Getting Started

[Tomice]

Science specialists are something I've had difficulty balancing. I had them at 2 in the first version of the old specialists mod, then changed back to 3 when there were a few protests, but pi-r8 stated they're still overpowered at 3, so I changed it back to 2. I guess I'll change it back to 3 again.

The thing is scientists / great scientists are so crazily overpowered in vanilla any changes to them have to be rather significant to bring them down to the same level as the others. The 200-turn Deity science victory example relied largely on scientist and great scientist spam. No other specialist/great person combo has such a dramatic effect on the game.

Wait, I thought you considered nerfing scientists to 1 beaker, making them valuable mostly for great scientist creation - nerfing GS's by nerfing their prerequisite?

Seems like I mixed something up totally, sorry!
2 is not too low in my books.



Speaking in more theoretical terms, I'm disappointed population has such a high impact on science in vanilla. IMO, science buildings should produce raw beakers, instead of boosting the population-related value. Especially universities and science labs (only buildable in advanced cities) should have quite a few beakers of their own.

The rationale is that science should be more dependent on a good education system and infrastructure than population. The science boost from ICSing is very unrealistic. Small cities with basic schools are not exactly known to be the best way for scientific progress...

EDIT:

I was wrong!

The problem is not so much that science is related to the population, but that the game makes it much easier to have unlimited amounts of citizens with a small modifier (libraries) compared to having a moderate population with a huge modifier (universities and further).
I have to rethink my thoughts

 

[Thalassicus]

Ah okay, my mistake then was ambiguous documentation. I've now changed it from saying "-1" to "2", which should result in less confusion.

I just did a major change to the file structure of all the mods, to provide a framework for easier language translation if someone decides to do so. I was hoping to do a release this morning like each Wednesday of the past few weeks, but due to this change I'll keep things in the dev version for a while longer.

The current dev version I uploaded is a beta and should not contain mistakes, bugs or errors anywhere ingame or in the readmes. Other than any small fixes (please point out errors!) this will be the version of the next public release.

 

[Seek]

Maybe a revision of Science buildings is in order:

• Library - 25%; 1 GS slot
• University - 50% ; 2 GS slots
• Public School - 1 per 2, 1 GS slot
• Observatory - 75%
• Research Lab - 75% , 2 per Jungle, 1 GS slot [EDIT: Maybe add 1 per deep sea tile here as well?]

I think these changes would help curb ICS and have better rationale:
* Before the idea of Public Schools arose, it was the elite classes who produced the vast majority of scientific progress. (As an aside, it's impossible to represent this at the moment -correct me if I'm wrong- but it would be great if / increased throughout the eras, 1 for every 4 in Ancient/Classical, 1 for every 3 in Medieval, etc.)
* The jungle science thing has annoyed me from the start. It wasn't until quite recently that jungles were of very much interest to the scientific community.

 

[Tomice]

BTW, what do you think about the tech overflow mod? should it be integrated into the unofficial patch?

 

[Thalassicus]

@Seek
You have a good point science buildings should probably lean a little more towards the later eras. On a side note, the water tile change is already on the research lab.

@Tomice
I'll go look at it.
Edit: Sounds like a good bugfix. I'm not going to include it in the patch though because he's still working on it, will just include a compatibility line in ingame.xml instead.

 

[Seek]

@Seek
You have a good point science buildings should probably lean a little more towards the later eras. On a side note, the water tile change is already on the research lab.

Oops, didn't notice that.

Just got caught up with the Strategy thread, a couple things -
* Agree that maybe it's time to tackle the tech tree; is this something you plan to do?
* You said that RAs aren't adjustable by cost, but Gazebo did just that in the City-State Diplomacy mod. Code used:

Spoiler :

	<Eras>
		<Update>
			<Set ResearchAgreementCost="200"/>
			<Where Type="ERA_ANCIENT"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set ResearchAgreementCost="250"/>
			<Where Type="ERA_CLASSICAL"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set ResearchAgreementCost="350"/>
			<Where Type="ERA_MEDIEVAL"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set ResearchAgreementCost="450"/>
			<Where Type="ERA_RENAISSANCE"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set ResearchAgreementCost="550"/>
			<Where Type="ERA_INDUSTRIAL"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set ResearchAgreementCost="700"/>
			<Where Type="ERA_MODERN"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set ResearchAgreementCost="800"/>
			<Where Type="ERA_FUTURE"/>
		</Update>
	</Eras>

 

[Thalassicus]

Ah, my memory was faulty! It's been a few weeks, I remember this topic came up early on.

The problem is the significant impact on isolated vs crowded start locations, basically making isolated starts hopeless (like previous versions of civ). Any ideas how to solve this? The best approach would be to increase costs by number of agreements signed instead of era (like great people)... but I haven't found values to alter that.

