Dark Ages mod

[Afforess]

I have been thinking and isn't anarchy almost like having a dark age already? Its turns in which you cannot research or produce anything. And if you on snail it can last for a long time. Once it lasted 16 turns for me which is an eternity on snail.

I don't think so. Anarchy is the complete lack of government. In a dark age, the government would still exist, but the nation would be less productive.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

A small note on history - the Dark Ages in England were called that because we have very little evidence written from them. they still progressed as fast as they did before and after, they just did not have any writers or their writings were lost. The unification of what we would call England, Scotland and Wales into an enlightened empire happened then Even though it only lasted for one persons lifetime.

 

[dexter_inside]

I don't think so. Anarchy is the complete lack of government. In a dark age, the government would still exist, but the nation would be less productive.

My 2 cents here:

In order to model the dark ages we'd need a system of two opposing concepts in place, like synergy/entropy (read wikipedia). In Civ we have GP points that resembles the synergy of your empire growth, but no opposing concept. So the combination we can have here are:

low synergy/low entropy - a civilization is starting up, like at the beginning of a game
high synergy/low entropy - what we understand by golden age, really the sum being more than adding up the parts (more of everything is given)
low synergy/high entropy - what typically happens to an AI when staying on slavery too much, revolutions eat it up, everything falls apart
high synergy/high entropy - what dexy meant with the mod, typically the fall of the Roman Empire - too much empire kills the empire

So, by properly selecting what or which stuff from RoM would create entropy (the opposition of GPP, let's call them entropy points) we can trigger dark ages, famine, "negative" great people, guerilla or whatever else

Edit: some ideas on how to model that

First off, we know vassals have to be bad - a.k.a. their GPs should be entropy for the master
Second off, different civics should reflect this accordingly, like bad civics diminishing entropy effects and advanced ones augmenting it
Third off, to describe stagnation is to increase city growth threshold proportional with entropy accumulation over time
Finally, the option of getting rid of some entropy through riots, guerrilla, vassal independence, maybe even revolution and schism. Like, factoring entropy into RevDCM params

 

[os79]

Someone said that dark ages of history is not the period of decline, but rather the ages of no written evidences. As the student of history, I have to agree.

Therefore, it would be better to modify the name a bit to reflect what you want. I think it should be increase rate of decay after the size hit a certain point. Then it should requires increased attention to thedomestic issues before the empire can move on to expand.

 

[os79]

I have an idea:

How about every time you hit a number of cities, and then successive* numbers after that, you get a hit of ten (just an example for now) unhappiness in all cities and it is your job to get them all happy again before you can go ahead and conquer more whatever you are supposed to do for your victory?

*The successive numbers of cities can be like this: 5, 10,20,40,80,160 and so on. Again just an example to get discussion going again.

 

[dexy]

I haven't started the coding yet; still gathering ideas from the community .

In order to model the dark ages we'd need a system of two opposing concepts in place, like synergy/entropy (read wikipedia). In Civ we have GP points that resembles the synergy of your empire growth, but no opposing concept.

This is very interesting! How about this: accumulating GP points for one civ simply accumulates Dark Age points for all of its enemy civs (there can be a multiply factor depending on the mutual hatred between the two civs; being a worst enemy could be an additional ++ to the factor).

In order for this to damage big empires more than the small ones, Dark Age Points could be added to your enemy ONLY if he's better than you on the scoreboard (so the GPPs of the first on the scoreboard don't affect anyone).

 

[dexter_inside]

accumulating GP points for one civ simply accumulates Dark Age points for all of its enemy civs (there can be a multiply factor depending on the mutual hatred between the two civs; being a worst enemy could be an additional ++ to the factor).

Well, in the larger concept you're right; however it's too simple to be realistic.
By factoring in only GPPs you'd get only a proportional multi-linear dependency between the two.

There are other factors to be taken into account:

building "decadent" or expensive buildings early in the game (brothels, anyone?) , like the case with Pompeii
cultural friction - getting a tile to be closer to 50/50 should produce entropy, like the Roman Empire and Saxons, even more so with vassals

 

[dexy]

OK, one more thing that should definitely add Dark age points: your wonders going obsolete. Maybe even normal buildings, but with a much smaller factor.

 

[dexter_inside]

OK, one more thing that should definitely add Dark age points: your wonders going obsolete. Maybe even normal buildings, but with a much smaller factor.

I agree, the more expensive and the earlier built, the more dark age points received.
Maybe setting a hammer threshold by each age from where a building/wonder is eligible to produce these?

