HephMod: a mod combo-pack emphasizing balance, realism, and historical flavor

[Jaybe]

Here are the changes I found in HotFix A files. Did I miss anything, Heph? I ask because I have made so many tweaks to those base files (particularly UnitInfos), I didn't want to make them all again.

PromotionInfos
PROMOTION_DOCTRINE_ONLY: add to UnitCombats: UNITCOMBAT_AIR
Remove from PROMOTION_BLITZKRIEG1 .. 3: UnitCombats UNITCOMBAT_AIR

UnitInfos
UNIT_FIGHTER, UNIT_JET_FIGHTER: add to bottom of UnitInfo:
<bDCMAirBomb1>1</bDCMAirBomb1>
<bDCMAirBomb2>0</bDCMAirBomb2>
<bDCMAirBomb3>0</bDCMAirBomb3>
<bDCMAirBomb4>1</bDCMAirBomb4>
<bDCMAirBomb5>0</bDCMAirBomb5>
<bDCMFighterEngage>1</bDCMFighterEngage>

UNIT_BOMBER, UNIT_STEALTH_BOMBER: add to bottom of UnitInfo:
<bDCMAirBomb1>1</bDCMAirBomb1>
<bDCMAirBomb2>1</bDCMAirBomb2>
<bDCMAirBomb3>1</bDCMAirBomb3>
<bDCMAirBomb4>1</bDCMAirBomb4>
<bDCMAirBomb5>1</bDCMAirBomb5>

UNIT_GUIDED_MISSILE: add to bottom of UnitInfo:
<bDCMAirBomb1>0</bDCMAirBomb1>
<bDCMAirBomb2>1</bDCMAirBomb2>
<bDCMAirBomb3>1</bDCMAirBomb3>
<bDCMAirBomb4>1</bDCMAirBomb4>
<bDCMAirBomb5>0</bDCMAirBomb5>

UNITCLASS_GREAT_GENERAL:
Add to Buildings: BUILDING_MASSPRODUCTION, BUILDING_ARTILLERY, BUILDING_SPECOPS, BUILDING_PROJECTION, BUILDING_GUERILLAWAR, BUILDING_NAPALM.

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HotFix A error(?):
PromotionInfos: PROMOTION_PROJECTIONAIR2 (only): UnitCombats has UnitCombat_Naval, not Air.

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In the CFC Civ4 - Map Scripts forums, I have discovered PerfectWorld2. I don't yet know what to make of it (my first attempt was ... unpleasant).

 

[Hephaistion]

&Jaybe: Yep, that sums it up. You also caught the error I just caught yesterday with the Power Projection promo (there should be distinct promo trees for naval and air units, just like Blitzkrieg). I also noticed that Blitzkrieg air I doesn't have any effect; something must have gone screwy when I was editing and testing trying to figure out what the problem was before i found the Doctrine_only bug.

These two things could easily be hotfixed as well, but I've got a decently stable build going at the moment, and bug/oversight quashing is going well thanks to all you folks, so I'm hoping final release won't be too far off. I'm trying to control myself in terms of introducing new features, but my eyes have been wandering over to Sinners&Saints and Thomas' War mods for ideas and code snippets.

 

[Jaybe]

Scrap! I just discovered that Blitzkrieg promos are still not working for armored units.
In the last month, I've had an aborted PerfectWorld2 game, a huge PerfectWorld2 game that froze up on me in the AI turn in the 1750s, and have just gotten my first blitzkrieg-eligible armored unit in a large PerfectWorld2 game.

 

[Hephaistion]

Scrap! I just discovered that Blitzkrieg promos are still not working for armored units.
In the last month, I've had an aborted PerfectWorld2 game, a huge PerfectWorld2 game that froze up on me in the AI turn in the 1750s, and have just gotten my first blitzkrieg-eligible armored unit in a large PerfectWorld2 game.

Sorry to hear that! Here's a hotfix for you. You should be able to just merge this file and reload saved game.

