Gedemon's Civilization, development thread

[Gedemon]

Update:

- balance: lower Materiel production ratio from Clay
- balance: raise Grain production for Watermill and Windmill, remove Grain production from all markets
- balance: raise (blank) Tablets, Scrolls and Books storage in Scribe House and Library
- add Scrolls, Books production to Library
- add Administrative Tablets, Scrolls and Books produced/stocked by Ancestor's Hall, Forum, Senate and Parliament (books only for the latter)
- add more Food yield change to Farm (+2 with Calendar, +4 with Fertilizer, +8 with Industrialization), lower base Food yield to 2 (from 3)
- add +2 Food for Farm adjacent to Rivers with Irrigation
- update rowID in the Adjacency_YieldChange table for the UI
- update and remove some Technologies description to reflect the mod's changes
- add "Worked Improvement" Event to the list of possible research contributions
- add working Farms/Plantations to Calendar research contributions
- add Stone in stock to Mining research contributions
- add Masonry Resources Class (Gypsum, Marble, Stone) and related events (Worked, In  Stock) to Masonry research contributions
- add "Exploration" Research Field to Sailing (max 50%)
- override TechCivicCompletedPopup.xml file to fix half-screen alpha layer on Techs completed.
- crash fix : add a maximum limit to the number of resources displayed on the City Banner's tooltips
- add an "Empire Administrative Cost" entry to the Top Panel UI, that will be supported by the Administrative Tablets/Scrolls/Books production and stock (lower than required will lower stability when implemented)

edit: please note that updates adding new resources like this one break current stocks in savegame.

 

[Gedemon]

I'm pondering the Administrative Support mechanism, here is a possible draft:

• There would be 2 types of Administrative resources:
  • Tablets/Scrolls/Books Records (as in new administrative records this turn)
  • Tablets/Scrolls/Books Archive (as in previous turns records now archived)
• The Empire Administrative Cost would be supported by both the number of Archive resources and New Records
  • Lower than required Empire Administrative Support would add instability
  • Empire Cost is based on
    • Total Empire population (Rural and Urban)
    • Number of cities (maybe with a higher cost for far away cities)
    • Territory size (number of tiles owned by the Empire)
    • Technological advancement (base cost is multiplied by a variable based on the number of known techs)
• The individual Cities Administrative Cost would be supported only by New Records
  • Lower than required City Administrative Support would affect number of traded resources, number of produced resources, and local stability
  • City Cost is based on
    • Total City Population (Rural and Urban)
    • City Territory (number of tiles owned by the City)
    • Previous turn resources Trade/Production

 

[Gedemon]

Small development report:

Still pondering where to put the change related to resources trade route.

I'll add a new tooltip to the city banner (also pondering to move back up in the banner itself some of the tooltips like population/housing and only keep the ones related to resources below) for trade routes, in which I'll put the number (current/max) of trade routes in/out as well as the other properties (max tonnage, efficiency) and list the linked cities.

But for resources properties, I'm not sure, as the DecayRate and UnitsPerTonnage properties are used by only a few resources, and I'm short on columns space.

Another thing I'm pondering is the unit's supply line pathfinding. At this moment it's quite simple, and link the unit to the nearest city only using a land path without checking the movement cost between tiles.

I want to change it to use movement cost (that one should be relatively easy) but then I would also need to check more than one city for route efficiency, because the nearest city is not always the most efficient.

And that's a problem, checking all possible routes between units/cities each turn will be heavy on processing time, even more if we add sea/river supply lines...

Because, yes, I'd like the supply lines to be able to use sea/river routes too.

For that one I don't know how to check for a disembark/embark cost, I suppose it's possible, maybe I'd just need to look at how it's done for civ5 in c++ and convert to Lua, but I have a simpler solution: allow only one disembark from river/sea to land, in the city to unit direction (assuming the unit doesn't have the infrastructure to "create" supply boats, while cities with docks can)

So each time an unit is adjacent to a coast or a river, check for a direct sea/river route with the city during the loop that update the unit path to cities, and if there is one, consider the current plot the unit is as its "disembark plot", then the following turns only check if the river/sea path to the "disembark plot" is still valid, and then check if there is a valid land path from the "disembark plot" to the unit.

