Finished version of C2C?

Noriad2

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I've looked at recent C2C videos on Youtube, and noticed that interest in C2C seems to be waning. There used to be many youtubers playing but not anymore.

The only youtuber who still regularly posts C2C Let's Play video's is IdioticUlt1mara, during the last half year there were two other youtubers but they have not continued. The videos posted in the last half year have dozens or at best hundreds of views while some older video's have tens of thousands of views.

Idioticult1mara plays primarily on twitch ( https://www.twitch.tv/idioticult1mara/videos/all ) but copies his videos to youtube later. He plays on Nightmare difficulty, but unfortunately he tried out the Size Matters infinite money exploit, over-expanded his empire, and is now stuck with such a negative cash flow that he has to continue using the infinite money exploit or go utterly bankrupt. Unfortunately, the fact that he must continually cheat detracts significantly from the showbiz value of his playing.

So what must be done to renew interest in C2C?

I don't think the key is adding more features. C2C already has more features than any game in its genre. Only some Paradox games (like Europa Universalis 4 with all DLC's) come close. Problem is that C2C used to be way too easy (nicknamed "caveman2castles"). Youtubers started a campaign, once they entered classical age they were number 1 in score with more points than the next 4 civs combined. The game was a cakewalk compared to Civ 4 BTS. So interest waned and campaigns were not finished. What C2C lacked was a challenge.

Fortunately, the post V37 svn version Nightmare mode provides such a challenge. It IS winnable (I'm en route to my 2nd Nightmare victory post V37) but it is rough, rough all the way. However there are still a number of exploits that allow a player to bypass some challenge in the new Nightmare difficulty (like IdioticUlt1mara did). Once these exploits are patched, you could declare that you have the first finished release version of C2C.

Once you have a finished version of C2C you could message the dozens of youtubers who used to play C2C in the past (and many are very good strategy game players) and declare that there is finally a release version of C2C that is actually hard, and challenge them to win a game on deity/nightmare mode. Some of these youtubers have lots of followers and if they see that the newest C2C not only has tons of features but also is an actual challenge they may be interested in playing it (again).
 
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So what are the main exploits left in C2C?

1) the infinite money exploit of Size Matters. In later era's, split a combat unit into many smaller units, and sell them each (delete button within your borders) for the same price as the full-size one. Use part of the money to buy new units using multiple production, and within a few turns you have infinite money. There are more exploits in Size Matters but this is the main one.
2) in the trade screen, the AI overvalues units (notably workers) to a ridiculous degree. Mass-produce workers and you can trade them to the AI for all their money and potentially all their techs. It works even better if you play against Mansa Musa who is always willing to trade any and all techs. Or if you use the next exploit:
3) Directly after loading a save game, in your own turn and during the AI turn directly following it, the AI is willing to put all their techs up for sale. This vanishes in subsequent turns so it seems to be an initial variables value filling problem.

Overpowered strategies that (may) need to be rebalanced:

1) using merchant ships like merchant carrack that give way too much cash from their missions.
2) powerstacking religions and their research bonuses. Does not have to be removed, because it is hard to get many religions if the AI is significantly ahead in tech, and on Nightmare you need the bonuses to keep up with the AI, but a slight nerf might be warranted. A quick-and-easy way would be to split the 10% research bonus on the many temples into 5% straight bonus and an additional 5% if the temple's religion is your state religion.
3) mass collection of cultures and stacking the heroes as bonus xp in your military city. An important feature but overpowered. This will of course be reviewed in a future Nomadic Start feature but an easy temporary fix might be to split up the area cultures, e.g. North American into North American and Central American etc. making it harder to collect them all. Additionally, giving settled military instructor specialists +2% hammer cost on all military units, aside from the +2 XP, would make stacking them no longer a no-brainer.
4) surround and destroy is severely overpowered, especially as the AI does not use it. Half the bonus and it is still powerful.
5) field generals are severely overpowered. Not initially, but once they are level 20+ and on a stack of crack combat units, that stack is near unstoppable.

If the tendency of some AI civs to destroy themselves with runaway crime during the late renaissance era is also fixed, you can rename Caveman2Castles at least to Caveman2Tanks on nightmare difficulty.
 