 

[Tomice]

And since I have an active CFC forum day, one more bug report/suggestion:

In your games, do you also have the feeling that CS have no other missions than destroying another CS? I know there's also barb camps, build road, build a wonder... but recently 90% of the missions seem to be destroying someone.

Maybe it would be better to make those missions less common, and maybe they should be restricted in time (similar to research agreement duration). After this period, a new mission is selected.

 

[Perkus]

In your games, do you also have the feeling that CS have no other missions than destroying another CS? I know there's also barb camps, build road, build a wonder... but recently 90% of the missions seem to be destroying someone.

Absolutely. The last game was completely ridiculous, I think I completed about 1 non-capture CS mission in the whole game, because they were just totally bloodthirsty. The game before that I played the Greeks, expecting to really suck up to CSs, and they didn't really give me any opportunity, only got a few doable missions.

Is it possible they broke this in .62 somehow? I could swear it was much more varied in my first couple of games. I thought it could also be due to the "No end of City States" mod I added at some point. But I looked it over and didn't see anything that should influence it. Does anyone know if it's modable?

I also totally agree on too much science coming from population. It seems the best late game science building is the hospital! And the jungle-science was a real head scratcher when I first saw that rule.

 

[Tomice]

Is it possible they broke this in .62 somehow? I could swear it was much more varied in my first couple of games.

Now that you say it - yes! Could really be true...

 

[Arksa]

I saw this issue well before .62, city state screen, with everyone asking to kill someone. Dont think they changed it to worse really.

 

[Txurce]

While on the topic of CS, have you noticed that sometimes you can ask the AI to make peace with one, and sometimes you can't?

 

[ezysquire]

I want to somehow represent Japan's unique history of 600 years of military rule, unlike most other nations, and how it influenced its modern society. I'm not sure how though.

I was under the impression that the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century was basically a big 'F' Off to the feudal system in Japan in favour of industrialising to be exactly the same as the west.
I'm not sure there is much you could take from medieval Japan that has successfully survived into modern Japan.
On the anthropoligical level I guess a lesson that has carried over is 'obedience' and 'honour'. So something that reflected these personalities might be accurate.
But really difficult to find things that survived the Meiji restoration - it was an amazing period of history.... Fully Industrialised in like 40 years, went from sails to a an iron navy that beat Russia in 1906, wiped out the samurai class with peasants armed with rifles. And all down to a backlash against America's gunship diplomacy... ah... if only such historic sequences were possible in CiV!

 

[Thalassicus]

I haven't actually been to the nation so I don't know for sure, I only know what I learned from my business etiquette course. It's difficult to get an accurate picture of somewhere without being there. I'm born and raised in Texas for example, yet don't own any boots, have a ranch, or an oil well, and don't speak with a Southern accent.

From what I've learned, there's a respect for authority and law in Japanese society that's lingered longer than in the US, where the workforce has become largely mobile. Loyalty between employee and employer is stronger, that sort of thing... quitting one's job will likely make it difficult to be hired again. More of a good-of-the-community sense, and employment is often for life. In addition, a stratification of the workplace. As you say... concepts like honor and obedience.



On the topic of city-states...

I've been attempting to work on quest balance for a while now. One of the reasons the conquer quest is more common is the simple fact it requires no prerequisites, other than contact. Also, the odds of conquer get two multipliers... twice as likely if the CS is militaristic OR hostile, and most CSs fall into one category or the other. I've been thinking about:

• -20% gold gift influence (already in)
• +25% influence from quest completion
• One-time bonus when a CS is killed, associated with its trait

One big problem is the structure of the quest weight data:

Spoiler :

<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_FRIENDLY_ROUTE">
  <Value>200</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_HOSTILE_ROUTE">
  <Value>20</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_MARITIME_ROUTE">
  <Value>150</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_MILITARISTIC_KILL_CAMP">
  <Value>300</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_MARITIME_CONNECT_RESOURCE">
  <Value>300</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_CULTURED_CONSTRUCT_WONDER">
  <Value>300</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_CULTURED_GREAT_PERSON">
  <Value>300</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_MILITARISTIC_KILL_CITY_STATE">
  <Value>200</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_HOSTILE_KILL_CITY_STATE">
  <Value>200</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_NEUTRAL_KILL_CITY_STATE">
  <Value>40</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_MARITIME_FIND_PLAYER">
  <Value>300</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_MILITARISTIC_FIND_NATURAL_WONDER">
  <Value>50</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_HOSTILE_FIND_NATURAL_WONDER">
  <Value>30</Value>
</Row>

Trying to represent 2-dimensional data (city state type, quest type) with a 1-dimensional list of specific values is rather odd. It's inflexible unless you have code access, and probably requires an individual line of code to check every single value. A more logical solution is something like below, checked with a nested for-loop:

