Era of Miracles fantasy mod - developer diary

[PawelS]

Sorry for lack of posts lately (I will tell you about the reason later). But I'm still working on the mod concepts a bit, and here is my latest idea:

There shouldn't be any luxury resources in the game.

Why? Because I think trading luxuries is a tedious and needless element of the game. Checking what other civs have to trade isn't very exciting for me (the same with Research Agreements, it's one of the reasons why they will be removed in this mod as well).

The resources that are luxuries in the normal game will be still present in the mod, but they will be bonus resources. There will be special buildings that can be built only near them (things like Mint, Monastery, Circus, Forge and some new ones, like Jeweler, Grocer and Textile Mill), and some of them will give you happiness. I think it's a better solution that removes unnecessary micromanagement from the game, but I want to hear your opinions, there are examples in this thread where I changed my mind after discussion.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't think luxury trading is a particular hassle. I like that there are advantages to being the first to contact another continent or to exploring your own continent, I like that there are disadvantages to pissing off all the other AIs through warmongering (so they won't trade with you, or won't trade at a good rate). I like that you have incentives to seek out luxuries that are different than the ones you already have (which won't be the case if they just enable a +happiness building, because you could build the same building in other cities). I also like that you have some good solid reasons to engage in diplomacy, rather than just building your own stuff. And I like that there is some easy happiness available in the early game to enable expansion as a feasible strategy if you strive for it. I like that there is a significant reward for early prioritization of techs that grant whatever luxuries you start near.

It is perfectly possible to reduce the amount of gold an AI will trade for a luxury (which is the real balance problem with luxury trading) without removing the mechanic entirely; Thal's VEM mod does something here, though I still think there needs to be a way to make it so that the AI will value them less in the early game and more in the late-game.

So, I would vote for keeping with the vanilla mechanic and modifying it, rather than removing it entirely.

Removing research agreements is fine. They're pretty broken in vanilla anyway.

 

[Pazyryk]

I'm going to counter Ahriman as usual by giving thumbs up to all the radical changes.

OK, but seriously. Removing RAs . Removing luxuries . One thing I know from playing excessively a year ago (and following the strategy forum so I could beat Deity reliably) is that high-level players rely a lot on selling every resource they can (even the last one in most cases) mostly just to get RAs. It's one of those metagame things: it has nothing to do with good strategic thinking or being a great city planner/developer; it's just a repetitive step that high-level players do that the AI doesn't (thus requiring ever higher handicap bonuses for the AI). Because of this, resources have come to feel like pure tedium to me in Civ5. However, I do remember when playing Civ4 that there was always an excitement finding a new civ...and a big part of that was seeing if they had any resources to trade...

 

[Ahriman]

high-level players rely a lot on selling every resource they can (even the last one in most cases) mostly just to get RAs.

Right, hence my comment; the problem is the amount of gold you get for selling resources, particularly in the early game. You can fix the main balance problem without removing the mechanic entirely.

However, I do remember when playing Civ4 that there was always an excitement finding a new civ...and a big part of that was seeing if they had any resources to trade..

Agreed, I think this is what we want to retain.

 

[PawelS]

I generally don't like checking the diplomacy screen periodically to check if the other civs have luxuries or RAs to offer, this is the main reason of removing them. Selling luxuries is another reason - I think it's a "cheap" strategy, and I never use it myself. I only trade luxuries for luxuries, but even this is rather an uninteresting aspect of the game for me.

I agree that it removes some of the reasons to keep good relations with other civs, but I don't like the Civ5 diplomacy system too much (not that I liked it in any of the previous Civ games , if you want a good diplomacy system play the Europa Universalis series and other Paradox games). My intention for this mod is to make it focused on "building your own stuff" rather than on diplomacy, diplomacy should be used only if you really want things like open borders or defensive pact from the AI, normally you shouldn't bother with it at all. It's not a kind of mod that expands the game in all aspects, it expands some things, but simplifies some other ones.

Also, I'm going to change the resource placement methods, so (former) luxuries aren't placed only in one "region", they will be distributed randomly on the map (based on terrain and features), so you will have different resources (and buildings based on them) available in different cities, now you often have the same luxuries in many cities, which makes city development less interesting.

I like that there are disadvantages to pissing off all the other AIs through warmongering

There are other disadvantages of warmongering in this mod, particularly the happiness system which doesn't allow you to have too many cities (I know it's controversial, but it's one of the founding features of the mod, so I will never drop it). Of course you can be a warmonger and raze everything except capitals to the ground, it's not how I like to play the game, but it will be possible.

I like that you have incentives to seek out luxuries that are different than the ones you already have

Hmm, maybe there should be some National Wonders available that require particular resources...

One thing I know from playing excessively a year ago (and following the strategy forum so I could beat Deity reliably) is that high-level players rely a lot on selling every resource they can (even the last one in most cases) mostly just to get RAs.