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2) in the trade screen, the AI overvalues units (notably workers) to a ridiculous degree. Mass-produce workers and you can trade them to the AI for all their money and potentially all their techs. It works even better if you play against Mansa Musa who is always willing to trade any and all techs.
This is being addressed now in the latest SVN versions.
1) using merchant ships like merchant carrack that give way too much cash from their missions.
Also being addressed.
If the tendency of some AI civs to destroy themselves with runaway crime during the late renaissance era is also fixed,
This too is being reduced, but Revolution is a major contributor to this problem. But how many plyers would cry "wolf" If Rev was removed (big IF).
3) mass collection of cultures and stacking the heroes as bonus xp in your military city. An important feature but overpowered.
Impho Heroes have long been OP, But SO likes them this way........
4) surround and destroy is severely overpowered, especially as the AI does not use it. Half the bonus and it is still powerful.
This has been talked about and considered for removal. But nothing concrete has been done or decided.
5) field generals are severely overpowered. Not initially, but once they are level 20+ and on a stack of crack combat units, that stack is near unstoppable.
T-brd's beloved design strategy for this Mod.
 
There's a lot to comment on here. Interestingly, as Joe has observed, most of the details you're talking about have already been addressed or are in the process of it. I'll say more later when I can.
 
Well, I don't update SVN during a game unless there is a serious problem, as I don't want to run the risk of corrupting a game in advanced progress. I do read the SVN changelog thread but apparently not all updates are mentioned there.
 
Well whenever there is a new Civ game and the players get tired of it we get an influx of new players looking for a deeper experience. So as long as they keep making new civ games that people get bored with I think we will still have new people finding C2C.
Truth.
 
Still, C2C needs some advertisement. It is not obvious that a mod this old for a game this old still is under such active development. Most people aren't telepathic. Younger people who may only have played civ 5 and civ 6 don't know C2C exists and will probably not look for it. Older players may have played it 5 years ago, noticed its flaws at the time, and moved on. And know nothing of all the work put into C2C since then.
 
Still, C2C needs some advertisement. It is not obvious that a mod this old for a game this old still is under such active development. Most people aren't telepathic. Younger people who may only have played civ 5 and civ 6 don't know C2C exists and will probably not look for it. Older players may have played it 5 years ago, noticed its flaws at the time, and moved on. And know nothing of all the work put into C2C since then.
This tends to happen more as word of a new release gets out. We don't have as much release frequency because I don't want to invite new or repeat players back to try it again until it's ready for that. (aka mostly debugged as much as we can)

As for new content, there's lots of unfinished projects yet. I don't feel we're anywhere near a 'final' version. But I AM trying to get it ready for release, hoping for just before X-mas on that. Though there keeps emerging more and more work to do before that point so... not sure. Some things you mentioned can't be addressed this release because to do so reflects a very large project, something we've got planned usually but not yet implemented.

I still want to comment on line items but will have to do so later.
 
I didn't say "final version" I said "finished version". Tons of new content can still be added afterwards.
You can work on perfecting a product for so long that it will never be released.
 
I didn't say "final version" I said "finished version". Tons of new content can still be added afterwards.
You can work on perfecting a product for so long that it will never be released.
True
 
I didn't say "final version" I said "finished version". Tons of new content can still be added afterwards.
You can work on perfecting a product for so long that it will never be released.
A finished version is the goal of every release. It never quite works out that way. We always tend to realize after release how many issues are yet to be addressed. More are ALWAYS found as well. Especially right after release, which is also the least desirable time to work on such polish matters. Therefore, declaring that to be the case for our current assets would really require months of testing and feedback not finding any problems. I don't think we'll be able to really make that claim, perhaps ever. But we have always had a better version than the last. v37 was a train wreck on some new factors but was still a huge set of fixes to some previous issues. v38 should be a hell of a lot better and I think the way we need to promote it is to say it has been what it has, mostly the result of a year's worth of effort spent mostly on the most prevalent problems rather than trying to push new content. Pepper was adding a lot to the end of the tech tree though so it may still not be seen as primarily the perfecting effort that it has been. Even new options are just about making the game potentially more balanced through what the player finds desirable in terms of options to attempt that.

Once you have a finished version of C2C you could message the dozens of youtubers who used to play C2C in the past (and many are very good strategy game players) and declare that there is finally a release version of C2C that is actually hard, and challenge them to win a game on deity/nightmare mode. Some of these youtubers have lots of followers and if they see that the newest C2C not only has tons of features but also is an actual challenge they may be interested in playing it (again).
I do market on twitter and many of the good lets players are there. If anyone else knows of any contacts to let know, I believe its up to all of us to get the word on the street! But it did help a lot for v37 last year.

1) the infinite money exploit of Size Matters. In later era's, split a combat unit into many smaller units, and sell them each (delete button within your borders) for the same price as the full-size one. Use part of the money to buy new units using multiple production, and within a few turns you have infinite money. There are more exploits in Size Matters but this is the main one.
On the list of things to address by reducing/increasing the sell value on a unit according to the offset of volume that it has from its starting volume. Won't be hard. Just a project among many on the list, and one with a lot of priority. This was the best explanation of it though.

