Getting Started

[bwoww78]

since it's not stated specifically in the version edits, i figure i would ask:

is does VEM v10 compatible with savegames?

my assumption is no (that it's not ready yet) but just wanted to make sure.

 

[Txurce]

Is it possible to get no unhappiness from a conquered city if you decide to burn it? Or at least minimize the turns needed to destroy it?

This makes RL sense to me. The price of razing is that you get nothing out of what the enemy spent centuries developing. I don't think that reducing the collateral damage would create an imbalance that would favor warmongers. What do others think?

Bernd-das-Brot, I don't find late-game units too cheap, or my maps over-crowded. I agree that there's been a problem with tanks, but am not sure if moving M.I. in the tech tree is the answer. And your thoughts on naval combat are interesting.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Bernd-das-Brot
I've always been on the fence about the instaheal - I don't have an opinion about it one way or another. I've left it in just because it's in vanilla... I personally preferred Civ 4's method where we got a minor heal with any promotion. Anyone else have an opinion on if I should remove instaheal?

You're right that Gunpowder is too early for Pikemen to obsolete. They upgrade to Muskets in the mod, but another vs-mounted counter doesn't come around until Lancers at Metallurgy. I've changed it so Pikemen now obsolete with Metallurgy.

Unit paths are another thing I'm uncertain about. I can see the realism argument, but there's also the fact that skipping Rifles means we have nothing to upgrade earlier melee units to. For conquest games that's a serious downside, so I always get Rifles. It's only in peaceful games we can skip it. I think the Firaxis developers' intention here is to allow peaceful players to bypass some of the military techs.

Mechanized Infantry and Tanks changed significantly in recent versions. Mech Infantry have lower combat strength and only defensive promotions, while Tanks got a strength boost and have attack promotions.

I agree with your general principles about making land units fewer in number but individually more expensive and durable. I've been thinking about exploring that recently, which is one reason for the alterations to damage/hp lately. It provided the framework for future changes to combat.

We're unable to change how razing, resistance, or naval combat work without the game core only Firaxis has access to.


@bwoww78
Savegames generally work with only one version of mods... there's not really any way around this, it's just the way Firaxis built the game cache.

 

[truetom]

@Bernd-das-Brot:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10402440#post10402440

posts 856 and 857 explain how to anull insta-heal.

@truetom
Add this to the top of "BC - Promotions.xml"

    <Update>
        <Where Type="PROMOTION_INSTA_HEAL" />
        <Set CannotBeChosen="true" />
    </Update>

Interesting thoughts about naval warfare, could agree with most. Exclusively ranged naval battles are unrealistic history wise, but Thal would know about the possibilities of changing things. I guess new naval unit wouldn't change this? Ramming speed!

 

[Ahriman]

I like unhappiness-while-razing. Again, it is something that reduces mass lightning conquest. Just because I defeat your army in the field doesn't mean that I should be able to costlessly obliterate most of your empire. I love the real history feel of the current system where going to war often means beating the enemy in the field, and then taking a bit of territory and a whole lot of gold tribute in the peace treaty, rather than war necessarily being about conquest. The vast majority of wars throughout history did not end with one state conquering most of the other permanently; they led to some territory concession and then policy/wealth concessions.

If you moved to a no-unhappiness-from-razing system then you would need to add some other penalty, like having each turn spent razing having a chance of generating partisans, and maybe also being forced to keep a unit in the razing city every turn.

 

[Txurce]

I like unhappiness-while-razing. Again, it is something that reduces mass lightning conquest. Just because I defeat your army in the field doesn't mean that I should be able to costlessly obliterate most of your empire. If you moved to a no-unhappiness-from-razing system then you would need to add some other penalty, like having each turn spent razing having a chance of generating partisans, and maybe also being forced to keep a unit in the razing city every turn.

I think less unhappiness while razing makes RL sense, but I really like how you would address it. That would create a very entertaining scenario.

