Getting Started

[truetom]

But at the time you don't know yet for all the stuff you're gonna need it for, right? Can't be just "Oh look! It's The Oil! Let me get a hand on it in case we'll need it...". Also, yeah, some kind of a building would be nice, to make it happen (refinery?). I guess pipeline is outta reach, right?
Sure is fine to know where it is but it feels kind of cheaty. Back to the future thing, ya know.

 

[Jaybe]

But at the time you don't know yet for all the stuff you're gonna need it for, right? Can't be just "Oh look! It's The Oil! Let me get a hand on it in case we'll need it...". Also, yeah, some kind of a building would be nice, to make it happen (refinery?). I guess pipeline is outta reach, right?
Sure is fine to know where it is but it feels kind of cheaty. Back to the future thing, ya know.

See post #2312 for Thal's rationale: oil was being used for automobiles, etc. And easily accessed oil has been depleted (and, I would say, is being used to motorize your post-horse units and general economy).

 

[wobuffet]

A few miscellaneous suggestions:

• Any chance we could get instant terrain tooltips like in vanilla? The "press CTRL or ALT" thing takes pretty much a full second (for me, at least), making the early game significantly slower ("Is that a hill under that forest?").
• Since excess randomness is silly, how about making gold from ancient ruins less variable? (Not that I typically get many anyway... AI civ's units seem to grab them all up with their movement bonuses .)
• Is it feasible to pop up an announcement when "resistance" in one of your city ends? I always forget to annex my newly acquired cities until I notice the puppet icon has no fist next to it.

I just updated all the pages on the website, but it looks like I forgot to check the GP tile improvements - thanks for pointing that out.

Edit: Site is updated.

Thanks, Seek! It's incredibly useful to have such extensive documentation on hand, especially the links to detailed info here on these forums. Hope my previous post didn't come off as critical. :]

 

[Jaybe]

Is it feasible to pop up an announcement when "resistance" in one of your city ends? I always forget to annex my newly acquired cities until I notice the puppet icon has no fist next to it.

FYI, I only discovered a couple days ago that hovering over the resistance fist tells how many more turns the resistance lasts. Is this a vanilla feature, or is it a CivUP/VEM one?
(I HAVE to know so I can determine whether to be upset that it's taken me over a year to discover it).

 

[Seek]

A few miscellaneous suggestions:

• Any chance we could get instant terrain tooltips like in vanilla? The "press CTRL or ALT" thing takes pretty much a full second (for me, at least), making the early game significantly slower ("Is that a hill under that forest?").
• Since excess randomness is silly, how about making gold from ancient ruins less variable? (Not that I typically get many anyway... AI civ's units seem to grab them all up with their movement bonuses .)
• Is it feasible to pop up an announcement when "resistance" in one of your city ends? I always forget to annex my newly acquired cities until I notice the puppet icon has no fist next to it.

Thanks, Seek! It's incredibly useful to have such extensive documentation on hand, especially the links to detailed info here on these forums. Hope my previous post didn't come off as critical. :]

No problem, glad to see it's being referred to! Your first suggestion should be available in the options menu (tooltips 0 second delay or somesuch), and the other two I wouldn't mind seeing at all. Hopefully they're possible!

@Jaybe: Sorry to break it to you, but that's always been there.

 

[KidJustKid]

Thanks for the Oil move thang. I understand why it's useful to have the early reveal, but there are two stages to it's use which I think Thal understood - firstly its improvement, then build use. Coal can be 'used' straight out of the blocks for production boost. Oil I agree takes more planning to use, but it seemed to me at least that it had no 'use' in either sense for too long in midgame, in contrast to the other strategic resources.

+1 to Seek for reminding me about the tooltip timer.

 

[Thalassicus]

A few miscellaneous suggestions:

• Any chance we could get instant terrain tooltips like in vanilla? The "press CTRL or ALT" thing takes pretty much a full second (for me, at least), making the early game significantly slower ("Is that a hill under that forest?").
• Since excess randomness is silly, how about making gold from ancient ruins less variable? (Not that I typically get many anyway... AI civ's units seem to grab them all up with their movement bonuses .)
• Is it feasible to pop up an announcement when "resistance" in one of your city ends? I always forget to annex my newly acquired cities until I notice the puppet icon has no fist next to it.

