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

[Arkaeyn]

Maybe it's just me but the revolutions seem to happen almost too much. Myself and a few other civs are able to plan properly and avoid them but it utterly destroys a few of the other civs out there. It is fun to watch and take advantage of though.

My big problem with the Revolution mod is that it tends to focus on smaller, overtly unstable civilizations. Which is part of why I like Rhye's stability instead, as it punishes larger civilizations who don't pay attention to infrastructure like they should.

 

[Lachlan]

HephMod should have Mercenary Units through the ages...

100 % same that regular units but hidden nationality and 50 % more cost, and penalty in diplomacy with the owner of captured cities

 

[Stevenpfo]

What difficulty settings, speed and strategies has everyone been using with HephMod?

Normally I play on Prince but I have been playing on Monarch to even things out after I figured out a solid strategy as Germany (Bismark). I've been playing on Epic speed but I may try Marathon.

Bismarks traits are Industrious and Expansive:

*INDUSTRIOUS:
*Production Yield Bonus (4 production or more)
*Prod+: production-enhancing buildings (forge, factory)
*Special: production+ to workers
*EXPANSIVE:
*Food Bonus (5 food or more)
*Prod+: growth buildings (granary, lighthouse)
*Special: production+ to settlers

I usually start off bee-lining for agriculture. If I have anything farmable nearby such as corn, wheat, rice or flood plains then I get them up and running first thing. While I wait for Agriculture to be researched I build a worker.

The farms/flood plains give that extra bonus +1 food to get it up to anywhere from 5-7 depending on resource. I use these to get mines going on (hopefully) plains hills. You get the bonus from Industrious for that extra hammer.

Long story short: This leads to work shops along rivers and on plains tiles while farms are on grassland around these. Trees are left alone for the health bonus and for lumber mills later on. You shouldn't even need to chop them if you've used the stated strategy.

Wars and enemies are kept to a minimum until later in the game. Once you get railroads, Assembly Plants and hospitals you should have all your cities fully built up with every possible building you want and around size 15-25 (depending on terrain and available resources).

If you manage to get a religion going (easy to spread one but not as easy to found one at higher levels following this strategy) and grab a few happiness resources you should be good. To get your cities as large as you want you'll probably need 5 health resources. However, four will do.

Mass produce armies and enjoy destroying your unlucky neighbors.

From memory I usually get these civics:

City States (or Representation).
Jurisprudence (happiness from courts, yay)
Guilds (helps out workshops) - Until I can get Labor Unions.
Organized Religion
Professional Army

I'm still working on it. I think I may switch the order I get my techs in. Especially at higher difficulty levels.

Anyone else feel like sharing their strategies or experiences with this mod so far?

 

[Jaybe]

I play a modified Noble difficulty (though it is Prince to differentiate from the AI's difficulty level) as Rome, either leader:
Since I am special (as was Rome), I get StartingLocPercent of 10 (Noble default of 40);
countered with iMaxNumCitiesMaintenance of 10 (Noble default of 5) to inhibit massive conquests;
neither I nor the AI receive any bonuses vs. barbarians;
iAIPerEraModifier = -4 (AI only, percentage calculated as (100% - (AIPerEraModifier * era)), multiplied by: food needed to grow cities, civic upkeep costs, production costs, unit support costs, unit supply costs, unit upgrade costs, inflation rate, war weariness ... but I get an even start);
Everyone gets The Wheel as a free tech.

In post 200 most of my other changes are listed.

Huge, 2-Hemisphere maps, marathon speed. I am on only my 3rd game with 0.9c, and previously Heph had not made any changes to marathon speed (see posts 217-218).

I rarely go after powerful or overseas opponents unless they attack me, but if they do and are near me I usually destroy them. Small civs on my borders (and nearby barb cities) are my targets once I've got my legions. Otherwise, I rarely go on a conquering spree, though I often end the game over the domination population requirement and 2/3 to almost the real estate threshold. Victories are usually spaceship or cultural, with the occasional domination.

I rarely use slavery or caste system. Professional Army if I can afford it (i.e., I've got the Confucian shrine). I'll go Guilds until I get a corporation or two. In my last game, when I won in 2111 AD (turn 917 (?) & 65 hours), ALL the other civs were still in slavery or caste system.

Otherwise, I try to play it "naturally" according to circumstances

--
@Hephaistion: It appears that Raging Barbarians are the default setup (in my 1st v0.9c game I did not go the Custom Game route for the first time in years (ever??) and it was in the F8 Settings). I presume that was your intention ... and may explain my EASY time in my last game when they were NOT raging.

 

[Stevenpfo]

@Heph: It appears that Raging Barbarians are the default setup (in my 1st v0.9c game I did not go the Custom Game route for the first time in years (ever??) and it was in the F8 Settings). I presume that was your intention ... and may explain my EASY time in my last game when they were NOT raging.

I'm going to go back and read your other posts because I enjoy seeing how others play.

