Getting Started

[Txurce]

Thal, this looks great on paper. It obviously incorporates a great deal of work, and it's greatly appreciated. The resultant ability to control culture per city is terrific.

Looks like I was ahead of the curve on reducing the Workshop!

The river gold reduction seems very reasonable.

I will try India tomorrow. Because the Sanitation System is river-based, it's a good argument for India keeping its cities near rivers, of course. Does India have a river bias? It probably should for this to have a Pioneer Fort-like effect. Otherwise... maybe India should have the Fort!

And thanks again for the IA fix.

 

[Stalker0]

Thal you mentioned that city state culture works like maritime food now.

So does that mean its affected by culture multipliers? Does a city get 200% of the bonus if its on culture focus?

This might mean a very large bump in culture if your culture capital is put on culture focus.

 

[Thalassicus]

India does in fact have a river start bias now. The disadvantage of this is Civ5 limits leaders to one of the following:

• River bias
• Ocean bias
• Terrain bias (can be multiple terrain types)
• Terrain avoidance

This means India no longer has a grassland bias. Not sure this will be a positive change or not... so feedback will be helpful.

Citystate culture works exactly like maritime food. It's affected by the same things like 200% weight for capital and culture-focused cities, and 50% weight for puppets and non-connected cities. It is added to the city's base culture and therefore is affected by multipliers like the National Epic and Opera Houses.

This will make it easier to balance maritime and cultural citystates, since food and culture are treated the same way now, internally.

Something to point out is citystate weight modifiers don't update visually in the UI until the turn is ended. This is similar to how the status of a city does not visually update on the interface until the turn is ended or we enter the City View. I originally had the updates more frequent but it was adding 1-second lag to most actions. I'd like to detect each action that can alter these weights, but without c++ access it's proving to be very difficult. In particular it's hard to identify when influence has been purchased with citystates.

 

[Txurce]

India does in fact have a river start bias now. The disadvantage of this is Civ5 limits leaders to one of the following:

• River bias
• Ocean bias
• Terrain bias (can be multiple terrain types)
• Terrain avoidance

This means India no longer has a grassland bias. Not sure this will be a positive change or not... so feedback will be helpful.

Citystate culture works exactly like maritime food. It's affected by the same things like 200% weight for capital and culture-focused cities, and 50% weight for puppets and non-connected cities. It is added to the city's base culture and therefore is affected by multipliers like the National Epic and Opera Houses.

This will make it easier to balance maritime and cultural citystates, since food and culture are treated the same way now, internally.

Something to point out is citystate weight modifiers don't update visually in the UI until the turn is ended. This is similar to how the status of a :c5connected: city does not visually update on the interface until the turn is ended or we enter the City View. I originally had the updates more frequent but it was adding 1-second lag to most actions. I'd like to detect each action that can alter these weights, but without c++ access it's proving to be very difficult. In particular it's hard to identify when influence has been purchased with citystates.

While trying to troubleshoot the 7.1 production bug, I reloaded enough starts to see that India definitely starts on rivers. I'll report back once the bug is fixed.

And yes, I realized the other day that the CS food multiplier registers after the turn is over, which can be confusing when other multipliers register immediately. Small price to pay, though!

 

[Thalassicus]

I've been working on the CS multiplier thing today and I believe I've got it to update when A) we close the citystate window or B) change city focus. It already updated when we use a Great Merchant / Diplomat to gain influence, so I think this covers everything.

 

[3of5]

I get why you were tempted to increase Paratrooper combat strength to make them viable even after the advent of Mechanized Infantry in your newest beta. But Paratroopers are nimble troops without tons of equip and are best used as scouts behind enemy lines (or to block a Mountain pass, a forest road) to allow the main combat line to advance. They have to dig in and hold out until they are reached by stronger units. It works wonderful, when i employ this strategy, even if i loose a unit sometimes. The 40 combat strength seemed ok in this regard. While today they are better trained and use superior armaments they still are small in numbers and lack support of mechanized units. Maybe one could allow them to get drill promotions?

 

[Txurce]

I get why you were tempted to increase Paratrooper combat strength to make them viable even after the advent of Mechanized Infantry in your newest beta. But Paratroopers are nimble troops without tons of equip and are best used as scouts behind enemy lines (or to block a Mountain pass, a forest road) to allow the main combat line to advance. They have to dig in and hold out until they are reached by stronger units. It works wonderful, when i employ this strategy, even if i loose a unit sometimes. The 40 combat strength seemed ok in this regard. While today they are better trained and use superior armaments they still are small in numbers and lack support of mechanized units. Maybe one could allow them to get drill promotions?

I was curious as to the reasoning behind this buff as well. Ironically I had recently had battles where my MI had a tough enough time with an AI paratrooper that it surprised me (since I untuitively expected a wipe-out).

 

[guczy]

Can anyone recommend a good TSL Earth map tu use with Thals mods?

 

[black213]

Yet (Not) Another Earth Map Pack?

 

[guczy]

Yet (Not) Another Earth Map Pack?

I'm not sure that has been updated recently, but i'm gonna check. Actually the problem i had with earth maps + thal is that the balance mods does not permit higher resource caches than 2 (or 4, i forgot, but i think it's 2) but the earth maps are balanced with having caches of 4-6, so there aren't enough resources on the map.

 

[black213]

Legendary Earth Mod works well too, except both YNAEMP and LEM huge maps have long turn loads for me.