• As Seek mentioned, it's under "hover tooltip delay" or something in gameplay options, set it to 0 seconds.
• Sure! What would be a good range of gold from huts?
• Feasible, but not easy. I've put your suggestion on the long term todo list.

 

[wobuffet]

• Sure! What would be a good range of gold from huts?

I remember combing through the XML files and having no idea how the "rolls" or whatever it says work in vanilla. I think the lowest I've gotten was maybe 60, and the highest maybe 140.

Anyway, something like 100–120 gold would seem to be balanced with the free tech/citizen, but I don't feel I have an awful clear idea of what would work best in my head; maybe someone else does? The 20 Culture could be bumped to 30 or 40, I think, and is there any way to take care of the fact that Scout -> Archer is way, way better than Warrior -> Spearman?

On an unrelated note, Thal, could you explain how these entries work in the VEM XML files? Are the research figure percent bonuses (i.e., compared to the human's value of 100)? And is the 20 just a starting gold figure?

<AIFreePromotion>PROMOTION_HANDICAP_I</AIFreePromotion>
<AIResearchPercent>10</AIResearchPercent>
<AIResearchPercentPerEra>8</AIResearchPercentPerEra>
<AIProductionPercentPerEra>8</AIProductionPercentPerEra>
<AIGold>20</AIGold>

 

[mitsho]

If you can make the huts reward "random ranged", can you do the same about City States? That might make people annoyed (Bad Luck), but it also gives the exploration part a bit of suspense. On a side note, I also feel that Spain would benefit a bit from a buff in its UA on that road, namely also doubling the Gold Rewards for encountering a City State.

 

[wobuffet]

If you can make the huts reward "random ranged", can you do the same about City States? That might make people annoyed (Bad Luck), but it also gives the exploration part a bit of suspense. On a side note, I also feel that Spain would benefit a bit from a buff in its UA on that road, namely also doubling the Gold Rewards for encountering a City State.

I think you misunderstood the discussion. The amount awarded by the Ancient Ruins that just give gold is random, and quite variable. One of the goals of VEM is to increase the strategy of the game, which entails decreasing the amount of randomness affecting gameplay chances.

For example, we're talking about changing the random-gold huts to a non-random 100 gold (or a narrower band around that, say) instead of the default wide 60–140 range (or something like that).

For the record, I'm completely against randomizing CS discovery gold amounts. Buffing Spain a bit somehow I could be in favor of, though (but such discussion properly belongs in the Leaders thread).

 

[truetom]

Didn't notice: it's not possible to sell buildings anymore?

 

[mitsho]

I think you misunderstood the discussion. The amount awarded by the Ancient Ruins that just give gold is random, and quite variable. One of the goals of VEM is to increase the strategy of the game, which entails decreasing the amount of randomness affecting gameplay chances.

For example, we're talking about changing the random-gold huts to a non-random 100 gold (or a narrower band around that, say) instead of the default wide 60–140 range (or something like that).

It was a quick comment and you don't need to go down explaining every detail to me. It was quite clear in the beginning.

I however disagree that decreasing the amount of randomness is a good thing per se. Otherwise we would have to make combat totally non-random as well. There's a difference inbetween major gameplay imbalances (Spearman vs. Tank) and minor randomness (which new luxury the neighbouring city state gets). The latter is a good one as it increases replay value and diversity, the first one is annoying. Now we all agree that a spearman should not be able to beat a tank, but what about a musketman? ok, a rifle? That's why it is important to not just eliminate every randomness.

City States are quite bland at the moment imho, and it doesn't really make any difference wether you receive 15, 30 or 45 gold. The same way the 60 to 140 range is ok for huts as well, because 60 gold is useful per itself.

 

[Txurce]

Didn't notice: it's not possible to sell buildings anymore?

They can still be sold.

 

[truetom]

I tried (v117) with a click on the building (city menu) and nothing happened.

Edit: sorry, false alarm. Was clicking on circle symbols.

 

[wobuffet]

It was a quick comment and you don't need to go down explaining every detail to me. It was quite clear in the beginning.

My bad. I didn't mean to talk down to you or anything, just wanted to be sure we were on the same page.

I however disagree that decreasing the amount of randomness is a good thing per se. Otherwise we would have to make combat totally non-random as well. There's a difference inbetween major gameplay imbalances (Spearman vs. Tank) and minor randomness (which new luxury the neighbouring city state gets). The latter is a good one as it increases replay value and diversity, the first one is annoying. Now we all agree that a spearman should not be able to beat a tank, but what about a musketman? ok, a rifle? That's why it is important to not just eliminate every randomness.

