Historical Spawn Dates and Eras (R&F + GS) 1.2.0

[totalslacker]

Expanded version of Gedemon's Historical Spawn Dates mod with support for new features from the Rise & Fall and Gathering Storm expansions. Up-to-date with the New Frontier Pass and Babylon DLC. Not compatible with the base game, please use the original version of this mod for the base game (link at bottom).

Timelines

Select a Timeline when starting a New Game:

• Standard Timeline: Based on a mixture of historical realism and gameplay balance
• True Historical Start Timeline: Based on the national founding dates of countries or cities
• Spawn By Era: Era based timeline. Players will appear at the beginning of a new Era.
• Lite Mode: Isolated and Colonial Civilizations receive start dates. All other civilizations start the game normally on Turn 1

Full list of start dates can be found in the Discussions section post (link here)

Game Options

• Complete Boosted Techs and Civics: Techs and Civics that would receive a eureka boost when spawning are completed
• Bonus Great Person Points: Receive a burst of Great Person points towards all Great People types that can be earned in that era when spawning (adjusted for Game Speed)
• Spawn Unique Units: Unique units will be included in the starting units
• Era Buildings for all Civs: All Civs with HSD receive an Era Building in every city which boosts yields (Colonial Civs always receive the Era Building)
  
• Colonization Mode: Activate dynamic colony generation for European Civs or any generic Civ added to the ColonizerCivs table in IsolatedCivs.sql
  
• Disable Free City revolts: Cities in the Spawn Zone will not revolt
• Dynamic Spawn Zones: Spawn zones can move dynamically and will be more randomized
• Golden Age Start: Era Score is earned from Turn 1 for players waiting to spawn
• Lesser Era Mode: Starting units for new players will be one Era behind

Spawn Zones and Invasions

• Spawn Zones cause surrounding cities to revolt, and they increase in size around the Starting Plot based on the Era
• Protect your cities from revolt with Governors, but guard them well!
• Cities without an established Governor in a Spawn Zone will revolt to the Free Cities faction (once per Player, does not apply to Original Capitals)
• The spawning civilization will Declare War on the owner of the city if it has an established Governor
• Spawning civilizations receive military units, based on the Era of the most advanced Player
• The AI is scripted to launch an Invasion of the nearest Free City or enemy city in the Spawn Zone

Gameplay Balance

• Receive bonus Technologies, Civics, and Yields based on the progress of other Players
• The Super Monument, a building which provides bonus loyalty pressure from all citizens, is spawned in the capital until the number of cities owned by the player exceeds the era limit
• New cities receive bonus population, buildings and units until the era limit is reached
• Players receive 1 Era Score per turn before they spawn, after the first Civ enters the Classical Era. Later starting players will spawn in a Normal or Golden Age, depending on factors such as number of players and game speed, while earlier starting players are more likely to start in a Dark Age

Isolated and Colonial Civilizations

• Isolated Civs spawn without any bonuses for added difficulty, but they receive a stronger version of the Grand Embassy trait which provides extra Science and Culture from Trade Routes to more advanced Civilizations (defined in IsolatedCivs.sql)
  • Isolated Civilizations:
  • Aztec, Cree, Inca, Mapuche, Maya, Maori
• Late-game Colonial Civs start with the Democracy government unlocked and receive a copy of the Grand Embassy trait and the Era Building which provides bonus yields in every city depending on the Starting Era (defined in IsolatedCivs.sql)
  • Colonial Civilizations:
  • America, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Canada

User Settings

• How to change start dates:
  • Start date lists are found in the Tables folder of this mod. Choose the file that matches the Timeline of your choice. Open in a text editor to make changes to the start dates.
    
  • See the discussion post "Spawn Dates and Starting Eras" for the full list
• How to make advanced changes:
  • See ScriptHSD.lua and InGameHSD.lua
• How to get the most out of this mod:
  • Designed for TSL Earth maps. May be unbalanced on other map types.
    
  • Recommended map size is Huge or Giant for Earth maps, Large or Standard for other map types, with at least 20 or more players.Change the start dates to fit the map and game settings.
    
  • Select some Civilizations that start in the Ancient and Classical Eras to fill out the map and provide starting bonuses for other players

Known Issues:

• Players that conquer their first city before using a settler do not have an Original Capital, including AI players. This should not prevent Domination Victory
  
• Gran Colombia will spawn their unique Great General unit at the start of every Era even if they have not spawned yet. Use Space Communist's Colombia Rework (changes the unique unit to appear after a Great Person is earned)

Credits:
Gedemon - original author, this mod was first posted on Civfanatics in 2017
Tiramasu - the city conversion code from Free City States is present with changes for this mod
LeeS - Wrote the Civ 6 Modding Guide which was invaluable

 

[totalslacker]

Game Modes and Future Development Ideas

Colonization Mode

Spoiler :

Colonization Mode is an optional feature that can be activated from the setup menu before you start a new game.

