General A New Dawn discussion

[RyoHazuki]

Minor Civs mean no challenge

That's also a common complain that barbarian spawned one city civs are not really a challenge. Maybe a little boost would help them by giving them free Golden Ages. GA length would depend on the era (of the leading civ). It would be 1 if it is spawned in the Classical, 2 in the Medieval, and so on.

I remember long time ago, when a barbarian city became minor civ, they usually raised another 1 or 2 barbarian cities, even if those were a bit far from their capital. They started with a settler among an army strong enough to conquer one or even 2 cities of their neighbor (and they usually did it). If you were not careful with that barbarian cities, you could be facing a 5-6 cities angry civ very early in the game. They were not only a challenge, they could put the entire game upside down. ( I can remember some minor civs leading the game).
Getting to this point needs, enough barbarian cities, having a real army when they appear, and, maybe the most important, the aim of using that army very quickly.

 

[<Nexus>]

I remember long time ago, when a barbarian city became minor civ, they usually raised another 1 or 2 barbarian cities, even if those were a bit far from their capital. They started with a settler among an army strong enough to conquer one or even 2 cities of their neighbor (and they usually did it). If you were not careful with that barbarian cities, you could be facing a 5-6 cities angry civ very early in the game. They were not only a challenge, they could put the entire game upside down. ( I can remember some minor civs leading the game).
Getting to this point needs, enough barbarian cities, having a real army when they appear, and, maybe the most important, the aim of using that army very quickly.

I had similar experiences but as far as I remember this only happens in the early game. A minor civ spawned in the Classical or later rarely meant a real challenge, that's why I suppose the free Golden Age only in the Classical. But if you think it's too strong than it could start only in the Medieval.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Flexible difficulty is available in 2 separate options.

1) Flexible difficulty for the AI only.
2) Flexible difficulty for the player only.

I myself use Flexible difficulty for the AI players only.

Bug options, *Edit, Ha Ha, just as well, A New Dawn options, left hand column, under Flexible difficulty, choose the 2nd option, of AI flexible difficulty, the 1st option, affects human only.

I see. The way the text is worded there as well as the way the options were arrayed I thought that they were:
1. Turn it on for Player
2. Turn it on for AI as well

Thanks for clearing it up. Although I would advise modifying the text descriptions to ensure people aren't fooled like I was.

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As for minor civs why not simply have a check that flips nearby barbarian cities to them as well? And by nearby I mean across a big area and not just neighbors. Like, moderate size era appropriate empire type of area. That would not make them as big a challenge as a flat out gift of armies but it would most definitively allow for some nasty surprises for when you get careless and all those scattered cities on the other side of your great wall you could not be bothered to take suddenly turn into the mongol horde and invade you.

 

[<Nexus>]

As for minor civs why not simply have a check that flips nearby barbarian cities to them as well? And by nearby I mean across a big area and not just neighbors. Like, moderate size era appropriate empire type of area.

I think that would result in "giving birth of civilizations that are already dying" if you consider maintenance cost, happiness penalty from distance to capital and revolution instability for distance.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I've neglected Minor/Barbarian civs for some time because I was busy with options working in multiplayer and that option caused troubles in multiplayer. But I want to fix a couple of things there, so thanks for your suggestions.
As for Flexible Difficulty the text was correct when we introduced that option. I think I made two options independent years ago but I don't recall now, since I always use them both. But it's easy to try, you can see each Civ handicap level by hovering the mouse over the Civ name in the score list over the minimap.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I think that would result in "giving birth of civilizations that are already dying" if you consider maintenance cost, happiness penalty from distance to capital and revolution instability for distance.

It would definitively take some tweaking as far as the distance is concerned but I think it's doable. You'd basically have to make it so that the resulting empire is about the same size as a medium rate AI faction on the map would be. Those tend to after all be a stable middle ground.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

It would definitively take some tweaking as far as the distance is concerned but I think it's doable. You'd basically have to make it so that the resulting empire is about the same size as a medium rate AI faction on the map would be. Those tend to after all be a stable middle ground.

Yep, definitely not that difficult. I'll add it to my to-do list.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Well if you are taking suggestions there is one thing I have been wanting to see in CIV for as long as it existed.

You know how when your city finishes building something and there is nothing in the queue you get a popup that lets you select the next thing or zoom to the city for a closer look? Well, one thing I'd love to see, and I imagine that I ain't the only one, is a similar popup for when a city grows or shrinks.

Basically the one annoying thing about city management with larger empires is that multiple cities can grow in the same turn and it's rather easy to miss one when going through them to arrange specialists. And by the time you catch on to it you will have wasted valuable turns and possibly polluted your GP pool. A popup that goes something like "X has grown. Do you want to zoom and manually assign the citizen." would go a long way toward preventing that.

And before you ask yes, I do play 100% without automation. Automation is heresy.

 

[Samson]

Well if you are taking suggestions there is one thing I have been wanting to see in CIV for as long as it existed.

You know how when your city finishes building something and there is nothing in the queue you get a popup that lets you select the next thing or zoom to the city for a closer look? Well, one thing I'd love to see, and I imagine that I ain't the only one, is a similar popup for when a city grows or shrinks.

