Glory and Greatness

[Gruekiller]

I haven't laughed that hard in a while. So i guess you'll be building theatres and hoping for a diplo victory? At least I hope you have horses, that would be useful given who you're playing as ...

I quit that save when I realized that the nearest metal was halfway across the planet... xD

Also, I think there may be a graphical issue with the South American great prophet. Is the black square behind his head supposed to show up as a halo or glowy thing?

 

[seasnake]

Yeah, I've seen that. but I'm not sure if I know how to fix it. There are about 3 or 4 Great people that have some issues.

 

[dataskywalker]

seasnake, please check out your Rise of Empires (3.5) thread, I have an issue I'd like you to address. I promise that as soon as you help me fix it, I'll download G&G. I'll probably do that anyway, 'cause I'm sure it's a great mod.

 

[seasnake]

Okay dataskywalker, I'm in an airport right now but I'll log on later and check it out (briefly, it is Valentine's Day!).
Thanks.

 

[mboettcher]

Like the mod a lot.

America is OP tho. Removing either the +1 hammer upgrade or the free specialist should balance them tho

 

[seasnake]

I'm glad you enjoy it.

You raise a good point, and it's worth a brief comment. America does have a strong Power because their Unique Units come very late, one of their Unique Buildings is HIGHLY situational (Mall, it rarely makes a meaningful impact). I admit the ability is good, and the Town Hall is useful, but I think you have to look at the civilization as a whole and when you do I think America is not OP as a civilization. Of course I may be wrong.

But I think right now the trick is a few civilizations are underpowered, actually, and need buffing. The big one is Russia, it just doesn't perform as well as I'd like. I think I'll take one of their Unique Units away, the Mi8 and the Akula just both come too late, maybe some kind of Kievan-Rus era unit will take it's place. And I'll look into buffing the Research Institute with extra research or spaceship construction bonus. Perhaps instead of starting the game with a Great Spy they'll produce Great Spy points in the Capital like the Babylonians do with Scientists.

The other underpowered civ is the Celts. But I don't know why, on paper they should be a nightmare with a ton of powerful, quickly made melee units knocking on your door. But it doesn't seem to work out like that, by the time they're training Highlanders I'm building Riflemen! I don't have any good ideas yet for them, though.

 

[Comrade Zhou]

Pardon, I know people generally don't have time for sad little noobs like me, but I cannot get this damn thing to work on my Windows Vista, even though I've done everything like instructed. It keeps crashing when I try and load it. Any suggestions?

 

[seasnake]

Are you sure you unzipped this mod into your Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization IV/Beyond the Sword/Mods? instead of the My Games/Beyond the Sword/Mods? Usually mods will work if they are in the right location.

 

[Comrade Zhou]

Are you sure you unzipped this mod into your Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization IV/Beyond the Sword/Mods? instead of the My Games/Beyond the Sword/Mods? Usually mods will work if they are in the right location.

Well, I made sure of that, but my bastard of a computer doesn't want to be nice to me. Thank you anyway for your assistance!

 

[BeCivilized]

Pardon, I know people generally don't have time for sad little noobs like me, but I cannot get this damn thing to work on my Windows Vista, even though I've done everything like instructed. It keeps crashing when I try and load it. Any suggestions?

I am a fellow noob (despite my early forum join date, I think I will always be a noob). I am running Vista as well and having no problems. Which version of Vista are you running? How much RAM, etc? (I have 32 bit Vista Home Premium with 3 Gb of RAM and am not having any problems with the new version of the mod, yet). I unzipped the new mod in the correct folder after I deleted the old mod folder, (Program Files->Firaxis Games->Sid Meier's Civilization 4->Beyond the Sword->Mods) and it created the folder Glory and Greatness. In that folder is a shortcut file which I copied to the desktop, changed the properties to give it an icon (icon was missing), and I use that to quickly launch the game with the mod already loaded.

If you can load other mods, like the famous Fall from Heaven 2, something might be wrong with the file location? It was Sid Meier's Civilization 4 (not IV) on my machine, and usually I put the mods in the wrong folder the first time around, the mods folder under that directory instead of going one more level and putting it in the mods in the Beyond the Sword directory.

It's a great mod. I am playing as Siam this time around, on a lower difficulty level (because I am a noob and not very good) and having a blast.

 

[Loke.be]

Thanks for this mod seasnake!
Looks promising so far, can't wait to see more added to this.

However, there's a huge balance problem with willem... played only 1 game atm, random gave me willem as a leader... 3% interest is just too much. Finished the game with around 2000000000!!! gold... build the pyramids and you can just buy anything you want.

Would be great to have the tech capture ability in this mod too.. when you capture a city, you can learn a bit of a tech you don't have but that the opponent have.


Good job so far!

 

[Morningcalm]

seasnake, truly excellent work! I will once again praise the inclusion of Israel, Simon Bolivar, and other civs and leaders not featured in the Civ series. Looks like some stability issues and bugs need ironing out. I'll be happy to try it out once my comp is resurrected. Tons of hard work is on display here (and in the screenshots), you deserve much respect for conceiving of the project.