Example: The prestige of Isaac Newton in the field of optics delays the appearance of achromatic lens for telescopes for over 50 years,
or the legacy of the Ptolemaic geo-centrical astronomical system, initially a boost in research and afterwards a great burden on science progress, way after Copernicus

Example 2: Let's say our Tanneries go obsolete with discovering Plastics. How about the people working there? I don't think they'd go saying something like:
"Hey guys, I've been making leather armors all my life but now that it's obsolete I'd just relocate myself in a factory molding plastics and other composite materials, no worries..."

Dark age points could be spent in a case such as example 2 through angry faces saying "my life work is obsolete" or "we're advancing too fast"

 

[Afforess]

Example: The prestige of Isaac Newton in the field of optics delays the appearance of achromatic lens for telescopes for over 50 years,
or the legacy of the Ptolemaic geo-centrical astronomical system, initially a boost in research and afterwards a great burden on science progress, way after Copernicus

Exactly. There other examples where this is true. The Great Wall in China, meant to bar barbarians from entry served to cause them to ignore Western advancements until their eventual decline and fall to the Mongols.

 

[dexter_inside]

Exactly. There other examples where this is true. The Great Wall in China, meant to bar barbarians from entry served to cause them to ignore Western advancements until their eventual decline and fall to the Mongols.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I think this model would be best suited by also implementing "dark age progress", a variable related to dark age points in the same way acceleration is related to speed - variation of dark age points over time (turns)
This should act in the game the same way "maintainance" (or corruption) affects gold accumulation in your treasury.

It can be for instance either increasing the number of beakers (+) needed for techs, or by percent decrease (-%) for each city

the faster dark age points accumulate, the more "corruption" should be applied to science.

 

[dexy]

Good news everybody !!!

I started the implementation a few days ago. After some coding and thinking, I got a clearer picture of what should be done (described inside the spoiler).

Spoiler :

Dark Age rules will be the following:

There are 2 types of dark age points:
A) points calculated each turn from the scratch
B) points created from events in the recent turns

A-points = the sum of points from:
A1) falling back in one of the basic categories
A2) having outdated civics

A1-points:

• the basic categories: Power, Population, Land, Culture, Espionage, Wonders, Technology
• for each category
  • each turn the current ranking in % is calculated compared to other known players
  • this is subtracted from the best ranking ever (best rankings are reset at the end of each dark age)
  • result of subtraction is added to A1 points

A2-points:
for each civics category:

• the best civic value* among known players is found
• the value* of active civic is substracted from the best civic found
• result of subtraction is added to A2 points

*value of a civic is specified in civics XML, in new tag iContemporaryFactor

B-points = the sum of points from:
B1) points from enemy's golden age started
B2) losing buildings due to selling, destroying or becoming obsolete
these B-points are cut in half each turn after usage for dark age calculations

B1-points
depending on the attitude of the enemy towards you, you get the following dark age points upon his golden age starting:

• furious - 60
• annoyed - 50
• cautious - 40
• other attitudes (friendlier) - 0

B2-points
each building has a new property (defined in XML, tag iDarkAgePointsObsolete); this property divided by the number of cities the player has is added to B2 points (if player has 2 barracks (iDarkAgePointsObsolete = 10) in 5 cities, when discovering the tech that makes them obsolete, he'll get 2 * 10 / 5 dark age points)

Final calculation
Sum of A and B points is multiplied by overall score factor. This factor makes more powerful empires more prone to dark ages. It is calculated as:

score / averageScore

where score is the total score of a player and averageScore is total score of all live players divided by number of live players.

Additionally, if this factor is < 1 (player is below the average), dark age is not possible.

Finally, the calculated dark age points are the probability (in %) of a dark age happening (random gen tries it every turn).
[EDIT]
However, no matter how many dark age points a player has, dark age can't start during a golden age or during an existing dark age.
[/EDIT]

Again, the main goal of this mod is to destabilize the most powerful empires, not to cripple the weak ones even more. Having in mind how those powerful empires behave in CIV, I decided not to implement some of the ideas in this thread like stagnation (this never happens).

After the coding is done, I'll release an alfa version with probably unbalanced factors for dark age triggering. I'll need a lot of time to make them perfect myself, but if some civfanatics play the mod and give feedback, we can fine-tune them together .

With well balanced factors, a civ should have about the same number of dark ages as golden ages; also a winning civ should not be able to go through the game without a single dark age.

 

[Afforess]

Sounds Awesome!

I can't wait to see it in action.

 

[dexter_inside]

Again, the main goal of this mod is to destabilize the most powerful empires, not to cripple the weak ones even more. Having in mind how those powerful empires behave in CIV, I decided not to implement some of the ideas in this thread like stagnation (this never happens).