The game will attempt to dynamically spawn new colonies for civilizations listed in the ColonizerCivs table in IsolatedCivs.sql, whenever that civilization enters the Renaissance and Industrial Eras. This should work on any Earth map with real continent names. You can add other Civs, including modded Civs, into the ColonizerCivs table and they will use the "Generic Civilization" colony settings listed below.

How It Works:

First, the script detects which continents are present in the game. If a matching continent is found, it will then add all of the coastal plots into a table (this includes plots next to lakes). A function is then called which will score the plots based on access to freshwater and the number of resources present in adjacent plots. The plot with the highest score will be chosen to found a new city. Any plots that are too close to an existing city will be discarded, and if no available coastal plots are found, then the function will terminate without founding a city.

You can track the progress of the function from the LUA log, which should output the steps taken and list the final plot chosen.

There are a few more conditions specific to certain Civs which are listed below.

Default Civilizations

The following Civilizations are included by default:

• England:
  • Renaissance Colony: North America (closest to capital)
  • Industrial Colonies: Australia (furthest from capital), Zealandia (furthest from capital)
• France:
  • Renaissance Colony: North America (closest to capital)
  • Industrial Colony: Australia (furthest from capital)
• Netherlands:
  • Renaissance Colony: North America (closest to capital)
  • Industrial Colony: Australia (closest to capital)
• Germany:
  • Industrial Colony: Oceania (select colony furthest from capital)
• Scotland:
  • Renaissance Colony: North America (select colony closest to capital)
• Spain:
  • Renaissance Colony: North America (island or peninsula), South America (select final highest rated colony in the table)
  • Industrial Colonies: South America (furthest from capital), North America (select colony near Yosemite if it exists on the map)

Generic Civilizations added by user to the ColonizerCivs table in IsolatedCivs.sql:

• Renaissance Colony: North America or South America (chosen randomly, closest to capital)
• Industrial Colony: Australia (furthest from capital)

Advanced User Changes:

All changes to how and where Colonies spawn can be made in ScenarioFunctions.lua from the functions InitiateColonization_FirstWave and InitiateColonization_SecondWave. If you are confident in writing and testing LUA code, you can create your own conditions for specific Civs here.

These functions are called from the main script, ScriptHSD.lua, in the function OnPlayerEraChanged. From this function you can change from which Era colonies will spawn.

Historical Victory Points

Spoiler :

Historical Victory Points are a planned optional feature for roleplaying scenarios. Every Civ will have historical goals that will reward the player with a large amount of Era Score when completed. Era Score is used to achieve a Golden Age in addition to the flat score bonus the player receives which contributes to the Score Victory. This will use the Era Score system and Golden Age mechanics introduced in Rise & Fall / Gathering Storm. For compatibility reasons, there are no plans to include an in-game UI to track progress at this time. However, the notification system will be used to send custom notifications to the player to track their progress.

Example Ideas for Historical Victory Goals:

• Greece: Build at least 4 of the following Wonders before the Medieval Era: Oracle, Colossus, Temple of Artemis, Great Lighthouse, Great Library, Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Statue of Zeus

Please suggest ideas for Historical Victory Points! This is very much a work-in-progress. Note that although this mod can be used on any map type, goals should generally be balanced for playing on a Huge or larger sized Earth map with the maximum number of Civilizations. If possible, they can be adapted for random map types in the future.

 

[totalslacker]

totalslacker updated Historical Spawn Dates and Eras (R&F + GS) with a new update entry:

Latest Steam Updates

Update 1.2.0
Bug Fixes:
-Players will not found colonies in Colonization mode if they don't have any cities yet (waiting to spawn or just spawned without founding first city). Colony generation will be delayed until the next era threshold
-Fixed a crash related to nearby city distance when attempting to spawn the first city when that city or the nearby city is on an island
-Fixed bug where players would convert their own cities
-Use a new starting plot if convert city fails
-Only capital...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Tigranes]

Just finished a week long game as Hungary with Barbarian Clans, Dramatic Ages and Monopolies enabled. One single monopoly gave me +600% tourism boost and I won by culture even though I was aiming for Diplowin by being a suzerain of all the 29 city states present on the map. Being hard core Civ4 RFC fan I can say this mod brings home the best RFC memories. Dramatic Ages fit exceptionally well with this mod's dynamic, I only wish humans and AI had a different thresholds for Golden/Dark ages, because as we all know AI sacks even on higher difficulties. I found a fix for AI not improving resources before Economics on Workshop, but it did not affect ongoing game, have to test it with the new Earth map by the same modder.

I suggest AI colonies spawn with Harbors to take advantage of Loyal harbors feature.

I think Canada flipping legitimate USA cities needs some fix. Their spawn region can be adjusted, I hope.

Norway and Russia could be added to colonizers. For Russia new continent is Siberia, she can get a city there in both eras. Norway could get a city on continent Greenland in Middle ages.

All in all great mod! Looking forward for future developments...