General A New Dawn discussion

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

To add a counterpoint to this, I played a MP game of AND last weekend and I had 2 barb cities appear next to me, and lost a escorted settler + archer to a pack of barbarian units that ganged up on me.

Barbarians are definitely around. Possibly the random numbers didn't roll in their favor for your game?

If you want hard data though, I could add logging so that whenever barbarian units spawn it prints the unit and total number of barbs on the map to the ANewDawn.log. You could actually see what the game says then.

Throwing in something else, some months ago I've played a bit with xml values for barbarians in handicapinfo but in the end I've not yet found a good balance because there was a great unbalance in barbarians distribution. I recall increasing barbarian units/cities in handicapinfo but all I got was having some continents litterally crowded with barbarian hordes and other continents without any barbarian activity. Odd.

 

[Noyyau]

As a side note, what exactly do the "Aggressive AI" and "Ruthless AI" options change?
I've been using "Ruthless AI" since forever, but I can't remember ever reading an exhaustive explanation of what it does.

P.S. about barbarians: I usually get a ton of them (Raging Barbarians is on, Barbarian World usually not), but my games tend to have a lot of open and unexplored terrain for long times, so they have the time to spawn and roam.
Though by the time I get axemen they are not a real threat anymore, just need to remember to garrison my cities enough.

 

[Rezca]

@Afforess: I've had some barbarian-heavy games, but for the most part they're either tame or non-existant. My worst/best game was on a Huge/Marathon/Prince "Global Highlands" map. dozens and dozens of barbarian cities, you would not see a single stack that wasn't less than eight barbs, and four AI's got overrun before the Ancient was even over. Several before anyone even met them too.

Most of the time, I just see animals wandering around in the late Classical, and then Javelineers once crossbows show up.


@45* I meant that in the 160 ~ 200 turns in most everyone was using Axes and swords but not so much as a single barb warrior had showed up. By the 285 ~ 300 point (Give or take) several of the starting AI's were nearing or had entered the medieval. I keep forgetting Machinery isn't a Medieval tech (Feudalism is though, right? CivPedia and the tech screen isn't saying anything, but most of the 'big' civs have Longbows running around right now)

Sorry about that misunderstanding!

*Edit( @Noyyau: I can't remember exactly what the Aggressive AI option does specifically, but Sulla's website had discussed it briefly. It was supposed to make the AI less 'passive', more likely to demand tribute/declare war, and make certain decisions somewhat better.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Ah ok, that sounds much better. Thank you Rezca I almost had a heart attack but now I feel better

 

[Rezca]

Ah ok, that sounds much better. Thank you Rezca I almost had a heart attack but now I feel better

Sorry about that

Though I almost had a heart attack in-game seeing Atotoztli secure so many wonders (some of them two on the same turn!!) and watching her score balloon out of control
She did have Longbows before turn 300, and it's about 320 now with a few other large-ish civs researching Guilds or other early Medieval techs, but she was by far the first into the age. I blame all those wonders

 

[Afforess]

As a side note, what exactly do the "Aggressive AI" and "Ruthless AI" options change?
I've been using "Ruthless AI" since forever, but I can't remember ever reading an exhaustive explanation of what it does.

Aggressive AI makes AI favor war over peace and makes them more aggressive in combat (more likely to fight even if the odds are not there). It can make things harder...or easier. Depending on whether aggressiveness is a good strategy. The AI is a bit less forgiving and more clever in diplomacy.

Ruthless AI is basically a "step up" from Aggressive AI. Ruthless AI auto-enables Aggressive AI, so Ruthless AI includes all the aggressiveness above. But Ruthless AI makes the AI ruthless in that it abandons all pretense of playing nice and goes for victory. Ruthless AI will not trade military techs when it is at war. Ruthless AI will not trade maps when it is at war. Ruthless AI will negotiate open borders with countries it needs border access for to make military campaigns more successful. Ruthless AI will engage in diplomacy every turn with other AI's (normally there is a timer that prevents the AI from engaging in diplomacy for X turns. This is disabled in Ruthless AI, and the timer only applies to humans (as to not nag them too much). So Ruthless AI will attempt to trade for war allies, new techs, etc, every turn.

