Future Direction of the Mod

[Leoreth]

1.12 development is winding down, which means that I'm gaining a lot of freedom to do many different thing in subsequent development. Not only do I already have plans in many different areas with different degrees of detail, I can also start thinking about more drastic and revolutionary changes, which currently leads to lots of Inspiration and Big Ideas.

In short, I feel constrained in a couple of areas and kind of want to push the envelope of what an RFC game can be a little more.

RFC started out as BtS rules + history simulation mechanics on an Earth map, with very little changes. DoC started out as not that different in principle, although the mindset shifted a bit to more wide-ranging changes over time.

1.12 is probably the version reflecting that the most, there were less "more stuff" additions (I think it's the first new version - disregarding earlier versions that were more like new revisions are now - that did not include a new civilization) and instead focused more on redoing mechanics. Some rather bold choices like completely removing or replacing RFC staples like mercenaries, stability and congresses cam from that.

I'm still not sure how that went down, especially the new stability system was met with rather mixed reactions and frequent criticism when it first appeared. That was an expected part of the process because it affected a lot and therefore could not have been perfect on the first try. I have attempted to address most complaints, and the criticism seems to have died down - but I am not entirely sure if that is because I have successfully addressed the issues and the system works now, or because I have successfully driven away everyone who dislikes it.

In any case, these are all RFC mechanics, and I plan on tackling more of them (birth of new civilizations in particular), but more and more I'm thinking about going beyond that and also changing core mechanics that come from vanilla BtS. I'm thinking civics, religion, culture and trade. Unit roster changes have already been discussed, which might prompt larger than minor changes in the tech tree, and so on.

All of this goes beyond what this mod has traditionally attempted to address, but I am not sure if it is the right direction to take. BtS mechanics and content can be limiting in many ways and abandoning them could enable many cool new things, but they also provide a familiar common ground for players who transition over to the mod.

So what do you think? Please voice your opinion here if you care about this, a poll will be following. I am not sure myself and talking about this will certainly help making up my mind.

(Results of the poll are not binding )

 

[KMRblue1027]

I would definitely be fine with mixing up and expanding gameplay in a way that's constructive. Moving forward from "tradition" is an important part in keeping the game interesting. One old BTS feature I love to get back though is the 2 tiles in between cities rule but I have no idea if the AI could handle that.

 

[baseballpie]

As I see it, I think that your decision depends on your prospective audience:

Right now, DoC has a very large audience. As you add more features, it will keep the attention of your current fanbase, having them awaiting each new feature. Most of the crowd here at the moment knows the game as it is right now. For them, it will be easier to adapt to upcoming game mechanics, and they will usually be most receptive.

However, there is a flip side. As you grow farther and farther away from BtS and vanilla RFC, it comes at a cost. As each new feature comes, it will become harder and harder for someone that is used to either the base game or RFC. Even though it is natural entropy in modding, it dislocates you from a lot of casual gamers. This is what happens to mods like Caveman to Cosmos or Rise of Mankind. They become so inflated with a vast array of new features that the learning curve becomes just too steep for beginners. And even if they manage to adapt to the new features, they will be left in the dust as you continue to add.

So it comes down to a simple question. Which path do you choose?

 

[FinalLegendZero]

I personally have no problem with changing core mechanics, be they from RFC or even the core BtS mechanics, as long as the end result is a better mod. Frankly, I don't even play vanilla BtS anymore - this mod is infinitely superior IMO.

 

[ImNotHere]

I'm interested in what kind of mechanics you are thinking of adding. We've already has some discussion on making religions unique and changing up the unit roster, and I hope that these can be added in. Something I've wanted is better and possibly religion/region specific quests, which can fill in some of the ideas that were left out because of being outside the scope of this mod.

In the end, you always open any possible changes to forum input, so usually if people aren't in favour of a proposed change, people here will make tweaks to the idea to make it fit better. As long as this trend continues, and I know you like it this way, then there is nothing that I would be completely opposed to.

 

[Fresol]

Edit: I see my question was redundant.

My opinion is as long as the new revision's stable and playable, I'm fine with it.

I think we(by we I mean you) need to have a list of things we want to change, then prioritize them. Certain things are more important to gameplay, and some of them must happen before some others for logic's sake.

If you can make all these changes feel like updates that improve gameplay in a compatible manner, rather than drastic rework of mechanics that is completely new and unknown to everyone, the player base would certainly increase and rejoice.

Not to say I'm against new features though. I'm expecting the unit roster change for example.

 

[Leoreth]

As I see it, I think that your decision depends on your prospective audience:

Right now, DoC has a very large audience. As you add more features, it will keep the attention of your current fanbase, having them awaiting each new feature. Most of the crowd here at the moment knows the game as it is right now. For them, it will be easier to adapt to upcoming game mechanics, and they will usually be most receptive.

Yeah, however all things being equal, you can keep a mod alive both by going for the fundamentals and by adding new content.

However, there is a flip side. As you grow farther and farther away from BtS and vanilla RFC, it comes at a cost. As each new feature comes, it will become harder and harder for someone that is used to either the base game or RFC. Even though it is natural entropy in modding, it dislocates you from a lot of casual gamers. This is what happens to mods like Caveman to Cosmos or Rise of Mankind. They become so inflated with a vast array of new features that the learning curve becomes just too steep for beginners. And even if they manage to adapt to the new features, they will be left in the dust as you continue to add.

That's exactly what I am afraid of, because I've never touched these two mods for exactly that reason. I'm especially wary about tech tree changes because it would be a lot to relearn.

I personally have no problem with changing core mechanics, be they from RFC or even the core BtS mechanics, as long as the end result is a better mod. Frankly, I don't even play vanilla BtS anymore - this mod is infinitely superior IMO.

Depends on what you're going for I guess. Lots of the stuff that DoC is doing wouldn't work for what the base game intends to be.

I'm interested in what kind of mechanics you are thinking of adding.

Good

I've decided for the moment to be annoyingly vague and bring new subjects up one at a time, though.

We've already has some discussion on making religions unique and changing up the unit roster, and I hope that these can be added in.

But I can say that these are two things that I will address in some form.

Religion is actually what prompted this thread. I like it when a concept begins to form that can take care of multiple problems in one stroke and that's what's currently happening. The exact form that this will take depends on how far I want to deviate from the base rules, but it could have far reaching consequences for other areas including civics, great people or even stability as well.

Something I've wanted is better and possibly religion/region specific quests, which can fill in some of the ideas that were left out because of being outside the scope of this mod.

Me too, but the problem with that is because of the limited scope of these the return on investment isn't always very high.

In the end, you always open any possible changes to forum input, so usually if people aren't in favour of a proposed change, people here will make tweaks to the idea to make it fit better. As long as this trend continues, and I know you like it this way, then there is nothing that I would be completely opposed to.

I really do. I'm happy that the modmodding community within DoC has taken off over the last few weeks. I also think that the dialogue between the community is rather productive and two-sided, even if I sometimes decide to be stubborn (see new expansion stability).

But some fundamental changes are hard to mod against once they've been established in the main mod. As a modmod you are either forced to do constant tedious updates or basically exist as a branch of an outdated version, becoming less and less appealing because the main branch gets new features.

I think we(by we I mean you) need to have a list of things we want to change, then prioritize them. Certain things are more important to gameplay, and some of them must happen before some others for logic's sake.

Yeah, however prioritization isn't always easy from my perspective. Because there often tends to be stuff I'm passionate about and stuff I rationally care about because it needs to be done to improve the mod. Doing the former is more fun and I'm usually more productive, but often the latter should actually be prioritized.

For instance, I'd have more fun adding a bunch of civs than attempting to include some of C2C's multi-threading, but maybe I should start with the latter.

If you can make all these changes feel like updates that improve gameplay in a compatible manner, rather than drastic rework of mechanics that is completely new and unknown to everyone, the player base would certainly increase and rejoice.

Not to say I'm against new features though. I'm expecting the unit roster change for example.

Sure, but sometimes an old mechanic is just so cluttered and unsustainable that you have to kill it with fire. And the plants that replace it require time to grow

(I'm talking mainly about RFC stuff here. BtS is quite elegantly designed for the most part in my opinion.)

 

[Hippo8085]

Public Statement

I voted for option #1 - ditch some of the BtS stuff.

First of all, I am sure that many of us, myself included, see DoC as the most direct evolution of RFC. My guess is that there are more current DoC players than RFC ones.

Second, I assume that you want to keep doing this. If it feels like an obligation, stop. Simple as that. Based on your post, I assume that you do, but something to think about.

Now for my reasoning - it is the big changes that keep things interesting. To be honest, without changes, I play less, which is what has happened about midway through and towards the end of 1.12 development for me. I think that the mechanics changed in RFC are somewhat exhausted in terms of what to change - civics changes in this version felt a little strange to me, having been through both of the other times those had changed.
Large-scale map changes and settler map changes are all I can really see happening, though in my opinion the map is fine and would require more balancing than just "say, there is a little bit of resource x in this region, let's put a game resource there." Settler map changes, although necessary, would probably not exactly keep the entertainment value up for you, or for the majority of the community since it is more of a back door thing.

Therefore, one is left BtS mechanics. I assume when you talk about civics, you mean a rework of the entire system of switches and what not, not just changing names and effects. Culture and Unit Roster are the ones that really appeal to me... with culture a reform of border spread to create more historical land range. At the end of the day, everything is still based on the Civilization 4 engine, so nothing too foreign.

One last suggestion related to the worry of going too far away from RFC: call 1.12 2.0 and keep it available. If you do decide to go into BtS mechanics, then it is sort of the final version of an era, and could be considered a transitional for those coming either from RFC or from BtS.

There is some of my take, will be watching and posting in this thread.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

What happened to world congresses?

 

[mrrandomplayer]

I think that pretty much every BTS mechanic is fine as is except for the unit roster and culture mechanics, because the latter two aren't very applicable to this style of game. I think the area where changes can still be made are in the history simulator aspect- that is, making a more intelligent (not literally) alternate reality simulator. This entails changing the spawn mechanics somewhat, especially for decolonization civs (which is what I'm trying to do right now) and also possibly changing the very base territorial stability system to make it less arbitrary and much more gradual. Of course, the last idea is extremely difficult to implement without making it exploitable and also adapting the AI to it, and that's where I think 1.14 (or 1.13) should mostly aim for after cleaning up smaller things like the unit roster and culture stuff.

 

[Qiu]

Many people here have played vanilla CIV4 for nearly 10 years. New stuff for BTS mechanic could be amazing, at least for me.

 

[Publicola]

I voted to allow changes to the base BtS mechanics. I love this mod, and I trust the ones who contribute to it; enhancing the fundamental elements of the Civ IV engine would be great, especially given the fact that we're all here playing a Civ IV mod and not a mod for Civ V. Until we get Civ VI... in Leoreth we trust.

That said, I actually would be interested in adding various gameplay elements from Civ V, particularly the idea of getting cumulative effects for different civics. I wasn't a fan of how rigid that system was in Civ V, but I'd like to think it'd be possible to work around that and create a more gradual model of shifting societies. In related news, I'd really really like to get rid of the 'Anarchy' mechanic -- it might work for vanilla gameplay, but it's rather ahistorical to imagine 30 or 300 consecutive years of total anarchy when a civilization changes from slavery to serfdom. And of course it'd be great to have more customized and customizable religions as well.

So yes -- there are risks involved in making any major changes, but in the right hands, such risks seem well worth the taking.

 

[Leoreth]

Second, I assume that you want to keep doing this. If it feels like an obligation, stop. Simple as that. Based on your post, I assume that you do, but something to think about.

Yes.

Large-scale map changes and settler map changes are all I can really see happening, though in my opinion the map is fine and would require more balancing than just "say, there is a little bit of resource x in this region, let's put a game resource there." Settler map changes, although necessary, would probably not exactly keep the entertainment value up for you, or for the majority of the community since it is more of a back door thing.

It's drudgery, but that doesn't mean I won't do it when necessary. The more specific the suggestion, the quicker it will be implemented, as we've seen with the dynamic cores.

One last suggestion related to the worry of going too far away from RFC: call 1.12 2.0 and keep it available. If you do decide to go into BtS mechanics, then it is sort of the final version of an era, and could be considered a transitional for those coming either from RFC or from BtS.

I have thought about that, but there's also lots of stuff in the queue that would be compatible with the previous paradigm of DoC which kind of means that I would have to do it first.

What happened to world congresses?

The old code was scrapped in its entirety and the mechanic reproduced from ground up. The basic principles have remained the same, but some features have been added or modified:
- no congresses during world wars, instead a congress for the winners once the war ends
- in addition to demanding foreign cities, you can also ask to colonize free spots on your settler map and will receive settlers for free
- better AI that takes the legitimacy of your claim, their relations to you and their own interest in the city into account
- streamlined interface workflow: even though there are more options and popups, everything takes place in one turn
- bribes now take place during the negotations, you will only be able to bribe someone if there's a chance of success
- instead of bribing with gold, you can also use espionage to influence votes
- some additional eye candy like zooming in on the city that is currently being demanded

That said, I actually would be interested in adding various gameplay elements from Civ V, particularly the idea of getting cumulative effects for different civics.

So yes -- there are risks involved in making any major changes, but in the right hands, such risks seem well worth the taking.

Where to get those hands though

 

[VGL]

Well,what i really want in the next version is more religions(or at least someone could make a mod about more religions.)and the option to deactivate conditional spawns.They a;ways drive me nuts because i have to force spawn them through world builder.

 

[Leoreth]

The suggestions and requests thread is the place to talk about that kind of stuff.

 

[ezzlar]

I like the RFC mechanics and I like the realistic world simulator. Please continue development in that direction.

Most of the improvements in DoC over vanilla RFC are more intuitive and easier to understand, I dont think DoC is becoming too alien to vanilla RFC:ers.

If there should be some changes in development I would prefer more focus to earlier parts of the game and less in modern era. Something like 3000 BC- 1980 AD. That would be:

- A few more religions early on
- A few more civs early on
- More turns during renaissance
- More turns during imperial era
- More techs during imperial era
- More wonders during imperial era
- Fewer techs during modern era, fewer turns in modern era

I really like the medieval part of the game (Romans, Chinese) and colonization part. The very early part could be more interesting. And the Imperial part could be longer. And finally the mods climax would be the two great wars.

 

[citis]

DoC is already a new game for a beginer. If you want to add stuff and still keep a conection with traditional players I propose to make sure of two things:
*Heir should always remain easy, even if you make a couple of large mistakes. This level trains the beginners (and not only ), who will be astonished by the new stuff and stay to the game.
*New rules should be as simple as possible and well documented in pedia. The simpler the rules, the easier to learn.
*No bugs . (You should strongly propose to run the mod in Windows 7, I think it can't run properly on XP anymore...)

It is already a lot for a new player to learn all the new stuff. Playing DoC as a beginer is like playing CIV for first time, after years playing CivIII. New players will inevitably come to the forum to ask more information. So go on and add stuff.

 

[VGL]

I disagree.The best pats of game is modern era.We need Unique ideology victory,one for each civic which will be a total 5 victories,more religion,completely new and improved civics,civic related events,diplomatic penalty for certain civics VS certain civics and more building and techs for all eras (especially Modern and early games.)

 

[need my speed]

Definitely go for it! You have a lot of great ideas, you interact a lot with the community, and basically, you're more than capable of creating huge changes.

I'd really like to see how you handle civics and religion, as it's something I've been toying with on and off for years. On one hand, I want a lot of religions. On the other, that just wouldn't work. My latest idea is to add pantheon-religions (Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Mesoamerican...) but have them unavailable as state religions. These would be unlocked with technologies, whereas Great Prophets would found the 'normal' religions. So you'd get a slew of pantheons throughout the world - one player can only found one pantheon - with a very high spread rate (and the fact that two or three religions can automatically spread to a city, not just one), but without state religion bonuses (relations, temples, monasteries, cathedrals, shrines... You'd probably get a single building that generates one Great Prophet point every turn or somesuch). And after you adopt a state religion, these pantheons could cause unhappiness (non-state religion), and considering multiple religions can automatically spread to one city, Inquisitors would become rather important units. But I'm unsure if I'll do this anyway, as this is but the latest idea, but who knows.

For civics, I could just do away with anarchy and add dozens of new civics and a few new categories. But what about concepts such as 'universal suffrage', 'emancipation', 'free speech', and so on? That would fit more as a toggleable function, not as separate civics.

Anyway, that's irrelevant. Point is, you're doing great, you deliver quality, I'd like to see what you'd do without these constraints!

 

[VGL]

My latest idea is to add pantheon-religions (Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Mesoamerican...) but have them unavailable as state religions. These would be unlocked with technologies, whereas Great Prophets would found the 'normal' religions. So you'd get a slew of pantheons throughout the world - one player can only found one pantheon - with a very high spread rate (and the fact that two or three religions can automatically spread to a city, not just one), but without state religion bonuses (relations, temples, monasteries, cathedrals, shrines... You'd probably get a single building that generates one Great Prophet point every turn or somesuch). And after you adopt a state religion, these pantheons could cause unhappiness (non-state religion), and considering multiple religions can automatically spread to one city, Inquisitors would become rather important units. But I'm unsure if I'll do this anyway, as this is but the latest idea, but who knows.

i think we should do something like RFC classical era.Some religions have a chance to replace old ones(Christians pantheon-religions only and Muslims pantheon-religions and Zoroastrians).and i agree.We need Inquisitors and multiple religion spread.and Maybe disabling Seljuks and a sooner Iran spawn (possibly 1100AD ).Seljuks government was mostly ran on Iranians and not Turks.and more powerful Persia and Iran.99% of times there weak and do not got to the north or conquer India and instead,ussauly lose cities to Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans which is inaccurate.they defeated the roman army numerous times and they even got parts of turkey and Iraq under Safavid rule.