Dawn of Civilization v1.12 Discussion

[THEK1NG]

But how does Horseback Riding really make a difference?

Like I gave Romans Horseback Riding for Iron Working and all of a sudden their Egyptian cities became barbs. I assume that's what happened to all their colonies. Why for HR though?

 

[Fresol]

Acquiring a tech triggers a stability check as I said. All techs. Though some of them make certain former civics give a stability penalty, which is not the case in your game.

Anyway, it's recommended you read through the stability guide or stability.py file. Lots of information there.

 

[Fresol]

I strongly suggest discontinuing stability check after tech trades. In the hands of human player this becomes potent exploit, who will more and more often use it to his unfair advantage. AI is confused as is with all those new rules. Remember, the engine was adjusted to provide optimal performance with vanila rules!

Can't say much about this because I haven't been exploiting it. But my first response is “since they are already collapsing it doesn't matter”. They are supposed to collapse with stability like that.

 

[Leoreth]

I recommend reading the stability guide in the civilopedia. In short: tech trades are not the reason for the collapse, only the trigger.

 

[ezzlar]

Might have missed it but when I destroy a civ the old population still stays and gives a heavy unhappiness penalty. But that is maybe intended now? (Destroying a civ used to remove the "Join motherland" penalty)

 

[Leoreth]

I suppose you mean culture? Yes, it is intended that their culture stays around after their death.

 

[Vekkimaster]

This isn't really a problem than it is strange. I'm playing as Rome. Phoenic people founded Caralis on an island of Sardinia. They collapsed and soon Egypt took the city for themselves. When Egypt collapsed (screenshot), Italy was born with only this one city. Is this supposed to happen like this?

 

[Stuart98]

Italy founded on Sardinia in 1878 with machine guns.

Classic.

 

[Leoreth]

This isn't really a problem than it is strange. I'm playing as Rome. Phoenic people founded Caralis on an island of Sardinia. They collapsed and soon Egypt took the city for themselves. When Egypt collapsed (screenshot), Italy was born with only this one city. Is this supposed to happen like this?

Seems very weird, Italy isn't supposed to exist at all when Rome is still alive.

 

[ezzlar]

Leoreth: Whats your principle for deciding if a civilization is a conditional spawn or a "normal" spawn? I was thinking Byzantium, which is conditional, and trying to figure out the difference.

 

[Leoreth]

Two reasons:
- to have it make sense historically
- to give human players an option to prevent spawns that would ruin your game

Byzantium is a good example actually, because initially there weren't a conditional spawn. But it is weird for them to appear when Rome never expanded to the east, and it is also weird for them to appear when Greece is still alive. Later on the condition that Rome may not be solid was added so that a human Rome doesn't have to lose half of its empire.

 

[ezzlar]

Ok, it all seems reasonable, but couldnt that be applied to many civs? Like if England never expanded to North America? Would South America still belong to Spain unless they went unstable and so on?

Guess I have to learn which civs are conditional and what the "terms" are.

 

[Leoreth]

There is an entry on conditional spawns in the civilopedia.

You're right that there are many cases where historical plausibility would dictate a spawn should be historical (making all medieval European civs conditional is a popular suggestion that comes up every couple of months).

It should be obvious why I am not doing that, though. We know that America came to exist because English colonies existed in North America. We do not know what an independent North American colony from Dutch/Spanish/French ... settlements would look like (much less if such a thing would even come into existence), so generic Anglo-cultured America has to take the place regardless. And nobody knows what would have happened if nobody had settled North America, so I have no civ on hand for any other situation, and leaving NA empty is undesirable. I have only history to go on, anything else is speculation beyond a certain point, and has no place in this type of mod.

Applying the same reasoning to European civs is possible but the adverse consequences are even worse, because they shape the situation on most of the rest of the map.

You will notice that all conditional spawns affect areas where multiple civ's territories overlap, and won't be empty when they don't spawn (contrast America or Euros). As stated above, one of the reasons for their conditional spawn is that their existence doesn't screw over the game of those who are already there.

