General discussion thread

[CellKu]

Thomas SG, I had a brief look at 4.29G. Some first comments:
1.) The new earth screen (when a game is set up) looks awesome!!
(If you could add an intro like in Civ1 with a developing world/earth that would be fantastic!! But that will probably remain a dream. )
2.) I had a closer look at the terrain. It is actually very similar to what I used before. Very nice! I will play with your art from now on.
3.) The restructured tech tree looks good as well. A few thoughts here:
- Perhaps you could add a +1 health to cure (and in turn reduce the health points the player begins with). Similar to what you did with fermentation. Adds an(other) incentive to research cure.
- It seems as if you want to add some of the promotions (more or all of them?) into the tech tree as well. Is that true? If so, seems to be a nice idea.
- I like the new concept of providing specialists with certain techs, but I do miss the "school" with writing... (You know I am builder)
- Why do we get a merchant with pottery? IMO, "Sailing" would be a better place for him (think about the Phoenicians), but then you might want to transfer the Great Lighthouse or something else to "Ship Contruction", otherwise Sailing gets too much.
- While I like the concept of revealing resources with new techs, I think that this calls for a stone age. (I remember that you said you won't add one, but I had to mention it )
- The tech tree is now already quite crowded. Do you intend to add more techs (please not too many more ) ? If so, would it be possible to draw the tech tree longer instead of putting techs in the space between? Just for a better overview (for example in AND it is sometimes a bit difficult to discern which tech leads where).

 

[Thomas SG]

I don't plan more techs at the moment.
The merchant comes with pottery because it should be attractive for all civs. Even continentals that have nearly no use for naval techs. And pottery is the beginning of storing things and that seems as the beginning of real trading to me.
I inspected the stone age of QC yesterday. But it would be very hard and time intensive to add a concept that would fit to CCV. But you never know...


At the moment I try to update the arts and improve the AI. But creating a single art set takes about 10 hours. So the progress will be slow.

_______________________________________

For @CellKu and all fans of DLC here is a small update.

Changes of 4.29G+! Maybe you like to try it.

- minor AI update from RevDCM 2.8/596
- modified AI code to work better with project Mission to Mars
- improved AI behaviour if Mastery Victory is active
- all players can start now a spaceship when playing with mastery victory
- new move rules for animals (added impassables)
- fixed link to zero button (2nd japanese UU)
- added missing link to viking tank art
- added new chinese unit art set (67 new custom arts)
- tried to solve the overlapping bars problem caused by BUG when running CCV with high resolutions (x-resolution >= 1440 ) => But that means working in the dark. I've no idea about the result of my changes. It's just a (first) guess!
- (already changed in 4.29G) limited the dependence of occupation turns from population size (to avoid e.g. 40+ occupation turns after capturing a mega city in a game with just 500 turns. In the meantime those people should have died from starvation in most cases... )
- just can have trade routes with cities that are revealed
- changed and added derivative civs
- using now mini flag buttons instead of long names or civ descriptions in stack help
- removed the long list of (counted) promotions in stack help
- the advanced scoreboard can now show the mini flag buttons (with option I)
- mastery victory screen can show now the progress of best rival spaceship
- new wonder: CERN
- rebalanced city specialists

Link

 

[CellKu]

Thomas SG, thanks for the patch! I assume it is not save-compatible. I have a great game running, so I probably try to finish that first. Btw. the desertion of units is awesome! And it works very well (in general for land units 1 out of a stack of 10 deserts, with sea units the chance of desertion/capture is a bit less than 50:50; maybe the thresholds for sea units could be tuned down a bit).

The merchant comes with pottery because it should be attractive for all civs. Even continentals that have nearly no use for naval techs. And pottery is the beginning of storing things and that seems as the beginning of real trading to me.

Well, that makes sense. I didn't think about that.

I inspected the stone age of QC yesterday. But it would be very hard and time intensive to add a concept that would fit to CCV. But you never know...

Oh, okay. I thought it was merely adding a few techs, a few more animals, the hunting mechanics and some balancing. But probably the balancing will take quite a while. And that era should be optional as well - in case other player don't want it. So, in total it will requite quite some work... I do understand that. Too bad. But we will see...

Btw, regarding your work on balancing animals: IIRC, if I play with barbarian world enabled I don't see any animals anymore - at least I don't remember having seen them in the last games.

With regard to the new unit art: I do understand your motivation of getting more people interested in CCV. I only fear that slower comps (such as mine) won't be able to handle CCV anymore at some point. On the other hand I love all the new concepts you added. So, I don't want to stop playing it (on mid-size maps).
Would it be possible to make the new unit art optional? At least during installation?