 

[Jaybe]

Sorry to hear that! Here's a hotfix for you. You should be able to just merge this file and reload saved game.

Alas, it seems that PROMOTION_BLITZKRIEG1 is no different than the changes I mentioned in post #341 from your Hotfix "A" (Remove from PROMOTION_BLITZKRIEG1 .. 3: UnitCombats UNITCOMBAT_AIR). Did I miss something?

 

[Hephaistion]

Alas, it seems that PROMOTION_BLITZKRIEG1 is no different than the changes I mentioned in post #341 from your Hotfix "A" (Remove from PROMOTION_BLITZKRIEG1 .. 3: UnitCombats UNITCOMBAT_AIR). Did I miss something?

Perhaps I'm missing something ... I just tested out the current build and blitzkrieg promos are working for armored units just fine. You say that you weren't able to promote a tank from blitzkrieg0 to blitzkrieg1?

 

[Jaybe]

Perhaps I'm missing something ... I just tested out the current build and blitzkrieg promos are working for armored units just fine. You say that you weren't able to promote a tank from blitzkrieg0 to blitzkrieg1?

Correct. After I finish this game, I'll use your promos file and fool around with an advanced start game and see how it goes.

 

[Hephaistion]

Correct. After I finish this game, I'll use your promos file and fool around with an advanced start game and see how it goes.

OK, let me know the results. I tested it in Worldbuilder, where you can just put a unit on the map, give it Blitzkrieg0 and a bunch of experience, end turn, and then promote.

The new promotion file also contains fixes for Power Projection line and drill promos reduce upgrade cost, as per Winston's suggestion.

 

[Jaybe]

The new promotion file also contains fixes for Power Projection line and drill promos reduce upgrade cost, as per Winston's suggestion.

Originally Posted by Winston
Industrial and modern doctrines (apart from mass production) should have higher support costs (doctrine promos 1, 2 and 3 should each add 1 to the unit support cost) so players are discouraged from simply spamming units with doctrine 123 promos and walking all over the opposition. The modern promos largely represent technological advantages and it costs big bucks to maintain a technological lead.

I have also considered giving ExtraCost to industrial/modern units (e.g., carrier, battleship, and some siege units) but have only done so for battleships (humongous fuel usage due to armor plate), because inflation tends to do the trick.

 

[Jaybe]

Originally Posted by Winston
Industrial and modern doctrines (apart from mass production) should have higher support costs (doctrine promos 1, 2 and 3 should each add 1 to the unit support cost) so players are discouraged from simply spamming units with doctrine 123 promos and walking all over the opposition. The modern promos largely represent technological advantages and it costs big bucks to maintain a technological lead.

Ya know, when I FIRST read this (since it followed the Drill upgrade cost reduction suggestion), I was thinking it was referring to doctrines causing increases in upgrade costs, not iExtraCost. While iExtraCost for each doctrine promo may be a bit excessive, putting one in there for just the doctrine 3 promo might not be. And adding 10-15% to upgrade costs per doctrine seems downright appealing as a counter to the Drill reductions!

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EDIT: There is no iExtraCost available to the CIV4PromotionsInfo.xml anyway, so that is not an option. I went ahead and added iUpgradeDiscount of -10 to most of the doctrines, including the early ones:
FLAMING1..3, IMPERIAL1..3, ATTRITION1..3, COASTAL1..3, CHIVALRY1..3, GREEKFIRE1..3, MARKSMAN1..3, MANOEUVER1..3, PATRIOTIC1..3, SEAMANSHIP1..3, ENGINEERCORPS1..3, TRENCH1..3, BLITZKRIEG1..3, BLITZKRIEGAIR1..3, ARTILLERY1..3, PROJECTION1..3, PROJECTIONAIR1..3, GUERILLAWAR1..3, NAPALM
(Yes, I did not penalize HOLY WAR units additionally by adding upgrade penalties also. There are no upgrades after SpecOps).