Without RAs they can use the gold to buy other things... And I don't want the player to have too much gold to buy things, it will remove the need to have high production to build units and buildings, and high culture to get tiles (and to fulfill quests to get minor civ friendship). Of course the amount of gold you get from the AI can be reduced, but, as Pazyryk suggested, I prefer radical changes

(Lately I'm working on the units and promotions for the mod, I'll tell you about some of my ideas soon.)

 

[Ahriman]

I generally don't like checking the diplomacy screen periodically to check if the other civs have luxuries or RAs to offer

This seems like a pretty weak reason. If you don't want to trade your luxuries, don't do so. I don't see what is any more gamey about managing resource trades than managing unit or building construction.

diplomacy should be used only if you really want things like open borders or defensive pact from the AI, normally you shouldn't bother with it at all

I think that is a highly unfortunate design goal, in that it removes a big chunk of the game.

Also, I'm going to change the resource placement methods, so (former) luxuries aren't placed only in one "region", they will be distributed randomly on the map

I think this will make the world feel much less interesting. The current zone system makes the regions feel different, it encourages a farflung empire or trading, it makes exploration more interesting and to me at least makes the world feel more "real".
I also don't think this is feasible; the diplomacy system is hardwired into too many Civ5 mechanics.

There are other disadvantages of warmongering in this mod, particularly the happiness system which doesn't allow you to have too many cities

That isn't a disadvantage from warmongering, it is a disadvantage from having lots of cities, either through conquest or from building. You're forcing players into a "Tall" empire strategy, instead of giving some choice between wide, tall or conquest.
A diplomacy penalty is different from a city from taking cities; a diplomacy penalty means that for example you want to honor your agreements and are penalized for acting like a jackass.

And I don't want the player to have too much gold to buy things

I also think that de-emphasizing gold is a bad design decision - and that it would be very hard to get it to work. Gold is central to the economy of Civ5, and Civ5-style gold (less efficient than hammers but more flexible) is one of the biggest advances made in moving Civ4->5.

I really recommend that you focus on getting a playable alpha up with some of the units, techs, buildings etc. but using core mechanics. *then* you can tinker with and test the effects of a design that makes radical changes. If you just start with all the radical changes, you risk breaking the game engine and the AI performance, and not knowing which changes caused the break. The AI is designed to play the game with the core mechanics.

Obviously, as always, it's your mod though, so you should do what you like.

 

[PawelS]

This seems like a pretty weak reason. If you don't want to trade your luxuries, don't do so. I don't see what is any more gamey about managing resource trades than managing unit or building construction.

Well, I just don't like doing things that I should remember about. If a popup comes, asking me what to build in my city, it's OK. But if I should remember to look at things that other civs offer every several turns, it's bad. And I don't want to refrain from doing things that are beneficial for me, so it's better to remove this possibility from the game.

I think that is a highly unfortunate design goal, in that it removes a big chunk of the game.

A big, and not very good chunk, in my opinion. "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

I think this will make the world feel much less interesting. The current zone system makes the regions feel different, it encourages a farflung empire or trading, it makes exploration more interesting and to me at least makes the world feel more "real".
I also don't think this is feasible; the diplomacy system is hardwired into too many Civ5 mechanics.

I'm not going to drop the entire diplomacy system, only some parts of it that I don't like. About the regions - I agree that the base game resource distribution makes them feel different, but for me it's more important to make the player's cities more different. It's not good when the player won't see most of the resources during the entire game, and won't be able to construct the buildings associated with them.

Also I don't like the city states always having one luxury, this will be removed in the mod (and, as I mentioned earlier, city states will become minor civs with multiple cities).

That isn't a disadvantage from warmongering, it is a disadvantage from having lots of cities, either through conquest or from building. You're forcing players into a "Tall" empire strategy, instead of giving some choice between wide, tall or conquest.
A diplomacy penalty is different from a city from taking cities; a diplomacy penalty means that for example you want to honor your agreements and are penalized for acting like a jackass.

Well, having lots of cities is usually the effect of warmongering About "tall" and "wide" - as I wrote earlier in this thread, population will still cause unhappiness, so this choice will be still in the game, but not in the drastic form of it as in the base game (where you can have 2 size 20 cities or 20 size 2 cities, or something like that). I'm just going to remove the big disproportion between unhappiness per city and unhappiness per population, in vanilla a city of size 3 produces the same unhappiness from city and population, but the 3 unhappiness per city can be reduced by many per-city bonuses from things like policies and buildings, so practically the only important factor that affects happiness is population. This is bad because when you found several cities and let them grow, which seems a natural thing to do, you'll run into unhappiness quickly.

In my mod this equality occurs at size 20. But still, if you have very large cities, you'll have less of them, so sometimes it's good to settle in locations that have less food, but give other benefits instead. So in the mod there will be a "mild" version of the tall vs wide dilemma.

