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

[Hephaistion]

Here's a fix for StackAid for anyone who d/l before the time of this post. Wasn't removing aid promotions when a unit moved out of a stack. Just put this file in "Assets/Python."

Also, if the barbarians become more annoying than challenging ... turn off raging barbarians in Assets/XML/GameInfo/GameOptionsInfo.xml.

 

[Hamburglar]

My game crashed... No idea why... I hit End Turn and then it kicks me out. Maybe it has something to do with the barbarians? They have just organized as a minor tribe and are moving into my areas.

 

[Hephaistion]

My game crashed... No idea why... I hit End Turn and then it kicks me out. Maybe it has something to do with the barbarians? They have just organized as a minor tribe and are moving into my areas.

Thanks for this ... I fixed your crash and am attaching your repaired save game file.

I found out the cause of the crash, but am still not sure exactly why it is crashing. It wasn't the barbarians settling down, it was Huayna Capac choosing to found Judaism ... I think there is some sort of bug in the interaction between the Choose Religion game setting and the Revolution mod. The Python debug log records Huayna Capac founding Judaism and then gives some revolution mod data ... and then the crash. I gave Suryavarman Judaism instead (he had no religion), pressed end turn, Huayna Capac founds Hinduism instead and no more crash!

It's weird because I've playtested the game and had Judaism founded without any problems before, but I don't use the Choose Religion option. This one may remain a mystery, but here's your repaired saved game:

 

[Astaldo711]

Thanks for this ... I fixed your crash and am attaching your repaired save game file.

I found out the cause of the crash, but am still not sure exactly why it is crashing. It wasn't the barbarians settling down, it was Huayna Capac choosing to found Judaism ... I think there is some sort of bug in the interaction between the Choose Religion game setting and the Revolution mod. The Python debug log records Huayna Capac founding Judaism and then gives some revolution mod data ... and then the crash. I gave Suryavarman Judaism instead (he had no religion), pressed end turn, Huayna Capac founds Hinduism instead and no more crash!

It's weird because I've playtested the game and had Judaism founded without any problems before, but I don't use the Choose Religion option. This one may remain a mystery, but here's your repaired saved game:

This is a real nice mod and a nice small simple one too! I love the big ones, but it's sometimes tiring to have a bunch of 200mb + mods installed.
I mainly want to say a big 'Thank you' to not just Hephaistion, but to all the mod makers out there. They all have such great talent, they make these great mods on their own free time and for free! The support they all give is so amazing! You fixed his save game for him! I've never seen any game company give support like this! So to all you terrific mods makers out there THANK YOU!!

 

[Hephaistion]

This is a real nice mod and a nice small simple one too! I love the big ones, but it's sometimes tiring to have a bunch of 200mb + mods installed.
I mainly want to say a big 'Thank you' to not just Hephaistion, but to all the mod makers out there. They all have such great talent, they make these great mods on their own free time and for free! The support they all give is so amazing! You fixed his save game for him! I've never seen any game company give support like this! So to all you terrific mods makers out there THANK YOU!!

Thanks very much for the appreciation props!

The HephMod philosophy has always been, "More is not always better." I'm not so into mods that just add more everything to the game so that you drown in options ... it's great to add more if by adding more things you are adding more WAYS TO PLAY, but do we really need to multiply things like buildings that give gold, research, production, etc., or units for the sake of units? I don't think so. Civ4 is a great game by itself ... it just needs a little thoughtful adjustment, IMHO.

 

[Ninja2]

Hey Hephaistion, any chance that you could release your Inquisitor as a modcomp? I think it's excellent, and I'd like to use it exactly the way you do in my Merged Mod, if it's alright with you, of course!

 

[Hephaistion]

Hey Hephaistion, any chance that you could release your Inquisitor as a modcomp? I think it's excellent, and I'd like to use it exactly the way you do in my Merged Mod, if it's alright with you, of course!

Sure thing! And remember for your credits section that my version of Inquisition is based on bmarnz and OrionVeteran's port from Gods of Old.

Let me know if you have any problems with it and I'll see what I can do.

Oh, yes, and here's ANOTHER fix for StackAid: wasn't updating stackaid promotions when units were killed. Sorry, folks, I followed some bad Python advice from another thread for making StackAid more efficient, and wound up losing some functionality. Just add to HephModBeyond/Assets.

 

[Hephaistion]

I've uploaded the .76 update to the downloads database (see first post).

This update includes a couple of fixes (including the StackAid fix posted above) and adds a new unit: the Hussar! Now there is a light cavalry unit for the late medieval and Renaissance period.

 

[The Navy Seal]

I'll have to download this version sounds pretty cool!

 

[Ninja2]

Hephaistion, I stayed up till 3.30 AM playing your mod!!!

It's a cool mod, I was trying to get the religious victory on a small map with 5 civs. Is it 70% or 80% I need? I think the victory file says 80%, and I think the pedia says 70%... when I saved the game I was at 62%, so I'm getting there. My problem is I have no Iron and no Oil within my borders, only four cities and a very strong Isabella next door. I need to stay friends with everyone while jockeying for the religious, or diplo win through Apol.Palace, but Isabella just won't vote for me!

With such a small map and so few players, there is actually very little action from the Revolutions mod (and speed is Normal, I know you tweaked it for Epic). I don't really know about the changed civics, this particular game I seemed to be stuck very early on with some good choices (slavery has lasted up till Electricity).

 

[Hephaistion]

@Ninja2:

Pleased to hear that you're enjoying the mod. Religious victory is set to 80% (the latest Orion Veteran update setting); beware the Civilopedia (it's the last thing to get updated, if it gets updated at all!).

