Getting Started

[GoUtes53]

Attrition? That's the very reason I stopped playing Europa Universalis. You put you ship on "sentry" and when you need it you find out it's gone.

Only when it's out of "port". When it's not I move my ships manually anyway. Please try the mod first before criticizing. You might like it!

 

[Seek]

... but it makes it so that you cannot reload saved games ...

I've been getting this all the time recently (with other mods) - does anyone know what can be done about it? It's a pain and keeps me from playing much. I'll check the autosave from inside the game currently playing and it says the mods needed aren't installed.

That being said, the attrition mod sounds like fun, I'll give it a shot next game - I enjoyed that aspect of the New World scenario.

 

[Thalassicus]

Does the AI properly deal with the attrition?

 

[GoUtes53]

Does the AI properly deal with the attrition?

That's a great question and honestly, I'm not sure. I quit using it because of the aforementioned problems with reloading games. But in the times I did use it I did not notice anything out of whack, like a whole bunch of AI ships dying or a whole bunch of them running around almost dead. But in all honesty I was mostly looking at MY point of view. Maybe I will load it back up without your mods (as distasteful as that may be to me) and look for just that sort of thing. In the mean time, if you could give it a look see it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[QDI]

Gloups, attrition really, really doesn't appeal to me. (I don't say it's bad!!)

Don't you think triremes are already weak enough?

QDI

 

[GoUtes53]

Gloups, attrition really, really doesn't appeal to me. (I don't say it's bad!!)

Don't you think triremes are already weak enough?

QDI

Actually, no I don't think they are weak at all. In their time (up until the development of Caravels) they rule the seas, and with a fleet of 5 or 6 of them you can discover just about as much of the world as you'd like well before 0 AD. Added to that they have some bombardment power against enemy ships, units and cities and, again, for their time, they can be quite an effective weapon. But the main thing is it is just not realistic for a ship of that era to be able to go out indefinitely without having to return to port to replenish. Today's ships, sure, but not Triremes.

 

[QDI]

Why? They can land, hunt for food, cut trees to repair... During his conquests, Alexander was followed by ships (as long as possible).

And triremes utility obviously depends on the map but for me, they often are just bodyguards for embarked troops.

But I have to test the new version to know how it has evolved.

QDI

 

[galahadba]

Actually, no I don't think they are weak at all. In their time (up until the development of Caravels) they rule the seas, and with a fleet of 5 or 6 of them you can discover just about as much of the world as you'd like well before 0 AD. Added to that they have some bombardment power against enemy ships, units and cities and, again, for their time, they can be quite an effective weapon. But the main thing is it is just not realistic for a ship of that era to be able to go out indefinitely without having to return to port to replenish. Today's ships, sure, but not Triremes.

That is accounted in the game by not allowing then to leave the coast, in previous games it was allowd with a chance to sink, now it is not allowed... near the coast they can go forever... as they did in ancient times, they can replendish food, repair thenselfs , etc.

 

[Stalker0]

Thal one thing I'm feeling after playing several new games with your mod is that there is an imbalance right now between Cultural/Diplomatic victories and science victories.

I can win with science but generally with culture or diplomatic games I can win much quicker. Especially diplomatic, since I have to get globalization to win by science anyway, a lot of times I have enough money to just go for the diplomatic victory anyway.

So one man's opinion, of course I'll let others pitch in, maybe its just my playstyle.

 

[Thalassicus]

Diplomacy victory is something I agree is not designed well, but we have very limited control over it with our current tools.

Cultural victory can win quickly, but to do so usually requires an empire of only ~5 cities. As a result, despite the fast win the overall score is much lower than other victory types. It's challenging to surpass a large-empire science/conquest score with a small-empire cultural score. I've been trying to get those things closer, but it's difficult since so many factors affect the outcome of games, and I've only played 2 cultural victories on Immortal.

 

[sav]

I actually find cultural victories the hardest! The one time I tried diplomatic, I couldn't buy an influence either.

 

[Txurce]

I actually find cultural victories the hardest! The one time I tried diplomatic, I couldn't buy an influence either.

Spain beat me once on Immortal in the early 19th century with a cultural victory. It blew my mind.

 

[jacktannery]

with your mod is that there is an imbalance right now between Cultural/Diplomatic victories and science victories...

