Getting Started

[Txurce]

I got a laugh out of your Classical army, Thal - it seems to cover every possibility! I particularly enjoyed the relatively heavy use of Chariots and Scouts.

I've been trying to isolate what I do differently from you in conquest games. I thought I had narrowed it down to my assumption that you normally invade the other continent(s) before conquering all of your own. But now I've seen that you favor a gold economy, and seemingly start cranking out serious numbers of units very early on. More grist for the mill, given my focus on science and production to give me an edge.

 

[mitsho]

This army looks like a rolemodel, but it's most of the times not really achievable. I mean the clock is ticking and the techs are rolling in, to use such an army is most of the times not feasible, plus you didn't include naval units. But yes, in theory, that army is the goal. I also don't have issues with the ressource quantities.

Regarding the early coal review, one unintended consequence is now that Scientific Method seems quite lackluster and something should be added there to make it more interesting, after all SM has been one of or the most important techs in all previous civ games. Maybe move the other ressource reveals one tech down so to let us plan better ahead? Oil at SM, Aluminium and Uranium shortly after?

PS: Does Isabella have a Natural Wonder Start Bias?

 

[Thalassicus]

You're right that it's a goal, and varies over time. In a conquest game my initial build order is scout/scout/worker or scout/scout/warrior. I then add archers and spears to capture the first city:

• 3 archers
• 2 spearmen
• 2 scouts

The 2nd city captured usually has walls:

• 2 catapults
• 3 archers
• 2 spearmen
• 2 scouts

After that I add the strategic units for early-medieval warfare:

• 3 swordsmen
• 2 chariots
• 1 horsemen
• 2 catapults
• 3 archers
• 2 spearmen
• 2 scouts

Once ready to upgrade to medieval units at least three or four cities are conquered. I often stop a while at this point to let happiness catch up.

Something Sid pointed out is techs usually alternate between strong and weak ones. Philosophy is strong, Theocracy is weaker, then Education is strong again. Variety makes the game interesting. All three leading to Scientific Method are powerful, and SM leads to two powerful techs.

============

What we can do with the current start bias system is very limited. However, it's all in the part of the code we have access to... so we can change it or replace it completely. For a while now I've been intending to revamp civilization placement.

With the current method each territory on the map gets rated based on which terrain type is most abundant (grassland, hills, forests, etc). The game then places civs in this order:

1. Those who need adjacent to coast
2. Need adjacent to river
3. Need specific terrain abundance(s)
4. Avoid specific terrain abundance(s)

One big problem is the current system cannot weigh factors like:

• Natural wonders for Spain
• Mountains for Inca
• Lakes for Aztecs
• Iron for Rome
• Citystates for Greece/Siam/Mongolia
• Coastlines for Polynesia. It only checks if the capital is adjacent to coast, even if it's a tiny 5-tile sea.
• etc...

The other problem is this situation:

• Elizabeth - Coastal leader who doesn't care what terrain she's placed on.
• Hiawatha - Forests are essential.
• 2 coastal territories, 1 of which is coastal AND the best forest.

Elizabeth might be placed in the ideal forest spot and the current system just moves on... messing up Hiawatha. Or if we reverse them Elizabeth might not get a coastal territory. What we need is to compare and rank all the leader's priorities before placing them.

 

[mitsho]

So the start bias is a thing for a total overhaul sometimes later on . I was just asking since this game I play with Isabella I was placed right besides 3 of the 4 natural wonders... (There are no files for additional natural wonders like the promised Mount everest or Lake Titicaca - Actually the first can look like a regual mountain surrounded by 4+ other mountains in theory).

And yeah, the reasoning for SM makes sense, just a bit nostalgic as the older civ games had always had a very "liberal" (American sense) reasoning to it, making things like Free Religion and Cure for Cancer and Proclamation of Emancipation strong while this itineration has so many Bible Quotes in the Techs...

I'm disgressing.

 

[Sneaks]

Hey Thal,

Love the direction this has taken since my sanity break (no SDK makes modders go crazy). One thing I must say is that in my couple test games, I have found a couple interesting trends.

1. America's Pioneer Fort is pretty much the best single building in the game once you manage to grab 2 of the defense building bonus policies. Its akin to a free palace per city.

2. The happiness bonus from Temples/Monuments seems to be pretty overpowered as well. It appears unconstrained by city pop. limits and instead goes to the empire-wide pool. Basically the old Colosseum spam problem, except this time with culture bonuses added.

