Feedback: Tech Progression

[soul-breathing]

Yes, although feedback from Regent suggests a similar problem for lower difficulties as well.

I feel it also have some connection with the game speed, seems it not so fast in normal speed in the same difficulty. I will check it in all the three speed.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

I feel it also have some connection with the game speed, seems it not so fast in normal speed in the same difficulty. I will check it in all the three speed.

It's so fast for me in my Marathon games. European civs, again, tend to beeline Exploration, and they usually get it in the 14th century. By the start of the 16th century some are already researching Geography. I recently tried having Exploration require Firearms, and yes, they still beeline it a lot.

Btw, Leo, has Holy Rome been adjusted already to be inclined to research Academia first? It looks like it prioritizes Exploration and Optics too.

 

[Alexius08]

It's so fast for me in my Marathon games. European civs, again, tend to beeline Exploration, and they usually get it in the 14th century. By the start of the 16th century some are already researching Geography. I recently tried having Exploration require Firearms, and yes, they still beeline it a lot.

Btw, Leo, has Holy Rome been adjusted already to be inclined to research Academia first? It looks like it prioritizes Exploration and Optics too.

When the prerequisite for Protestantism was changed from Printing to Academia, there's also a part of the DLL (somewhere in CvPlayerAI::AI_bestTech) that needs to be edited to make AI-controlled Holy Rome prioritize that tech. So far, it's not yet updated.

EDIT: I just submitted a pull request with my fix for this issue.

 

[Alexius08]

Here are the results of some of my test games with the DLL I compiled:

• Inca regent normal 1, 600 AD: Holy Rome first to cartography, France first to exploration, got contacted by Portugal at 1490, by Spain at 1495. Holy Rome founded Protestantism
• Netherlands regent normal 1, 600 AD: Spain gets conquerors and first new world colony at 1445, Holy Rome founded Protestantism at 1485, Portugal has no colonies at spawn time
• Congo regent normal 1, 600 AD: Spain is first to exploration, founded first new world colony at 1460, Portugal got both conqueror events.
• Netherlands regent epic, 600 AD: China is first to cartography. France is first to exploration at 1385, Spain gets first colony and Inca conquistadors at 1428, Aztecs not invaded.
• Netherlands regent marathon, 600 AD: Vikings is first to cartography, France first to exploration at 1318, Poland first to optics at 1402, France got conquistadors for Inca at 1399, Aztecs not invaded, first new world colony founded by Spain in 1461.
• Netherlands regent marathon 3000 BC: France got the Catholic shrine at Strasbourg and conquered Aztecs, also was first to found a new world colony. Portugal has no colonies on Dutch spawn time, Spain only has Manila (founded on 1360). Inca survived. Italy founded Protestantism.

However, in past games, I have also witnessed Byzantium and Mongolia getting conquistador events since they're not discouraged from getting cartography (which unlocks caravels). Should we prevent non-colonial civs from getting cartography too early?

 

[1SDANi]

Are the Moors supposed to be warlike early game? I notice they spawn with 2 Spearmen and 2 Swordsmen but because every other nation has Heavy Swordsmen defending their cities, the only city they can take is one that will immediately flip to Spain. I notice that they start with Steel, meaning should they obtain Iron or Copper they could also have Heavy Swordsmen.

Are the moors supposed to be warlike upon spawning? If so, what would you do to fix them?

For reference, they spawn with

• 1 Horse Archer
• 1 Crossbowman
• 1 Archer (Upgrade to Crossbowman with Iron)
  
• 2 Swordsmen (Upgrade to Heavy Swordsmen with Copper or Iron)
• 2 Spearmen (Upgrade to Heavy Spearmen with Politics [Can trade with Byzantines for Politics within 5 turns], Civil Service, and Copper or Iron)
• 2 Islamic Imam
• 2 Workers
• 1 Work Boat
• 1 Galley (Upgrade to Cog with Politics [Can trade with Byzantines for Politics within 5 turns] and Guilds)
  
• 1 War Galley (Upgrade to Heavy Galley)
• 1 Work Boat

From what I see here I see no reason they are currently starting with a War Galley instead of a Heavy Galley other than wasting 1 turn of movement and costing a bit of gold, I'd guess having 1 Crossbowman and 1 Archer forces the player to consider where to put the stronger defender until they can obtain iron from Marrakus (Flips turn 3, build culture building then improve) I think the Galley and Spearmen are fine as they are, and if anything will impact the game, the Swordsmen becoming Heavy Swordsmen will allow the Moors to wage war against their neighbors.

 

[Fresol]

Moors is a pushover and almost always gets crushed once Spain gets their reconquista conquerors. The desert hill iron gets connected too late for them(blame culture expansion mechanism here), and they basically defend Cordoba with classical era units like archers, horse archers and some starting spearmen/swordsmen.

 

[Leoreth]

They are not meant to be aggressive, but strong enough so Spain (especially human Spain) cannot immediately conquer them.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Hello, I made an attempt in adjusting tech costs, shown here. So far I've only tested a 600 AD Marathon Dutch game, and it turned out pretty well, except that civs started entering the Global Era in the 1850's. Any comments?

 

[Leoreth]

Will look into it later, thanks.

 

[Alexius08]

@h0spitall3rz: Have you tried generating save games as Canada or another late-game civ? Let's try again if games with no involvement from the human player would turn out hat way too.