Of course, the land supply lines will be (much) shorter than sea/river supply lines.

 

[Gedemon]

A few thoughts:

- Red Dead Redemption 2 in November 2019
- Cyberpunk 2077 in April 2020
- Humankind in 2020
- Still no DLL source code release date for civ6

To summarize, I'm afraid I won't have a lot of time for this project in the months to come, but to be honest this is just a confirmation of the near-hibernation state since some time, and not just for this specific project, but in the whole civ6 modding section on CFC*.

Still thinking on how to implement this or that, and I will surely add some of the stuff I've talked in the previous posts at some point in the near future.

Just don't hold your breath...


*There are other factors than civ6 modding capabilities here, but the simple fact is that I need to rely on steam comments to get feedback on YnAMP for example, which mean I need to release untested stuff on the workshop (as I don't play civ6 myself), with the counter-productive noise it generates because of the automated updates for all users of the mod...

 

[Gedemon]

Okay, YnAMP v8.0 seems to be good, so back to the heavy stuff... Anyone still here ?

Small update

- bug fix: update some  Cultures artdef reference that were still set to pre-GS values
- bug fix: update Colors that were still using the pre-GS model
- use the Logos table in Configuration database for Logo override
- add dynamic icon for Health and Food on city banners
- tweak icon placement in City Banner, Food is now first
- remove FloodPlains placement on Plains, keep them for Grass adjacent to rivers
- add "Plants" resources on Floodplains
- tweak Administrative Cost" calculation, number of cities is now a factor of it
- add and track "Administrative Support" value based on the total of Administrative Tablets, Scrolls, Books in your Empire
- display "Administrative Efficiency" value in TopPanel (no gameplay effects yet)
- bug fix: replace some LuaEvents by GameEvents in GamePlay scripts (still some to do)
- correct some typo in UI texts and variables name

There is a very small update to the Assets, optional (it fixes the logo still displayed until re-launch when disabling the mod)

 

[Rado]

still here, waiting for a version that you consider balanced/finished, though.

 

[Gedemon]

That may take some time

Still working toward a preview .2, I hope it will have 2 working eras for beta-testing/feedback.

 

[Acularius]

I am watching and waiting for those alerts for this thread

 

[Gedemon]

New update, introducing Administrative Cost/Support at the Empire level and at the Cities level

- add Administrative cost/support to Empire and Cities (no game play effect at the Empire level yet, but already impact resources collect/production for cities)
- add "Administrative" yields to Palace, Central Square, Ancestor Hall, Forum, Senate, Parliament
- some fix to the color tables (need to do another pass)
- restore prerequisite to shipyard, now a city center building
- add visualization of the Harbor building on a Coastal tile using the District appearance.

Empire support is based on buildings in cities and number of Administrative resources left after the cities have used them.

There is a minimum percentage value used to keep some stock available for the Empire Support if the city is using more than what it produces, fixed ATM, but I'll link it to policies I think.

Spoiler Cities :

Spoiler Empire :

Soon you'll have an incentive to build those

Spoiler :

 

[Gedemon]

About the Administrative efficiency and how to interact with them, ATM I've set a few "administrative buildings" (Palace, Ancestor's Hall, Forum, ...) and "resources" (Administrative Tablets, Scrolls, Books)

I'll adapt available Policies (like "Land Surveyors: reduce Administrative cost of territory by 20%") and will also use Government for that.

Now, we have Administrative cost/support at the Empire and at the City levels.

At the Empire level it will affect stability and spawn rate of Separatists and is affected by

• Total population in the Empire
• Total Territory (number of plots owned)
• Number of cities
• Number of units
• Number of techs
• ?

At the City level it affects the number of resources processed each turn (collected from terrain or transformed in buildings ATM, will also affect transfert/trade capacities later) and is affected by

• Total Population in the City Territory (ie Urban+Rural)
• City territory (number of plots owned by the City)
• Number of Buildings
• Number of techs (lesser effect than at the Empire level)
• ?

Now, let's take the first Governments, how should they interact with the above ?