On a small map, there will be fewer revolutions, since a big factor in revolution index accumulation is the size of your empire. You can also tweak rev index accumulation in the config file, if you want to see more revolutions!

Slavery is definitely a viable choice well into the game, as it was for civilizations in our own world (especially the United States, I'm embarassed to say ... ); serfdom, while it limits pop growth a little, is a good choice, however, for civs that have money (to spend on hurrying production) and are ready to expand their agriculture (since farms make money).

 

[Hephaistion]

Game crashing when you try to build a hussar? My fault. Full download is updated, patch is attached.

Just overwrite your "HephMod Beyond" folder with the patch. Fully savegame compatible.

 

[The Navy Seal]

Lately I've been playing games (normally I just MOD) I've always liked your stuff so I'm d/ling....

 

[Shiggs713]

I tried your mod out the other day. I used the "supreme earth epic" map (available at civearth.com) for a custom scenario, and I must say its a good mod. I haven't finished the game, and haven't even made it past the renaissance age, but I'm looking forward to the finished version of this. The city interface, and your adjustments to techs and units are a nice touch

Shiggs

 

[Hephaistion]

Lately I've been playing games (normally I just MOD) I've always liked your stuff so I'm d/ling....

I tried your mod out the other day. I used the "supreme earth epic" map (available at civearth.com) for a custom scenario, and I must say its a good mod. I haven't finished the game, and haven't even made it past the renaissance age, but I'm looking forward to the finished version of this. The city interface, and your adjustments to techs and units are a nice touch

Shiggs

Thanks for the support, guys ... it keeps me motivated. I'm very interested to hear any feedback about ways to improve the mod, features you did or didn't like (or concepts that go too far or not far enough), etc. The city interface changes come from the raw commerce mod component, and much of the original unit changes are from WesW's Medieval Mod, though stats have been tweaked a LOT since those early days and the new unit "types" (skirmisher and light cavalry) are my own (and expect more units in these categories for later eras in future versions!).

Version changes schedule:

.8 will see the completion of the religion portion of the mod, with unique shrine effects, unique religious units, and unique religious promotions

.9 will see the reintroduction of the doctrine special building/promotion system for great generals that HephMod (Warlords) lifted from Total Realism.

The big project for the 1.0 version will be the changeover to RevolutionDCM (a lot of tedious XML merging to be done for this, as well as tracking down inevitable bugs and then playtesting different Dale's components to see what works well with the mod's concept and what doesn't).

Along the way there will be more ethnically diverse units (I'm always hunting for new and better graphics, and at the very least the Native American and African civs will get their own fleshed out unique art styles), a few more new units for later ages and a reworking/rebalancing of the traits system. Possible, but not definite, features could include immigration mod, national units representing elite versions of unit classes (though the Hero promotions already fill this role in the current version after a fashion) and a unique world unit for each civ (this last one is pretty unlikely, but I'm going to look into it).

I don't know WHEN any of this will happen, but this is the current plan! I hope to at least get .8 out in August, before the school year starts up again and things get busy.

 

[Hephaistion]

Oi! Here's another patch for StackAid. StackAid will now no longer give aid promotions to air units. It seems like a simple patch, and would have been had I known what I was doing, but with my meager Python knowledge it took me most of the afternoon to fix!

Assets/Python:

 

[Edward The Big]

Is this patch for version .75 or .76?

 

[Hephaistion]

Is this patch for version .75 or .76?

It will work for any version .75 or later. Attached below is a combined patch that will patch any HephMod version .75 or later to .762, which includes all StackAid fixes, the fixed version of the Hussar unit, and the Civics rebalancing introduced in .76.

BTW, I'm playtesting version .8 this afternoon and hope to have a balanced version by the end of the week!

 

[Shiggs713]

nice, sounds good.

I played some more of the previous game I mentioned. It all seems good and fun. I like nearly all of your adjustments. The only one that really stood out to me that I didn't like was the naval movement. Land movement is basically the same (at least prior to industrial age, I'm not that far into it yet), though sea movement has been multiplied roughly by 3. And you don't even need open borders with a galley, so even on a huge earth map, on epic speed, I had all of the old worlds seas explored in BC time.

I do agree with them not needing open borders, but I think the movement should be toned down. Maybe instead of 6 movement for a galley, try 4. Other than that its awesome so far.

Shiggs

 

[Hephaistion]

nice, sounds good.

I played some more of the previous game I mentioned. It all seems good and fun. I like nearly all of your adjustments. The only one that really stood out to me that I didn't like was the naval movement. Land movement is basically the same (at least prior to industrial age, I'm not that far into it yet), though sea movement has been multiplied roughly by 3. And you don't even need open borders with a galley, so even on a huge earth map, on epic speed, I had all of the old worlds seas explored in BC time.

I do agree with them not needing open borders, but I think the movement should be toned down. Maybe instead of 6 movement for a galley, try 4. Other than that its awesome so far.

Shiggs

Thanks, glad that you're enjoying it. Naval movement has been dramatically increased across the board. In vanilla, the abysmally low movement rates of premodern ships totally skews the importance that ancient navies played in warfare in regions like the Mediterranean, especially considering how long an ancient turn is! When one turn can represent FIFTY years, how can a galley be confined to 3 movement points!? The increased movement means that troop transport is much more feasible, so it doesn't take centuries to move a couple units from one city down the coast to another!

In later ages, sea movement is also more realistic because of increased speeds. In vanilla civ, it would take at least two years to move troops from, say, the USA to Europe in the WWII era (2 turns per year). With increased speeds, you can do it in two turns (1 year).