Great, this is more or less also my vision of how this could be implemented. My comments:

A points - I completely agree, this is probably the only reasonable way of doing it, and it should also serve to balance the concept with iContemporaryFactor easily if needed

B points - there should also be a iDarkAgePointsAttrition = 0.5 factor rather than cutting them in half, otherwise if this is not controlled one might end up with circumstances in which dark age triggers during golden age (one would arguably build more due to production boost)

I will try to make a list of buildings (including stuff from Afforess modmod) with their iDarkAgePointsObsolete values later today.

 

[dexy]

B points - there should also be a iDarkAgePointsAttrition = 0.5 factor rather than cutting them in half

OK, I can make it an XML defined variable easily.

one might end up with circumstances in which dark age triggers during golden age (one would arguably build more due to production boost)

I forgot to mention - dark age can't start during a golden age. Will be corrected.

I will try to make a list of buildings (including stuff from Afforess modmod) with their iDarkAgePointsObsolete values later today.

Do you know how to use XSL? Otherwise it'll be a pain, since there are A LOT of buildings...

 

[konradcabral]

That's more than great, this is a total game-changing concept! Congratulations!

 

[Afforess]

Do you know how to use XSL? Otherwise it'll be a pain, since there are A LOT of buildings...

I would use Notepad++ just to add a default value to all buildings, then, go through, and change the default value for special buildings. That would be easier.

 

[dexter_inside]

I would use Notepad++ just to add a default value to all buildings, then, go through, and change the default value for special buildings. That would be easier.

Well, us IT consultants (including myself ) usually go for Altova XMLSpy, but this is simple enough for any text editor with highlighting. The visual studio IDE is just as good.

@dexy: if you could set a default value for the iDarkAgePointsObsolete (like 0 which should be no effect?) and attach the XML here, I can change them accordingly.

Edit: I assume we are doing this for the defines in \Rise of Mankind\Assets\XML\Buildings\CIV4BuildingInfos.xml from the latest patch from Afforess?

Edit 2: There should also be negative values allowed, as there are buildings and wonders which counter dark age effects (like Magellan's Voyage?)

 

[dexter_inside]

Here's how I see Great Wonders effects:

Increasing B-Points:

Spoiler :

National Shield (+300)
Theory of Everything (+200)
Global Stock Exchange (+175)
Longevity (+150)
The Great Wall (+125)
Cure for Cancer (+110)
Human Genome Project (+100)
Rock N Roll (+95)
Angkor Wat (+90)
The Apostolic Palace (+80)
Chichen Itza (+80)
Olympic Games (+75)
Edinburgh's Castle (+70)
X-Games (+65)
Circus Maximus (+60)
Silk Road (+55)
King Richard's Crusade (+55)
Hollywood (+50)
Shwedagon Paya (+45)
Petra (+40)
Broadway (+35)
Versailles (+35)
Pyramid of the Magician (+30)
Cristo Redentor (+25)
The Great Lighthouse (+20)
Stonehenge (+15)
The Brihadeeswarar Temple (+15)
Alhambra (+10)
Masada (+5)
The Colossus (+5)

No B-Points:

Spoiler :

Adam Smith's Trading Co.
Aluminum Co.
Ascension Gate
Carhenge
Cereal Mills
Civ Jewlers Inc
Creative Constructions
Mausoleum of Maussolos
Mining Inc
Nanite Defuser
Pont du Gard
Sid's Sushi Co
Standard Ethanol
Sun Tzu's Art of War
Technological Capital
The Statue of Liberty
The Taj Mahal
The Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Heaven
The Three Gorges Dam
The United Nations
Universal Translator

Decreasing B-Points:

Spoiler :

Theatre of Dionysus (-5)
The Eiffel Tower (-10)
J.S. Bach's Cathedral (-15)
Copernicus' Observatory (-20)
Notre Dame (-25)
Edison's Workshop (-30)
Marco Polo's Embassy (-40)
Plato's Academy (-45)
Snow Castle of Kemi (-45)
Isaac Newton's College (-50)
The Great Library (-55)
Magellan's Voyage (-60)
Women's Suffrage (-65)
Palace of Potala (-70)
University of Sankore (-75)
Leonardo's Workshop (-80)
World News Network (-85)
Himeji Samurai Castle (-90)
Silicon Valley (-95)
Einstein's Laboratory (-100)
Theory of Evolution (-120)
SETI Program (-125)
Olympics (-150)

If somebody thinks one or more are not right (as they should be moved up or down, relative to each other) please say so... these would be the major contributors to dark age triggering

 

[Blackflag421]

Don't know how the points will be (need testing for that), but the concept sounds amazing. Something is definitely needed to affect the large empires, once you're the biggest it's pretty hard to lose... you can use your size to out-tech everyone, and the longer you tech the more ahead you get. Eventually you're using dreadnought units against modern infantry