Earth 2014

[Barbarian King]

I don't know why but after I've subscribed under the scenario and it has been downloaded by steam automatically my game doesn't recognize it and I can't check in into the mods to play it. It's simply not there. It's sad, I'd love to try this scenario, it looks really good to me

If the mod isn't showing up at all in your mods list after downloading from steam, it might simply be that Civ5 failed to unpack it. I've had a bit of trouble with other mods I've downloaded where for some reason or another Civ5 just doesn't unpack the .civ5mod file. This can be remedied by manually unpacking the file using 7zip or a similar program. Alternatively, follow my link in the OP to the CFC database, where I have a link to external hosting at Gamefront. The file there is just a regular windows zip file that can be directly extracted to the MODS folder.

This isn't a bug in anything you've done. The game core DLL doesn't initialize its data structures for trade routes until the end of the first turn (assumes you can't get a trade route on turn 0, since you don't have a city, and none of the Firaxis scenarios give you a turn 0 trade unit). You can fix it with a DLL edit, which is something I did in my SiegeMod pack/scenario.

Thanks, that's good to know. I was wondering what exactly was causing that. I've since avoided that issue by removing initial trade units and increasing starting gold to compensate, since I don't want to start messing around with dll modding just yet.

 

[Krajzen]

Sir, this scenario is GENIUS.

To be honest, I was really astonished. I have ridiculously high requirements when speaking about mod scenarios (perfect balance! perfect balance!) and almost all mod scenarios I have tried either left me disappointed or 'nice mod, but not enough cool for me'

And this one - I was sceptical especially about city space, I launched it only for a while to look at it (and delete?) and I sunk in Germany gameplay

I don't know how did you manage to do that, but this scenario IMHO PERFECTLY reflects year 2014. New units are cool, new leaders are cool (Putin the Terrible ), new abilities are useful, and the game is very immersive. 10/10 from myself - it is balanced, offers epic game, lacks stupid gamebreaking mistakes (like lack of resources, underdeveloped cities, not enough or way too much units etc. - to be honest I am still shocked that you managed to create scenario, in which cities with very few tiles can be developed)

I am playing as Germany - I chose this country because I was interested how did you manage to balance 'not enough place in Europe' and 'extremely tiny European countries vs big empires'.
Current world situation, in 2019:
- in Americas almost nothing interesting happened, only few chaotic wars of Argentina vs world and Brasil vs world
- in Europe I am reflecting German domination: 'whole European Union is dominated by me' (Sweden, Spain, Italy, Poland and Ucraine city states are my allies, France and UK are my friends)
- in the Middle East there is currently cold war, and in one point Turkey conquered Israel. Europe and USA declared war on Turkey, my forces started siege of Istanbul, and I managed to negotiate peace for resurrecting Israel (lol, as Germany ) whole war was surprisingly 'realistic'
- in Africa, Egypt conquered whole Nigeria (!) and Libya, so we have little Caliphate here... also, all city states here are allied with various world powers, so we have african style - crazy guerilla wars
- Pakistan was against whole world, nuked this poor western Chinese city, but then after very hard war was entirely conquered by India
- on other hand, China conquered Korea
- but the biggest star here is Vladimir Putin. He was harrasing Poland and Ucraine (lol) until I allied with them, currently we have pretty dangerous Cold War in Europe and two armies are amassed along the polish/Ucrainian border (lol). In the meantime, Putin conquered Mongolia and north Japanese city (lol, Kuril Islands conflict!).

I love the fact, that nation sizes here are 'realistic' - I cannot have as high GDP as USA while playing Germany because of very tiny country and population, but I amassed insane industrial power (Hanse + Fusion Reactors -> let's invest in high tech and other countries!) and Germany is fourth production world power (after China, India and USA). Also, I am the master of city states, leader of space race, world congress and I managed to embargo Russia On the other hand, there are many challenges in front of me - I have to worry about India/China/American economic superpower, Russian nuclear arsenal, Egyptian ambitions...

Really awesome scenario.

 

[Barbarian King]

@Krajzen
Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the scenario. I consulted Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook when creating my scenario to try and get relative strengths right, and I'm happy to hear that others think the end result works well.

@ Anyone who has tried the Korean fix
Does it work?

 

[Tigranes]

@ Anyone who has tried the Korean fix
Does it work?[/QUOTE]

As always some things did work but others did not.

I was finally able to select S. Korea. On the second turn I got this guy knocking my door So we definetely do have 2 Koreas in game.


However, as you can see here, only second part of S.Korean UA work. I would even suggest to give S.Korea 1 science for 1 food produced. Right now it takes 67 turns to research clonning, and in absence of corporation S. Korea should rock in something. N. Korean capital still appears as TXT_...

What's up with human player always being able to propose something in UN? Is that a standard GNW feature? Also why Europe is hostile with me? And N. Korea denouncing Iran?

 

[Barbarian King]

As always some things did work but others did not.

I was finally able to select S. Korea. On the second turn I got this guy knocking my door So we definetely do have 2 Koreas in game.


However, as you can see here, only second part of S.Korean UA work. I would even suggest to give S.Korea 1 science for 1 food produced. Right now it takes 67 turns to research clonning, and in absence of corporation S. Korea should rock in something. N. Korean capital still appears as TXT_...

What's up with human player always being able to propose something in UN? Is that a standard GNW feature? Also why Europe is hostile with me? And N. Korea denouncing Iran?

Alright, hopefully this new file will be the one that works. Once the UA gets working, Korea will produce more science. Plus, when you set up trade routes you'll get even more science. Also, no one is supposed to be researching too fast, since most civs only have about 7 techs to research before hitting Future Tech. As for the UN, the human player gets to be the leader simply because it is a late start. On full games, whoever gets printing press and discovers everyone else first starts as the leader, and there are several votes to change the leader. I have no idea why Europe is hostile, since they are the same ideology as South Korea and should therefor be friendly. North Korea probably denounced Iran because they are different ideologies, and because I set Kim to be an aggressive, unfriendly ruler. This should result in erratic behavior, which I thought would be appropriate. For those interested, here are Kim's trait settings:

Spoiler :

<VictoryCompetitiveness>5</VictoryCompetitiveness>
<WonderCompetitiveness>5</WonderCompetitiveness>
<MinorCivCompetitiveness>5</MinorCivCompetitiveness>
<Boldness>8</Boldness>
<DiploBalance>3</DiploBalance>
<WarmongerHate>0</WarmongerHate>
<DenounceWillingness>8</DenounceWillingness>
<DoFWillingness>3</DoFWillingness>
<Loyalty>3</Loyalty>
<Neediness>8</Neediness>
<Forgiveness>3</Forgiveness>
<Chattiness>5</Chattiness>
<Meanness>8</Meanness>

EDIT: Outdated attachment removed

 

[Tigranes]

No, sorry. UA did not appear. But N.Korean capital finally looks right!

Can you please edit the spelling of Phoenix on Huge 2 map.

Brasilia still is the Holy city for Catholicism .

There is no reason why Argentina should have more cities than Mexico. You could have deleted at least 1 Argentinian city.

Singapore is greatly missed on this map. She is the most striking example of a modern city-state.

Can you please rename Hubble telescope into it's successor James Webb's Telescope? 6 times stronger than Hubble it will be deployed in 2018 opening new page in Astronomy.

 

[Barbarian King]

No, sorry. UA did not appear. But N.Korean capital finally looks right!

Can you please edit the spelling of Phoenix on Huge 2 map.

Brasilia still is the Holy city for Catholicism .

There is no reason why Argentina should have more cities than Mexico. You could have deleted at least 1 Argentinian city.

Singapore is greatly missed on this map. She is the most striking example of a modern city-state.

Can you please rename Hubble telescope into it's successor James Webb's Telescope? 6 times stronger than Hubble it will be deployed in 2018 opening new page in Astronomy.

That's disappointing that the UA still isn't working. I'll see what I can do. At least something worked.

I will definitely fix that misspelling.

Brasilia is the holy city for Catholicism (and Houston for Protestantism) not because I think they have any special status as a city but because I wanted to give those religions to new world powers, since in the present time they are more religious than the Europeans.

I'll go look at the maps again. Mexico does have more cities on the huge map (I think).

While Singapore would be great to have as a city state, there just isn't room to place it on the map. Because of a bug with the city states, they have to be founded after the map loads and therefor have to follow the city spacing rules.

I like this idea. I didn't give anyone the Hubble, so it would make more sense to give it the name of a space telescope that hasn't been built yet.

 

[King Coltrane]

This really is a great scenario. Best for Civ5, I'd say.

I started a game as russia on one of the huge maps. after realizing that the city states only had defenses of 14-18 on the beginning turn, i decided to conquer Almaty, Ulaanbaatar, Warsaw, Stockholm, and (appropriately) Kiev. all it took was a unit that could reach and the cities were mine. however, the next turn everyone denounced me and i decided to quit for the moment.

instead, I played a great game as the US. Liberty finisher for GE which gave me a very early hubble telescope, which in turn helped my science a lot. from there i really just did infrastructure for a long time. i forgot to set up trade routes, but once i did, i combined it with treaty organization to steadily get city state allies. i was developing well when china decided to take out S Korea (this was the standard map). Korea was holding off the land forces (while i effectively set up a naval shield), and things seemed steady enough that I wouldnt have to get involved. but then china managed 2 turns of HEAVY bombardment and reduced seoul to the point that it would fall to the next unit's assault. so i declared war to protect them and ended up leading an alliance (mainly me and india) to take china out. i took hong kong, shanghai, beijing, urumqi, and got lhasa in the peace deal, while india got chongqing. then, with my main CS competitor effectively out of the running, i allied with all remaining city states, pushed through the IMF, ISS, and worlds fair, and won a diplo victory pretty early. but again, i found this whole game tremendously fun.

well done!

a few issues: i might redo some of the uniques for each civ. in this case, the +1 vision for units is GREAT for the US, but the +1 culture seems underwhelming. maybe its because its sorta hidden (most culture buildings are prebuilt) but something else might be good... though its hard to think about too many positive things about the US right now haha.

also, stealth bombers are currently much worse than jet bombers. the strength difference isnt much, the range difference is negligible, and the jet bomber is cheaper and comes with 2 promotions... something should change about the stealth bomber. to that end, i think the US should not have the F-15 as its fighter. the F-22 (or 35, or 18/A, etc) would be better options.

you may also want to redo some of the policies to make them more appropriate for this era. having to chose landsknechts feels pretty wrong haha.

but again, wonderful job! thank you!

 

[Krajzen]

Yeah, awesome scenario

Although I cannot imagine playing as USA, so easy and booring xD

I have yet to try playing as:
- Mexico, and liberating Texas & California from US occupation
- Nigeria and conquering the entire Africa
- Russia and recreating USSR
- China and taking Siberia+Mongolia+Korea
- Iran/Turkey and creating muslim empire

 

[King Coltrane]

nah, the US was fun! easy, yes, but still fun! i personally enjoy carrier task-force style police actions (in games) so it was pretty cool.

as for recreating the USSR, it can literally be accomplished on turn one. not that its necessarily advisable, but its easy to do.

im playing a germany game now. that hanse kicks ass (as in the main game too)

 

[Barbarian King]

@King Coltrane
Glad to hear you're enjoying my scenario, and thanks for your feedback. To address the issues you raised:
-The +1 Culture for the US is my replacement for their discount on purchasing tiles (which would have limited use in a world where all land is already claimed). It may seem underwhelming at first blush, but since it is +1 Culture per culture building it really adds up. With all four culture buildings in your city you are making more extra culture than many wonders provide, and the bonus applies to every city. I thought it would be appropriate by making it difficult for others to obtain cultural influence over the US, since I think this is realistic.
-I'll think about upping the strength of the stealth bomber. Their main advantage is that they are hardly damaged when intercepted, so you don't need to worry about clearing the area with your fighters. The F-22 would be a better fighter to use, but I couldn't find any 3D unit models for that aircraft. As more modern unit 3D models are created/become available I will update my mod.
-I will definitely fix the landsknechts thing. Do you think marines, paratroopers, or mobile infantry would be a better substitute? EDIT: Actually, I think I'll use the foreign legion as a replacement.
-I also might provide the city states with some starting units, to make it more difficult to conquer them on the first turn.

@Krajzen
Those sound like interesting ideas. You'll have to tell me how well Mexico stands up to the US when you try a Reconquista.

 

[King Coltrane]

@Barbarian King:

I retract what i said about the US. I played a game as germany today (very fun) and felt the US's UA working BIG TIME. I didn't realize it for a while, but then i got a notification about the US becoming influential over another civ. i checked it out and saw that they were influential over FOURTEEN CIVS ALREADY! and i only had 36 turns before they would win. needless to say, i changed gears and squeezed out my diplo victory, but you're right. it is felt by everyone else WAY more than i realized. my mistake!

as for 3d unit models, i get your point. glad you'll keep updating this!

about the stealth bombers. you know, i saw that and tried it, but to be honest, less damage done doesnt make all that big of a difference. if i have 6-10 jet bombers (hell, even just 4 or 5), that can be promoted to siege 3 or even logistics right off the bat, with the damage they do (along with minimal ground forces and potential naval support) i can end most wars within a few turns. then i can rest. id rather have more (cause of cost) higher promoted units for my air force. plus i havent seen the AI do a lot of interception against me. for stealth, maybe give them infinite range? or a higher strength? something to make me actually build them.

foreign legion is a good all as a replacement for those guys. but what about in general for other policies? im trying to think of other specific examples, but the utility of many ia undercut by the modern scope. OH! one example: cheaper settlers and a free settler (in liberty)? useless here.

 

[LoneRebel]

Yeah, the city-states should have armies as well, that also accurately reflect their real-world militaries (just as with the major civs).

For CS the problem isn't just the lack of a military, but also the fact that their defense is so low, making conquest of CS very easy. Is this because of the problem you mentioned that CS have to be founded after the game has started? Can you think of any way to fix it?

I am so definitely going to download this mod once I get BNW.

 

[MaxRiga]

I have enjoyed playing this great scenario-mod. There are my 5 cents:

1- Since it's actually mod and you can change some in game options I'd advise you to reduce culture grow of borders. If borders don't grow-expend it won't take part of oceans and seas which is very serious for some countries. For example in my game USA has locked Canadian Vancouver. I've seen the same problem in Indian ocean and Europe.

2- You might want remove some cities in 3rd party countries such as Brasil, Australia, Canada and Argentina. The cities are over powering these countries compare to the general balance of the world and reduce the game speed which is the most beautiful thing about small scenarios.

3- Russia ... brr, It definitely needs a bit more of luxury resources. Salt and copper, may be? Also, The original chopper was MI24 which is Russian. There is no need to replace it with MI8 which is less powerful then MI24. Akula sub ( the one you have 3d unit in ) doesn't carry nuclear weapon.

 

[Tigranes]

-I will definitely fix the landsknechts thing. Do you think marines, paratroopers, or mobile infantry would be a better substitute? EDIT: Actually, I think I'll use the foreign legion as a replacement.

I really miss special forces and terrorists. Can Civ 5 handle some of those?

 

[Carloso]

Ah... why is Ireland part of England?

 

[mehuli]

some thoughts (no idea if this are modding wise possible..)

1. Gib citystates armies that would reflect their actual strength. This would make for example anshlussing europe harder (getting tired of your blitzkrieg putin + merkel)
http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp
+ all NATO countries (city states and civs) allied with each other in the beginning (same goes for other military alliances)


2. USA should be on negative a gazillion gpt (reflecting the huuge US debt , 103 % of GDP)
This would require USA to focus on getting it's economy back on track in the beginning of the game, making them less powerful. Maybe thru a higher unit maintanance (they have a large professional army that gets paid all the time, unlike many other countries with military duty)



btw: A really fun mod to play, thank you for this

 

[Barbarian King]

@King Coltrane
In my newest update (v2) I have increased everyone's starting culture to slow down the US's inevitable cultural victory a little. I have also updated the two policies you mentioned. I did not update the Stealth Bomber yet. It already has a slightly longer range and stronger attack, but I'll give it some more thought to consider if that balances with the high cost.

@LoneRebel
In my newest update (released yesterday), I gave all the city states a couple of units to help them defend a bit better. The weak city defense is a cause of founding the city states on the first turn (I think), but the strength quickly increases on the following turn to be similar to the player cities on the map.

@MaxRiga
Good to hear you got it working and enjoyed it. Thanks for the feedback. To address your points:
1. That's a good idea. I'll see if I can do that for the next release.
2. I'll consider that, especially for the Standard sized maps.
3. I think Russia already has enough luxuries to get balanced happiness in the first turn or two with a little work. I'll check that to be sure. The helicopter gunship having the model of the MI24 explains why I couldn't find any such models in the database. I'll fix this next release. The Akula actually can be equipped to carry nuclear missiles (at least according to Wikipedia), so even if it doesn't in practice it has the potential and I think makes a reasonable replacement for the nuclear submarine.

@Tigranes
I would like to add those, but I don't know if it is possible. I did not add those to my Civ4 mod until I had already become more familiarized with the modding capabilities of that game. I'm continually learning more about what can be done in Civ5 modding, and if I find out it is possible to add such units I will.

@Carloso
Not every nation can be represented, and as I felt Europe already had enough city states I decided to just give the island to the UK represented by the city of Belfast.

@mehuli
Thanks for your feedback. To address your suggestions:
1. I'll consider giving the city states proportionately sized armies in a future update. The playable NATO civs have already been given defensive pacts, but since a city state can only be allied with one civ at a time it would not be possible to represent their participation in the alliance.
2. It would be impossible to accurately represent all of the economic intricacies in civ, so I will just leave things as is. The US does have a debt problem, but they also have a massive GDP that is twice the size of second place. I don't know how I would even model a country being the strongest economic power on the globe while having a looming (but not immediate) debt crisis.

 

[Carloso]

Ah I see. Good mod. I'm playing as Russia invading Ukraine.

 

[MaxRiga]

I'll fix this next release. The Akula actually can be equipped to carry nuclear missiles (at least according to Wikipedia), so even if it doesn't in practice it has the potential and I think makes a reasonable replacement for the nuclear submarine.

There are two Akula subs ( some confusion with translations I guess ). One is named by NATO as Akula and another calls Akula by Russians but classified as Typhoon for NATO. American Akula ( your 3d model ) carriers no nukes. Typhoon carries huge amount of nukes ))

Oh, and another thing is may be it's reasonable to remove some old units with the modern one? Fir example Russia doesn't need Cossacks for this scenario. It could be replaced with something else.