History Rewritten (Original Thread)

[Xyth]

The cost of techs seems much more than in BTS.
(I am playing Huge map at Marathon Speed.)

I know it will take a while to get used to a such change, but my first impression is that you have gone way too far. The science seems to lag too far behind the other aspects of the game.

In general, I think it would be better to start adjusting the cost of techs more gradually with an increasing effect on the later eras.

It's possible I've gone too far with upping tech costs. The scheme I'm using is that each column of techs has a base cost that each tech varies around, which is similar to how the standard techtree works.

I was experimenting with a different pattern of tech costs but never had the time to test it thoroughly. It should be a bit faster than the one released in 0.9. It's just a single file that needs to be changed, I'll post it a bit later today if you want to try it out.

It would be great to have a player-definable option to alter the speed of tech progression but at this stage I don't know how to achieve that. I'll do some exploring.

Also I should note that I did nearly all of my testing at Normal gamespeed so it could also be a case of altering the tech cost multipliers of the other gamespeeds more appropriately. If you're willing, please try a game on normal gamespeed and see how the speed of tech progression feels there. I'm pretty sure difficulty level affects techspeed as well, I usually test at Noble.

I do not like the lack of connectivity of the new tech tree.
I think it works better when more tech require a second tech that is not next to them on the tech tree.
This avoids the ability to beeline a particular tech or area of tech while ignoring large portions of the tree.

You can beeline particular techs initially but you'll find that later in the tree there are certain key technologies that require ones from across a much broader area of the tree. Engineering, Politics and Scientific Method are examples of this. Basically as the eras progress it will be progressively harder to ignore other parts of the tree.

In a game on a huge map, marathon speed, 14 civilizations,
9 religions have been founded by 340 B.C.

I randomly started as Egypt. With the benefit of being able to build the cemetery from the start and with the obelisk special building I founded 3 of these religions.
However, the 13 AI civs founded 6 religions by 340 B.C.

Egypt has a definite advantage compared to most other civs due to starting with Ceremonial Burial, the Obelisk, and having several Spiritual leaders.

By 1 A.D., 13 religions founded, 10 by the 13 AI civs.

Just reporting results.
Not sure whether or not this is what you wanted.

That sounds roughly like what I would expect for a game with Egypt in it. I'd be curious to know how many of the AI civs founded more than one religion, and which ones.

The most important (and always subjective) question is whether it makes for a fun game, especially across different mapsizes. There are lots of variables I can tweak and I hope to eventually be able to add a player-definable option to adjust the maximum number of religions available. I figured 1:1 was a good, simple ratio to start with as that's what Firaxis chose for their 'standard' size game.

Cheers for this initial feedback and keep it coming, it will help me tweak things even better in 0.9.1.

 

[Xyth]

Did some more reading up on how tech costs are calculated and realized two things: firstly that I made a foolish miscalculation and secondly, that tech cost also scales a bit with mapsize.

Here is a new version of the file that adjusts tech costs (227KB). It needs to be placed in /Mods/History Rewritten/Assets/XML/Technologies/ and you can simply overwrite the existing file (or back it up if you want to switch between them again.

Please try it out and let me know how it compares.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I started a game on Normal speed (with the original file.)

It has been a long time since I played on Normal, maybe more than a decade, so I do not have a good comparison.
However, the speed of science seemed well within the range of reasonableness.

I will now try a Marathon Game with the new file.

By the way, I would prefer a slower science speed than in BTS.

Did some more reading up on how tech costs are calculated and realized two things: firstly that I made a foolish miscalculation and secondly, that tech cost also scales a bit with mapsize.

Here is a new version of the file that adjusts tech costs (227KB). It needs to be placed in /Mods/History Rewritten/Assets/XML/Technologies/ and you can simply overwrite the existing file (or back it up if you want to switch between them again.

Please try it out and let me know how it compares.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I had not noticed that in my first game (where science speed was too slow).
I still think you should consider this as one of the possible tweeks to the future tech tree:
Where appropriate, having some techs require other techs that are not their neighbors in the tree.

It is a matter of having a somewhat more complicated connectness of the topology of the tree. It is more interesting to players. This seems to have worked very well in past versions of Civilization.

As people play the new version of the mod, I am sure there will be lots of tweeks that will be suggested for the tech tree

As I said before, a good and interesting new tech tree.

"You can beeline particular techs initially but you'll find that later in the tree there are certain key technologies that require ones from across a much broader area of the tree. Engineering, Politics and Scientific Method are examples of this. Basically as the eras progress it will be progressively harder to ignore other parts of the tree."

 

[Xyth]

It has been a long time since I played on Normal, maybe more than a decade, so I do not have a good comparison.

No worries, I'm pretty familiar with Normal gamespeed and it's the easiest one to adjust for. Marathon, especially on larger mapsizes and higher difficulty levels, is the tougher one to get right due to all the multipliers.

I try to balance the tech costs primarily for Noble as this is the level where the player and AI have the most similar setup. What difficulty level have your games been at?