The diplomatic penalty will be still in place, it will affect the chance that the AI will declare war on you, accept open borders, and so on. Also I think it would be nice to have some mutual economic/scientific/cultural etc. benefits from Declaration of Friendship, it should be possible to do (and IIRC there is already a mod that does something like that).

I also think that de-emphasizing gold is a bad design decision - and that it would be very hard to get it to work. Gold is central to the economy of Civ5, and Civ5-style gold (less efficient than hammers but more flexible) is one of the biggest advances made in moving Civ4->5.

Gold is very hard to balance, it's easy to make changes that put the player on a permanent deficit or make it go through the roof (in Civ4 it's not a problem because of the sliders). I'll make all changes related to gold very carefully, and will make adjustments to ensure that typically you'll get the desired balance (a small surplus). Of course if you emphasize gold in your playing style, or pick a civ that has gold-related bonuses, you'll have some more to spend.

I really recommend that you focus on getting a playable alpha up with some of the units, techs, buildings etc. but using core mechanics. *then* you can tinker with and test the effects of a design that makes radical changes. If you just start with all the radical changes, you risk breaking the game engine and the AI performance, and not knowing which changes caused the break. The AI is designed to play the game with the core mechanics.

What would be the purpose of such version? Testing it will tell nothing about the behavior of the final version, and may give false impressions about the mod to those who play it. You're right that some of my changes may break the AI, but I think I'll be able to identify them.

Obviously, as always, it's your mod though, so you should do what you like.

I will. I'm open for good ideas about nice things that can be done in the mod, but as you can see above, I'm quite stubborn when it comes to my basic design decisions. So, if you propose a new way of doing things that serves the same purpose as the changes I intended, but in a better way, I'll do it. But if you tell me to do things like in the vanilla game, I won't like it... But still, I hope you won't get angry and will still post in this thread, I want to hear your opinions even if I don't follow them...

 

[Ahriman]

I'll certainly check in on occasion and post some thoughts, I'm not offended if you don't adopt them, you have to work with your own design vision. But just keep in mind that mechanic changes can have unintended consequences!

 

[PawelS]

I will, although it seems my changes are nothing compared to Pazyryk's mod...

 

[PawelS]

Inspired by Pazyryk's latest posts in his mod's thread, I decided to reveal the social policy trees in my mod.

There are 10 policy trees, each with 9 policies, not counting opener and finisher. There are 5 pairs, every tree in a pair excludes the other one. The first two are based on Pazyryk's ideas (my earlier plans were a bit different), I hope he doesn't mind that I'm using his ideas in my mod... These first two trees are available from game start, the other ones require specific technologies to be unlocked. The details about specific policies aren't determined yet, so I just post the tree names and their general usage.


1. Development - practical things needed to organize your growing civilization - related to things like farming, workers, and fighting barbarians.

2. Naturalism - for those who want to live "in harmony with nature" - bonuses from Forests, Jungles, faster healing, better recon and archery units...


3. Craftsmanship - bonuses for production and workers, some policies also strengthen land military units by providing better weapons and armor.

4. Seamanship - for those who want to rule the seas, bonuses for naval units, better yields from coastal cities and sea resources.


5. Wealth - things related to gold (including military effects like cheaper unit purchasing and gold from kills).

6. Wisdom - things related to research and magic.


7. Freedom - mainly related to culture, but also some other things, like a combat bonus in friendly territory.

8. Domination - better control over the society, bonuses for government buildings and happiness, slavery etc.


9. Order - things related to religion, defensive bonuses.

10. Chaos - offensive bonuses as well as some other effects (I'm thinking about things like more science from captured cities, due to experiments on other races).


I didn't want to create one "military tree" like Honor in the base game, effects related to the military should be distributed between different trees. I need your opinions and ideas, for example I'm not sure if making Craftsmanship and Seamanship mutually exclusive is a good idea...

 

[Pazyryk]

One of Kael's suggestions that I have taken to heart is to avoid patterns and break symmetries wherever possible (or something along those lines). Or the way I think of it is that it is good to have some patterns but then to violate them here and there. It's kind of like music. The brain likes to have some expectation but if things follow too predictably, then it loses interest. I only mention this here to point out that you can break your own pairwise organization, if you need to.

Edit: Naturalism, Naturism, etc., have an interesting alternative meaning. I had something similar, then changed to primalism, then something else entirely...

 

[Ahriman]

I think it sounds interesting and workable.

I would think seamanship should ideally boost coastal trade somehow, but maybe that is best modeled with say extra gold from coastal city buildings.

I think cheaper military units and gold from kills don't really fit well in wealth, but it's probably fine.

I'd probably keep away from making craftsmanship and seamanship exclusive, and I'm not sure if Wealth and Wisdom need to be exclusive either. I think if you make too many things exclusive, you risk being too prescriptive. I also think it is interesting where you have a mix of exclusive and non-exclusive policies, where the exclusive trees might be slightly more powerful or specialized.