2) in the trade screen, the AI overvalues units (notably workers) to a ridiculous degree. Mass-produce workers and you can trade them to the AI for all their money and potentially all their techs. It works even better if you play against Mansa Musa who is always willing to trade any and all techs. Or if you use the next exploit:
I gave us a global to influence the end result of the worker valuation processing. I set it, for now, to -50%. If it needs to be further manipulated, I need to know to what extent. If we need this for other units (the code processes these separately from workers) then it would be trivial to setup. I did not know there was also imbalance with other unit types.

I don't ever trade units in-game. Just isn't a desirable option imo. So I need feedback to know what to do in the end with these and the % modifier at the end gives us a dial to work with. The core processing to figure out the final value is complex and well thought out in terms of creating ratios from one situation to another. How badly a player needs or doesn't need the units in question is well evaluated and it's based on the production cost of the unit as a core. We've seen some increase in base unit costs so that has probably been changing the final results in significant ways.

3) Directly after loading a save game, in your own turn and during the AI turn directly following it, the AI is willing to put all their techs up for sale. This vanishes in subsequent turns so it seems to be an initial variables value filling problem.
I have this on my list but it's low priority because I find it mystifying.

1) using merchant ships like merchant carrack that give way too much cash from their missions.
Again, a temporary imbalance we're working on. Expected it could be easily out of balance. Criminals have to also be measured into this rebalance because they also are able to do these missions now... black market smugglers! (and yes they can become wanted and thus arrested for trying it)

2) powerstacking religions and their research bonuses. Does not have to be removed, because it is hard to get many religions if the AI is significantly ahead in tech, and on Nightmare you need the bonuses to keep up with the AI, but a slight nerf might be warranted. A quick-and-easy way would be to split the 10% research bonus on the many temples into 5% straight bonus and an additional 5% if the temple's religion is your state religion.

Your suggestion warrants some investigation but would require some programming to double the research bonus on religious buildings if the building is of the state religion. Religious disabling is really THE answer to this. If you're finding this is a problem. The Ideas project is also nearing development within a version or two and should also provide another way to keep this from being an issue. Reducing to 5% each as a the % mod standard would be a good start. This is one of many imbalances among our buildings of course.

3) mass collection of cultures and stacking the heroes as bonus xp in your military city. An important feature but overpowered. This will of course be reviewed in a future Nomadic Start feature but an easy temporary fix might be to split up the area cultures, e.g. North American into North American and Central American etc. making it harder to collect them all. Additionally, giving settled military instructor specialists +2% hammer cost on all military units, aside from the +2 XP, would make stacking them no longer a no-brainer.

The Ideas project IS the plan to resolve this. I don't have another. And the Ideas project is complex. To explain, it will not allow a city to have a large number of competing ideas - each idea (and a culture is just an idea) within their own category (such as cultures) will be in competition with each other much like the way our current National culture system, from BtS, works. So only a few ideas in a category at a time will have the strength to be counted as valid for buildings/heroes/etc...

As for the Military Training... not a bad idea. I'll have to implement that soon.

4) surround and destroy is severely overpowered, especially as the AI does not use it. Half the bonus and it is still powerful.

I'll consider such a reduction. But there are buildings that do reduce S&D bonuses when you attack the city now. And I do intend to teach the AI how to fully utilize this. I've spent my AI development time this version on the Law Enforcement, Criminal, Vision specialist units and other Property Manipulation units. As I'm developing my AI skills, I'm getting closer to working on something like teaching S&D. It's still a version or two out though. No way I'm trying to address that right away because it has to be a part of re-teaching stack warfare in a whole new way to the AI as a whole. I have design theories to implement there. Units taking more specialized roles, etc...

5) field generals are severely overpowered. Not initially, but once they are level 20+ and on a stack of crack combat units, that stack is near unstoppable.

Easily addressed by adjusting the strength of the promotions they get. I agree that they should be significantly toned down. Are you seeing the AI working with them a little better or are they still risking them far too much in hunting parties? (I allowed SOME of this but tried to pull them out of that role a lot sooner so they could actually be used for war. I also think there may be a few other issues with this. Again, all part of reteaching stack warfare concepts to the AI.

If the tendency of some AI civs to destroy themselves with runaway crime during the late renaissance era is also fixed, you can rename Caveman2Castles at least to Caveman2Tanks on nightmare difficulty.
Thanks to your reports, we were able to identify quite a few reasons this was taking place, all related to poor unit management. I have EXTENSIVELY retooled some deep AI code tools so as to enable MUCH improved handling of this stuff and leading into ways to use this to create more specialized AI functions for stack war reteaching. I need to see some more deep playtesting to see if there are other big problems that can be addressed. Joe worked on the balance of the penalties of the crimes themselves as well. And finalization of the Outbreaks and Afflictions option would I think really help with this, giving us a lot more ways to inflict pain but do so in a manner that is both severe but not quite so compounding with all the other crimes automatically.

Some of this stuff is at least another year out. But v38 should be a HUGE improvement at least. Highly worthy of another playthrough! It's not QUITE ready to be called a wrap but it's almost there.
 
This is a good discussion. The problem I run into is that I never run out of ideas. I have a another batch of techs I want to add. In fact, I am starting to get the itch to deconstruct the future tech tree again and add an entire new era's worth of material. But I can't do anything like that for a long time due to other commitments, which are less fun but more important.

I've come to like the incomplete feel of the game. Every visible gap represents something to look forward to in the next playthrough.
 
This is a good discussion. The problem I run into is that I never run out of ideas. I have a another batch of techs I want to add. In fact, I am starting to get the itch to deconstruct the future tech tree again and add an entire new era's worth of material. But I can't do anything like that for a long time due to other commitments, which are less fun but more important.

I've come to like the incomplete feel of the game. Every visible gap represents something to look forward to in the next playthrough.
I'd almost have to insist that any additional eras would have to wait until more solid development is in place on what we have. The massive amount of new content here has caused a tremendous delay in opening the mod and that is slowing debugging efforts.

I'm not meaning to cramp your efforts, just hoping to get you to focus them in for now on filling gaps and improving balance rather than creating more entirely new real estate for development. I know there's a lot I need to work with you on as well. Units into the future... which may beg some expansion of modding skills ;)
 
I'd almost have to insist that any additional eras would have to wait until more solid development is in place on what we have. The massive amount of new content here has caused a tremendous delay in opening the mod and that is slowing debugging efforts.

I'm not meaning to cramp your efforts, just hoping to get you to focus them in for now on filling gaps and improving balance rather than creating more entirely new real estate for development. I know there's a lot I need to work with you on as well. Units into the future... which may beg some expansion of modding skills ;)

I agree, and it will be a long time, if ever, before I make any more major additions. We have recently expanded the eras already and starting getting all this content settled into an equilibrium, so I wouldn't upset the apple cart without major planning and consultation with the team. Which all requires time that I don't have right now.

Still fun to think about it.
 
not to criticize, not at all and if it's felt that way sorry so, But I agree it's best to just mortar the bricks we have rather than adding another floor so to speak, especially if we're talking about a floor that's based around a late game thing that's currently mostly not being reached because games ended long long before it,
I would hope we can one day reach a state like that Insane Civ2 game that's still going after what was it like 10+ years?

Personally I feel that maybe an option (or something like a slider) for the Animal spawn would be nice, With Warning that 100% might not work well on bigger maps, I really liked having them as a Prehistoric and Ancient barrier, Especially in Prehistoric for the Wilds being just that, Wild, Reason why I'd say a Slider is that those that would like it being say 5% could play at that but those that feel that it isn't enough too their taste could increase it to 10% or higher if so preferred,
I'm unsure of the current mechanics around Animal spawning, but perhaps that the overall spawn rate could diminish as the ages go by, seeing that today the same forest ain't as dangerous and populated as it were in Prehistoric times,
 
I'm unsure of the current mechanics around Animal spawning, but perhaps that the overall spawn rate could diminish as the ages go by, seeing that today the same forest ain't as dangerous and populated as it were in Prehistoric times,
We could make pollution affect animal spawn rates....
Routes should also be made to affect it, if not already.
 
Basically what I was asking, Is there something already being used that reduces spawnrate of animals as the game progresses, (when the fight against nature turns into a fight between civilizations),- Besides the obvious Less terrain to spawn in due to territory claims

Pollution would/should affect anyone living, but wouldn't that be something that would draw more calculations and slow things down? I'm unaware what is and what isn't possible seeing I don't have much ability beyond reading some XML (not writing though)

It's just I Love having to cut my way through the wilds (or be cut down by it), making my playtime in the Prehistoric Age when things are quite slow a little bit more enjoyable,

Which is also why I was wondering if options could be something similar to a Slider so most people can have it their way, seeing there are people that dislike having hordes of animals and people like me that loves to have them,
 
Basically what I was asking, Is there something already being used that reduces spawnrate of animals as the game progresses, (when the fight against nature turns into a fight between civilizations),- Besides the obvious Less terrain to spawn in due to territory claims
Answer is yes. Less spawns are valid in the later game and fewer animals can spawn inside borders, even fewer where plots are improved, and even fewer still in cities directly.
Which is also why I was wondering if options could be something similar to a Slider so most people can have it their way, seeing there are people that dislike having hordes of animals and people like me that loves to have them,
I think everyone tends to like a lot in general but the danger is if they overspawn the limit of the number of units a player can maintain. This has happened recently I think and I'm trying to identify exactly when it does so I can tone down the limits a bit.
 
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