By the way, I would prefer a slower science speed than in BTS.

That's my goal and preference as well. The 'new file' should still be slower than unmodded BTS but not as expensive from the start compared to the 'old file'. Hopefully by comparing the two we can find the sweet spot.

I've been looking into making the rate of tech progression player adjustable but it looks to be impossible outside of direct xml changes. Certainly no in-game UI option is possible without SDK changes.

However I could potentially make extra gamespeed options based on the standard ones but with differing rates of research/production/etc. So for example, something like:

- Marathon
- Marathon (with slower research)
- Marathon (with faster production)
- Epic
- Epic (with slower research)
- Epic (with faster production)
- Normal
- Normal (with slower research)
- Normal (with faster production)
- Quick

In the meantime though we need to find a suitable 'default' speed for the mod. Once we've got that I can look into this idea in more depth.

As people play the new version of the mod, I am sure there will be lots of tweeks that will be suggested for the tech tree.

I'll do my best to keep improving, tweaking and expanding the techtree all the time. Some particular things I'd love feedback on when people are more familiar with it:

- Are there any units being replaced too quickly?
- Are there any particular eras where there just isn't enough to produce?
- Are new civic choices becoming available at a reasonable rate?
- Are there any particular sections of the techtree that feel boring or too essential?

 

[Howard Mahler]

With the new file, on Marathon Huge map the science speed seems to be in the range of reasonableness so far. To try out the new tech tree I am playing on Monarch.

 

[Howard Mahler]

(With the new tech file) on Marathon Huge map, have only met Mongols and Charlemagne.
It is 1200 AD.
I have recently researched Medicine.
Mongols have just finished researching Engineering.
Charlemagne has just finished researching Steel Making.

Research is significantly slower than in BTS.
I think a lot of that is due to the delay in getting cottages, libraries, courthouses, etc.
One has to be very, very careful about how fast you expand.
Not making a judgement yet, just reporting.

By the way, in the game I am playing, it takes 4 temples to build a Cathedral, and 4 Cathedrals to build a Shrine. Thus you need a minimum of 16 cities of the given religion to even think about building the shrine. None of the three civs that I know of has 16 cities, and is not likely to for a good while.
Then in addition you need to have built 16 temples, 4 Cathedrals, and have to have a great priest to use to build the shrine (in the founding city).

Might happen eventually, but it will be a rare occurrence for a Shrine to be built and will be much later in the game than the Middle Ages.
Basically, a player should just ignore building the Shrine for planning purposes.

 

[Xyth]

(With the new tech file) on Marathon Huge map, have only met Mongols and Charlemagne.
It is 1200 AD.
I have recently researched Medicine.
Mongols have just finished researching Engineering.
Charlemagne has just finished researching Steel Making.

The most important question I have is whether you feel your civilization has had enough to produce throughout this time. In other words, is technology moving too slowly in comparison to production?

Also, do you have tech trading enabled?

Research is significantly slower than in BTS.
I think a lot of that is due to the delay in getting cottages, libraries, courthouses, etc.

It's possible I've commerce-starved the Ancient era too much and I have a suspicion that a not insignificant part of the problem is the Redistribution civic. Because it's the only Economic civic available early the AI are readily switching to it - and losing substantial growth and gold because of it. It's only real benefit is military and there's a whole civic category now for that. It needs to give a commerce benefit instead.

Speaking of courthouses though, I'm aware that the new tech tree makes the Seasonal Palace available considerably later than in BTS. I've been debating changing the building it requires to something else, potentially Castles. What are you thoughts on this?

One has to be very, very careful about how fast you expand.

Roughly how many cities did you have by the end of the Ancient and Classical eras?

By the way, in the game I am playing, it takes 4 temples to build a Cathedral, and 4 Cathedrals to build a Shrine. Thus you need a minimum of 16 cities of the given religion to even think about building the shrine. None of the three civs that I know of has 16 cities, and is not likely to for a good while.
Then in addition you need to have built 16 temples, 4 Cathedrals, and have to have a great priest to use to build the shrine (in the founding city).

That's definitely a problem. On a smaller maps it only requires 2 Great Temples which in turn require 2 Temples each. 4 cities works well but it scales to 9 and ultimately to 16 on a Huge map which is ridiculous. I'm trying to find a way to alter or prevent this scaling, no luck yet though.

EDIT: Found a way to solve this. Will be fixed in 0.9.1.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I feel that while science was slower it was in the range of reasonableness (with the new tech file). I did have things to build.

I had no tech brokering allowed, the default for your mod.
There has been some trading of technologies, but relatively little.

I agree that the lack of an early economic benefit civic is a pain.

Another problem is the fact that cottages are not available until the middle ages.
It would be complicated, but maybe they could be available earlier, but in order to grow to various levels they need various later techs. So for example, maybe to grow to a village they need to have been worked the proper amount and you must know employment.

