History (aka Steph's mod 3)

I have another general question, regarding the speed of the game, and your speed of conquest.

The aim at the end is to have an epic game, going all the way to the modern era.

Of course, this will be interesting if you are not able to conquer the whole world before the end of the first era.

So... Do you think the difficulty is OK to allow for longer games?

And it seems I need to increase a bit the cost of the techs.
 
i may be alone in this but i want it more difficult. i mean its pretty good right now for a "single era mod" or so, but to make it a 4 era epic with equivalent amounts of techs in each era is not going to work... by the end of the late middle ages theres no question that i will win... my land is totally developed, my cities are doing wealth, i have a MASSIVE army that doesnt need to be expanded, and its just a matter of "do i want to conquer A or B"

ill give a little recap of my last game. it was slightly modified to increase bombard values for all civs units (painstaking) but i made archers more effective (especially the welsh longbow and the last english longbow) and catapults slightly more effective. i played as the english and started on a large continent with some interesting choke points. to the east was hellas and berlin, though the germans lost that to the greeks early and were forced up north, among the french. I managed to appease the greeks during the bronze age as i knew i would lose against those spartans (also modified the way i suggested before). but by the barbarian invasions i was finishing up my infrastructure and starting to build a military. (i was still in ancient republic, which is def. the best so far... i think ancient empire and monarchy need to be changed a bit to make them more attractive options) eventually i had a force of 50 english foot nights, 5 welsh longbows, 15 anglosaxon spearmen (the 7.9.1 ones) 8 or so scottish spearmen (awesome unit btw) and 18 catapults. this force proved overwhelming and i blitzed through hellas. next i upgraded my spearmen to halberdiers, my longbowmen to... longbowmen and thanks to my greek conquest of a horse resource, built 15 english knights. i used my cav. to launch a quick attack on german berlin in the south (they got it in a culture flip) while i sent my massive infantry force through the northern marshy peninsula against the german heartland. i fought 2 epic battles against the germans (who actually outnumbered me) but due to my artillery and archers i prevailed. i took all their cities but one and took a peace treaty as it was on the other side of french lands and i wanted to go to bed :)
about this point i had finished the tech tree though and went straight for researching "general capitalism" which i knew was cheating but who cares. it was fun though overall.

i would say something you could do is increase the cost for unit upkeep for ancient governments. this isnt to say that having a huge force shouldnt be possible early on, but that it should be harder to do. also, an option is to make "levy" units that dont require support but have -2 hp and lower stats, specifically a very low attack to simulate that these units were the bulk of many armies before professional armies took over. but i think it would be interesting to make like the iron age the age where massive conquest can take place, due to gov'ts, unit stats, etc. and then the middle ages should be harder to actually make massive empires, due to fortifications and better defense tech.

also you need to raise the bombard defense of castles and ramparts... they are destroyed by the first unit i use...


BUT overall still great. ill keep making comments.

last thing though, i would rather see the whole tech tree done than more civs... not that its my choice or i am criticizing your methods, but i wanna see how you flesh out these civs through to the modern day rather than just having another civ to attack...
 
Interesting comments here, thanks!

i may be alone in this but i want it more difficult.
At what level of difficulty did you play?

ill give a little recap of my last game. it was slightly modified to increase bombard values for all civs units (painstaking) but i made archers more effective (especially the welsh longbow and the last english longbow) and catapults slightly more effective.
In the next version the bombars strength is a little better.

(i was still in ancient republic, which is def. the best so far... i think ancient empire and monarchy need to be changed a bit to make them more attractive options)
I have some ideas to make governments more interesting in the update after the next one.

i would say something you could do is increase the cost for unit upkeep for ancient governments. this isnt to say that having a huge force shouldnt be possible early on, but that it should be harder to do.
That would not change much. Because they AI will have the same upkeep cost, and so your army would still be stronger. Again, what was the difficulty level?

also, an option is to make "levy" units that dont require support but have -2 hp and lower stats, specifically a very low attack to simulate that these units were the bulk of many armies before professional armies took over. but i think it would be interesting to make like the iron age the age where massive conquest can take place, due to gov'ts, unit stats, etc. and then the middle ages should be harder to actually make massive empires, due to fortifications and better defense tech.
No support units would flood the map. You should already have a "iron age" conquest with Hellas or Italy, which are quite stronger than the others.

also you need to raise the bombard defense of castles and ramparts... they are destroyed by the first unit i use...
With what unit did you destroy the castle??

last thing though, i would rather see the whole tech tree done than more civs... not that its my choice or i am criticizing your methods, but i wanna see how you flesh out these civs through to the modern day rather than just having another civ to attack...
Tha first era is the only one for which I currently have all the units I want for enough civ.
For the next era, only the French and the British have "almost" enough units.
I'm waiting for Sandris, Imperator, etc. to complete a bit the unit lines before I move to this era.
 
1. Play at Monarch Difficulty (now) with roaming Barbs vs my normal raging. Game seems balanced at that level and most of the AIs have decent holdings (nothing in the treasury though).

2. For Tech I would make it so do not get any tech advances from huts. With this as the Romans I got about 9 free advances with early bronze age being the best. If didn't get this would have added about 200 yrs to the game to get to Early Middle Ages (got around 40AD). Have science set to 4 in the game and get an advance every 2-3 turns (which seems fast to me, would have thought 5-8 turns at this stage). AI is keeping up in techs so far which is a good thing as normally they start to fall way behind.

Note: As to support cost, I have tried high support for units, doesn't stop the AI from building them even if doesn't have funds to support. If I recall the program only disbands 1 a turn so if build 3-4 and lose 1 then end up with a growing net even when can't support it. May be wrong here but I remember a thread on this in the forums.
 