Dang it, Heph. That SpecOps promo is wicked to the point of unethical (for me to ever use). I removed its iCombatPercent of 15. If I ever see the AI use that en masse against me with mech infantry I think I'd wet myself!

 

[Jaybe]

OK, let me know the results. I tested it in Worldbuilder, where you can just put a unit on the map, give it Blitzkrieg0 and a bunch of experience, end turn, and then promote.

Fix is good (even after I made a few adjustments here and there).
I just loaded up an autosave from my recently completed game, found a promo-eligible tank, and found it to be blitz1 capable. BlitzkriegAir promos I had already discovered to be good for bombers.

 

[Jaybe]

I made the mistake a while back of looking up "bronze" on wikipedia. Bronze required other ingredients, preferably zinc, but iron was more plentiful and 'good enough.' This led me to changing iron resource requirements to iron-or-copper (leaving iron tech requirements as they were), ...
but also wanting to reduce copper availability on the map.

I looked at CIV4BonusInfos.xml, but it was not obvious how to do it there. Can anyone help me with this?

 

[Hephaistion]

I made the mistake a while back of looking up "bronze" on wikipedia. Bronze required other ingredients, preferably zinc, but iron was more plentiful and 'good enough.' This led me to changing iron resource requirements to iron-or-copper (leaving iron tech requirements as they were), ...
but also wanting to reduce copper availability on the map.

I looked at CIV4BonusInfos.xml, but it was not obvious how to do it there. Can anyone help me with this?

The tag you are looking for in that file is: <iPlayer> [it's a percentage, IIRC: 100 means that there will be at least one instance for each player at the start of the game].

The values in "A Bit More Natural" mod did exactly what you wanted. In that mod, ColdWarKid changed the value of Copper to 67 (vs. Iron's 100). I originally incorporated those values myself, but, when combined with the Revolution mod, this deprived too many civs of resources that are really not THAT uncommon (esp. Iron, and even copper given Civ's non-quantitative approach to resources: bronze was traded far more widely in the ancient world than Civ's instances of the copper resource would allow, I think), so I changed the values to 150 so there'd be enough for emergent civs.

Still, making Copper rarer than Iron is a realistic modification: early in the game there are fewer emergent civs, so it wouldn't create so much of a problem to have maybe a 100 to 150 ratio.

 

[Hephaistion]

Dang it, Heph. That SpecOps promo is wicked to the point of unethical (for me to ever use). I removed its iCombatPercent of 15. If I ever see the AI use that en masse against me with mech infantry I think I'd wet myself!

Ha ha, yes, it's wicked and overpowered, indeed. Since it's an automatic promo, I don't have to "persuade" the AI to use it, so removing the combat bonus is probably a good idea!

 

[Hephaistion]

I've got a working build (at least until 300 bc or so) of a merge with RevDCM 2.6; will be hammering out compatibility issues for a bit and then doing some tidying for a BETA B release.

Details on RevDCM 2.6 can be found here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=262937

Since RevDCM forms the skeleton for HephMod, a good thread to subscribe to.

 

[Jaybe]

WHINE!! In the Revolution Modpack forum the latest I can see mention of is RevDCM 2.5.

C'mon Heph, give us some details (like Better AI version included, etc. ... along with where to look up how things change). Gotta feed that anticipation, ya know.

[Addendum: Thanx, Heph. I frequent the Revolution Modpack forum but I had never bookmarked the RevDCM thread]

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Bleepin' Forced Labor civic. Not only am I the only one not in it, but everyone's in modern/future age. I SO wish the AI could handle their economy halfway decently.

 

[hachejay]

Hi,
I've picked up CivIV again and am having difficulty getting this mod to work on the scenarios with lots of civilisations in it. I've read through all these posts and tried editing the .ini's max civs and i've tried using this .dll http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234779 instead of the hephmod one but when trying to load either the earth with 18 civs scenario or the RFC with 34 civs scenarios (which i think are included in this mod?) then the game crashes still. any help would be much appreciated!