Hopefully in the near future, I'll get motivated enough to redownload modbuddy and give you more substantive code help.

 

[Thalassicus]

I agree the Pioneer Fort can become very powerful. The balancing factors are:

• The value of surplus food drops to near-zero when over the happiness cap.
• In v8.0 I removed the cost advantage the fort's had since its introduction. It now costs the same as normal walls.
• Turning it into a super-building requires going 3-4 policies deep in multiple trees, which can be good for some games but not others. It's challenging to get the policy finishers if we do.

I haven't had experience with the Piety tree since its recent changes in patch 335. Something to point out is Organized Religion got split into 3 different policies: one happiness booster for each of the 3 early trees. The others are high up in their trees. If you feel it would help, I could swap the +1 and +1 effects in Piety so its happiness booster is a higher tier.

 

[Nuukov]

Not sure where to post, but there is a major bug. Not sure if this is in the mod, or my fault some how (doubt it). All the text is messed up. Know about this?

EDIT: I am an idiot. I had another big mod active at the same time. I will retry XD

EDIT DEUX: Yeah, sorry, false alarm. It works fine =)

 

[Thalassicus]

If you're using the latest version (v9.0) then check the Common Problems list. It sounds like probably 1) cache 2) another mod active and causing problems or 3) multiple versions of this mod installed.

 

[PipoG]

Hey, I'm new here, I'm new at playing Civ5 and I'm new at using mods.
I used your mod, Thal, and its really great, but I like to know if theres any possibility to combine your changes with the R.E.D Mod? Tried it out, and number and formations seem to work, but the scale of the units remains original :/

 

[Thalassicus]

Welcome to CivFanatics PipoG!

I'll see what I can do about RED compatibility, and I've put it on my todo list.

 

[Herb0815]

I can use RED with the right scales, just install R.E.D after Thal´s Balance and you should be fine. Rember to clear your cage before installing new mod versions.

 

[Thalassicus]

Like Herb0815 said, I read somewhere this is what to do to load mods in a particular order:

1. Move everything out of your MODS folder
2. Move a mod back into the folder
3. Alt-tab to Civ and enable the mod
4. Repeat 2-3 for each mod

 

[Beelzibub]

I had a gamebreaking crash using the R.E.D mod about 160 turns in. It might have been nothing to do with RED but since disabling it I haven't had any more crashes. I didn't however use the above system for enabling it (although I did clear my cache etc) so it might work fine for most people.

 

[Sneaks]

I am having some odd compatibility issues with various single wonders. It seems to disable all construction. Will look into the root cause.

 

[Thalassicus]

If by "disable all construction" you mean "the production panel cannot open," check the tuner for error messages. Usually when a particular UI element cannot open there's an error that aborts processing.

 

[Sneaks]

If by "disable all construction" you mean "the production panel cannot open," check the tuner for error messages. Usually when a particular UI element cannot open there's an error that aborts processing.

No errors at all in the tuner. I'll continue to research.

 

[Thalassicus]

That's very interesting... I haven't had a situation where the production panel cannot open but no errors occurred.

My second guess would be mod #2 overrides one of the built-in UI files CiVUP also alters. If that's not the case either I dunno.

 

[cleaner]

I am having some odd compatibility issues with various single wonders. It seems to disable all construction. Will look into the root cause.

Hello Sneaks,
which wonders do you have problems with? I also encountered that phenomenon yesterday and am pretty sure for me it was both the Kronborg and the Magna Carta wonder. I haven't run it with the tuner yet though, so don't know if it's the same problem. It sounds like it though.

 

[PipoG]

Welcome to CivFanatics PipoG!

I'll see what I can do about RED compatibility, and I've put it on my todo list.

I can use RED with the right scales, just install R.E.D after Thal´s Balance and you should be fine. Rember to clear your cage before installing new mod versions.

Like Herb0815 said, I read somewhere this is what to do to load mods in a particular order:

1. Move everything out of your MODS folder
2. Move a mod back into the folder
3. Alt-tab to Civ and enable the mod
4. Repeat 2-3 for each mod

Thanks for advice - I will give it a try, when I start a new game

 

[Thalassicus]

Does anyone know if something major happened yesterday or today?

I'm not aware of anything important in the past few days (haven't even updated since the weekend), yet today's website hits might surpass the day after the ModCast episode. It's very puzzling to happen today without a known reason!