerf; I am in agreement with Jusos on this.
See the Quick Fix to Destabilize Mongolia Thread please.
It's way too stable. Of all the top powers that were seen dominating over the course of the game, (Portugal, Ottomans, British, America),
Mongolia only dipped into Unstable for a few turns at a time and then bounced right back to Solid/Stable for long periods of time, while its contemporaries were always in the red.

I'll go more in-depth later on some of the other oddities of the game,
but I'd like to hear what you think about America & Mongolia, Leoreth.

 

[SheaferDaDawg]

That...is a very interesting game. The change almost makes me want to try the SVN version. To be honest, I think that America should stay fairly aggressive/expansionist, as it has been that way throughout a lot of its history. Is there a way to influence them to channel all that warmongering into North America alone, and then try and get it to focus on Space Race victory? Also, I have never seen a late game world with that few civs.

 

[Leoreth]

It should be noted that I previously gave America a number of modifier improvements to help them with problems that mainly seem to have been caused by their lack of happiness. I think I can dial that back a little now. On the other hand, proactive America that actually leaves is continental territory is a nice change.

As for Mongolia, I've read the thread about its stability problems but I couldn't see an obvious solution there. The problem with Mongolia is that it's an unstable equilibrium thing. From my experience, there are two possible performances:

1. They manage to conquer Russia/Iran/China but these conquests destabilize them enough to cause a collapse.
2. They manage to conquer Russia/Iran/China but remain stable or survive the initial phase of instability. That results in a huge empire with some rather useful cities and a huge Keshik army from the UP.

The problem is that in scenario 2 the Mongols are in a good position to never worry about stability again. It seems that some recent changes to their stability made this too likely, while scenario 1 is the more historical scenario which should happen in most games.

I'm not sure what to do about this, and if finetuning their stability is the right solution or if changing more general aspects of their gameplay is necessary. I think the UP is part of the problem because instead of just giving an inital boost while steamrolling the enemy it makes them leave every war as a superpower. Maybe the extra Keshiks would work better as temporary units that disappear when you make peace?

I'll try some stability modifications first though.

 

[Jusos2108]

Srpt's suggestion is probably the easiest way to go at it, for AI only though.

 

[Bair_the_Normal]

You could change the Mongolian UP to only get the Keshiks when they raze cities, but get a few more of them. That way, one has to choose. Do they want a good city, or more units. Just a thought, unless it already is like that.

 

[Leoreth]

I've already discovered that the impact of foreign cores on stability was reduced by 33% by Mongolia. I'll remove that and commit, we'll see if that's enough to push them over the edge again.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Why would you want to change America based on TD's game above? America's behavior there is completely realistic. Almost completely historical (Vietnam and Iceland). Unless you want to add Canada as a separate civ. That is a whole different matter.

If anything is in need of fixing, it's the Turks. They always start out too slow but end up too big.

Edit: I'd also check if the AI America there is actually sticking to the Civics of its UP (all 3 of them), just to be sure that the problem (if there is one) is caused by it.

Leoreth, you can also let Immigrants bring their own Culture like they did before, now that America has more Happiness. That will destablize them a bit further. It won't affect Aztec and Inca as much because they have more Culture and fewer Immigrants.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Why would you want to change America based on TD's game above? America's behavior there is completely realistic. Almost completely historical (Vietnam and Iceland). Unless you want to add Canada as a separate civ. That is a whole different matter.

If anything is in need of fixing, it's the Turks. They always start out too slow but end up too big.

Edit: I'd also check if the AI America there is actually sticking to the Civics of its UP (all 3 of them), just to be sure that the problem (if there is one) is caused by it.

Leoreth, you can also let Immigrants bring their own Culture like they did before, now that America has more Happiness. That will destablize them a bit further. It won't affect Aztec and Inca as much because they have more Culture and fewer Immigrants.

That's precisely the case, iOnlySignIn.

America ditched all the democratic civics 30-40 turns in and switched to
being Confederate States of America first and then Empire of Columbia later.

 

[Leoreth]

Oh, right, the AI doesn't understand the happiness effect yet.

 

[Leoreth]

Committed a revision where it does.

Also, the French UP now only works when France tries to contact someone, not the other way around.

Edit: I think I've also fixed the immigration bug, but I'm too lazy to test it right now.

 

[blizzrd]

Leoreth, was it your intent for the Moors to start without a Galley?

The Indy city in Morocco (which flips on Moors turn 3) gets a Galley to start, but the trouble is that this unit then sails out of the flip zone and is too far away by the time that the flip occurs for the Moors to get given it.

 

[Leoreth]

Right, I guess it's better to let the Moors start with a galley right away.

 

[Tschako]

For me the new American UU isn't working, there are still rifleman and Navy Seal
Could it be that this is interfering with Varietas Delectat and Ethnic City Styles?

 

[Leoreth]

Yes, Ethnic City Styles should be the problem. Change the American unique unit in Modules\XML\Civilizations\CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml like in its counterpart in the Assets folder.

 

[Leoreth]

New commit is up. I've changed the immigration mechanic a bit. First of all, Rhye's code was horrible, so I discarded it and came up with something much more elegant. The immigration code was actually taking quite a bit of time so this should bring some improvements (Python is definitely the bottleneck of this mod, maybe rewriting the Congress mechanic is worth it).

As far as actual changes go, I've modified the way in which target and source cities are selected. Previously, the target city was a random American (later New World) city and the source city was a random city from the civ with the worst overall record of health and happiness. That didn't make much sense to me, so now the target city is an eligible New World city with the highest sum of excess happiness and excess food (divided by two), while the source city is an Old World city with the highest excess unhappiness. Cities in the New World are eligible if their owner isn't a Native American civ and has its capital in the New World.

Also, in addition to the population increase the target city receives +10 turns for the upgrade timer of all cottages it is working. Immigrants bring their culture and have a chance of spreading the state religion of the owner of the source city if it was present there.

I've also added a more noticeable message that specifies the affected cities by name and with a symbol on the map.

 

[DC123456789]

Cities in the New World are eligible if their owner isn't a Native American civ and has its capital in the New World.

Why? The Native American civs represent Latin American countries in the late game anyway, and I'm pretty sure they received lots of immigrants too.