@Leoreth: Several tests later, AI Portugal consistently shows up late for the New World despite my attempts to change AI behavior (the latest of which is setting settler_sea as the default unit AI for carracks). I suppose that it has something to do with the AI's need for defensive units for Lisbon. When Netherlands spawns, their first city gets extra buildings. Maybe we should do the same to Portugal.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

@h0spitall3rz: Have you tried generating save games as Canada or another late-game civ? Let's try again if games with no involvement from the human player would turn out hat way too.

I'll try, @Alexius08! Can't promise soon enough, though. I can try a 600 AD Canada run next.

PS: I forgot to clarify, the stuff I was referring to is at the bottom of the red-tabbed spreadsheet since I put a lot of versions there for reference.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Is it just me or is tech going really fast, at least in medieval/renaissance Europe? I've started a few England games to try to figure out the ideal start, and while my presence can certainly have effected things, it feels like all the larger powers were easily keeping up or exceeding my (decently quick) pace. Like, in my current game I'm in 1240, about to get invaders. Spain beat me to Cartography by a few turns but their caravel is going the wrong way. HRE and France have Gunpowder and Crop Rotation on me, might also have continued further in that direction. Only techs I think I snagged first have been Civil Service & Education. It's cool that they're keeping up on Monarch/Epic but we're all silly ahead.

Here's the commit I pushed to my fork. I'd like to encourage everyone here (especially those who have been bothered a lot by the weird tech speed recently) to try a few games with the adjusted costs (ideally Regent, preferably all scenarios), and let's see together how the adjustments I made fare. Just download the changed file in the commit (I changed CIV4TechInfos.xml only, just one XML file) and overwrite the existing one in \Assets\XML\Technologies\. If you want to revert to the original version and you are using TortoiseGit, it can easily be reverted with a few clicks on the right-click context menu.

As I mentioned to @Caesar Augustus and to Leo in my PR, I've already tried a few 600 AD games with it, and global tech speed seems to have gotten back to normal, at least in the Medieval and Renaissance Eras. I haven't gotten beyond column 12 yet, though. I also haven't tried 3000 BC games yet so I'm not sure if I accidentally slowed down early game tech speed or not.

Thank you and happy teching!

 

[Caesar Augustus]

Here's the commit I pushed to my fork. I'd like to encourage everyone here (especially those who have been bothered a lot by the weird tech speed recently) to try a few games with the adjusted costs (ideally Regent, preferably all scenarios), and let's see together how the adjustments I made fare. Just download the changed file in the commit (I changed CIV4TechInfos.xml only, just one XML file) and overwrite the existing one in \Assets\XML\Technologies\. If you want to revert to the original version and you are using TortoiseGit, it can easily be reverted with a few clicks on the right-click context menu.

As I mentioned to @Caesar Augustus and to Leo in my PR, I've already tried a few 600 AD games with it, and global tech speed seems to have gotten back to normal, at least in the Medieval and Renaissance Eras. I haven't gotten beyond column 12 yet, though. I also haven't tried 3000 BC games yet so I'm not sure if I accidentally slowed down early game tech speed or not.

Thank you and happy teching!

So uh how do I go about doing that exactly? Do I need to sign up?

 

[Alexius08]

So uh how do I go about doing that exactly? Do I need to sign up?

Make a back-up copy of the original Civ4TechInfos.xml in Assets\XML\Technologies, download this file (make sure to save it as Civ4TechInfos.xml), and paste it to the aforementioned folder.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

Ok, ran some tests with some 3000 BC Maya Monarch/Epic games to see how things turned out. I ran 6 games then retired and checked build dates on wonders and foundation dates on religions. Note that Maya spawns in 60 AD.

Oracle: Greece 650 BC, Greece 1155 BC, Egypt 1245 BC, Babylon 2100 BC(!), Greece 1125 BC, Babylon 1305 BC
Terracotta: Always China, 650 BC, 630 BC, 720 BC, 410 BC, 740 BC, 780 BC
Great Wall: Always China, 560 BC, 430 BC, 560 BC, 360 BC, 490 BC, 650 BC
Artemis: Greece 600 BC, Not built, Egypt 370 BC, Egypt 370 BC, Not built, Egypt 570 BC
Colloseum: Babylon 80 BC, Not built, Not built, Babylon 130 BC, Not built, Babylon 180 BC

Confucianism: Always China, 920 BC, 810 BC, 900 BC, 560 BC, 940 BC, 870 BC
Taoism: Always China, 120 BC, 180 BC, 220 BC, 360 BC, 460 BC, 50 AD
Buddhism: India 250 BC, India 160 BC, Not established, India 380 BC, India 180 BC, Not established
Orthodoxy: Only founded once before spawn, by Persia in 50 AD.

I'm not really sure what the dates on these are SUPPOSED to be, mind you, just thought I'd add some info. The biggest things I noticed were that India was founding Buddhism pretty late if ever (seemed like barb problems and/or conflict with Persia that was slowing them down) and that lots of Greco-Roman wonders weren't getting built at all, most likely because potential builders like converting. I saw 3 Jewish Greeces, 1 Zoroastrian Greece, and a couple Jewish Carthages, Egypts, and even one Jewish Rome. AI China on the other hand is VERY consistent. Only 1 game out of 6 did they not found Confucianism in the 8 or 9 hundreds BC, then immediately build Terracotta and Great Wall.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Wait, did you use my revisions there? How did your tests fare compared to the original? Did it improve or worsen?

 

[Caesar Augustus]

These are with your revisions. I didn't think to check the original. I started a "real" game to see how it felt in play so it'll be a while before I can revert to compare.

 

[Leoreth]

These changes are now included in the mod proper, in case you missed that announcement. Feedback very much welcome.

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

Have you got a lot of feedback from Marathon, Monarch?

 

[Leoreth]

I don't think so.