Oh, and I apologize to bother you (again), but what is the next new functional (not art related) feature/concept you work on? (beside the civics - btw. how is your progress there?) And when can we expect some kind of black ops/"freedom fighter" missions (WLOB mod) resp. an overhauled espionage system? I am really looking forward to that one.

 

[vincentz]

Looks really nice, but cannot download it. Either it doesnt exists (MEGAUPLOAD) or Im being told that I annoys the server and therefore I cannot download it (RAPIDSHARE)

 

[Thomas SG]

Looks really nice, but cannot download it. Either it doesnt exists (MEGAUPLOAD) or Im being told that I annoys the server and therefore I cannot download it (RAPIDSHARE)

I don't know what happend but now the links for 4.29G+ is online.

But in between I've created 4.29G++.

 

[azhrei]

Any chance of getting White Lies Black Ops style diplomacy/terrorism into this?

 

[opelcity]

First off....one hell of a mod. It simply feels like another addon to Civ 4. Thanks for all the work you and the rest of the modmakers put into this thing. One of the best mods so far.

But I also got a question: how do I shut off the optional "Next War" tech trees in the mod pack? Is there any way this can be done from inside an existing game (via Alt/Strg/O)?

 

[Thomas SG]

Any chance of getting White Lies Black Ops style diplomacy/terrorism into this?

It's on the To-Do-List. I've inspected the mod several times in the past. But this is a job for version 5 and not 4. And I will only implement parts of the mod. For example there is no way to those mystic or alien technology units. But I guess that is not really what you desire. But to finish version 4 will take time.
My experience is that I need about 10 hours per unit art set. I think 15 are still missing. Coding, adding and testing of the missing 4.30 stuff will take about 40 hours, so my guess. So even if I'll move the civics and trait stuff to version 5 I'll need about 200 hours of free time. You see.

First off....one hell of a mod. It simply feels like another addon to Civ 4. Thanks for all the work you and the rest of the modmakers put into this thing. One of the best mods so far.

But I also got a question: how do I shut off the optional "Next War" tech trees in the mod pack? Is there any way this can be done from inside an existing game (via Alt/Strg/O)?

Thank you.

And yes, there is an easy way to get rid of the Next War stuff. But not in a running game. Not at the moment. If you don't want to play with Next War enable in the Custom Game setting the option NO FUTURE. The space ship and so on is not touched! You don't need those future techs for it. And the Future Tech can still be build.

 

[Thomas SG]

With regard to the new unit art: I do understand your motivation of getting more people interested in CCV. I only fear that slower comps (such as mine) won't be able to handle CCV anymore at some point. On the other hand I love all the new concepts you added. So, I don't want to stop playing it (on mid-size maps).
Would it be possible to make the new unit art optional? At least during installation?

It is possible. I know it because it's done in several mods like BASE. But I see no need to it. The main problem is not the value of new arts. It's the poly count of the arts and the total size of all PAK files.

If you notice trouble you just have to unpack the Art.FPK file. This will increase the load time of the mod but improve game performance. For example BASE (from Cybah) has about 800MB of arts. If those are in a FPK the mod will load in a minute but is not stable and absolutly unplayable on my machine. For sure on almost all machines. Especially the limited use of RAM from Civ is here the main problem. You can change it but thats not so easy and maybe even dangerous. But with unpacked arts BASE is absolutly playable. Just the load time is about 10 minutes on my machine.

But we are far, far away from such a bad situation. But you are right. If all civs are added there may be ~600MB of units arts. Maybe I should start to optimize the additions.

Well, what civ set should I do after America? I thought about England, Zulu or Egypt.

 

[Thomas SG]

Changelog 4.29G+ -> 4.29G++:

- updated to RevDCM 2.8/601
- explore move will now try to reach near goodies before healing
- -25% FSA damage
- started to add new american unit art set (37 added; renaissance and later land units; industrial and later naval units, air units, great generals)
- made more barb unit types (like archer and axeman) more aggresive towards empty or weak defended cities - (BB)AI will only attack with units like swordsman (Why?)
- updated AUA; added automated protect, promotion, upgrade and recon
- updated city specialists AI
- modified city specialists again (can now gain happiness -> great priest and great artist)
- added viking ind late fighter, bomber and strategic bomber art
- added new city building airbase, modified airport and units that required airport
- added new Community Civ V colour theme

DOWNLOAD 4.29G++ (from MegaUpload)

And here is a screen from 4.29G++:

Spoiler :

 

[Thomas SG]

The new colour theme in 4.29G++ destroyes some buttons. Have a look at the screen shot. The buttons of espionage and corporations are blank. To get the buttons back you have to replace one file in 4.29G++.