Played Italians at what I thought would be easy Regent level. I was isolated on the northern end of a large peninsula by the French, who were able to continue expanding to the south. I managed about a dozen settlements before totally blocked and no where else to go (except an island I couldn't get a settler on). The border flared up several times. No scouts at the start meant no 'free techs' from the few goody huts I could reach, just Barbarians. I reached Late Iron Age 128BC, Barabarian Invasion 136AD. I thought research progressed well until the Middle Ages, I'd increased to about 21 cities (several 16 after workers irrigation) and was researching a tech every 2 turns on 20-30%. As a reference I'd researched Invention around 550AD and began researching Plate armour in 580AD (And I was the smallest Civ of 4 known), French and Brits were on a par with me and Germans were behind 5-6? techs.

I found War Weariness to go from a hinderance in Bronze Age to crippling in the Middle Ages. Under Ancient Republic 2 turns into war and 3-4 unhappys in size 16 cities brings a halt to needed production/funds. 4 turns in and 6 unhappys brings a halt to now almost vital production/funds, also causing most all my cities to starve. Bring on the revolution (amidst a major offensive - that's harsh), at least my cities won't starve to nothing! After several turns of Anarchy (this length put me off changing govt in better times) I thought Feudal Monrchy won't mind a bit of bloodshed. Coming strainght out of Anarchy Rome had 1 content, 13 unhappy, 1 entertainer, 1 tax. It seems we shall all have to adopt world peace or starve!

Ships & Settlers. I'd suggest without being able to transport settlers on ships (coast, sea) navies are almost pointless. Without being able to establish colonies on nearby islands (especially if there's resources there) then ships only perform secondary functions and can largely be dispensed with (heaven forbid, I love the screams when they drown). I'd also like to see more in the way of low quality ships not requiring 'timber', especially something capable of transporting settlers!

Spys & Preists. I didn't see any AI spys while mine ran wild until 'bumped into' by enemy soldiers, to be expected I guess. The AI did use preists and to good effect. I must ask, can the preists see spys? They seemed to seek out my spys (& purge them of heresy). I'm not sure if this was pure coincidence or not but I didn't notice anything in civlopedia about it? Probably fair for AI at least if it is so.

Also, Ostrogothic horseman (cavalry) upgrades to Siculo-Norman horse (mounted archer) not Siculo-Norman horseman (cavalry), an easy slip with name similarity I assume?

Bug, when changing philosopher (city window) to entertainer the game crashes with no explanation given? I had to remember to adjust by going back to laborer then entertainer.

Finally, the unit progression seemed to flow fairly smoothly, new units can't walk all over the ones they replaced but a Middle Age unit will walk over a Bronze Age unit. The added variety of 'bonus units' is very pleasing & fitted in nicely. You're really bringing out the best of CivIII. I look forward to the updates & added civs,... and 3 new era's.
 
In the next update, you'll be able to load settlers in ships. However, the ships will still not be able to cross ocean, so you'll be limited to colonize island, and not other continents.

I also need to rework a lot the governments, I have some interesting ideas.

I would like to make the governments a bit more "historical". So Hellas and Italy would get ancient republic, but not Egypt for instance.
With some government specific buildings or wonders.

My plan is to add some more civ, to see how things are going with a map a little more crowded, and work a bit more on balancing unit / tech advancements. Then, work on governments, buildings and wonders for the first era.

For the Priests, normally they should not see invisible unit. They are hidden nationality, but are visible and vulnerable if not protected. I'll check that.
The spys are invisible, and should have a stealth attack vs "agent", including priests.
 
475 AD... completed last tech of Ancient and Medieval. Warning! Do not ask for "Big Picture" Science Advisor will not leave tech chooser. Anyways, great fun but will wait for next update.
 
This looks like a good mod.
 
Nice job on this mod! I really like what I've read and seen. Downloading right away! :goodjob:

Edit: 1 and half hour loading time! OUCH!! I need a faster net and comp...
 
What do ya call the Arabs,Chinese,Africans and Mahgrebians?
 
I've finished adding 4 new civilizations:
- Arabia
- China
- Maghreb
- Africa.

I have also reworked the buildings for the first era, including a few wonders, and I did some minor tweaks.

I'd like to test it a bit to check everything is running smoothly, and then I'll post an update.
 
Can't wait for that. I haven't tested it yet so I probably wait for the new patch to come before testing. I downloaded so many new mods yesterday that I can't decide which to play. :crazyeye:

(I got my Civ3 Complete two days ago. :D )
 
Before uploading the next update, I'd like to integrate some changes for better leaders, military or scientific leaders, and city lists.

So if you have suggestion for one of these 12 civilizations:
- Britain, France, Germany, Hellas, Iberia, Italy, Russia, Scandinavia, Arabia, Africa, Chian and Maghreb

For the leader, I'd like a proposition for the first era leader, knowing it can be changed in the next era.

So what leader would better represent each of the above civilization for the ancient & medieval era (next one will start in 1400 and end with napoleonic wars).?

Please suggest leaders already available as leaderhead.
 
Britain: Alfred the Great or William the Conqueror
France: Vercingetorix or Charlemagne
Germany: Arminius(?)
Hellas: Agamemnon, Pericles, or Leonidas
Iberia: Viratio(?)
Italy: Augustus or Trajan
Russia: Ateas of Scythia(?) or Alexander Nevsky(?)
Scandinavia: Canute/Knud the Great
Arabia: Abu Bakr
Africa: how about Taharqa?
China: Qin Shi Huang, Han Wu Di, or Empress Wu
Maghreb: You could make Carthage the representative civ for Maghreb, in which case the leader should be Hannibal, If you are just going for a generic berber/muslim kingdom, how about Yusuf ibn Tashfin?
 
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