There are no early civics or buildings that reduce maintenance.
This may be either a feature or a bug.
I am not sure the solution is to change the Seasonal Palace.
Castles are now a key building with their relatively early plus one trade route, so I would not link the Seasonal Palace to them.
Perhaps you could introduce some other earlier building that reduces maintenance by 25%, or maybe one of the maintenance reducing civics can be made available earlier.

Number of cities for the game I am playing:
1010 BC: Mongolia 6, Germany 3, Aztec (me) 4
180 BC: Mongolia 11, Germany 6, Aztec 6
390 AD: 12, 10, 8
795 AD 13, 11, 9
1310 AD 14, 12, 9

I have room to add about 3 more cities, but have avoided expanding for fear of ruining my economy. Now that I am close to getting courthouses, I will probably expand a little.
Given the available land area prior to being able to go over seas, there is room for at most 40 to 45 cities for these three civilizations.

In light of the other requirements, I still have a problem with only being able to build the Shrine with a Great Prophet. With the change, hopefully it will be possible to build it in 0.9.1, but it still seems awfully difficult given how long it is delayed.

The most important question I have is whether you feel your civilization has had enough to produce throughout this time. In other words, is technology moving too slowly in comparison to production?

Also, do you have tech trading enabled?



It's possible I've commerce-starved the Ancient era too much and I have a suspicion that a not insignificant part of the problem is the Redistribution civic. Because it's the only Economic civic available early the AI are readily switching to it - and losing substantial growth and gold because of it. It's only real benefit is military and there's a whole civic category now for that. It needs to give a commerce benefit instead.

Speaking of courthouses though, I'm aware that the new tech tree makes the Seasonal Palace available considerably later than in BTS. I've been debating changing the building it requires to something else, potentially Castles. What are you thoughts on this?



Roughly how many cities did you have by the end of the Ancient and Classical eras?



That's definitely a problem. On a smaller maps it only requires 2 Great Temples which in turn require 2 Temples each. 4 cities works well but it scales to 9 and ultimately to 16 on a Huge map which is ridiculous. I'm trying to find a way to alter or prevent this scaling, no luck yet though.

EDIT: Found a way to solve this. Will be fixed in 0.9.1.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Just a few thoughts on maintenance early in the game.
Perhaps certain techs could reduce maintenance a little.

For example, Writing, Record Keeping, and/or Law could reduce maintenance for number of cities by 5 or 10%.

For example, Wheel, Horseback Riding, Sailing, and/or Engineering could reduce maintenance for distance from palace by 5 or 10%.

Any changes would have to be carefully game balanced with other means of reducing maintenance, Civics and Buildings.

It is not clear that anything needs to be done.
Players can get used to expanding somewhat slower than they would have in BTS.
I am not sure about how well the AI will adapt.

 

[Xyth]

Just a few thoughts on maintenance early in the game.
Perhaps certain techs could reduce maintenance a little.

I'd rather give cities more ability to boost commerce in the ancient era than reduce maintenance. Otherwise later eras become too easy to manage.

However I'm also looking into making some adjustments to maintenance other factors across the various mapsizes. I'm not sure why larger maps should have a slower rate of research for example.

It is not clear that anything needs to be done.
Players can get used to expanding somewhat slower than they would have in BTS.
I am not sure about how well the AI will adapt.

I don't think a great deal needs to change, slower expansion isn't a bad thing and will make games last longer. The important thing though is to ensure that expansion is slower because it is challenging rather than tedious.

I like your cottage idea but I'm not sure if it's possible technically. I'll look into it.

 

[Howard Mahler]

You will need feedback from others with respect to maintanence.

I suspect some way to reduce it slightly earlier in the game as things go along, balanced by less opportunities to reduce it later in the game, would be somewhat better.

I'd rather give cities more ability to boost commerce in the ancient era than reduce maintenance. Otherwise later eras become too easy to manage.

However I'm also looking into making some adjustments to maintenance other factors across the various mapsizes. I'm not sure why larger maps should have a slower rate of research for example.



I don't think a great deal needs to change, slower expansion isn't a bad thing and will make games last longer. The important thing though is to ensure that expansion is slower because it is challenging rather than tedious.

I like your cottage idea but I'm not sure if it's possible technically. I'll look into it.

 

[Keinpferd]

I tried the untweaked first version with these settings: Kushan, Immortal, No-Tech-Brokering, Normal, Earthlike. Started surrounded by woods, two cows, two elephants. I went for an Ele rush, and I didn't plan to chop them but rely on the given good production. There wouldn't be any early cottages in this game, so I didn't notice for long, how late cottages come into place.

I liberated my fast expanding closest neighbor Washington with my elephants – and went out of money very quickly. Only then I figured out, that the maintenance and yet unavailable cottages were killing me (shouldn't they be up at 1000 BC?). So I quit. – The pissed-smiley for I was having fun, not because I was disappointed by the new civics and the new tech tree. The contrary! It's normal that this considerable amount of game changes needs a lot of playtesting, and that's what I had to remind myself I was doing.

I set the research speed to 50, downloaded the patch, but I wasn't able to play very far and only now find the time to report my first observations.

• Very positive: religions through priests.
• