Final Fixes Reborn

[Gangrin]

I would like to mention something here which I personally feel might be interesting to discuss. And I basically want you guys opinion of it. As in, is it just me who has this experience and opinion or is it universal? I am not suggesting a change or saying it's a good idea though. Just providing my own observation to see what you guys think.

To put it very simply I find the speed of tech and thus unit tier progression to be somewhat imperfect. As in, the ratio of time you have to play with early vs mid vs late tier units just seems off to me.
If I set the game speed to be real slow, than the mid game lasts as long as it should, but the early game stage drags on far too long. And if I set the game to go fast enough for the early game to be reasonable than the mid game stage just zips by. Also, this is something I actually feel about vanilla CIV as well.

So am I the only one here who wishes that mid game lasted longer comparatively to the early and end game? Like, I almost want the game to drop a whole game speed in terms of research rate once I hit the first era transition.


PS. I am exclusively talking about the speed of technology gain and thus getting new unit types. I absolutely do not think that building units or buildings should last any longer than it already does. That would be very bad indeed.

I 100% concur.

 

[Babarigo]

Hello is it intented that the drought and vitalize spells from nature 3 don't remove glacier ? The fact that tier 1 spells like scorch and spring can indeed remove glacier makes those tier 3 spell extremely lackluster considering how hard they are too get for a weaker effect.

 

[vogtmurr]

If it helps, a few of us brainstormed about naval units some years ago: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/navy-brainstorming-thread.352685/

Not trying to toot my own horn here, just thought people might find the discussion interesting. Tholal hadn't created his More Naval AI Mod yet, if that matters.

I've reviewed that discussion and see many parallels with my current proposed naval outline.
@PPQ_Purple @Calavente @azatote
There has been a lot of creative and useful suggestions, which I've tried to include and balance in this latest naval outline. I've replotted the tech/building dependencies to assign ships a proper timeline, and fit the current game as seamlessly as possible, introducing just one new tech: Mixed Sail. For the purposes of play testing before we get into all the special abilities and unique units proposed, I suggest this distilled outline (updated this AM) to prove or disprove AI playability and balance. Could we consider this a new starting point?

Latest updates August 28.

 

[Calavente]

I would like to mention something here which I personally feel might be interesting to discuss. And I basically want you guys opinion of it. As in, is it just me who has this experience and opinion or is it universal? I am not suggesting a change or saying it's a good idea though. Just providing my own observation to see what you guys think.

To put it very simply I find the speed of tech and thus unit tier progression to be somewhat imperfect. As in, the ratio of time you have to play with early vs mid vs late tier units just seems off to me.
If I set the game speed to be real slow, than the mid game lasts as long as it should, but the early game stage drags on far too long. And if I set the game to go fast enough for the early game to be reasonable than the mid game stage just zips by. Also, this is something I actually feel about vanilla CIV as well.

So am I the only one here who wishes that mid game lasted longer comparatively to the early and end game? Like, I almost want the game to drop a whole game speed in terms of research rate once I hit the first era transition.


PS. I am exclusively talking about the speed of technology gain and thus getting new unit types. I absolutely do not think that building units or buildings should last any longer than it already does. That would be very bad indeed.

I also concure;
I find that getting to tier III units is really long, whereas the early tier IV units come comparatively faster, before you have really time to get much use of the tier III units.
(I'm not speaking about rushing 1 tier III unit, but having multiple types of them.)

But maybe this impression we have is that early game for us is in fact... tier 1 & tier 2 units... so half of the tiers. ??

I don't know what would be good solutions, but maybe having some rebalance of the early game... and increasing synergies (AND/or techs) in mid game, while increasing late-game tech costs... (maybe with some help to get 1 focus or 2)...

random ideas:

Spoiler :

ressources help get bonus for some techs ? horse gives 25% for horseback riding, mining finds copper/ smelting fin iron ; copper gives 25% for bronze working & iron/mithril gives 25% for iron working
incense if opened @ calendar, 25% for religions techs, 25% for priesthood
reagants allowed @ calendar; 25% for sorcery & adept tech
(no bonus for archers/recon, but 10% lower cost)

cross dependancies: trade : hunting OR sailing OR mining : if you have more than one : you get costs reductions on the final cost
(same could be done for tier III units : 1 tier II.5 tech + (Tech1(tier I) OR tech 2 (tier II) or tech 2bis (tier II)) with tier II techs : example : iron working: need smelting and (RoK tech OR warfare OR mining(?))
Bowyers need "archery" AND (tracking OR bronze working OR hunting (exploration?) ) ..Etc
thus, you get a tier 1 as dependency so there is no real "limitation", but you add 2 tier 2 as OR, so if you went slightly wide in tier II tech, you get bonus for tier III tech.

further I remember that there could be "cost-increase" techs that could be put for increasing costs of tier IV, such as
if you get "Mithril working", cost increase by 25% for ... Precision ?
we could pair (or make triplets/quadruplets) of the tier IV units, and have them increase cost of their triplet's tech (?)

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Honestly what I'd do is just alter tech costs so that the techs up to and including those that give you Tier 3 units are exactly the same but the techs after those cost 50% - 100% more progressively.

Because crucially what we don't want to do is make it harder to get to tier 3 or to do stuff like build units in tier 3. Just prolong the time when you have all or mostly tier 3 units with just 1 or 2 tier 4 ones and only if you rushed them.

 

[Nor'easter]

Honestly what I'd do is just alter tech costs so that the techs up to and including those that give you Tier 3 units are exactly the same but the techs after those cost 50% - 100% more progressively.

Because crucially what we don't want to do is make it harder to get to tier 3 or to do stuff like build units in tier 3. Just prolong the time when you have all or mostly tier 3 units with just 1 or 2 tier 4 ones and only if you rushed them.

That's what i figured you meant from the outset: increase the beaker cost of techs that get you more advanced units. Seems like the simplest approach.

 

[Calavente]

you are right, that seems the simplest approch.
but you also mentionned that the early game was a bit too long (or at least I feel like that). So I was aiming for quicker access to tier III (and AND/OR or Ressources help are "smarter" as it will change from game to game, depending on the action you took or current terrain, instead of a flat decrease (or increase in late game).

further, if we accelerate access tier III, it gives a longer time till tier IV as your "science" output will not be yet in full power

 

[PPQ_Purple]

you are right, that seems the simplest approch.
but you also mentionned that the early game was a bit too long (or at least I feel like that). So I was aiming for quicker access to tier III (and AND/OR or Ressources help are "smarter" as it will change from game to game, depending on the action you took or current terrain, instead of a flat decrease (or increase in late game).

further, if we accelerate access tier III, it gives a longer time till tier IV as your "science" output will not be yet in full power

To me it's not that the early game it self is too long but that it's in a bad ratio with the mid game. And this results in a situation where there is no "correct" game speed because either you get proper sized mid game with an very long early game or proper sized early game with a short mid game. Basically it feels like each tier lasts an equal amount of time where as ideally you'd want the ratio to be something like 30% I and II, 50% III, 20% IV. (numbers made up but should be roughly there)


As for shortening the early game I don't really see that as being the solution simply because it does not address the problem of the mid game being too short. You'd just get a short early, short mid and long late game. Id much rather simply add turns to the mid game and pad the game out that way.

 

[azatote]

Revision 329 is out. I re-added the pyhton script to make the savages declare war on the Clan when they become too strong, and I modified the list of possible mercenaries: there should be no more religious nor alignment- and civic-specific units, and a few more Sheaim units are available. Also added a leader in my module.

 

[vogtmurr]

After updating my SVN files to 329 I got all the modules duplicated with half inactive. Not sure if I'm running the latest release now or not, but the launcher won't let me manipulate the other modules. 'duplicate file names' message. Is there an identifying unit I can spot in worldbuilder or pedia?

 

[azatote]

If you update the SVN directly into your civ4 mods folder, and if you made some of the modules inactive by default active, it will make a copy of them in the inactive modules folder. It is strange that it copied absolutely all your modules though. Try to manipulate your modules manually (active modules are in Ashes of Erebus/Assets/Modules/Normal Modules, inactive ones in Ashes of Erebus/Assets/Inactive Modules/Normal Modules), or delete them all and update again.

 

[vogtmurr]

Actually not entirely all modules - black duke and a few others I think were not duplicated. Deleted modules of both inactive and normal folders, reloaded...there are a couple of utility files I left in normal mods that were not duplicated. I'll see what happens - but hope I can go back to the default normal and inactive modules.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I find that when dealing with SVN its always best to download fresh versions to an empty folder rather than overriding the old version because they like to get up to shenanigance such as this. So my advice would be to completely clean out your AOE folder before downloading anything.

 

[azatote]

It is ideal but not convenient if your internet connection is slow. In any case, it is best to separate your SVN local folder from your installation folder, so that you can manage your modules without touching your SVN folder.

 

[black_imperator]

Rev 331 released
multiple bug fixes,
improvement on the dynamic trait window
new quest to purify Bradeline's Well

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It is ideal but not convenient if your internet connection is slow. In any case, it is best to separate your SVN local folder from your installation folder, so that you can manage your modules without touching your SVN folder.

What's more inconvenient, spending hours debugging a random download issue caused by SVN failure or spending the same time downloading a file in the background whilst you do other more non-aggravating stuff?

 

[azatote]

You can also be more specific: 99% of revisions will only affect both DLLs (the normal one and the debug one), and the folders DLLSourceCode (which you can ignore if you don't intend to modify the c++), Assets/XML, Assets/python, Assets/Modules and Assets/Inactive modules. So if you delete only them, you avoid re-downloading gigabytes of unchanged stuff.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I thought that much went without saying.

 

[vogtmurr]

Especially when there is an upcoming release Seriously it makes sense to keep a ghost copy so that when you manipulate it and break something you can return to default and save a game or experiment. It seems the normal module files are identifiable with a green checkmark, and the others with a blue question mark after I load them all. But when I go into CivDisabler I see all the choices that are disabled. Don't I need to activate Rizuruk, Detlesius, Rigmore etc? Multiple instances of Khazad and Amurites, Hyborem, Basium and Frozen are all disabled too.

 

[azatote]

Yeah, I always keep a ghost copy of the mod for when I code. Plus another copy of my module to test weird stuff.
As for civdisabler, you don't need to change anything in it, the emergent leaders should be available ingame as long as you activate the module, even if civdisabler says the contrary. I suppose it is a bug in its display.