Ruthless AI will also stock up on more nukes, and considers the "enemy of our enemy" as a friend (improves relationships). Ruthless AI beelines for religions.

Ruthless AI offers no changes to cities or units. Mostly it is a change in how players interact with each other. Aggressive AI has a few changes for players, but mostly makes units more aggressive. Ruthless AI will spend its time trying to purposely entrangle others in pointless wars, etc.

I modeled ruthless AI after how I like to play civ.

 

[Afforess]

Throwing in something else, some months ago I've played a bit with xml values for barbarians in handicapinfo but in the end I've not yet found a good balance because there was a great unbalance in barbarians distribution. I recall increasing barbarian units/cities in handicapinfo but all I got was having some continents litterally crowded with barbarian hordes and other continents without any barbarian activity. Odd.

If barbarians are too inconsistent, we could consider adding some new tags to help control them. Maybe like a iMinimumBarbarianPerTiles, so you could set it to 50 if you want to ensure there was 1 barb unit for every 50 tiles in the world. That is a bit excessive, but the idea would work.

 

[Rezca]

I haven't done much with vassals since updating to the revisions that introduced the Foreign Policy civic(s), so I don't know if this is "working as intended" or something nutty going on, but I know I've never had such a severe drop in income simply from accepting a vassal before!


So Darius I came to me and asked to be my vassal. I thought 'sure why not' and accepted him. Cash dropped slightly, but it wasn't a big deal. I could be running at 60% income just fine. I go about my business, complete The Silk Road and am trying to secure a few additional resources and some space-filler cities (Darius having snuck a settler behind my borders while I wasn't paying attention. Serves me right for being so slow ) when Kangxi comes and asks to be my vassal too. I actually kinda like vassalizing the AI's, so I went ahead and accepted him as well.... Only to notice my income plummeting to catastrophic negatives!

City maintenance had jumped up from 50'ish to 210+ just from vassalizing him!

Now as I said, I haven't been keeping up much with vassal development in the mod lately (I've actually been a bit inactive. Just started up some college classes and they've been eating a lot of my time) and I haven't exactly had time to experiment with how they work alongside the new civic policies, but this was an eye opener for me!
He's running Appeasement and I'm still running Isolationism, so maybe the two are conflicting somehow, I don't know - but my maintenance costs skyrocketing... I can't remember, but is that supposed to happen?
I certainly don't remember it being that severe before, but then again a lot has changed with the mod since I last accepted multiple vassals. If this really is 'as intended' though that's a major hit to how I usually play the game (going nuts with vassals) eep!
View attachment 381956 View attachment 381957

Now granted, Kangxi's not the best choice of civilization's to vassalize at this point (He's been under the wonder-rampant Atotoztli's rule and military powerhouse Deganawida's rule already, and has a city squeezed in on the former's homeland) so I can always decline his offer the next time around, but overall it does make me a tad worried. I love vassalizing the AI almost as much as I love crushing them - via military or culture - so this would definitely hamper my playstyle if I end up having to pay maintenance for THEIR cities along with my own

 

[Noyyau]

Aggressive AI makes AI favor war over peace and makes them more aggressive in combat (more likely to fight even if the odds are not there). It can make things harder...or easier. Depending on whether aggressiveness is a good strategy. The AI is a bit less forgiving and more clever in diplomacy.

Ruthless AI is basically a "step up" from Aggressive AI. Ruthless AI auto-enables Aggressive AI, so Ruthless AI includes all the aggressiveness above. But Ruthless AI makes the AI ruthless in that it abandons all pretense of playing nice and goes for victory. Ruthless AI will not trade military techs when it is at war. Ruthless AI will not trade maps when it is at war. Ruthless AI will negotiate open borders with countries it needs border access for to make military campaigns more successful. Ruthless AI will engage in diplomacy every turn with other AI's (normally there is a timer that prevents the AI from engaging in diplomacy for X turns. This is disabled in Ruthless AI, and the timer only applies to humans (as to not nag them too much). So Ruthless AI will attempt to trade for war allies, new techs, etc, every turn.

Ruthless AI will also stock up on more nukes, and considers the "enemy of our enemy" as a friend (improves relationships). Ruthless AI beelines for religions.