The City State Diplomacy Mod fixes this imbalance, and makes diplomatic victories as hard to achieve, and as satisfying to win, as other victory types. Without this mod (which btw is compatible with TCB and recommended by Thal) it is true that the best way to win a diplomatic victory is to ignore diplomacy and just amass gold while aiming to complete 3/4 of the tech tree.

 

[KamiKizzy]

I'm playing a standard Tiny Islands game as England. I'm sailing along with +13 happiness at turn 273 (1806). I finally finish a siege on Persia and capture their one and only city (and capital of course). It has 3 nice wonders, so I decide to annex it. Suddenly I'm at -10 Happiness (a drop of 23!) in turn 274. This, by the way was the first battle of the game.

I've never seen this sort of drop in happiness from capturing and annexing a single city, but I must admit that this is the first game in quite a while that I've used Thal's Balance mod, and the first time I've used v.66.

Has anyone else had this sort of experience, and if so, do you have an explanation for it? The ONLY thing that I can think of is that Persia had allied with 5 or 6 CS's, but I don't know how that would cause such a huge drop.....

I've done a quick search on this (unsuccessfully) but I have not read all 87 pages of this thread...

 

[Thalassicus]

From the online documentation (link):

4 per 5 in non-occupied cities (was 4 per 4).
4 per 3 in cities (not altered from vanilla).
3 per city (was 2).

Since this was an occupied city, I'm guessing you annexed a city of size 15?

(If there were happiness-boosting effects in the city, the population was larger.)

With size 15 city:

22 : vanilla
23 : mod

17 : vanilla
15 : mod


It's common for cities to be this size or larger, so wide happiness swings are part of CiV and not changed much in this mod. I'd recommend puppeting a city before annexation to let the revolt end. Cities are in a period of revolt for (1*)+2 turns after capture (hardcoded and not moddable), and you can't do anything with a city until the revolt concludes. Puppeting first gives you more time to adjust to the unhappiness hit.

 

[KamiKizzy]

Thanks Thal. You were right on the money. I had the Forbidden Palace and Theocracy, but he had a population of 17 and no happiness buildings.

Thanks for the tip re: puppeting.

 

[truetom]

Thal, I'm all for your mod(s) and can't think of playing vanilla. One thing that's been bugging me is (the lack of) strategic resources. Huge map, continents: 5 civs, 4 iron on the whole continent. Can't say other than ridiculous, really. So: where exactly can I release the cramp of strat resources and give it a bit more on the map? That and release from 1 or 2 back to 3 or 4? I'm playing Combined 5.8.

Other things are great, really.

 

[SlightlyMad]

Thal, I'm all for your mod(s) and can't think of playing vanilla. One thing that's been bugging me is (the lack of) strategic resources. Huge map, continents: 5 civs, 4 iron on the whole continent. Can't say other than ridiculous, really. So: where exactly can I release the cramp of strat resources and give it a bit more on the map? That and release from 1 or 2 back to 3 or 4? I'm playing Combined 5.8.

Other things are great, really.

Sounds like a fun game to me! Since iron has been removed as a requirement for cats and trebs, it's not essential anymore like it used to be. You can wage wars quite effectively with just catapults, archers, and spearmen; all swordsmen really do for you is make the assault quicker and less risky.

 

[Txurce]

Thal, I'm all for your mod(s) and can't think of playing vanilla. One thing that's been bugging me is (the lack of) strategic resources. Huge map, continents: 5 civs, 4 iron on the whole continent. Can't say other than ridiculous, really. So: where exactly can I release the cramp of strat resources and give it a bit more on the map? That and release from 1 or 2 back to 3 or 4? I'm playing Combined 5.8.

Other things are great, really.

If you mean 4 resources for a total of 8 iron, that seems pretty close to the TBC target, which is to make at least 2 iron usually accessible to you, with the option of getting more if it's worth it to you. I have games where there's none close enough to me, and others where I could have an all-sword fighting force. In that sense it is more balanced than vanilla, which is more feast or famine.

 

[Thalassicus]

@truetom
To answer the question of where it's done, there's no one spot where strategic resource abundance is controlled. The original Firaxis developer of the resource placement algorithm scattered it around a dozen variables and several hundred lines of code. It takes hours to edit even small changes, but would take a day or two to redo the code into a better format, so I just leave it in the messy format.

As SlightlyMad and Txurce mentioned, Iron is not vital for success. Horses are equally valuable in this mod, and Catapults require no resources.