Dawn of Civilization General Discussion

[Genghis Khaiser]

I got it once years ago, I think as Russia IIRC.
Is it likely to happen now?

 

[Leoreth]

The AI cannot win by UHV or URV.

 

[Dracosolon]

Ordinary Historical Randomness

 

[Leoreth]

With regards to winning the game, yes.

 

[Dracosolon]

Is there a difference between the cuirassier and the sowar? I might be missing something but from what I can see in the UI they are functionally identical; no additional abilities, same tech/resource requirements, production cost, strength, movement, etc...

Cuirassier has -25% city strength, Sowar -25% city defense. City strength covers both defense and attack so the Sowar effectively has 12 city attack whereas the Cuirassier has 9 .

 

[Publicola]

Thanks for the feedback. I remember way back when that versions 1.13 and 1.14 of this mod impressed me as RFC upgrades; at first I don't think I even realize it was an entirely separate mod with separate development. I don't have to make a decision right away, but at this point I'm wondering if I could swap out BTS Rhye's and Fall with one of those versions of DOC. I see 1.12 and 1.14 available on the sourceforge site, but not 1.13 -- is that version no longer available? Do each version come with a full changelog so I can see what got added and/or what features are included in each? Thanks again for your help!

@Leoreth : this was a while ago, but I'm once again preparing my 'History Through Games' class to start this fall. Last year I used 1.14.4 (the final update before the new expanded tech tree), but I'm thinking of 'downgrading' to version 1.13 just to minimize the number of new-to-DOC features that students need to learn.

Is there a particular version of 1.13 that you'd recommend? The base 1.13 (here) has the installer with modules, but I'm wondering if there were any major bugs that were addressed or QOL improvements added in 1.13.1 or 1.13.2 (or later) that would make those versions more stable or preferable. Thanks for your help!

 

[Tigranes]

Thank you! I'd recommend updating the Civilopedia hint about enabling Polynesia, it still says that it is in GlobalDefinesAlt

Just bumping this here because in 2 years Hints did not update.

 

[Leoreth]

@Leoreth : this was a while ago, but I'm once again preparing my 'History Through Games' class to start this fall. Last year I used 1.14.4 (the final update before the new expanded tech tree), but I'm thinking of 'downgrading' to version 1.13 just to minimize the number of new-to-DOC features that students need to learn.

Is there a particular version of 1.13 that you'd recommend? The base 1.13 (here) has the installer with modules, but I'm wondering if there were any major bugs that were addressed or QOL improvements added in 1.13.1 or 1.13.2 (or later) that would make those versions more stable or preferable. Thanks for your help!

I don't remember what was going on in 1.13 so I would have to go by the same documentation that is also available to you. It's likely that the latest minor version of 1.13 addressed some bugs that existed in 1.13.0. If you want to know more, you'd have to check the commit history.

 

[Publicola]

I don't remember what was going on in 1.13 so I would have to go by the same documentation that is also available to you. It's likely that the latest minor version of 1.13 addressed some bugs that existed in 1.13.0. If you want to know more, you'd have to check the commit history.

The struggle I'm having is that, both the Github releases and the Github commits and the Git Update Log here (looks like the 1.13 release was the same day as the first post in the Git Update Log, which is convenient) all show that even the earliest updates to 1.13 seemed to adding new under-the-hood features and then debugging those features.

1.13.4 (in January 2016) seems to be the last minor update before the new religion content that was the major surface-level feature of 1.14 (so that 1.14.1 would seem to be strictly superior to any later versions of 1.13) but as far as I can tell 1.13.4 is still basically mid-stream as far as the XML changes are concerned. Basically, while there probably were some bugs in 1.13.0, there doesn't seem to be a clear 1.13.x that is a simple upgrade of the original.

OTOH, the 1.13.0 version seems to be pretty darn stable on its own, and that version has an installer with all three modules I'm recommending, so I'm inclined to stick with 1.13.0 for my new students.

EDIT: ...although honestly, the v1.14 changelog is really not that different compared to v1.13, and the stability/speed improvements seem like they'd be well worth keeping. The sourceforge page has version 14.1 installer, that fixed the major cause of crashes, and that installer also includes all major modules....

Spoiler I feel like this Curb Your Enthusiasm meme :

 

[Publicola]

OTOH, the 1.13.0 version seems to be pretty darn stable on its own, and that version has an installer with all three modules I'm recommending, so I'm inclined to stick with 1.13.0 for my new students.

This is aggravating. I downloaded & installed 1.13 and loaded it up to playtest before classes start. I decided to pull up Polynesia, since I'm familiar with it as a 'puzzle civ'.

I've gotten a bunch of random error messages.

PicklingError: Can't pickle type 'Boost.Python.instance': import of module Boost.Python failed

File "StoredData", line 27, in save

File "CvRFCEventHandler", line 829, in on PreSave

File "BugManager", line 400, in _handleDefaultEvent

Traceback (most recent call last):

I've gotten this exact string of 'Python Exception' error messages twice. Everything still seems to work -- I'm able to keep playing after acknowledging the python exceptions -- but I'm wondering if a) anyone knows what these bugs mean and b) whether it's a problem with the version or whether it might be the result of a problem with me installing it?

