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MattCA

Prince
Joined
Jan 25, 2019
Messages
565
Location
Canada
C2C discord: https://discord.gg/KWGvV7eWsN

Spoiler :
@JosEPh_II Stuff from discord.


  1. Pilot Luna — Yesterday at 3:52 PM
    well i know have a competant ai to fight


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    flabbert — Yesterday at 3:53 PM
    competent is probably stretching it a bit far


  3. [3:53 PM]
    but I nailed 3-4 bugs in my worker evaluation today


  4. [3:53 PM]
    I need to make farms need freshwater again now, because damn if they dont build them now
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    Toffer — Yesterday at 4:00 PM
    Good work, not easy to rewrite such a big section of code as the worker AI and end up with something functional. (edited)


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    flabbert — Yesterday at 4:59 PM
    It just needs playtesting now, and probably refining of the base balance


  7. [4:59 PM]
    I am overvaluing food


  8. [4:59 PM]
    TBH, there is no reason at all why we cant put the base balance in the ini, and read from there



    December 22, 2021
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  10. flabbert — Today at 5:05 AM
    I will be offline for a few days, if someone want to put freshwater dependency on farms again now they can do so

  1. flabbert — Today at 5:41 AM
    Latest SVN has some serious improvement on worker AI, i found a lot of bugs, I would like feedback to how it feels, and plays out (farms are built too much is one I know of right now)


  2. [5:42 AM]
    forum topics or here, both works, but any feedback on playability, and more importantly how your AI behaves is very welcome


  3. [5:42 AM]
    @WarLord feedback is particularly wanted


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    parad0x — Today at 5:43 AM
    ah, perhaps this is the motivation i need to start up a game


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    flabbert — Today at 5:44 AM
    I fixed the valuation of plots inside city borders, there is a lot of work to be done particularily with when and where forts are placed


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    parad0x — Today at 5:45 AM
    well i utilize worker automation a lot so if i get on i should be able to provide results.


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    flabbert — Today at 5:45 AM
    and to make it more dynamic, so cities can be focused towards 1 speciality (production, commerce, food) and in the mid term take into account where city is placed to handle that focus


  8. [5:45 AM]
    Sea workers still dont automate properly, except for improving bonuses, thats also on my todo list
 
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  1. raxo2222 — Today at 9:48 AM
    General commerce modifiers aren't in one line yet (edited)
  2. [9:50 AM]
    Two more examples

  3. [9:50 AM]
    I guess it isn't done yet
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    MattCA — Today at 10:25 AM
    I forgot about that. You should change that raxo.
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      raxo2222 — Today at 10:49 AM
      Toffer is adjusting these he's not done yet
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      Toffer — Today at 10:58 AM
      I'm still working on it, had to do some other stuff and committed what I had at the time before finishing up.
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      raxo2222 — Today at 11:46 AM
      So civics now can have bonus commerce modifiers. I wonder where it could be used
    4. [11:47 AM]
      Disable high tech civics if we don't have computers? That is -1000% to commerces as base and then +1000% if computers are present
 
@MattCA ,
Thank you for this posting.

flabbert — Today at 5:45 AM
and to make it more dynamic, so cities can be focused towards 1 specialty (production, commerce, food) and in the mid term take into account where city is placed to handle that focus
I know Thunderbrd believes (wants)/this, But I do not. And I know of many other players who want cities to be self-sufficient in ALL things like I do. I also believe that any AI that dedicates a city to 1 specialty is easier to conquer. This is my experience and my opinion. It does conflict with T-brd's Design goals though. We often disagree. ;)

I fixed the valuation of plots inside city borders,
What does this entail? And what valuations?
 
I know Thunderbrd believes (wants)/this, But I do not. And I know of many other players who want cities to be self-sufficient in ALL things like I do. I also believe that any AI that dedicates a city to 1 specialty is easier to conquer. This is my experience and my opinion. It does conflict with T-brd's Design goals though. We often disagree. ;)
No city should be over-dedicated to any of those things but design should force a player to have cities lean towards differing purposes. The way it is now it's less that than ever, since % modifiers from wonders towards various benefits are now only counting towards the tiles.