Another reason is that this kind of game relies on a combination of familiarity and unpredictability, and wouldn't work with just one of the two. Unpredictability makes the game interesting - if everything would always develop in the same way (what some people think a "historical" mod should be like), it would quickly become boring. Also, as a player you need to be able to influence the world around you and observe the consequences of these actions.

On the other hand, to make it feel like a historical mod, we need some familiarity. If we play say as Turkey, we want to play in an environment that is approximately similar to the historical environment of actual Turkey. It might be cool to spawn and find Europe controlled by a Celtic empire while Russia has founded Islam after Buddhist Persia has suppressed the Arabs or something. But if your goal is to recreate the historical Ottoman Empire, you kinda want to be Muslim and fight Christian Byzantines and Muslim Arabs. So the game requires some railroading, and civ spawns provide much of that (the other important factors are collapses and settler maps).

 

[ezzlar]

Well, you have a point. Thanks for answer!

 

[Shadow Merc]

Two reasons:
- to have it make sense historically
- to give human players an option to prevent spawns that would ruin your game

Byzantium is a good example actually, because initially there weren't a conditional spawn. But it is weird for them to appear when Rome never expanded to the east, and it is also weird for them to appear when Greece is still alive. Later on the condition that Rome may not be solid was added so that a human Rome doesn't have to lose half of its empire.

On that note, there's about 4 civs i'd like to propose have conditional spawns since they share cores/flip cities in the cores of other civs:
-Moors (in the event a Human Carthage is trying to survive. The condition would be either Carthage is dead and/or at least one city in the Maghreb must have Islam.
-Mughals (For India players trying to survive past the UHV. Conditions being at least one city in India/Pakistan has Islam (I.E. the Seljuks/Arabs have to invade)).
-Turkey (for Greece/Rome/Byzantium. Condition being at least one city in Anatolia must have Islam or be owned by someone other than the three mentioned civs).
-Prussia (For HRE, condition being they spawn only if HRE is not solid).

I may update with reasoning later if anyone asks.

 

[VGL]

Here's my opinion:

Moors: I think they should only spawn when there is Islam both in Spain and/or North Africa (so Arabia should show some interest and attack them) Even if Carthage is solid.
Mughals: I like it.
Turkey: No exception. they should spawn no matter what as they where Turks from central Asia and mongols, emigrating too turkey.
Prussia: I agree.

 

[Shadow Merc]

I suggest Turkey as conditional because the main reason the Ottoman Turks were in Anatolia was because they were brought there by the advancing Seljuks, who overran much of Anatolia after Manzikert. I think it's plausible that had Byzantium held back the Seljuks and maintained their borders there would be no Ottoman Turks to rise up.

In gameplay terms, if a human Greece/Rome/Byzantium (or ai) manages to halt back the Seljuk (or perhaps even Arab) invasion, then there will be no spawning of Ottomans since neither Turks nor Islam would have penetrated Anatolia.

As for Carthage, that would be ok too, the main point being Islam has to be in the area for the Moors to rise as an Islamic power in the Maghreb and Spain. Unfortunately, we will never see AI Arabia in Spain unless they get a conqueror event.

 

[citis]

Turkey, Mughals are ok. Their spawn is annoying for Greece/Byzantium/Rome and India, but they undergoable.

Moors, a conditional condition related to Carthage is required. Moors flip Carthage's core, so they shouldn't spawn if Carthage is still alive, at least for the human player.

I don't know about Prussia. I think that they shouldn't flip Frankfurt, else is too harse for HRE.

 

[ezzlar]

I think the raze penalty for the smallest cities could be increased from -2 to -3 but also decrease the penalty for larger cities. I think I razed a 4 pop city and got a -10 penalty. Suggestion:

1-2 pop: -3
3-6 pop: -8
7-11 pop: -14
12-16 pop: -20
17+ pop: -25

Edit: And as for AI, reduced penalties.

 

[Novicenoble]

Oh I've never thought that you removed "unitGifted" event from addEventHandler part of CvRFCEventHandler.py