Dom Pedro II's The Age of Man mod

[Dom Pedro II]

Hey all. Some of you might remember my project titled The Age of Man for Civ3. I never finished it because Civ3 was far too limited to support what I needed it to do, but the basic idea was that each civilization would be a unique experience with a unique strategy to victory.

Well, the idea has not only been revamped for Civ4, but I've added on a lot of extra things that I could not in my wildest dreams have anticipated doing with Civ3. Of course, some of it might not be possible now either.

Anyway, I'm looking for a team of people (artists, programmers, historians) to work with me to make this mod a reality. I'd prefer to have people with programming experience on the team since I myself am only a novice programmer, but others will be welcome too.

Unfortunately, the content is so radically different and touches upon so much of the game that I can't really put it all here in one thread. For that reason, I've created a website ModCiv4.com. Nothing fancy. It's just meant to explain the details of the mod and show off a few concept sketches at the moment. It's still somewhat under construction right now, but it will become more elaborate and feature news and previews as these things become available. I also plan to add a little intro flash movie too at some point.

Anyway, I've also created a forum for the purpose of discussing the mod... what you think works, what you think doesn't, what you'd like to see included, etc. Of course, you can post your feedback and suggestions here, but if you create an account at the forums I've set up and post your suggestions there, they'll be more likely to get the individual attention from myself, the team and fellow contributors since your suggestion will have its own thread.

 

[Red Door]

i checked out the site. The religion school idea is good. Almost like my Religion sect mod. See the sig.
Anyway, I could contribute as a historian.

 

[khakhan007]

I really like the sounds of your Mod. Are you going to adjust the timeline and build times,adding tech's, ect... One thing i can think of right away is that Legions should automatically dig in after every turn.. as it was standard practice for the (early/mid) legion to build defenive perimeter everyday. also Mongol army's could traverse 100 miles a day if pushed to it (they had a standard practice of switching horses on the march). just ideas. its your mod. I can offer my help for reserch and for historical purposes. Sorry my prog ability is sorely lacking.

 

[King Coltrane]

hey DP, this sounds fantastic. i must say i was very excited to read a lot of your ideas and would love to contribute historically, as well as testing, but i am not familiar with coding, though i could learn if you would like. my best ability civ-wise is coming up with innovative new ideas (ex: the tech timers/capitol as great library for rome in RFRE, as well as many others there) but yeah... let me know what i can do to help out!

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I really like the sounds of your Mod. Are you going to adjust the timeline and build times,adding tech's, ect... One thing i can think of right away is that Legions should automatically dig in after every turn.. as it was standard practice for the (early/mid) legion to build defenive perimeter everyday. also Mongol army's could traverse 100 miles a day if pushed to it (they had a standard practice of switching horses on the march). just ideas. its your mod. I can offer my help for reserch and for historical purposes. Sorry my prog ability is sorely lacking.

Yes, there's going to be some adjustment to the timeline and new techs and such.

Right now, all I've basically laid out is the more extreme changes... those which cannot be done with XML alone.

But ultimately, I'm thinking of making the game start at 6000 BC rather than 4000 BC and making it much more difficult for cities to grow without farms or pastureland. This will also make pillaging and bombardment much more terrible on the enemy in the later game as it will lead to much more intense population loss.

Thank you for the suggestions, they are indeed good ideas. As I said, I haven't really gotten into the details of techs, unit skills, etc. so all of that is still pretty malleable.

 

[darkkai64]

i looked at the website and this mod seems like THE best mod ever

 

[GeneralMatt]

Just starting to look, looks amazing!
If I can ditch some other commitments (Not stiff here though. ) I might help a little, who knows what though, that's if you couldn't find better help..

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I appreciate the support, guys. The mod is still very much in my thoughts although I've not done much work on the mod as a a whole. I've been mainly focusing on designing the individual components (some of which I have already released here on the forums).

As one individual with other commitments (like work for one thing ), I haven't been able to build this mod like some mod production teams have been able to. I also had to learn C++ from scratch, and the knowledge I've gained has helped me appreciate also what is possible, what is practical, and what is preferable.

The website is out-of-date. There's some things that I've decided are just not realistic since then, and those things will be removed or at least scaled down. However there are other things that I've decided to add too that I hadn't thought of at the time... thanks to the great efforts by coders and graphics designers, there's already a wealth of things out there to help make this mod a reality.

Jdog's Revolution mod has gone a long way to provide the kind of features I wanted this mod to have, and that's why I've supported it (and criticized it) as much as I have.

I'm currently working on a change to civics that, for those of you who looked at the website, will recognize as a critical part of the mod: interdependent civics. So different combinations of civics will strengthen each other while others will undermine each other:

Here's some screenshots to demonstrate...

 

[Red Door]

i checked out the site. The religion school idea is good. Almost like my Religion sect mod. See the sig.
Anyway, I could contribute as a historian.

Who is this newb?

 

[Vrenir]

How many of these new features (Inquisitions, Religious Schools, Internal Politics, etc.) have you figured out how to implement and/or already implemented? Are any of these going to be available as seperate modcomps? I believe that several in the community, myself included, would very much like to incoporate some of these new features into other mods.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Well, I am very interested in the new resource feature, naturally...

 

[dh_epic]

I'm not talented enough to offer you anything more than moral support and a critical eye. So consider this my first endorsement of your project.

And now your first criticism ... be careful with the interdependent civics in terms of game balance. If X works best with Y, then you start to create a "one true path" where anyone who runs X should run Y too. If A and B undermine each other, then you've essentially denied a player choice -- you've made it so nobody would ever want to run A and B at the same time.

Rewards and punishments may seem like they're giving people a choice. But a good gamer will follow every reward, and dodge every punishment. In essence, you may as well say "if you run X, you HAVE TO run Y", or "if you run A, you CAN'T run B". You've essentially denied choice, even though it remains technically open.

Ideologically, you have to shift your mind set to pluralism to have true game balance. Pluralism is reasonable in real life (e.g.: all religions have some good morals, all religions have done evil, there's some merits to different kinds of democracies) but only to a degree. In the game, though, slavery has to be an equally valid choice compared to wage labor -- just different. Communism and Capitalism has to seem as fun and free a choice as Chocolate or Vanilla. A communist democracy has to make sense. A pacifist police state has to make sense.

That's my short little rant.

 

[jdog5000]

Jdog's Revolution mod has gone a long way to provide the kind of features I wanted this mod to have, and that's why I've supported it (and criticized it) as much as I have.

It's been constructive criticism mostly ... and quite helpful.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I'm not talented enough to offer you anything more than moral support and a critical eye. So consider this my first endorsement of your project.

And now your first criticism ... be careful with the interdependent civics in terms of game balance. If X works best with Y, then you start to create a "one true path" where anyone who runs X should run Y too. If A and B undermine each other, then you've essentially denied a player choice -- you've made it so nobody would ever want to run A and B at the same time.

Rewards and punishments may seem like they're giving people a choice. But a good gamer will follow every reward, and dodge every punishment. In essence, you may as well say "if you run X, you HAVE TO run Y", or "if you run A, you CAN'T run B". You've essentially denied choice, even though it remains technically open.

Ideologically, you have to shift your mind set to pluralism to have true game balance. Pluralism is reasonable in real life (e.g.: all religions have some good morals, all religions have done evil, there's some merits to different kinds of democracies) but only to a degree. In the game, though, slavery has to be an equally valid choice compared to wage labor -- just different. Communism and Capitalism has to seem as fun and free a choice as Chocolate or Vanilla. A communist democracy has to make sense. A pacifist police state has to make sense.

That's my short little rant.

Well, I thought about this, and I also thought that if anybody would object, it would be you

How people actually use this new modcomp is up to them.... but for me, I do want to restrict certain civics from being used together. If I am to be accused of denying players the opportunity to make decisions, then so be it. But I also think that too few civic options and too many civics per option is just as restrictive.. this is particular true when you have different civics that are not mutually exclusive and you can only pick one of them.

But there is another possible use... you could use it to create two or more benefits from different civics, each one addressing a different game aspect... for example, you could get +25% culture from one civic and +2 XP from another which would allow different strengths depending on which you choose.

In short, I don't think that every single combination of civics should be equally strong... only that multiple routes of different groups of civics are equally viable. Indeed, there are already "inter-dependent civics" so to speak because there are benefits given from all the existing civics that are compounded with others to make certain combinations in certain intances far more profitable. And there are some civics that I never use at all, that might be strengthened by having them modify others.

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, there's definitely synergies between existing civics. Free Speech really works well with universal suffrage. Theocracy has a bit of a synergy with Vassalage, sometimes. So even those synergies can affect game balance in a way that ends up limiting choice. And it's your mod, so you should definitely prioritize how important player choice is compared to other considerations. Just wanted to be sure you were aware.

Truthfully, I think this is an opportunity to re-design the civics. Frankly, I think the entire Legal Civics column is just a garbage dump for civics they wanted to have but couldn't fit anywhere else. And it tends to create some of the more weird results because of its out-of-place nature.

By the way... the Nobility and Classes stuff sounds like the most interesting part of your mod, but also the most complex. I'd love to hear more about how you plan to develop that.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

By the way... the Nobility and Classes stuff sounds like the most interesting part of your mod, but also the most complex. I'd love to hear more about how you plan to develop that.

Yeah, this stuff has been modified in my mind since originally conceived basically as my knowledge of the code and realization of the limitations... I mean, a game designed solely around this level of interaction would look far different from civ, and I would have a hard time trying to cram all that goodness into a game that already covers a wide variety of issues and aspects of human history.

The framework for the diversified citizenry and classes are essentially already there in the form of the city "specialists". One of the things I'd started working on within the last few months is having it so that the kind of tiles worked would determine a city's specialists. So, for example, for every Farm tile worked, this would place a Farmer "specialist" hereafter renamed "citizen" in the city list. Working coastal tiles would produce Fishermen, etc. Anyway, most of these citizens would not provide any inherent effect like +1 Culture or +1 Hammers or anything like that but would instead simply be factored into certain demographic calculations...

Actually getting this to work is a fairly simple process although there isn't really just one master Specialist Count in the city, but rather a bunch of different ones for "free specialists" and "forced specialists", etc. and so its a matter of sorting that out and actuall sitting down and writing the code, but it's not terribly complicated.

One of the things which I have gotten working is a civic feature that sets all cities citizens to automated and they can't be turned off. This is intended for Free Market or Emancipation so that you can't just pick up a plumber and say "Now you're going to be a farmer!" So while I intend to have the clear value benefits be with the free market/free labor system, the advantage of a command economy will be that the player will have total control over it.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I was determined to get something done this weekend... here's something new:

 

[dh_epic]

The framework for the diversified citizenry and classes are essentially already there in the form of the city "specialists". One of the things I'd started working on within the last few months is having it so that the kind of tiles worked would determine a city's specialists. So, for example, for every Farm tile worked, this would place a Farmer "specialist" hereafter renamed "citizen" in the city list. Working coastal tiles would produce Fishermen, etc. Anyway, most of these citizens would not provide any inherent effect like +1 Culture or +1 Hammers or anything like that but would instead simply be factored into certain demographic calculations...

I think it's good that you have chosen to simplify this area of the game. I think you're butting your head up against the problem that society looks very different before and after industrialization. That's a tough problem. Having different class structures for each era is a historically precise solution, but strikes me as an easy and sloppy way out.

A certain amount of abstraction is feasible. Hopefully you can still get all the relevant groupings you desire.

Intellectuals: Size = Scientists * Total Research ... <-- this would abstractly include students
Military: Size = Units * XP
Clergy: Size = Priests * Total Religious Buildings
Merchants: Size = Merchants * Total Commerce ... <-- would abstractly include bankers, merchants...
Rulers: Size = Civics ... <-- represent both the nobility and the bureaucrats, since they serve similar functions in helping you maintain the status quo, and yet mutually exclude each other
Workers: Tiles * Units <-- what do you gain from pulling apart farmers, fishers, miners, laborers, slaves, and peasants? It depends. This warrants discussion.
Decay: Civics * Unhappiness (hopefully more factors) <-- represents anyone who is not contributing to your society. at a minimum, these are petty criminals. but it could also include high level corruption. if your society is on the brink of revolution, even an intellectual or merchant could turn outlaw in a sense.

What about engineers and artists?

I don't think Engineers translate well to any group you have. Frankly, I think this specialist should be renamed, and should be blurred in with commercial aspects in order to represent professionals/craftsmen/industrialists.

I suspect the Artists tie well into the intellectual community. They're not influential enough by themselves to need their own class, and are similarly contrarian enough to be grouped in with the intellectuals.​

I think you can accomplish a lot by abstracting pre-industrial and post-industrial concepts together. The differences wouldn't be by having different names, but having a few key effect-changing technologies, buildings, or civics.

For example, a pleased Ruling Class might generate a military bonus under feudalism, culture under hereditary rule, and happiness under bureaucracy. Or, your worker class would generate some unhappiness under slavery, and less unhappiness under serfdom. But once you discovered the assembly line, workers would start to back more specific changes.

Anyway, those are my (unsolicited) thoughts on factions.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I think it's good that you have chosen to simplify this area of the game. I think you're butting your head up against the problem that society looks very different before and after industrialization. That's a tough problem. Having different class structures for each era is a historically precise solution, but strikes me as an easy and sloppy way out.

A certain amount of abstraction is feasible. Hopefully you can still get all the relevant groupings you desire.

Intellectuals: Size = Scientists * Total Research ... <-- this would abstractly include students​

Military: Size = Units * XP​

Clergy: Size = Priests * Total Religious Buildings​

Merchants: Size = Merchants * Total Commerce ... <-- would abstractly include bankers, merchants...​

Rulers: Size = Civics ... <-- represent both the nobility and the bureaucrats, since they serve similar functions in helping you maintain the status quo, and yet mutually exclude each other​

Workers: Tiles * Units <-- what do you gain from pulling apart farmers, fishers, miners, laborers, slaves, and peasants? It depends. This warrants discussion.​

Decay: Civics * Unhappiness (hopefully more factors) <-- represents anyone who is not contributing to your society. at a minimum, these are petty criminals. but it could also include high level corruption. if your society is on the brink of revolution, even an intellectual or merchant could turn outlaw in a sense.​

What about engineers and artists?​

I don't think Engineers translate well to any group you have. Frankly, I think this specialist should be renamed, and should be blurred in with commercial aspects in order to represent professionals/craftsmen/industrialists.​

I suspect the Artists tie well into the intellectual community. They're not influential enough by themselves to need their own class, and are similarly contrarian enough to be grouped in with the intellectuals.​

I think you can accomplish a lot by abstracting pre-industrial and post-industrial concepts together. The differences wouldn't be by having different names, but having a few key effect-changing technologies, buildings, or civics.

For example, a pleased Ruling Class might generate a military bonus under feudalism, culture under hereditary rule, and happiness under bureaucracy. Or, your worker class would generate some unhappiness under slavery, and less unhappiness under serfdom. But once you discovered the assembly line, workers would start to back more specific changes.

Anyway, those are my (unsolicited) thoughts on factions.

Well, some of this is getting into the other area of internal politics: the Institutions.

Institutions is more the coding term than the game concept because in the game, these institutions will actually look and feel very different from each other. In the XML, you will be able to define different institutions and their functions.

Institutions can include things ranging from: Nobles, Political Parties, Government Assemblies (Parliament/Congress/etc.), Military Orders, Religious Schools, Criminal Organizations, Corporations, Guilds, Secret Police, etc. etc. And you can define how many of each you will have.. you must have at least one institution per civilization however: the player. Rather than try to code different institutions interactions with the player, I simply decided to make a dummy institution that represented the player, his dynasty and those things related to him.

The Institutions are sometimes branches of your government (if the modder wants to have a situation where branches of your own government might give you trouble) or they might be private... and in some cases, they can switch... political parties are a good example of this.

You can have multiples of different types of institutions in your civ, but you can only have 1 Assembly and 1 Player. The Assembly will appear when you adopt civics related to democracy and representation. It can stop you from declaring war, force you to make peace, or pressure a change in civics. The composition of the Assembly will change over time as your empire changes, and it may drift closer or farther away from you accordingly.

In addition to working to satisfy these institutions, they are also sometimes looking to undermine and potentially overthrow you. Each institution collects Power Points (including the player). Power Points are an abstraction for all the different aspects that go into making a group powerful (including money). I initially decided that having each institution with their own little treasuries, but then I decided against it... anyway, Power Points are spent to achieve certain objectives that ultimately work towards amassing even more power. In particular, the player can issue certain Edicts that will basically be like mini-civics that normally be only temporary. Edicts, however, in addition to maybe costing other things, cost Power Points. Think of it like political capital a politician can spend to try to get certain legislation passed and such.

Each institution will have attitudes towards all other institutions. By default, there is a base attitude set for each institution type for each institution type, but this will vary as the game continues. Each institution will also have preferred Civics and Edicts which usually mean the ones that give them the most Power Points each turn.

The institutions, when complete, will be the crown jewel in my mod... exactly how many kinds of institutions will be in it and how many of each will be allowed per player is still a matter of debate because I haven't actually coded it yet to see what number is fun and what number is unmanageable.

 

[dh_epic]

Sounds very interesting, and I hope you manage to strike that balance.

A word of caution, though... it's probably better to abstract the impact of democracy than implement a special assembly just for it. I just see it as unnecessary complexity. In a non-democratic situation, you have all kinds of interests trying to gain influence, but you ultimately have a lot more authority. In a democracy, they are given that influence.