I'd say that a bit more work might need to go into Order and Chaos; "defensive" and "offensive" bonuses aren't necessarily very interesting, and I could imagine that Chaos could also be about religion - worship of Chaos gods, that sort of thing.

But I think the most important thing to think about is to have the trees work with playstyle, not just type of bonuses. I think it needs to be the case that different trees encourage you to play in different ways. That is the problem of mixing in military with non-military bonuses; if wealth gives you more gold no matter what you do, then it doesn't really change your playstyle.

I guess though it is possible to do some of this with different sides of the tree; the left side of Wealth might give peaceful bonuses (merchant-trader flavor) while the right side gives warlike bonuses (mercenary raider flavor).
Maybe you could try to do this for a lot of the trees; have different flavor in mind for the different sides of the trees.

So, seamanship might make you favor a coastal cities (this will likely become even more feasible with the expansion, which seems to have melee ships that can conquer cities, and hopefully improved naval AI). Development vs naturalism will change the type of improvements you build.

But how will craftsmanship make you play differently? It's worth going through this for each tree and thinking about what kind of approach they would encourage.

Also, great to see you're still making progress, I'm excited to see an early build.

 

[PawelS]

One of Kael's suggestions that I have taken to heart is to avoid patterns and break symmetries wherever possible (or something along those lines). Or the way I think of it is that it is good to have some patterns but then to violate them here and there. It's kind of like music. The brain likes to have some expectation but if things follow too predictably, then it loses interest. I only mention this here to point out that you can break your own pairwise organization, if you need to.

You're right, I don't like patterns either. The current version is symmetrical, but probably I'll break the symmetry later (analogically to symmetry breaking in physics ).

Edit: Naturalism, Naturism, etc., have an interesting alternative meaning. I had something similar, then changed to primalism, then something else entirely...

Maybe I'll just call it "Nature"...

I would think seamanship should ideally boost coastal trade somehow, but maybe that is best modeled with say extra gold from coastal city buildings.

Yes, I'm going to make it something like this, as well as extra production in coastal cities, like one of the policies in base Civ5.

I'd probably keep away from making craftsmanship and seamanship exclusive, and I'm not sure if Wealth and Wisdom need to be exclusive either. I think if you make too many things exclusive, you risk being too prescriptive. I also think it is interesting where you have a mix of exclusive and non-exclusive policies, where the exclusive trees might be slightly more powerful or specialized.

You're right, but I'm not sure if Craftsmanship should be something that everyone can have regardless of other policies. Perhaps Nature should exclude it in addition to Development.

Seamanship, Wealth and Wisdom can be non-exclusive.

I'd say that a bit more work might need to go into Order and Chaos; "defensive" and "offensive" bonuses aren't necessarily very interesting, and I could imagine that Chaos could also be about religion - worship of Chaos gods, that sort of thing.

I have some more detailed plans about the specific policies, but they're still in the works for now, so I only used the general terms like "offensive" and "defensive". The final effect will hopefully be more interesting than just giving offensive and defensive bonuses to units, as every policy should have a different effect.

Religion is a complicated matter, as I'm not sure yet how (and if) I will use the religion mechanics from the expansion.

But I think the most important thing to think about is to have the trees work with playstyle, not just type of bonuses. I think it needs to be the case that different trees encourage you to play in different ways. That is the problem of mixing in military with non-military bonuses; if wealth gives you more gold no matter what you do, then it doesn't really change your playstyle.

It's worth going through this for each tree and thinking about what kind of approach they would encourage.

OK, here are my thoughts about this matter:

Development - focus on agriculture and population growth.
Nature - keeping more Forests and Jungles, lower population but you get some other bonuses instead.
Craftsmanship - builder playstyle, focus on founding cities near production resources (the "Content Workforce" policy will give you extra happiness from buildings that depend on local resources - Forge, Stone Works, Carpenter).
Seamanship - focus on coastal cities and naval power.
Wealth - you don't have to care that much about things like cultural territorial expansion, high production and minor civ relations, because when you need something, you can just buy it.
Wisdom - technology focus, you have less units (if you don't focus on gold or production) but their quality is better (one of the policies will give you extra XP from combat).
Freedom - culture and specialist focus (the policy that gives you less unhappiness from specialists will be probably there, also things like culture from specialists).
Domination - you can have more cities due to higher happiness bonuses than in other trees.
Order - defensive style, protecting your empire against invaders, priest units.
Chaos - conquest, razing, pillaging and so on.

I guess though it is possible to do some of this with different sides of the tree; the left side of Wealth might give peaceful bonuses (merchant-trader flavor) while the right side gives warlike bonuses (mercenary raider flavor).
Maybe you could try to do this for a lot of the trees; have different flavor in mind for the different sides of the trees.