 

[Thalassicus]

I changed the role of paratroopers, didn't really buff or nerf them. Operating "behind enemy lines" will typically not have a great general, and if we assume level 3 units (easy to get in Modern):

Vanilla Paratroopers
40 * (1 + 0.6) = 64 offense & defense
40 * (1 + 0.35) = 54 offense & defense vs cities

Mod Paratroopers
50 * (1) = 50 offense (-22%)
50 * (1 + 1.0) = 100 defense (+56%)
Heal faster
Can get Scouting promotions

Mech Infantry
50 * (1 + 0.6) = 80 offense & defense
40 * (1 + 0.35) = 70 offense & defense vs cities

Modern Armor
80 * (1 + 0.6) = 130 offense & defense
80 * (1 + 0.35 - 0.33) = 82 offense & defense vs cities

In normal combat circumstances, paratroopers are weaker at offense but stronger at defense.

I feel a defensive focus better suits their roles:

• Jump to a tile to block enemy movement with ZOC.
• Jump to a strategic resource to pillage it.
• Improve flanking bonuses.
• Defend flanks.
• Attack siege units.

These are similar roles to Lancers, which is why I gave them both the scouting/survivalism promotion lines.


I don't know how resource placement works on non-random maps, haven't investigated that before. I'll put it on my todo list.

 

[Txurce]

I changed the role of paratroopers, didn't really buff or nerf them. Operating "behind enemy lines" will typically not have a great general, and if we assume level 3 units (easy to get in Modern):

Vanilla Paratroopers
40 * (1 + 0.6) = 64 offense & defense
40 * (1 + 0.35) = 54 offense & defense vs cities

Mod Paratroopers
50 * (1) = 50 offense (-22%)
50 * (1 + 1.0) = 100 defense (+56%)
Heal faster
Can get Scouting promotions

Mech Infantry
50 * (1 + 0.6) = 80 offense & defense
40 * (1 + 0.35) = 70 offense & defense vs cities

Modern Armor
80 * (1 + 0.6) = 130 offense & defense
80 * (1 + 0.35 - 0.33) = 82 offense & defense vs cities

In normal combat circumstances, paratroopers are weaker at offense but stronger at defense.

I feel a defensive focus better suits their roles:

• Jump to a tile to block enemy movement with ZOC.
• Jump to a strategic resource to pillage it.
• Improve flanking bonuses.
• Defend flanks.
• Attack siege units.

These are similar roles to Lancers, which is why I gave them both the scouting/survivalism promotion lines.


I don't know how resource placement works on non-random maps, haven't investigated that before. I'll put it on my todo list.

While I see your point regarding "role," it doesn't change my common-sense feeling that they shouldn't be stronger in defense than a MI is on offense. On the other hand, the AI tends to build them, so like with spearmen and pikemen, this is probably a good thing... although a little arbitrary and activist for my taste!

 

[SlightlyMad]

Interesting, I've honestly never built a single paratrooper, but with a strong defensive role like that, they could be pretty useful. It does seem odd though, that they'd be pretty much impossible to crack without some heavy bombardment? I guess that doesn't matter much so late in the game though, when everyone's got air support.

 

[manarod]

Since the new patch the ai is capable to do early rush. That problem is been discussed in the main forum, but i find that in your mod that's worse. In marathon game on emperor the ai will start the attack near turn 40 and it has too many level 2 units near level 3 with the full healing upgrade after a battle. Also cities in your mod are less powerfull. The initial game now (in marathon huge world) too much risky, i was attacked by incas with 6 warriors on turn 60 (and the were far away). I don't mind to build military units at the beginnig, but with the new patch sometimes is simply impossible to win. I read that in the wwgd mod ai receive more units on level above emperor to prevent the theft of worker by barbarian, but now the ai use those units to rush the human. Should the number of units granted to the ai scale with the speed of game (and perhaps with the size of the map)?

 

[Txurce]

Since the new patch the ai is capable to do early rush. That problem is been discussed in the main forum, but i find that in your mod that's worse. In marathon game on emperor the ai will start the attack near turn 40 and it has too many level 2 units near level 3 with the full healing upgrade after a battle. Also cities in your mod are less powerfull. The initial game now (in marathon huge world) too much risky, i was attacked by incas with 6 warriors on turn 60 (and the were far away). I don't mind to build military units at the beginnig, but with the new patch sometimes is simply impossible to win. I read that in the wwgd mod ai receive more units on level above emperor to prevent the theft of worker by barbarian, but now the ai use those units to rush the human. Should the number of units granted to the ai scale with the speed of game (and perhaps with the size of the map)?

The issue has been debated in the main thread, but has definitely not been classified as a problem. I play on Emperor with TBC, and have encountered an early rush about 20% of the time. I have had no real problem handling it, and think these occasional rushes are an entertaining enhancement to the game.

 

[manarod]

what is your speed and size of map?

 

[iWant921nooow]

Yes, I just played a game and was rushed by two civs But I agree with txurce, if the ai feels it can kill us, then it should go for it

I just did some games and noticed some things
Golden age with commerce had a 20 turns duration on quick speed. Havent yet tried other speeds. I dont know if its supposed to last this long, but it sure feels waaay too long EDIT Now that I think about it, its possible that a happiness golden age started the exact same turn. Will look into it.
Arab scouts treat deserts as roads.
AIs are way too friendly. Could be something from vanilla patch though. Pretty much all the AIs are friendly towards me since the beginning.

Edit2: hermitage need museum in all cities

 

[Txurce]

what is your speed and size of map?

Standard, continents.

 

[SlightlyMad]

Yeah, I actually find it pretty interesting. About half the time I encounter an early rush, I'm actually able to beat the AI back without losing anything, and using only city defenses plus 1-2 units, because they stupidly try to take a city with warriors only. This basically cripples them completely and gives me an easy counter-attack. I've also noticed though, that these wars are often avoidable. Most of the time, they'll attack after I found a 2nd city near their borders. Additionally, accepting every DoF that gets presented to you will usually make you safe from an early rush. I play marathon/pw3 large/emperor.