Ruthless AI offers no changes to cities or units. Mostly it is a change in how players interact with each other. Aggressive AI has a few changes for players, but mostly makes units more aggressive. Ruthless AI will spend its time trying to purposely entrangle others in pointless wars, etc.

I modeled ruthless AI after how I like to play civ.

Thanks for the info!
Ruthless AI stays on!

 

[Afforess]

I haven't done much with vassals since updating to the revisions that introduced the Foreign Policy civic(s), so I don't know if this is "working as intended" or something nutty going on, but I know I've never had such a severe drop in income simply from accepting a vassal before!


So Darius I came to me and asked to be my vassal. I thought 'sure why not' and accepted him. Cash dropped slightly, but it wasn't a big deal. I could be running at 60% income just fine. I go about my business, complete The Silk Road and am trying to secure a few additional resources and some space-filler cities (Darius having snuck a settler behind my borders while I wasn't paying attention. Serves me right for being so slow ) when Kangxi comes and asks to be my vassal too. I actually kinda like vassalizing the AI's, so I went ahead and accepted him as well.... Only to notice my income plummeting to catastrophic negatives!

City maintenance had jumped up from 50'ish to 210+ just from vassalizing him!

Now as I said, I haven't been keeping up much with vassal development in the mod lately (I've actually been a bit inactive. Just started up some college classes and they've been eating a lot of my time) and I haven't exactly had time to experiment with how they work alongside the new civic policies, but this was an eye opener for me!
He's running Appeasement and I'm still running Isolationism, so maybe the two are conflicting somehow, I don't know - but my maintenance costs skyrocketing... I can't remember, but is that supposed to happen?
I certainly don't remember it being that severe before, but then again a lot has changed with the mod since I last accepted multiple vassals. If this really is 'as intended' though that's a major hit to how I usually play the game (going nuts with vassals) eep!
View attachment 381956 View attachment 381957

Now granted, Kangxi's not the best choice of civilization's to vassalize at this point (He's been under the wonder-rampant Atotoztli's rule and military powerhouse Deganawida's rule already, and has a city squeezed in on the former's homeland) so I can always decline his offer the next time around, but overall it does make me a tad worried. I love vassalizing the AI almost as much as I love crushing them - via military or culture - so this would definitely hamper my playstyle if I end up having to pay maintenance for THEIR cities along with my own

With the city maintenance / inflation update, the master civilization assumes 50% of the city maintenance costs of each vassal.

 

[Rezca]

With the city maintenance / inflation update, the master civilization assumes 50% of the city maintenance costs of each vassal.

Nuts. Guess I won't be taking as many vassals anymore then
Unless I'm in a good position to accept them that is. Definitely wasn't at the time, but dang was I not expecting the costs to be that large

 

[os79]

Nuts. Guess I won't be taking as many vassals anymore then
Unless I'm in a good position to accept them that is. Definitely wasn't at the time, but dang was I not expecting the costs to be that large

But you still grin evilly, knowing you will still inevitably achieve your goal of winning!

 

[Afforess]

Nuts. Guess I won't be taking as many vassals anymore then
Unless I'm in a good position to accept them that is. Definitely wasn't at the time, but dang was I not expecting the costs to be that large

Consider that actually means vassals are 50% cheaper than your own cities.

 

[os79]

Consider that actually means vassals are 50% cheaper than your own cities.

Instead of having these as your cities, your vassal absorb half the maintenance! Brilliant cup half full vs half empty analysis!

 

[Afforess]

Saw this city screen screenshot from another mod lying around:

Spoiler :

In particular I like the way the city screen shows smaller text for buildings and includes the icon. I think that would be a good improvement for our building list, which seems bland in comparison:

Spoiler :

Thoughts?

 

[Arakhor]

The revised building layout is excellent, especially if you haven't played the mod much and aren't used to the new icons yet.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Looks better than ours. If it's not too much work we could add it

 

[Afforess]

Looks better than ours. If it's not too much work we could add it

I can figure it out.

 

[Spirictum]

It's great! Will make searchs and researchs a lot easier!

 

[Noyyau]

The resource list looks better than AND's as well.
Is that Realism Invictus?