Still, for an AI at least, if you have a +25% bonus to Commerce from a wonder other cities can't get and you have the choice whether to improve a local plot to a town vs a mine, it's probably better to strategically consider that the uniquely strong benefit of commerce enhancement in that city should weight the choice more towards a town rather than the usual mine. It's just a matter of observing what you're already doing and finding the strongest ways to use synergy between unique influences in a region to maximize your overall output.

There may in the very long run also be more to enforce this sort of thinking to apply to get the absolute maximum impact out of things and if you don't at least try, the AI should be able to stomp you by being able to easily evaluate best selections in light of previous selections and opportunities at local levels. That'll only make the AI even more challenging at that point and add a little more dimension to the game. There's already some of this though and I think its just unwise as a player to ignore it but the AI's so sloppy right now it doesn't matter too much. It'll be a long while before some ideas would be implemented towards making things more like that though. Still, even now, the intense XP mods wonders can bring can REALLY make it very important to limit how many cities are training your units unless you just want a lot of fodder, which IS useful still as long as its understood where your elite units are coming from and where the grunts are being applied.

What does this entail? And what valuations?
The value that workers are placing on various improvements for a given plot generally is what he's referring to iirc.
 
I always try to stack up wonders by category in my cities. Especially stacking those that give bonus military XP, or those that stack up tech % - which is not that many since in C2C a lot of tech wonders give flat tech instead of tech %. Of course this specialization is not that noticeable: when you already get 15-30 XP in a normal city, the extra 5 you get from a wonder don't mean that much. When you have an inflation of values by design, if you really want wonders to specialize cities, then they should be several times stronger to stand out. Many normal buildings are way better than great wonders as it is right now, and there's no reason to not build all buildings everywhere either.
 
when you already get 15-30 XP in a normal city, the extra 5 you get from a wonder don't mean that much
True but another 20 from Great Generals and other trainers settled into the city makes it the only place to train the core of your forces from.

When you have an inflation of values by design, if you really want wonders to specialize cities, then they should be several times stronger to stand out.
They stand out stronger when you work along with what they do in how you plan the plots and specialist assignments. A +25-50% would be pretty strong when you play into that.

Many normal buildings are way better than great wonders as it is right now
I wonder if this is due to nerfing of wonders or allowing some forgotten non-wonders to remain as strong as they are. There are core buildings that are indispensable, yes, and that's really meant to be that way as well as the way a tech contributes a rush-worthy element to society.

Of course there's reason not to build all buildings everywhere - not all bring more benefit than penalties so unless you really needed those benefits, they should go unbuilt in most cities. That said, with the zoning system I'd like to do SOMEDAY, you would have to make some choices. That said, I've learned from this mod that many players just want to go through motions than actually have to think so maybe its not a good idea.
 
Of course there's reason not to build all buildings everywhere

I guess what I mean is that this decision is not by city, but rather it's global: there's going to be that handful of buildings that have significant maluses and thus that I would not want anywhere at all. I might build one to unlock certain requirements, but no more than that. It's not really "specialization", it's more picking which city drew the short straw. IE I only build one or two smelters because of the massive fire hazard, trying to spread them around as much as possible so I don't get a city that burns down a building every other turn. Other buildings, like dumpsters, I sklp entirely since there's an excess of health and happiness anyway. With this I mean that there are some nearly useless buildings too.

Outside of that specific case of "bad buildings", any building that is a net positive in some way is going to be built everywhere. The order in which they're built is going to vary, IE first food and gold making to grow the city, then production and science, last culture and properties... but eventually every city gets all the good stuff. I'll have a library and a barrack and a market and a mall and a bank and an university in all my cities, etc. etc.