• Chiefdom : no effect
• Classical Republic : raise Administrative Buildings/Resources support values by 20% ?
• Oligarchy: reduce administrative cost in each cities by 25% ?
• Autocracy: reduce administrative cost in the Capital by 50%, at the Empire level by 15% ?

opinions/ideas ?

 

[Gedemon]

Update

- disable "MaxPlayerInstances=1" for Senate and Parliament, as there is no UI feedback for that at this moment, and no Policies/Government effects to control Administrative Cost yet.
- add City Names to England
- add a basic modifiers system specific to the mod
- add Government unlock icons on the Tech tree
- tweak Techs requirement per Government
- tweak a few (indirect) Techs requirement so that "Fascism" doesn't requires "Suffrage"
- add the Production Factor value directly above the City Size on the City Banners (that's the value affecting how much resources are collected/processed in a city)
- change color of the cities growth bar when losing population
- move Administration values to their own icon/tooltip on the City Banner (still need to move the Administrative Resources there, they are still under "others")
- move Health and Food icons/tooltip on the City Banner itself, leaving some places on the lower row
- add a Harbor icon/tooltip on the city banner for coastal cities once Sailing is researched, with the Sea Exploitation Range value
- tweak Empire Administrative Cost values, rise per City factor, lower per Tech and per Unit factor

 

[CalebR_300]

Holy cow! I thought this mod was dead. So glad you're back into it Gedemon, this mod really turns the game around.
As for your current governmental system, I do like your new ideas for making use of the administrative buildings, prior to this I was just using them for the Social Inspiration boost.
For the specifics, I think that Republic/Democratic governments should cost more administration than Autocratic/Totalitarian governments.
I also feel that poorly managed Republic governments should be able to withstand more inefficiency penalties for longer before violent rebellion (bureaucracy), whereas Autocratic governments that are poorly managed have lower thresholds for rebellion (gotta keep the iron fist strong).

So to sum up (just my opinion):

• Republic/Liberal governments - More base admin cost, but can run on lower inefficiencies before rebellion.
• Autocratic governments - Less base admin cost, but rebellion chance drastically goes up the more inefficient the government gets.
  
• Oligarchic governments - Something in between.

If there's any Amenity system down the line, I feel it should factor into rebellion chance/city efficiency as well. But one thing at a time.

As for me, I'm off to start a new game with this mod - good times!

 

[CyberPhy]

Is this normal, I cant find any info on any civs

 

[Gedemon]

Yes I did a quick and dirty import from the 60 Basic Modern Civilization mod to have only "empty" civilizations that won't mess the mod with unexpected effects.

The civilization list will change once I'm ready to start working on ethnic groups on the map, the UA will be gained during the game and based on the ethnicity you interact with. Not *soon* for that last part.

 

[CalebR_300]

So I've been playing about 200 turns of my current game, and I just wanted to drop some quick feedback regarding the mod so far, in no particular order...

• City stability is reasonably balanced, and I can keep most cities stable with a forum, and upgrade to a senate for the bigger ones.
• Empire stability, on the other hand is hard to remotely keep up with. About 20-30% empire stability, despite most individual cities being highly stable. That said, the capital has huge borders, and I have about 12 million population all up.
• Liking the improvements to sea range, and the mini-city interface in general.
  
• I've been in debt almost the entire game; city production cost seems unusually high this game. I am prioritizing production buildings before everything else (i.e. carpenter), and despite generally having enough material production to cover current projects, I seem to have trouble accumulating stock. After unlocking machinery and getting some sawmills down, I seem to be starting to pay off the debt (over 1000 gold thus far). Yes, I do have the taxation civics in place.
  