 

[Ahriman]

I think less unhappiness while razing makes RL sense

I don't. To me, happiness/unhappiness represents a whole bunch of things about social order and tendency of the population to rebel/resist.

If you conquer someone and put in a puppet regime with a local, they will often tend to acquiesce with only moderate resistance. If you come in and start a campaign of genocide to destroy their city and slaughter their population, then you will get a *lot* more resistance, and a lot of unhappiness and rebellion.

I agree that it is a little unfortunate in terms of realism that nearly all of the happiness providers are warm/fuzzy things (police state civic basically being the only exception, and arguably the happiness from garrison Honor policy) but given how few happiness buildings there are, this is understandable. But the game would work fine if we replaced the Theater with an identical Propaganda Center (or state newspaper, or whatever), replaced the Colosseum with a Dungeon and replaced the stadium with a Television station (opiate of the masses....).

 

[Txurce]

If you come in and start a campaign of genocide to destroy their city and slaughter their population, then you will get a *lot* more resistance, and a lot of unhappiness and rebellion.

Agreed - which is why I like your suggestions to keep a unit in the city, and have partisans spring up... simultaneously with the city's population decreasing (some dying, some becoming refugees). However, the unhappiness is irrelevant to the occupier, because he is not trying to work with the locals.

 

[Thalassicus]

I agree with Ahriman here. I'm a conqueror at heart and have no trouble dealing with the unhappiness from a gameplay perspective, and it also has some basis in real-world history, as he pointed out.

That said, I'd also like a suggestion you made earlier Txurce: for the city gradually come out of resistance and regain production capability over time. It just requires game core access.

 

[Txurce]

I agree with Ahriman here. I'm a conqueror at heart and have no trouble dealing with the unhappiness from a gameplay perspective, and it also has some basis in real-world history, as he pointed out.

I have no problem with the status quo from a gameplay perspective, either, but like the refinements that Ahriman brought up - precisely because I disagree that the status quo correlates to RL. Unhappiness in eastern Europe had no discernible effect on the home front Nazi Germany... but the Wehrmacht had to keep units in place and deal with partisans.

 

[Sneaks]

I'd just like another option when conquering a city.

Ideas:

Enslave Populace
Population in city halved
Permanent +1 in any non-puppet non-annexed city

Problem is obviously it always is a better option than razing.

 

[Txurce]

I'd just like another option when conquering a city.

Ideas:

Enslave Populace
Population in city halved
Permanent +1 in any non-puppet non-annexed city

Problem is obviously it always is a better option than razing.

Do you enslave with the option to annex? If so, this is similar to vanilla conquest.

 

[truetom]

A bump on can I get rid of "cross the mountains" promotion on a Scout / Vanguard units in a simple way? Thanks.

 

[black213]

I'd just like another option when conquering a city.

Ideas:

Enslave Populace
Population in city halved
Permanent +1 in any non-puppet non-annexed city

Problem is obviously it always is a better option than razing.

Would it be in full control or just a puppet?

 

[albie_123]

I'm in favour of getting rid of the instaheal, and if possible, all promotions giving a slight boost to HP.

 

[Ahriman]

I have no strong feeling on insta-heal. I think promotions are powerful enough already, and the human player does a better job of hoarding high experience units, so a hp boost for experienced units would tend to favor the human player.

 

[SgtCiv]

Is there a way to put a red circle or some kind of tat-a-tell around an enemy unit, because some of the colors run real close together and it can get kind of confusing telling friend from foe sometimes??

 

[Thalassicus]

@SgtCiv
Sort of like the circles in Civ 4? I miss that feature too... but adding it would require game core access.

 

[Sneaks]

@SgtCiv
Sort of like the circles in Civ 4? I miss that feature too... but adding it would require game core access.

You could theoretically just plot highlight every enemy unit hex, which is within our capacity right now.

 

[timbuktu]

VEM v10.2 is incompatible to saved game with v10.1.
Runtime error occurs when try to load. But no problem with starting new game. Where can I download v10.1 ?