I suppose if the margins for health and happiness values and properties values were tighter, then one would certainly specialize a lot more. But I'm not sure it would be fun honestly. Besides it's not so strange to have a bank in all cities, so where do you draw that line for any other type of building? Most buildings are better to have than not to have without much strategy involved. That's jsut how it is. So eventually the difference is going to fall down to one or two wonders that give +25/50% tech or culture in a city that already has +100/200% tech or culture, which is... not that much of a difference. It might stand out over a thousand turns, but it's not jaw dropping. And that, too, might be just fine. I still kinda miss when we had buildings yield modifiers, and everything was bigger. If I wanted to count my beans every turn for every building I build or unit I train... I wouldn't be playing C2C, there are other mods that do strategic bean counting much better since they had that in mind from their inception. After a few years playing it, I'd say C2C is about triumphant, flamboyant, excessive mega empires made of equally triumphant, flamboyant, excessive mega cities.
 
I still kinda miss when we had buildings yield modifiers, and everything was bigger
When Toffer made this change, it was suggested even then that we might need another set of tags for those % mods on yields and commerces that could affect the whole total rather than just the land. I'm thinking there's really some room for that in the end design. Particularly for wonders and some key buildings.
 
  1. flabbert — Today at 3:04 PM
    new version coming to svn that should vastly improve worker behaviour
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    flabbert — Today at 5:22 PM
    feedback welcome as usual
 
As @MattCA already stated, I am cautiously optimistic that I have finally cracked a permanent solution with regards to workers building improvements, and the valuing of them. the AI should be able to use workers a lot more efficiently now.
 
Automated workers constantly switching farms with hamlets was one of the most infuriating things to witness and would usually lead me to take manual control after a while just so as to not see that anymore... so yeah this sounds great! Well done.
 
  1. @JosEPh_II There is a bit of talk about civics on discord. Maltazard says he might make a mod mod.

    Maltazard — Today at 12:44 PM

    So one area of the mod that has always bothered me is the civic screen. While I realize that it's a dramatically large area to address and that covers such a wide variety of items, there are a few key points I've condensed into suggestions: 1) Eliminate redundant features from all civics, like maintenance modifiers. The civic screen is too cluttered 2) Along that, eliminate minuscule differences and magnify the major ones so that each civic feels unique and meaningful - it's ok to exaggerate in a few key areas after redundancies are gone 3) Make each civic category predominant in a specific area - such as military civic mainly covering unit maintenance, free XP, great general, etc, not exclusive, but predominant. 4) Address strictly progression driven civics such as language and garbage in some way to make them unique or move them to autobuilds modifiers - I know this is controversial, but language is useless as it is right now and garbage is also useless since properties are currently irrelevant - they're UI clutter 5) Improve uniqueness and usefulness of civic buildings, avoiding redundancies with one building being enabled by multiple civics (a few new buildings needed) 6) Higher diplomacy impact from civics choices, perhaps including civic "families" (ie despotism also likes monarchy, but not republic) - this is not strictly a civics change I suppose
  2. [12:46 PM]
    To that end I'm making a comparison table where I intend to manually transcribe all civics, dedicating one sheet to each category, and then apply these points to reshape civics into much leaner propositions that could be tested out into a modmod for some time. I'm not an expert but even I should be able to modify the XML file accordingly to what I put in the excel file
  3. [12:47 PM]
    In this regard, there is a bunch of XML tags that are ambiguous or that I straight out have no idea what they do. For instance yield modifiers and commerce modifiers are all labelled just as "yield" or "commerce"
  4. [12:47 PM]
    Also I'm assuming that whenever a civic does not have a tag it implies a value of zero
  5. [12:48 PM]
    Lastly, I'm not touching Revolution modcomp values as that deserves its own revision imo
  6. [12:49 PM]
    it's also worth noting that there are a lot of On/Off game options that don't seem to actually work as well anymore, such as fixed borders. Fixed borders is both a game option and a civic modifier, but it doesn't seem to work either way - but I might be missing something
    1. To that end I'm making a comparison table where I intend to manually transcribe all civics, dedicating one sheet to each category, and then apply these points to reshape civics into much leaner propositions that could be tested out into a modmod for some time. I'm not an expert but even I should be able to modify the XML file accordingly to what I put in the excel file
    2. [12:47 PM]
      In this regard, there is a bunch of XML tags that are ambiguous or that I straight out have no idea what they do. For instance yield modifiers and commerce modifiers are all labelled just as "yield" or "commerce"
    3. [12:47 PM]
      Also I'm assuming that whenever a civic does not have a tag it implies a value of zero
    4. [12:48 PM]
      Lastly, I'm not touching Revolution modcomp values as that deserves its own revision imo
    5. [12:49 PM]
      it's also worth noting that there are a lot of On/Off game options that don't seem to actually work as well anymore, such as fixed borders. Fixed borders is both a game option and a civic modifier, but it doesn't seem to work either way - but I might be missing something
 
Not sure if it's worth making a separate thread, but you just triggered an idea for me:
Branching out civics.
Not parallel, but nested with dependencies.
Definitely not hard to do "technically", but would require a decent amount of reviewing to be somewhat effective.
Also would allow for much more "civics" on one hand, but more focused and directed on another hand.
...And I blame Path to Exile for this, loool, because ever since I saw THAT MONSTROSITY OF A SKILL TREE... I can't NOT think of it in EVERY game, mwahahaha!
But jokes aside, this MIGHT be an interesting change to the Civic Mechanic, indeed.
After all, you already have Auto-Builds that react to Civics, so why not utilize this to a deeper extent?
(You are free to ignore this rambling, loool.)
 
The current civics are an amalgamation of many C2C modders; Eldrinfall, CivPlayer8, and strategyonly (Author of this Mod). They being iirc the last 3 major modders of the Civics before I inherited the work from strategyonly. Keep in mind that all these former modders were not working with a Civics "tree" that encompassed 15 Eras either. They only had 10 Eras back then. pepper2000 modmod "added" the last 5 eras and contained his versions of techs and civics for those added Eras..

I have not tried to rewrite the Civics. I have basically tweaked their "values" to match the changes in number and kind of Techs added to C2C since the time of Eldrin and Civplayer. Doing the tweaking along the line that strategyonly started.

I did go thru many of peppers2000's initial civics values (xml modifiers) after he added the mod mod to the core. Reducing the obviously OP Civics and bringing their values to a more "normalized" value.

Over these past 4 years I have addressed many concerns. Especially the Gold glut that was inherent in the civics and the too fast research pace at game start. And as such took many a hit for my actions. I do Not just plug numbers in to the xml and then shove them out for player testing. That to me is an invite to chaos, which I have witnessed here over the past 12 years, or is it 13 years now??? I test play the game with my changes to see how the player and the AI reacts/acts with the values they are given with each civic. This is, I will admit, a slow process. And many of the changes I have made have been concentrated into the 1st 5 eras. Any civic past Ren era is then tweaked only by the statistics generated from the 1st 5 Eras. By the time you have played thru the 1st 5 eras, the statistical model; based on your Game Set Up Options used, the civic flow is basically set. The next 5 eras, those before pepper, have only changed slightly since strategyonly worked on them. raxxo has done more adjustments to pepper's 5 new Eras than I have over the past 2 years. So Civics is an ongoing work of former and current modders. With strategyonly, myself, and raxxo giving the whole set of civics the needed tweaks to keep game mechanics (as set by lead designer) functional.

Anyone that wants to make a Modmod set of Civics is more than Welcome to do so in my book.

Many years ago in AND(2) when I did some modding on that mod with afforess (before I became a member of C2C team). I was told my Civic ideas were stupid. (I wanted more, he wanted less). So I have left the inventiveness to others and concentrated of refining the numbers and modifiers that already were established for C2C.
 
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