I also found an unrelated bug -- when I unlocked the 'Slavery' civic, the pop-up read:

Your society can now implement the civic Slavery
(TXT_KEY_CIVIC_FORCED_LABOR_STRATEGY).
Would you like to start a Revolution?

Note that these errors are from version 1.13, so this is not relevant to the current version (which is why this isn't in Bug Reports). I'm mostly looking to see if these errors are harmless and/or user error, or if this means I should revert back to using version 1.14 for my class.

 

[Leoreth]

This is aggravating. I downloaded & installed 1.13 and loaded it up to playtest before classes start. I decided to pull up Polynesia, since I'm familiar with it as a 'puzzle civ'.

I've gotten a bunch of random error messages.






I've gotten this exact string of 'Python Exception' error messages twice. Everything still seems to work -- I'm able to keep playing after acknowledging the python exceptions -- but I'm wondering if a) anyone knows what these bugs mean and b) whether it's a problem with the version or whether it might be the result of a problem with me installing it?

I also found an unrelated bug -- when I unlocked the 'Slavery' civic, the pop-up read:


Note that these errors are from version 1.13, so this is not relevant to the current version (which is why this isn't in Bug Reports). I'm mostly looking to see if these errors are harmless and/or user error, or if this means I should revert back to using version 1.14 for my class.

I'm sorry but I really can't support a version this old anymore.

Some time ago I read in a Reddit thread that DOC is supposed to be similar to EU4.

Is that true? I've never played EU4 but I'm curious if there's any overlap?

I think what people mean when they say that is that Civ4 has more of an "arcade" view of history where you take people and concepts from real history but drop them into a randomly generated world where everyone competes on equal footing.

On the other hand, the Europa Universalis series is characterised by a wide variety of starting situations and special advantages and disadvantages that are unique to each playable country, so that your game experience is strongly determined by the country you pick. It also has many mechanics that are meant to constrain the player and produce more historical outcomes both from AI behaviour and from player action. That's why people often consider it a more "simulationist" game.

If you look at the difference between Civ4 and DoC and this description of EU4 I think you can tell why people make the comparison. I have played a lot of EU3 and EU4 so I'm sure that also influenced what kind of mechanics and gameplay feel I like in a game.

 

[Dracosolon]

New update:
- Mediterranean resources spread to Northern Europe with Mediterranean civilizations
- Celtic UHV requires three cities in Gaul
- Shwedagon Paya only affects its own city
- moved fish near Brittany
- reverted technology costs
- weakened AI conquerors
- rebalanced Chinese modifiers

Latest update also deleted Bordeaux's clam.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, not sure which commit that was.

 

[Leoreth]

Can you be more precise?

It would be helpful to know 1) your scenario and 2) which era tech speed started being too slow/fast

 

[Dracosolon]

For what it's worth I ran an autoplay for 600 AD - 1800 AD (had an issue with my computer waiting for 1900 AD and had to close), and the tech rate seemed mostly normal for most civs, with some issues:

- Europe had a slight delay in the Renaissance, nothing too major but once again Netherlands founded Protestantism and the New World conquest was initially slow (Japan ended up getting the conquerors for both Aztecs and Incas and generally remained near the top).
- Mughals were the major issue: they kept control over most of India and remained the top player, sharing the tech lead with a broadly historical France. This was worsened by a mediocre Britain that seemingly didn't get conquerors.

 

[SOVNARKOM]

Somewhat related, but there's also a controversial theory that the Phoenicians had settlements on the coast of Denmark/Germany. Basically nothing in the archaeological record, but possibly in the linguistic record to explain some of the oddities of proto-Germanic that stick out from other Indo-European languages. John McWhorter references it in his 2008 book and goes into it on his Lexicon Valley podcast on an episode titled 'On the origin of English' on Slate (24 Nov 2020). It's pretty speculative but interesting

I actually think it's better to give Phoenicia historical areas in Crete and more historical areas in Sicily. Some archaeological evidence suggests that the island of Crete was once inhabited or at least active by Phoenicians. And although Carthage fought multiple wars with Greece and Rome for Sicily in history, only the westernmost part of Sicily in the game belongs to the Phoenician historical area. Unlike history, settling on Sicily seems completely unworthy for players.

 

[SOVNARKOM]

Someone give me the motivation to play Ethiopia for another 200 turns until 1930

Let me think, trying to control the Italian peninsula or vassal Italy?
If you are strong enough, perhaps you can also try to vassal of Britain and France

 

[Tigranes]

Today I have learned that Kongo won't be able to offer any Slaves to Confederate America, unless latter has a city in Africa. I wonder why? Simulates trading posts?

 

[Dracosolon]

That might just be a side effect of the criterias applying to colonial civs - I don't know the details.

 

[Leoreth]

Today I have learned that Kongo won't be able to offer any Slaves to Confederate America, unless latter has a city in Africa. I wonder why? Simulates trading posts?

Is this a bug report?