I will do it, although it won't matter much as usually you will want to get all the policies in the tree eventually to get the finisher bonus. But of course you can get a few policies from one tree, a few from another and so on, especially in mid-game.

Also, great to see you're still making progress, I'm excited to see an early build.

For now I'm only working on some things theoretically, without actually editing the mod. I'm waiting for the expansion, the first build will be released after it.

 

[Ahriman]

You're right, but I'm not sure if Craftsmanship should be something that everyone can have regardless of other policies. Perhaps Nature should exclude it in addition to Development.

I don't think any tree should block two other trees.
I also think that elven craftsmanship is a fantasy staple; elves might live in Nature and all that but still make fine things and produce high quality weapons and armor.

as I'm not sure yet how (and if) I will use the religion mechanics from the expansion

I think the expansion mechanics have a lot of promise for a fantasy mod; a fantasy world offers so much more scope for religion. I could imagine for example that you could choose different spheres of influence for your god, like how Dungeons and Dragons clerics (I'm thinking 3rd Edition, never played anything later) could pick a couple of spheres from a long list of things like Good/Evil, Healing, Fire/Air/Earth/Water, Travel, Order/Chaos, Dreams, Magic, Sun, Nature, Weather, Protection, Death, Tyranny, etc.).
Different aspects could have different game effects.
And then you could have different aspects of the Church: evangelism, monasticism, militant, and so forth.

So a really religious civ that produced lots of faith points might get a religious faith that has lots of powerful abilities.
The mechanics seem promising.

Development - focus on agriculture and population growth.

But how does that change your play-style? Every game plan will use agriculture and population growth, no?
Maybe this should be about rapid expansion? Free worker/settler/build speed effects, rather like Liberty?
Or bonuses in cities you found (as opposed to those you capture)?

Nature - keeping more Forests and Jungles, lower population but you get some other bonuses instead.

Other bonuses are going to have to be really powerful to compete with "larger population", because larger population gets you more of everything.

Wealth - you don't have to care that much about things like cultural territorial expansion, high production and minor civ relations, because when you need something, you can just buy it.

Not really very coherent IMO; more gold is always useful for any strategy. Gold in Civ5 lets you do almost anything. What should you focus *more* on with a Wealth strategy?
Some possibilities might be: gold boosts from a particular improvement type (so you build that improvement type more), boosts from luxury resources or the buildings they enable (to encourage you to settle near those), interest income on stored gold (to reward you for hoarding gold).

Wisdom - technology focus

But more technology is good for everyone, and winning combats is good for everyone.
I think it works better if it boosts technology from playing in a particular way; if boosts technology buildings (so changes which buildings you construct), it makes magical research cheaper (so changes which techs you reseasrch), it makes it cheaper to build/use mage units or makes these units more effective (so changes your army composition).

Domination - you can have more cities due to higher happiness bonuses than in other trees.

But more happiness is good for everyone. What kind of playstyle does it encourage?
You can encourage an annexation or a puppet playstyle by rewarding those kinds of things (eg by boosting yields of courthouse building, or by boosting yields of a puppet building - I strongly recommend adopting Thal's VEM mechanic whereby puppeted cities get an automatic building that reduces their yields, and is removed automatically when a courthouse is built; going puppet-crazy is too advantageous in vanilla, there needs to be more incentive to annex).

protecting your empire against invaders

Not normally a very powerful benefit, particularly for the human player.

The others seem fine.

Chaos could also boost demons, if you're going to have those?

I also notice no city state boosts anywhere. Not part of the plan?

 

[PawelS]

I don't think any tree should block two other trees.
I also think that elven craftsmanship is a fantasy staple; elves might live in Nature and all that but still make fine things and produce high quality weapons and armor.

Sounds reasonable, you convinced me So in my current plans there are 3 pairs of exclusive trees and 4 non-exclusive ones.

I think the expansion mechanics have a lot of promise for a fantasy mod; a fantasy world offers so much more scope for religion. I could imagine for example that you could choose different spheres of influence for your god, like how Dungeons and Dragons clerics (I'm thinking 3rd Edition, never played anything later) could pick a couple of spheres from a long list of things like Good/Evil, Healing, Fire/Air/Earth/Water, Travel, Order/Chaos, Dreams, Magic, Sun, Nature, Weather, Protection, Death, Tyranny, etc.).
Different aspects could have different game effects.
And then you could have different aspects of the Church: evangelism, monasticism, militant, and so forth.

So a really religious civ that produced lots of faith points might get a religious faith that has lots of powerful abilities.
The mechanics seem promising.

Yes, the customizable religions sound promising, also I thought about using Faith as Mana that can be used for different magical things, not only religious (and renaming the Mana strategic resource to Magical Power). But I don't know how feasible it will be, we'll see when the expansion is released.

But how does that change your play-style? Every game plan will use agriculture and population growth, no?
Maybe this should be about rapid expansion? Free worker/settler/build speed effects, rather like Liberty?
Or bonuses in cities you found (as opposed to those you capture)?