• I have 5.3 million people (urban) in the capital despite only having capacity for 1.2 million (max housing thus far). There probably should be more population suppression in cities with lacking housing, or boost housing values.
• Similar to above, most of the urban citizens are unemployed. I think population numbers need adjusting, or simplifying. Creating urban jobs doesn't really make any dent in the unemployment, they breed way too fast.
• Also similar, my luxuries can't even remotely keep up with demand (this is with abundant resources).
• Library resources (scrolls and tablets) clog up the 'resources stock' page in the city menu... I'm not sure if it is really necessary to list each tech scroll/tablet separately. Minor thing, as I tend to use the mini-city interface anyway.
• In regards to morale, I think that overall troop numbers in a unit should impact morale more heavily. For example, I had a barbarian unit down to 6 active personnel in the unit, but morale was still around 96%. (Maybe it's a barbarian thing).
• It's probably beyond the scope of the mod, but having more control over commodity production/unit resupply would be nice. Unit size suddenly increasing, or a new weapon type being discovered tends to put a major drag on the economy (also a major contributor to my debt).

An old problem I had (which I have yet to test in the current game) is in regards to production buildings with multiple outputs using the same input having difficulty producing one of the outputs. (Such as the Bladesmith producing Iron and Steel Swords using Iron (very few steel swords were made), and the Foundry producing Muskets and Bombards using Iron, but making no Bombards whatsoever until Musket stock was filled).

Also, a few questions:

• Do cultural/amenity buildings (such as the monument/arena) have a purpose?
• Does the aqueduct contribute to housing, or is it just providing fresh water?

Anyway, that's enough word wall for now. Keep up the good work boss!

 

[Gedemon]

Thanks for the detailed feedback, I can compare with my own current test run at ~230 turns.

Administrative values will change a lot when adding government and policies effect. I've also just set individual weight on tablets, scrolls, books so that the invention of paper is having a big influence, if you have enough wood for the demand in books.

No debt at all here, but small army, using drafted units a lot to fight barbarians.

Some values are way off, I'll do a pass on urban employment, housing effect on natality and luxuries. I've also realised that natality/mortality final values are not displayed.

More control is something I'd like to implement once I've tested to pass new action in MP as in the Red Dead scenario.

Culture output will have an effect on plots cultural variations (ie converting some population from one culture group to another in plots)

Aqueduct just give fresh water, which has no effect as health is not linked to death rate yet.

 

[Gedemon]

Update

- add Birth Rate and Death Rate values on the "Population Needs" tooltip below the City Banner
- add different "Administrative value" for resources: 1 admin support per Tablet, 2 per Scroll and 3 per Book
- set Pictogram as a prerequisite for Tablets and Writing as a prerequisite for Scrolls
- Tablets are now obsolete with Paper, Scrolls are now obsolete with Printing
- tweak migration value for Housing, more weight for population leaving from/to the urban/rural areas of a City territory when Housing is low
- fix lower housing calculation (was not accounting for higher class taking lower housing when their own housing class is full)
- tweak City Employment value
- change Plots max population Size value to be dynamic (based on improved food yields, not base yields)
- tweak Luxuries consumption value
- fix: City range was shorter than displayed when looking for a path to a Sea Resource
- fix: allow Migration from/to a plot adjacent to a City that doesn't own it
- fix: missing TopPanel on new game (reloading a game saved after founding the first city was fine)
- remove the unused "Harbor" District from the tech tree
- fix: CITY_SHIPYARD (ie "Harbor" Building) as a prerequisite for Lighthouse
- tweak: spread Housing buildings on more than one prerequisite Techs
- change some placeholders icons for techs/resources to something more adequate, based on existing icons
- move back Food and Health icons below the City Banner as I can't handle left/right click change to the Tooltip in that position
- less padding between the Tooltips Icons below the City Banner

 

[Gedemon]

Hotfix !

- fix: Migration error: do not divide the number of Migrant by 0 or else EVERYONE will leave (to a black hole or something as they are never found again on the map)

 

[DemonEmperor]

Hey @Gedemon I think turn times suddenly got a lot worse after the latest update. Would you mind posting, either here or on the github, something that explains which scripts run when? (centralized in one place to make the script files easier to fathom). I might be able to help you optimize which parts can and can't get cached

 

[CalebR_300]

Wow, that was quick. I'll update and play test another game in a bit.
Before that, some more things from my previous playthrough (turn 260):

• I did notice the paper tech did improve my empire stability for a little while. Peaked about 38%. My constant expansion/warfare (got about two thirds of the continent now), means that stability has dropped around 28%, and stays around that value as I add cities and senates (I don't even bother with forums now). All cities with a senate reach 100% stability pretty quickly.
• Scribe house icon should probably be replaced, it looks like a governmental building.
  
  
• As for population, I've found cities based in floodplains tend to boom far more than other cities. Capital has 16.9 million population, which is almost half of my total population (with only 3.89 million urban capacity). Only one other city has comparable population (6.6 million), also based in floodplains.
• Population booms are generally followed by random cities having to ration, and it then becomes hard to follow who can't supply locally, and who is simply over-exporting to feed another city.
  
  
• I don't think I'll ever understand the immigration system... stuff just seems to happen. That said, I do seem to notice that if my civ has a large population, other civs seem somewhat stunted. Maybe just a coincidence?
• Ditto with tile size and production. A forest that produces about 3 wood in the early game is churning up to 600 wood later. But other lumber mills in the same time period vary wildly, with production from 20, 60, 300, etc. It's a bit hard to judge how much a tile is really worth when numbers vary so much. Probably should be a cap on production, and for quality of life, an easier way to tell what the max output will be.
  
• I notice that some tiles say they would benefit from a certain improvement that can't be built, such as salt mines on empty flat desert, or plantations in standard forests. I'm guessing this is still a work in progress thing.
  
  
• Never managed to pay off my debt. Had it down to about -200 gold, and just about paid, then all my units increased manpower just before crossing into enemy lines, resulting in many turns of 120-180 gold/turn unit resupply costs. Didn't help my weapon/armor manufacturing was far from the front lines. Debt currently about -1700, but at least dropping from it's peak of -2100ish.
• On the above, I realized my warfare based foreign policy was costing me money, as I was missing out on import/export taxes. I forgot foreign trade was worth more than what is shown on the trade screen.
  
  
• I haven't bothered with levied troops; prefer a standing army. Their wages aren't a problem, but their equipment is more valuable than they are due to resupply cost. Opted for long range fighting in order to minimize resupply costs.
  
• Funny story with draftees - an enemy Portuguese city had about 3 drafted phalanx units near the city. As I approached, the Portuguese leader sued for peace - I refused - and the next turn the draftees all vanished. Not sure if that was a glitch, or they simply timed out because I had been stuffing around for about 12 turns sending my catapults north and back in order to pick up more siege weapons (no manufacturing in the south).
• I noticed every now and again there would be a unit of soldiers with a single wounded soldier that would never recover, constantly draining the unit's medicine supply. Not sure if this is representing long term disability, or more likely a bug.
• Pretty sure it's WIP, but unit health (sickness, not manpower) doesn't really seem to impact combat effectiveness or morale (or medicine either, but need to double check). Only realised this when I had some units at -100 health after desert combat.
  
• I did have to juggle them around to keep them fed however, supply lines seem very short in enemy territory, a physical supply wagon unit would be useful in those situations.
• Is there a process for unit manpower expansion? It just seems random to me, but maybe I'm not paying attention. A more trickle increase would probably be better than sudden bursts (or universal 1000 man divisions would be even better).
  
• It only occurred to me now... do ranged units consume material for firing? If not, they probably should (to represent ammo).
• Steel swords should be moved in the tech tree to match their steel pike counterparts.
  
  
• Minor thing - I only realized the market base production cost (120 cogs) is lower than the butchery and fish market it replaces (80+70, 150 cogs), so unless you're strapped for material, there's no real reason to build the fish market or butchery (unless you're like me, and don't read the tooltip in the market building until much later ).
• On that note, the market building contributes gold directly (+3), although the large market that replaces it does not.
  
• Not sure if it can be implemented, but it would be nice if you could build a harbour in non-coastal cities. Had to raze a desert city to move it one tile to the left in order to secure a coastal food supply.
  
  
• Read through your concept notes, really liking the idea of builders using material instead of charges. Does the code allow for such a change?
• Edit: Just a suggestion - I think light armors - Linothorax/Leather/Gambeson - should be used for archer/scout units to provide some bonus protection. And also because currently light units use no armor at all.

Sorry to ramble on and bombard you with so many different things... I appreciate this is no small project. Anyway, I hope this is still somewhat useful. Now for a fresh game!