Sure, having things be different each new game is important to replay value. I don't think non-random combat would be all that bad (I'd very much support making it less random than it is now, in fact).

I do think that, say, the luxuries you start around should be balanced. Maybe you got Gems this time instead of Wine this time, so you'll get less Culture but more Gold. In vanilla, some luxes were simply better than others. I don't think that was good for gameplay.

City States are quite bland at the moment imho, and it doesn't really make any difference wether you receive 15, 30 or 45 gold. The same way the 60 to 140 range is ok for huts as well, because 60 gold is useful per itself.

The thing is, getting 140 gold is unambiguously much better than 60 gold. I'm OK with "sideways" variation – randomness between options of approximately equal gameplay advantage (say, +1 citizen vs +1 tech), but not "vertical" variation.

 

[Jaybe]

Sure, having things be different each new game is important to replay value. I don't think non-random combat would be all that bad (I'd very much support making it less random than it is now, in fact).

Some tanks in rough terrain or a town without adequate infantry support can be attacked by molotov cocktails or RPGs -- even by warriors, blast it.

Nah, reducing randomness (especially in combat) would be good for only the 'gamey' option. Particularly since the HP have been doubled to 20.


-- Tangent #1
Though I wouldn't mind a HIDDEN promotion based on the first time a unit has a combat result 'outside the normal curve,' which would be something like 'wretched', 'abysmal', 'great', or 'heroic' leadership. These promos would have an affect on future battles, and after a few subsequent battles you would be informed in what direction it was. A few more and it would be better specified.

Cashiering a bad leader (gets rid of the bad promo only) would cost something, though not necessarily gold ... or more than just gold. Retiring a good leader would gain gold or something; a 'heroic' leader would grant a RANDOM great person (perhaps even a GGeneral) at the capital.

-- Tangent #2
Once we have game core access and can teach the AI to not be CONSTANTLY shuffling its forces, I think we should have a unit which uses movement points (to move or for combat) cost a gold and/or a HP. This could be limited to outside of borders for movement.

As it is, aircraft and melee units lose 1 HP minimum in combat. So should naval and ranged/siege units when they attack. With only 10 HP this is a bit harsh; it fits well with 20 HP.

-- Tangent #3
I want (very much) for units in rough terrain to be invisible (i.e., must be adjacent to spot).

-- Tangent #4
Reduce the ground-unit penalty of siege units. Siege units which gain the Siege promotion (vs. cities) however, become HEAVY artillery and suffer a movement penalty -or- takes 2 MP to setup.

 

[Ahriman]

I'd oppose all of these.
Hidden promotions are just a step in completely the wrong direction; we should be trying to increase transparency of the combat model, not obfuscating it.
Modeling supply or attrition though some kind of cost per movement is inevitably going to hurt the AI far more than the human. I think you are overly optimistic about how much can be done to improve AI.
If units in rough terrain are invisible, this will make the AI even worse. It is bad enough already at moving siege or ranged attack units into spots when they can be attacked by your melee troops, if they can't see your melee troops this will be far worse.
VEM has done a great job of making siege units balanced and distinct from ranged attack. If siege units don't get the penalty vs ground units, then one is always better off building siege units than archers, and so we won't see archers and crossbows anymore, cats and trebs will be better.
2 movement cost to setup just makes siege units require even more planning (since they can't set up and fire on the same turn) which further advantages the human (who can plan) over the AI.

 

[Thalassicus]

<AIFreePromotion>PROMOTION_HANDICAP_I</AIFreePromotion>
<AIResearchPercent>10</AIResearchPercent>
<AIResearchPercentPerEra>8</AIResearchPercentPerEra>
<AIProductionPercentPerEra>8</AIProductionPercentPerEra>
<AIGold>20</AIGold>

For that particular handicap level:

• The promotion is what gives AIs bonus sight range.
• Research and production rates are (100% + 10% + era * 8%). Ancient is era 0, classical is 1, etc.
• AIs start with 20 extra gold.

 

[wobuffet]

Thanks for the details! And it looks like AI civs' policy costs are a constant 67% of what humans need?

I just like to have these figures in mind when I play so I can roughly gauge my current culture/beakers per turn against the AI's.

 

[Thalassicus]

Right.