But the game does seem to have raging barbarians as the default setting. Kind of annoying with those Skirmishers I just lost my holy city which was just founded 2 turns after the city was dropped to one. It also makes the Great Wall almost crazy over powered. Especially if your civ is tactically placed to funnel the barbs into opponents.

 

[Stevenpfo]

You've made some pretty cool changes there Jaybe. I've been making attempts at making small changes which led to bigger changes which led to me breaking stuff (the mod, mostly).

I spent many hours last night trying to figure out how to merge mods. I tried out the Influence Driven War mod and loved what it offers but I don't think I could play with any mod but Hephs now. It's what i've been looking for for awhile now. I tried merging them but I have no idea what i'm doing.

Usually I can figure things out on my own or through other peoples mods and experiences on the forums. I got nothing this time. I see that Heph has this planned for the future already but has anyone else merged the two and would be willing to share the file?

 

[Vrenir]

Slowly but surely, I am working on a leaders add-on for Hephmod and other vanilla BtS mods. That means no new civs, but expanded leader options for all existing nations (some have been redefined to broaden their scope).

My question is this: how important is it to keep the vanilla leaders as the same characters? One of my goals is to make sure that none of the leaders double up on era represented. For instance, if you want England in a Renaissance scenario, you pick Elizabeth; if you want it in an Industrial scenario, you pick Victoria. Overall, this works beautifully, but there are a handful of oddities in the Vanilla game, places where multiple leaders clearly represent the same era or represent eras not covered by the game.

For example, Gilgamesh. He is not contemporary with any other leader or nation in the game. Therefore, scenario play with him is nearly impossible. Would you consider using my mod if I took the Gilgamesh model and trait combo and renamed him as somebody else? Similarly, would you object to renaming Hatshepsut as Cleopatra VII, while keeping the same civ and the same traits? That way, Ramesses II could represent Ancient Egypt and Cleopatra Classical Egypt.

These are simply ideas at this point, but I need to make decisions, and since keeping this compatible with your mod is one of my core objectives, I want to know your thoughts on this. If you want a more comprehensive list of the additions I plan to make, I can easily provide one. Thank you.

 

[Vrenir]

I hate to ask, but is the final version of this still being worked on?

 

[Jaybe]

Chill, Vrenir. Heph is basically a lurker.

Besides, I suspect he is waiting for the next version of Revolutions mod to incorporate. Since Heph doesn't SDK, and Revolutions does (AND includes Better AI, which is even better now), the delay is quite reasonable.

Nudge jdog. The Revolution Modpack forum is HERE.

 

[Vrenir]

That is exactly why I said, "I hate to ask." Since this is my favorite vanilla-esque configurations, I wondered about it's status, but I didn't want to be one of those annoying people who can't bother to wait. When I also saw that this thread had been sorely neglected as of late, I figured, "Why not give it a bump?" I am certainly quite content to wait until Heph reveals his hand with version 9.

 

[Lachlan]

Should be nice if the mod's author return

 

[Jaybe]

Now that Civ4 BtS 3.19 is out, aren't we glad that Heph has waited for further updates. Have to wait for the 3.19 version of Revolutions mod now (since Heph is limited to xml changes).

 

[Hephaistion]

Thanks for all your input, everyone, and for keeping this thread alive and bumped. For some reason, I wasn't getting updates about posts in this thread and so thought nothing was going on. Thanks especially to Jaybe, who's clearly been serving as a source of explanation and advice due to his long experience with and insight into the mod and its concept.

I just got home from work and am in dire need of sustenance, so I will leave other comments until later. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still around and hope to do some work on this mod this summer.

The first thing I will do the next time I log on will be to put a link to the .9c version in the first post. I didn't know I was going on hiatus when I did, so I really expected to have the doctrine wonders done quickly.

 

[Jaybe]

My understanding of warfare (particularly interest in WWII) always gave me the impression that while artillery may be essential in the attack, it is its use in DEFENSE which had the greatest impact. Which led me to make the following adjustment:

PROMOTION_SIEGE_AID1: (defensive fire) iFirstStrikesChange =1; iCityDefense, iHillsDefense =20; TerrainDefenses/Grass, Plains Snow, Tundra & Desert =20
(in other words, +20% defense regardless of terrain).

Siege_Aid is interesting in when it becomes activated. It takes more siege units to affect newer units than older ones (e.g., 2 cannon may affect a rifleman but it may take 3 or 4 to affect an infantryman or marine ... better to have some artillery in the stack).

I would like my changes even more if damage taken my siege would affect whether siege_aid was engaged.

 

[Hephaistion]

Now that Civ4 BtS 3.19 is out, aren't we glad that Heph has waited for further updates. Have to wait for the 3.19 version of Revolutions mod now (since Heph is limited to xml changes).

Don't forget a little Python ... (admittedly, a very little )

 

[Hephaistion]

Slowly but surely, I am working on a leaders add-on for Hephmod and other vanilla BtS mods. That means no new civs, but expanded leader options for all existing nations (some have been redefined to broaden their scope).