Basically the one annoying thing about city management with larger empires is that multiple cities can grow in the same turn and it's rather easy to miss one when going through them to arrange specialists. And by the time you catch on to it you will have wasted valuable turns and possibly polluted your GP pool. A popup that goes something like "X has grown. Do you want to zoom and manually assign the citizen." would go a long way toward preventing that.

And before you ask yes, I do play 100% without automation. Automation is heresy.

You have noticed that BUG gives you this notification, though not as a popup. Every turn the cities that grow produce a message at the top of the screen "X has grown to size Y". If you browse the message window you can click on the message to zoom to the city.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

You have noticed that BUG gives you this notification, though not as a popup. Every turn the cities that grow produce a message at the top of the screen "X has grown to size Y". If you browse the message window you can click on the message to zoom to the city.

Yep, and the same is true for almost all messages involving a know position. Storms have destroyed a building? A building has ceased functioning? A religion has been removed from a city? You click on the relevant warning in the log and it will take you where the action took place.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I know about the feature but, to be perfectly honest, I don't find it to be useful at all. In fact, I generally find the log it self to be next to useless as a game tool.

Firstly, the thing does not self delete which means that it very quickly piles up with mountains of messages making it very difficult to accurately gauge when one turn ends and another begins, let alone accurately and slowly scroll to where you want to go. Too many times have I scrolled too far by accident and ended up wasting valuable time handling events long past or jumped over things I needed to find because of scrolling. I really wish there was a way to just make it start from empty each turn.

Next, it has no sorting apart from color coding which, given that there are only 3 colors, is practically useless. It might have been fine back in vanilla with its sparse messaging. But it is my professional opinion as a software developer, and I am willing to stand behind as a professional, that the BUG messaging system is complex enough that you really need a proper sorting system with tabs and everything.

Than there is just the sheer number of messages you can get per turn for the same thing. Like, say 5 cities just grew. It's incredibly easy to go through the log thinking you've clicked them all only to end up hitting 4 out of 5 or something similarly disastrous.

So yea, the game log is, in my opinion, the one downfall of BUG.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Random question time. If I am starting a new game and I set all the civs and leaders to random does the game check to make sure it does not generate the same civ and/or leader twice or can I end up with duplicates? If the later is the case would it be possible to code in such a system. It'd make jumping into a new game much quicker.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Random question time. If I am starting a new game and I set all the civs and leaders to random does the game check to make sure it does not generate the same civ and/or leader twice or can I end up with duplicates? If the later is the case would it be possible to code in such a system. It'd make jumping into a new game much quicker.

AFAIK it checks there are no duplicates, at least provided there are more civs than players (which is always true if you use MegaCivPack).

 

[<Nexus>]

Random question time. If I am starting a new game and I set all the civs and leaders to random does the game check to make sure it does not generate the same civ and/or leader twice or can I end up with duplicates? If the later is the case would it be possible to code in such a system. It'd make jumping into a new game much quicker.

You don't get doubles with random, but you can if you deliberately set up a game that way.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

I've ALLWAY'S played Random Civ's leader. I've NEVER had a doubling of a leader or Civ's in the time I've been playing.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

That's great to know. I newer really used random as an option simply because I've newer had a mod with so many civs to chose from so picking a bunch was easy. So I had no idea what would happen if I tried. Now game 2 can begin.

 

[Fozman]

So, I've supposedly met the conditions for a Cultural Victory (3 cities to Legendary: 480,000), but the message has not triggered... some 10 turns after the fact.

This is my first RoM game to completion, so I'm wondering if I have an option active that overrides the victory condition (like Mastery Victory).

 

[Vokarya]

So, I've supposedly met the conditions for a Cultural Victory (3 cities to Legendary: 480,000), but the message has not triggered... some 10 turns after the fact.

This is my first RoM game to completion, so I'm wondering if I have an option active that overrides the victory condition (like Mastery Victory).

Cultural Victory in AND requires 5 cities with Legendary Culture, not just 3.

If you have Mastery Victory turned on, it will say so at the top of the F8 (Victory Conditions) screen.

 

[Fozman]

Thank you for clarifying, Vokarya.

Speaking from the perspective of a newbie, there seems to be some crucial information (such as this) missing from the in-game documentation. I've had to search the forum for a few topics that were not necessarily intuitive such as changes to stock BtS victory conditions, requirements for route types, certain topics for the revolutions mod, and other small things that may have been overlooked by experienced players writing the documentation.

You made a post last year with a table that really helped my understanding of road types and their requirements. There are no entries in the Sevopedia for the route improvement types.

It would be helpful for newbies if these things were added in the next update, as per this thread from a couple months ago.

Fortunately, the forum community is very supportive and full of information. I appreciate the hard work that has gone into this mod.

 

[jackelgull]

In my opinion, the AI doesn't research archery soon enough. In all of my Hittite games on noble, I've been able to raze 60+ cities by 1000 BC because I get Hittite Chariots by 2000 BC and the AI doesn't research and build archers until 1600 BC, leaving 400 years to rampage nearly unopposed barring something really odd like javelins on a hill city with hills defense. And by the time they've gotten to archers, I'm so promoted it doesn't even really matter any more.

I think archers should start popping up around 1800 BC and be common place by 1600 BC. This means a chariot rush still has a good window to be viable, but that it doesn't leave your core veterans unstoppable until the medieval age.