There are other sources of food than farms, I'm going to enable building Camps in all Forest and Jungle tiles to get more food from them, as an alternative to Lumbermills that give you production (and disable Trading Posts in forests and jungles). So Camps will be the main source of food if you go for Nature instead of Development (I'm also thinking about renaming it to "Civilization", maybe this is the name that Pazyryk can use in his mod too?) Camps will give less food than Farms, but bonuses for Forests and Jungles from Nature will make them worth building.

There will be a policy that gives a free Worker (or two) in Development, and another one that increases the work speed of Workers (I planned to put it in Craftsmanship, but now I think I'll move it to Development, as linking these 2 policies together seems logical, and increased worker speed doesn't fit your "Elven Craftsmanship" vision ). Settlers are a "different pair of shoes" in my mod, as you'll always get them for free when you have enough happiness to support a new city (as I already wrote in this thread, this is mainly to help the AI, which often "forgets" to build them).

As for bonuses for cities that you found, I have no such plans for now, but if you have a good idea how to implement them, I'll consider it

Other bonuses are going to have to be really powerful to compete with "larger population", because larger population gets you more of everything.

Including more unhappiness And sometimes you won't have enough productive tiles or specialist slots to use for all that population... (Btw I'm thinking about reducing the maximum city radius from 3 to 2 so cities won't grow too big, is it possible without the DLL code?)

Not really very coherent IMO; more gold is always useful for any strategy. Gold in Civ5 lets you do almost anything. What should you focus *more* on with a Wealth strategy?
Some possibilities might be: gold boosts from a particular improvement type (so you build that improvement type more), boosts from luxury resources or the buildings they enable (to encourage you to settle near those), interest income on stored gold (to reward you for hoarding gold).

Gold boosts from improvements (Trading Posts or something like that) and happiness from buildings that require some resources (like Mints) are planned, interest not.

But more technology is good for everyone, and winning combats is good for everyone.
I think it works better if it boosts technology from playing in a particular way; if boosts technology buildings (so changes which buildings you construct), it makes magical research cheaper (so changes which techs you reseasrch), it makes it cheaper to build/use mage units or makes these units more effective (so changes your army composition).

Yes, I never planned it to give only simple science boosts, as always different policies in the tree should have different and interesting effects.

But more happiness is good for everyone. What kind of playstyle does it encourage?
You can encourage an annexation or a puppet playstyle by rewarding those kinds of things (eg by boosting yields of courthouse building, or by boosting yields of a puppet building - I strongly recommend adopting Thal's VEM mechanic whereby puppeted cities get an automatic building that reduces their yields, and is removed automatically when a courthouse is built; going puppet-crazy is too advantageous in vanilla, there needs to be more incentive to annex).

I'm going to remove puppets completely, I don't like them (I already did it in my non-fantasy experiments with Civ5 by using some LUA code that changes all puppets to annexed cities every turn). As for the playstyle that it encourages, I'm not sure, but I think it should be a different style than Freedom, which is focused on culture and specialists, so it will be probably more "wide" than "tall" style, as you can have more cities, and many of the happiness boosts (for example happiness for garrisoned units) will depend on number of cities.

Not normally a very powerful benefit, particularly for the human player.

The others seem fine.

Chaos could also boost demons, if you're going to have those?

Order and Chaos are the least developed ones for now, they still need work to make them give interesting effects. As for demons, some civs will have access to them but not all, so a policy that boosts them would be useless for some civs... But it's an interesting idea to consider, if I can make it in a way that is beneficial for all civs.

I also notice no city state boosts anywhere. Not part of the plan?

Like military benefits, they will be distributed among different policy trees - more effective gifts in Wealth, science from them in Wisdom, Great People in Freedom...

(But, as I wrote earlier in this thread, instead of CS there will be minor civs that have multiple cities, and in the standard settings there will be less of them on map than in base Civ5, but due to more cities, territory, resources and armies they will be more valuable allies. This will probably require making gold gifts generally less effective.)

 

[PawelS]

Here are my current plans for the first Social Policy tree, which I decided to call Civilization. Of course the details can be changed in the future, but the general ideas will stay the same. For now all policy trees have the same structure: 3 chains or 3 policies each, but I'll probably introduce some "symmetry breaking" later. Also, let me know if you have better ideas for the policy names.

• Opener: free Pioneer*
• A1 Working Class - free Worker
• A2 Public Works - Workers build improvements 25% faster
• A3 Public Roads - +1 Happiness per City connected to the Capital
• B1 Anti-Barbarian Measures +25% bonus vs Barbarians
• B2 Barbarian Infiltration - get notifications about Barbarian Camps
• B3 Army Organization - Build Military Units 10% faster
• C1 Food Distribution - +1 Food from Granary/Smokehouse/Grocer
• C2 Town Development +1 Food/Gold/Production/Culture from Town*
• C3 Crop Rotation - +1 food from Farm
• Finisher: +1 Culture per city

* Towns are improvements built by a type of Great Person called Pioneer, which can also be used to "Claim Territory" (like the Great Artist's Culture Bomb in vanilla Civ5).

 

[Ahriman]

One thing worth thinking about is how powerful you want policies to be. These policies are all pretty weak, except C3 which is incredibly strong. Maybe that is ok, if you are expecting players to get many more policies than they do in vanilla. But the value of policies is strongly tied to the value of culture.

A1 is fairly weak; I would consider merging a free worker with a worker speed boost into the same policy.
B2 is near-useless. Merge it into B1.
B3 is also pretty weak, maybe add some bonus experience from combat too, or increase the bonus to 15%?

A finisher probably needs to be quite strong in a tree with 10 picks. +1 culture per city, when you're 10 picks into the game? That is far too weak to bother with unless culture is very, very hard to come by.

In terms of names: "working class" seems a bit odd in a fantasy mod, that is an industrial era concept. Public works could function as a name for the combined policy.
I know that your settlers aren't being built, but perhaps you could have a "Colonization" policy which increases the rate at which you get settlers? That would seem to fit in A, as would a reduction in the culture/gold costs for grabbing more land.
"Anti-barbarian measures" and "Barbarian infiltration" are a bit weak as names. How about "Reconnaissance in force" or "Rural pacification" or some variant for a combined policy? I wouldn't use the word barbarian in the name; barbarians I assume are any military force that don't belong to one of the main powers; they might be raiding parties, or nomads, or monsters.

I'm also not sure why Civilization policies would give bonuses vs barbs; might that not fight better in the Nature policy tree? Civilization-types are probably good in the cities and their farmlands, but less good in the wilderness, whereas Nature-types are probably better at rooting out barbarians in the wilderness.

Civilization might be a better place for Discipline, Logistics, Organization, Militias, levied troops, military professionalism, or that kind of thing.

"Army organization" doesn't seem in theme for Civilization; how about something like "Town militias", or "Conscription"?

 

[PawelS]

Thanks for your detailed feedback.

One thing worth thinking about is how powerful you want policies to be. These policies are all pretty weak, except C3 which is incredibly strong. Maybe that is ok, if you are expecting players to get many more policies than they do in vanilla. But the value of policies is strongly tied to the value of culture.

There will be more policies, costing less culture than in vanilla, so generally they should be less powerful. But it's hard to balance them, so I decided to place the best ones at the end of the chains. C3 is good, but I think A3 is very good as well, because in my mod happiness is a very useful thing, as it allows you to have more cities.

B3 is also pretty weak, maybe add some bonus experience from combat too, or increase the bonus to 15%?

B3 should be strong too, if it's too weak then perhaps it should give a free Great Warrior? (A GP that can fight but also gives bonuses to adjacent units similar to the Great General in vanilla, but only at range 1).

A1 is fairly weak; I would consider merging a free worker with a worker speed boost into the same policy.

I'm not going to make it the same as in vanilla, but maybe I'll make it two Workers...

B2 is near-useless. Merge it into B1.

Again, I'm not going to make it the same as in vanilla. And from my Civ5 gameplay experience, knowing where the camps are is quite useful. Also, in this mod, the Barbarians will be a more significant aspect of the game, as there will be unsettled areas for a long time due to limited number of cities, and also I'm going to make them generally more dangerous.

A finisher probably needs to be quite strong in a tree with 10 picks. +1 culture per city, when you're 10 picks into the game? That is far too weak to bother with unless culture is very, very hard to come by.

I'll think about it, but there won't be much culture in early game indeed, I'm thinking about making it only +1 from Palace and Monument...

In terms of names: "working class" seems a bit odd in a fantasy mod, that is an industrial era concept. Public works could function as a name for the combined policy.

What about "Division of labor"?

I know that your settlers aren't being built, but perhaps you could have a "Colonization" policy which increases the rate at which you get settlers? That would seem to fit in A, as would a reduction in the culture/gold costs for grabbing more land.

Hmm, I don't think increasing the rate would be very useful, it could give you a Settler a few turns earlier, but still the most important thing is to have enough happiness...

"Anti-barbarian measures" and "Barbarian infiltration" are a bit weak as names. How about "Reconnaissance in force" or "Rural pacification" or some variant for a combined policy? I wouldn't use the word barbarian in the name; barbarians I assume are any military force that don't belong to one of the main powers; they might be raiding parties, or nomads, or monsters.

You're right about using the "Barbarians" name, I was also thinking about something like "Defense of Civilization"... But "Barbarian Infiltration" seems OK for me, as I plan to make only "traditional" Barbarians (Orcs) appear near camps, animals and monsters will just appear in the wilderness...