My question is this: how important is it to keep the vanilla leaders as the same characters? One of my goals is to make sure that none of the leaders double up on era represented. For instance, if you want England in a Renaissance scenario, you pick Elizabeth; if you want it in an Industrial scenario, you pick Victoria. Overall, this works beautifully, but there are a handful of oddities in the Vanilla game, places where multiple leaders clearly represent the same era or represent eras not covered by the game.

For example, Gilgamesh. He is not contemporary with any other leader or nation in the game. Therefore, scenario play with him is nearly impossible. Would you consider using my mod if I took the Gilgamesh model and trait combo and renamed him as somebody else? Similarly, would you object to renaming Hatshepsut as Cleopatra VII, while keeping the same civ and the same traits? That way, Ramesses II could represent Ancient Egypt and Cleopatra Classical Egypt.

These are simply ideas at this point, but I need to make decisions, and since keeping this compatible with your mod is one of my core objectives, I want to know your thoughts on this. If you want a more comprehensive list of the additions I plan to make, I can easily provide one. Thank you.

I have no problem with juggling around leaders and even tweaking trait combos as long as different trait combos are generally represented to allow for many different strategies. I'm not so concerned with scenarios, but a side effect that I do like about what you're doing is that it will a) remove ahistorical leaders (like Gilgamesh; you wouldn't put in a leaderhead for Agamemnon in a historical game, would you?) and b) give a broader selection of leaders historically.

Let me know when you make some progress with this and we'll talk again!

 

[Hephaistion]

I'm going to go back and read your other posts because I enjoy seeing how others play.

But the game does seem to have raging barbarians as the default setting. Kind of annoying with those Skirmishers I just lost my holy city which was just founded 2 turns after the city was dropped to one. It also makes the Great Wall almost crazy over powered. Especially if your civ is tactically placed to funnel the barbs into opponents.

Yes, raging barbarians is the default setting. This was done to a) make the early game harder and b) encourage the founding of new civilizations by barbarian hordes through the Revolution mod functionality.

To answer your earlier Free Religion comments: some of HephMod's basic concepts include the idea that the game should in general work on an advantage/disadvantage model rather than an advantage x vs. advantage y model (as vanilla does for the most part) and the idea that religion is not purely beneficial to society (as it is in vanilla). My concept of Free Religion, based on a history/sociology of religion model, is that secularism is not the result of a triumphalist progress that solves religious conflict, but is rather something that ameliorates conflict in a pluralistic society (Western concepts of freedom of religion were born out of the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics, but freedom of religion did not end religious conflict in Western societies). Religious groups almost always exert pressure on society to conform to their agenda, and the -1 unhappiness for religions under free religion accounts for this discontent: they are happier than when there is actually another religion in power supported by the state, but freedom of religion, which means enforced tolerance of other faiths and an increased secularism of culture in general, does not sit well with the pietistic wings of religious groups. The benefits of free religion are more obvious when your civ is genuinely pluralistic, including at least three religions in major cities.

 

[Lachlan]

Arrghhh ! I just updated to the BTS 3.19 patch

But added Vista support is very nice...

 

[Hephaistion]

Sorry! It is true that I have to wait for Revolution to update before I can update HephMod. Also, since Rev and RevDCM are merging, there may not be a stand-alone 3.19 for Revolution, in which case I'll put in the final doctrine wonders and release it as .9d and then convert the whole thing to 3.19 RevDCM for the big 1.0!

I may continue to work in some of my other projects as we go (unique religious promotions for Spiritual civs, African unit art style, more guild wonders, perhaps elite national units).

 

[Jaybe]

I've just completed my latest .9c game. Only 112 hours this time, so as an interlude before the next game, I've been pondering (... ooh, this can be a BAD thing to do!):

1. Doctrine Wonders: Make them national instead of global. Easier to see Trench Warfare by two opposing sides to make it a REAL grinder. Basically, all the doctrines were used by first one participant, then adopted by others (those within the same war, or not). Should GlobalDefines:Great General Threshold Increase be reduced??

In the past game, Blitzkrieg and Siege Engineering promotions made my cannon/artillery & tanks SO overpowering* (2-move arty move 1 & FIRE with only rare losses, tanks then overrun the infantry in the city (this was without bomber lethality) -- like the Wehrmacht in early WWII)!

2. Air Unit strike lethality (iAirCombatLimit): These should rarely occur except where the targets are ships or (perhaps) armor. And since these should be easier done by FIGHTERS instead of bombers, I'm thinkin' of giving it to them also! To compensate, give fighters (AND bombers, to MY thinking) -50 vs. land units (partially covered by Pinch & Ambush promos). If this makes fighters too strong vs. naval, I'll also give them -50 vs. sea and give Pinch/Ambush promos +30 vs. sea. Might also take Pinch away from air units, depending.

I'm thinking I might reduce bombers' collateral damage extents or limits because of their lethality.

Oh, and what's with air units being eligible for the Blitz promos but can never be promoted with such?

--
* EDIT: So powerful I sorta wish doctrine promotions somehow became deactivated after the unit was upgraded.