Replace the Civ4Theme_HUD.thm in ../Community Civ V/Resource/Themes/Civ4/ with the new one in the RAR file attached to this post.

 

[Thomas SG]

New official release. CCV 4.29H is online.

As promised with more custom art (now 4 sets complete). Reduced also the conflicts with other mods and BTS. So check your settings after installation! Changelog attached to this post.

 

[CellKu]

Thomas SG, thanks for the update.

One brief request - regarding the presentation of information (if not too difficult to implement):
Due to "culture via trade routes" the composition of your city population becomes a much bigger concern much earlier in the game then before. Would it be possible to add a column in the dometic advisor that will tell you about which nations constitute you city population (or at least which percentage belongs to your own nation)? Such a centralized presentation of information in the domestic advisor would make it easier to keep track of that (and avoid/limit the "we want to join our motherland" unhappiness).

Thanks for your advice regading unpacking the art files. That is a good idea! As soon as it slows don too much I will do that.
If you are thinking about which unit art to add next (after Zulu): I would be happy to see more Greek and Meso-american units.

 

[Thomas SG]

My current change log:

Changelog 4.29H -> 4.29H+:

Art:
- some new button arts
- new unsurfaced road art
- mastery victory video added
- tried correct positioning of GP bar text and research bar text
- CCV options buttons is now optional via BUG option interface
- bug fix for wrong chinese and standard longswordsman and maceman art style

AI:
- teached the AI the effects of gold cost for (rail)roads

Gameplay:
- Apo and UN don't require (for construction) a special victory; both are still required for diplo victory
- diplomatic victory votes are only possible if diplomatic victory is enabled and mastery victory is disabled
- build (rail)road costs now some gold
- new game option: Realistic Culture Spread (improved version from AND) -> very, very cool feature
- new game option: Peace fixes Borders -> but I need more information what happens if a city is flipping; so experimental
- increased number of animals
- number of animals independend from total number of barb units
- allow barbs almost all unit types
- barbs can be spawned on ships
- animals can appear now in all eras
- animals are ignoring cultural borders

Others:
- modified and moved Era Stopper Mod to in-game-options under "Optional"
- new config tab "Diplomacy" where you can choose in-game the possible diplomatic options (similar to AND option tab)
- new config tab "Automations" where you can configure AUA or even hide the AUA missions (similar to AND option tab)
- correctur of typo in CivilizationsInfo
- correctur of wrong ARTSTYLE for China in CivilizationsInfo
- reduced interference of CCV with other mods

 

[Thomas SG]

I think I solved all reported bugs. So next inofficial release (of CCV 4.29H+) this weekend.

 

[need my speed]

Why is it that I can only see 10 civilizations in that menu in the lower right corner of the screen? I've searched around, but found no answer, except something about the Community Civ V.ini, but mine was completely different so I didn't add / change anything. I also found something here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8107799&highlight=scoreboard#post8107799

Which was the opposite of what I wanted... Anyway, is it possible to make that toggleable (spelling?) scorescreen display all civilizations? Because I find this really annoying to be honest.

Thanks in advance, need my speed

 

[CellKu]

need my speed, you can customize that "civ menu" in one of the tabs the BUG options menu (the blue button in the upper left corner).

 

[CellKu]

Thomas SG, could you have a look at the culture over trade routes (again?). I produce quite a lot of my own culture in my capital (2-3 wonders - one of them now with 16 culture I think - plus quite a number of buildings), but I am down to 49% own culture versus 51% foreign culture. With a maximum of 10 foreign culture per turn that seems a bit odd. New foreign trade routes seem to reduce only my own culture, but not (so much) foreign culture. Could that be? Or am I imagining that?

 

[CellKu]

Thomas SG, I saw the following pic in one of your posts in the AUA thread:

Spoiler :

Does that mean, we will be able to trade units in CCV 4.29H+?
And what is the difference between "trade techs" and "broker techs"?
What does "trade religions" mean? Is that "force others to adopt your religion"? Or something else?

 

[need my speed]

need my speed, you can customize that "civ menu" in one of the tabs the BUG options menu (the blue button in the upper left corner).

Hmm, I looked there, but couldn't find such an option. Anyway, thanks!

That screen looks great. I'd guess 'broker' would mean that you can only trade techs you have researched, while 'trade' means that you can trade any tech you want.