<Table name="Minor_Civ_Quest_Weights">
  <Column name="MinorCivType" 		type="text"/>
  <Column name="FindPlayer" 		type="integer" default="100" />
  <Column name="KillCamp"		type="integer" default="100" />
  <Column name="KillCityState" 		type="integer" default="100" />
  <Column name="Route" 			type="integer" default="100" />
  <Column name="Resource" 		type="integer" default="100" />
  <Column name="Wonder" 		type="integer" default="100" />
  <Column name="GreatPerson" 		type="integer" default="100" />
  <Column name="FindNaturalWonder" 	type="integer" default="100" />
</Table>

This is what I did for the promotion swap table in the Combat mod. Due to this limitation of the data format we won't have much control over the quest weights until the full sdk arrives. For example, a peaceful CS is 250% more likely to ask for war than an apathetic CS. In fact, the only thing friendly CSs do like is the route option. They don't favor any of the other peaceful options... and we can't change this as a result of the hardcoded data format. :\

I always try to avoid complaining about development decisions regarding gameplay... because that's a matter of subjective opinion... but messy programming does frustrate me. It's an objective fact that two-dimensional data is best stored in a two-dimensional format.

 

[Tomice]

On the topic of city-states...

I have no idea what you are talking about, but I'm glad you're working on it!

 

[Perkus]

@Thalassicus
Isn't it quite possible that the C++ code builds all the possible quest weight define names on the fly, checks if they exist, then applies the modifier if there is one? While cumbersome, it would mean we could rebalance the table by adding a whole slew of brand new defines like:

MINOR_CIV_QUEST_WEIGHT_MULTIPLIER_FRIENDLY_GREAT_PERSON = 200

It's a pain just to test that theory out, though. You'd want to set most of them real low but one particular quest type really high, then play a game and see if that's the quest everybody gives you. You'd probably want to write a little program just to generate the list of defines so you don't have to type out like 9x7? = 63? of them! Anybody really bored?

 

[SlightlyMad]

I know this would be a radical suggestion, but I've always thought the "kill another CS" missions should be the only way to get a really huge influence bonus. Like you could bribe and do small missions for a CS to stay in the friend zone if you really put some effort into it, but it should be extremely expensive to get into ally status with money alone. If you killed another CS for them, however, you'd end up with a fully maxed-out ally bar that will last you quite a while.

This would mean that it's very expensive to keep a CS as an ally any other way, so you could never afford to befriend them all like you can now. Since you're already choosing some over others anyways, you may as well knock a few out to keep your CS allies happy.

edit:
Also, I assume this isn't possible until we get source code access, but I would love it if the favor decay could be slowed significantly when ally status is reached. This way, gold bribing value could be reduced significantly, making it so expensive as to be impractical to bribe into ally status, and really be something you'd need to perform quests to achieve. But once ally status is reached, it would be much more affordable to use bribery to keep them there.

 

[Seek]

Alright, so this is reeeeeeally weird. I'm not sure which mod is doing this, but I decided to give the dev pack (v1.0.6) a whirl, playing with City-State Diplo, Harder Tech and Tech Overflow as well, so most of the mods are the balance mods. Anyway, I just conquered Paris (the first city I've gotten) and the following popup message appears:

BLAH BLAH

That's it. Nada mas. No "Raze City" option, nothing. Let me repeat:

BLAH BLAH

WTH? Now my game is more or less locked, the top panel stuff is available, but I can't get out of the screen. Esc, Enter and Del keys do nothing. Anyone know what's going on here? Some kind of cruel joke?

 

[Txurce]

Alright, so this is reeeeeeally weird. I'm not sure which mod is doing this, but I decided to give the dev pack (v1.0.6) a whirl, playing with City-State Diplo, Harder Tech and Tech Overflow as well, so most of the mods are the balance mods. Anyway, I just conquered Paris (the first city I've gotten) and the following message appears:

BLAH BLAH

That's it. Nada mas. No "Raze City" option, nothing. Let me repeat:

BLAH BLAH

WTH? Now my game is more or less locked, the top panel stuff is available, but I can't get out of the screen. Esc, Enter and Del keys do nothing. Anyone know what's going on here? Some kind of cruel joke?

A cruel joke is exactly what it sounds like.

I've played with 1.0.2, so I doubt 1.0.6 is the problem. Could it be the CS Diplo interacting with it? Have you exited and reloaded from auto-save yet?

 

[Seek]

A cruel joke is exactly what it sounds like.

I've played with 1.0.2, so I doubt 1.0.6 is the problem. Could it be the CS Diplo interacting with it? Have you exited and reloaded from auto-save yet?

I doubt it's CSD, as I've played with this build before with no problems. I just tried a reload, with the same result. There are a couple more oddities that I noticed after doing it a few more times: I think Paris somehow got instantly recaptured by the French! The city's territory flashed yellow, then went right back to blue. Also, I got a notification that a worker was captured, the only possibility was the worker in Paris (I checked) and a random pike appeared outside my capitol that wasn't there a moment before (I checked). Later I'll start another game to see if it continues to do this or if it's just a bug. Too weird...