 

[seasnake]

To BeCivilized: Thanks, I'm glad you like it. Siam is a great civ to play, but pre 2.0 it was too easy.

To Morningcalm: Some balance issues remain, but after 2.0 I think the bugs are mostly gone. I haven't heard of any reliable bug issues since then. Really it's about making sure each civ is powerful but not overpowered.

To Loke.be: I have tried this out with tech through conquest and I don't like how it plays. However, I've thought about giving a civilization that ability. I'll see about nerfing the Dutch.

Next up for this mod is Guilds and Heroes, which will add early corporations that allow you to train unique units and provide bonuses to your city, as well as powerful Hero Units that occur infrequently but are very strong and later can build museums. Ideas are the Red Baron, the 300 Spartans, the Trung Sisters, HMS Victory, etc. That's an early idea though. I need to contact Asaf and Baldyr about this.

 

[Loke.be]

Thanks for your reply Seasnake!

Maybe it can be added as an option?
Have it for a specific civ may be nice too... again risk of balance problem maybe.

Played a few games now, mostly multiplayer, no bug and no OOS. Great work you did so far.

I will add another speed game (slower than marathon) to fit my tastes. Will share the values when I have a good balance if you want. Also if you need any help on this I may help a bit.

 

[seasnake]

Great, I will certainly take you up on that, good luck with balancing. If you know how to do it, I'd like to have one size larger world available as well. I've tried Zappara's mod with giant worlds but it doesn't work for certain maps (like Terra).

Finally, if you have some other balance suggestions let me know. Keep in mind that balance isn't all about ability, it's ability + Units + Building. For example, mboettcher pointed out that America rightly had a very strong UA, but I still don't look at America as OP because their Units are so weak.

Finally, I've changed Russia. Russia instead of a bonus to Armored units now gets +1 food, +1 Hammer per pasture. The Mi8 has been replaced with Red Army, an awesome Machine Gun/Anit Air gunner that is stronger and has a bonus against armored and 50 percent intercept chance. Further, the Russian building now provides espionage, 4 EPs each. Russia plays a lot better now.

 

[Loke.be]

I understand, balance is the most difficult part of the modding... America isn't too powerful I think.
Have to test more the speed stuff and will get back to you.
If you want to discuss about this, maybe email is easier?

Looks not bad about Russia... will check it.

Dutch is definitively OP... will think also of a better bonus...

Ah also another thing which may be nice... and useful to balance... what about penalty for civs? like a 3rd trait but negative...?

 

[seasnake]

My Preference would be merely to balance positive traits, but I'll think about it.

I'm kicking around an idea of adding 1 leader to each civ (Mali would become part of Songhai and I'd add Poland-Lithuania as the 40th) because I believe I have the artwork to do it (I'm pretty picky about Leaders, I hate it when they look like clones of another leader, like "oh look, it's napoleon with a mustache!). The question is gameplay, I'd have to whittle each civ to 2 Unique Civ abilities and then create 10 leader traits with 8 leaders each having that trait, and each civ having access to two leaders with different traits.

So for example if I'm the Inca, I start with a source of stone and have a bonus to reasearch as my civ UA. I can either play as Huayna Capac, who is a financial leader, and gains extra gold from plots with 2 gold, or as Pachacuti, who is a cultured leader, who gives 3 culture per turn per city. Ideas for traits are Cultured, Maritime, Militaristic, Financial, Strategic, Protective, Spiritual, Expansive, Charismatic, Commercial.

This would be in addition to adding 7 guilds and several heroes. Guilds are corporations that come early. The first, the Knights of Santiago, is founded by a Great Prophet and let's you train Knights of Santiago, very strong versions of Knights. This guild conflicts with the Assassin's guild, which is founded by a Great Spy and let's you train more effective spies. Etc.

Last but not least, Asaf has promised the next iteration will have Better BTS AI merged in, for a more competitive experience, and I may ping him and ask if he'll also do the DLL for Orion's Inquisition Mod, so you can train Inquisitors and go for Religious Victory.

Oh, and Russia's changes aren't released yet, I've been improving the mod in my free time. Russia will play UP in your game.

 

[Humakty]

Very sweet mod, brings the only fun feature of civ 5 back to civ 4.

I just have a repeatable CTD save, on building the great ligthhouse. Just after the video.

 

[seasnake]

Very sweet mod, brings the only fun feature of civ 5 back to civ 4.

I just have a repeatable CTD save, on building the great ligthhouse. Just after the video.

Works fine on my machine, do you want me to build the Mausolem for you next? It's only seven turns ...

Seriously, it's working fine on my laptop, I'm a bit puzzled about why it would give you a problem ... I can ask on the main CandC forum if you like.

 

[Loke.be]

I understand, the penalty trait would be used to make each leader more "unique" and maybe balance... but it ain't an easy task either.

There's still the possibility to use static drawings for the leaders too.. I've seen some using that system and imo it looks pretty good.

Guild stuff may be nice indeed, but again balance will have to be seriously considered... same applies for traits

More options for GP is always nice!