 

[hachejay]

sorry, i'm totally wrong with what's wrong in the first place. civs are fine, it just appears to crash on any scenario loaded, or map loaded during worldbuilder. Is there a solution to this or is it just not possible to play this mod on earth?

 

[Hephaistion]

sorry, i'm totally wrong with what's wrong in the first place. civs are fine, it just appears to crash on any scenario loaded, or map loaded during worldbuilder. Is there a solution to this or is it just not possible to play this mod on earth?

Sorry to hear about your problems. Using a different DLL will NOT work unless it is a different RevDCM DLL. I tried starting a game using the various Rhye's 50 civ Earth maps and the Rise of Mankind map and they all work. A map made for 18 or 34 civs will likely not work because of the DLL conflict. Any map that is compatible with RevDCM SHOULD be compatible with HephMod, too.

In other news, HephMod BETA B will be released very soon now (probably this weekend).

I also wanted to bounce an idea off of the "HephMod community": I've thought of a different way to possibly handle the doctrine promotions that would address some of the issues with upgrades and overpowering that have been mentioned (and which I've noticed). Instead of implementing doctrines through a building that gives all units of a certain type special promotions, doctrine effect buildings could allow the production of national units that start with the doctrine promo 0. A civ could only have a limited number of these units at a time, scaled with era, and they would not be allowed any upgrades. For instance, "Flaming Ammunition" would allow the construction of "Flaming Archers" (better name to be invented later), a version of the archer unit that would be identical to regular archers in all respects except that it would start with the promotion FLAMING0 (which would allow it to promote up the tree) and would not upgrade to any other units (so no crossbowmen with flaming ammunition, etc.); number of such archers would be capped at, say, three; any civilization with a unique unit that replaces the archer would have their own doctrine-specific version of that unit, so Babylonians would get a "Flaming Bowman." If I retooled doctrines using this system, I would also limit the doctrines to specific UNITS rather than UNIT CATEGORIES, so Flaming Ammunition would only apply to archers, not archers and peltasts, and Imperial Glory would probably be confined to swordsman rather than all melee units, etc. Some doctrines may get more than one unit, but most would be limited to only one. Thoughts?

 

[Jaybe]

I also wanted to bounce an idea off of the "HephMod community": I've thought of a different way to possibly handle the doctrine promotions that would address some of the issues with upgrades and overpowering that have been mentioned (and which I've noticed). Instead of implementing doctrines through a building that gives all units of a certain type special promotions, doctrine effect buildings could allow the production of national units that start with the doctrine promo 0. A civ could only have a limited number of these units at a time, scaled with era, and they would not be allowed any upgrades. For instance, "Flaming Ammunition" would allow the construction of "Flaming Archers" (better name to be invented later), a version of the archer unit that would be identical to regular archers in all respects except that it would start with the promotion FLAMING0 (which would allow it to promote up the tree) and would not upgrade to any other units (so no crossbowmen with flaming ammunition, etc.); number of such archers would be capped at, say, three; any civilization with a unique unit that replaces the archer would have their own doctrine-specific version of that unit, so Babylonians would get a "Flaming Bowman." If I retooled doctrines using this system, I would also limit the doctrines to specific UNITS rather than UNIT CATEGORIES, so Flaming Ammunition would only apply to archers, not archers and peltasts, and Imperial Glory would probably be confined to swordsman rather than all melee units, etc. Some doctrines may get more than one unit, but most would be limited to only one. Thoughts?

Sounds good, though potentially too limiting in scale (e.g., small .. huge maps, quick .. marathon speed) with "number of such archers would be capped at, say, three". It would be really wonderful if it could be proportioned to a unit-type production, as in "you can have as many (or this fraction) of elite spears as you have of normal spears."

Doctrinal units could be of different strength/abilities (aside from doctrine promos) and of different cost (and/or even spawned(?)). Might even have promo-1 instead of just promo-0 as a free promotion.