I'm also not sure why Civilization policies would give bonuses vs barbs; might that not fight better in the Nature policy tree? Civilization-types are probably good in the cities and their farmlands, but less good in the wilderness, whereas Nature-types are probably better at rooting out barbarians in the wilderness.

My understanding is that a civilized nation has a better organized army that fights better than disorganized bands of Barbarians and the like... Nature will get a higher bonus, but only against animals and monsters.

Civilization might be a better place for Discipline, Logistics, Organization, Militias, levied troops, military professionalism, or that kind of thing.

Discipline will be in Order. Conscription and Professional Army are currently techs, but it's not a bad idea to make them policies instead, I'll think about it... As for Logistics, Organization etc. do you have any ideas about the effect of such policies?

"Army organization" doesn't seem in theme for Civilization; how about something like "Town militias", or "Conscription"?

"Town Militias" would suggest a connection to the Town improvement, which isn't true... How about using the general term "Militia"?

 

[Ahriman]

but I think A3 is very good as well, because in my mod happiness is a very useful thing, as it allows you to have more cities.

When unhappiness is +8 per city, then you aren't going to be able to afford to have many cities, and +1 happy per city is going to make very little difference.

B3 should be strong too, if it's too weak then perhaps it should give a free Great Warrior? (A GP that can fight but also gives bonuses to adjacent units similar to the Great General in vanilla, but only at range 1).

Maybe, hard to tell. In any case, this kind of thing can easily be tweaked once you have a playable version.
But consider: +1 food per tile increases a 3 food tile by 1/3 or a 4 food tile by 1/4, rather larger than a 10% increase.

And from my Civ5 gameplay experience, knowing where the camps are is quite useful.

How so? With a bit of recon, it is easy to spot barb camps on your own. I have only ever found this valuable with Germans, because of their UA.

I'll think about it, but there won't be much culture in early game

Is 10 policy picks in really still the early game?

What about "Division of labor"?

Maybe. That still has an industrial revolution-era flavor, rather than an ancient-flavor; the Babylonians and the Egyptians and the Persians and Romans and various ancient Indians all had public works programs for things like building irrigation systems.

Hmm, I don't think increasing the rate would be very useful, it could give you a Settler a few turns earlier, but still the most important thing is to have enough happiness...

Fair enough. Maybe the bonus in grabbing tiles with culture or gold then?

But "Barbarian Infiltration" seems OK for me, as I plan to make only "traditional" Barbarians (Orcs) appear near camps, animals and monsters will just appear in the wilderness...

Aren't camps still out in the wilderness?
In any case, infiltrating Orc camps seems more like something that sneaky Nature-oriented people would do, it seems out of flavor for city-dwellers.

My understanding is that a civilized nation has a better organized army that fights better than disorganized bands of Barbarians and the like... Nature will get a higher bonus, but only against animals and monsters.

Are you sure you are able to create multiple classes of barbarians? I am guessing that barbarians are hard-coded in the engine, and that the social policy only has hooks for a general bonus vs barbarians, rather than a bonus vs say a particular unit class.
So I would guess you would find it difficult in code terms to have one policy give a bonus vs Orc barbarians and a second give bonuses to Monster barbarians.
I guess as a hack you could make them each give a promotion, like Discipline, that then gave a bonus vs a unit class Orc or unit class Monster, but then you'd have to make orc units all the same unit class, rather than letting them be melee/ranged/mounted/etc. Monster.
I don't think we have the code access to do something FFH-style where in addition to class we have race, and promotions can give bonuses vs a particular race.

As for Logistics, Organization etc. do you have any ideas about the effect of such policies?

Logistics could reduce military upkeep costs. Militias could give happiness and defense and maintenance cost reductions for garrisoned units. Levied troops could increase unit build rate. Military professionalism could add extra experience. Organization could boost flanking bonuses (a way of modeling improved tactical doctrines, and the ability to coordinate attacks).

How about using the general term "Militia"?

Or Urban militia, City Guard, City Watch, or some variant.
A policy that gave military bonuses to units on/near town improvements might also be interesting, though the AI wouldn't use it well.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I really recommend that you focus on getting a playable alpha up with some of the units, techs, buildings etc. but using core mechanics. *then* you can tinker with and test the effects of a design that makes radical changes. If you just start with all the radical changes, you risk breaking the game engine and the AI performance, and not knowing which changes caused the break. The AI is designed to play the game with the core mechanics.

Speaking of alphas, if you release one (and want a bit of feedback)...I'd be interested in testing it out a bit for you. I actually worked on the Warhammer mod back in the day with Ahriman, so I'm not unfamiliar with testing really. (If any of the rest of the Warhammer team was like me, they loved to see their changes/additions implemented in gameplay. I was the XML slave, hehe.)

It'd be kind of cool to see some magic and such as well. That would bring another interesting aspect to the base Civ core that you're modifying here. I'm not sure if you're planning on doing that or not.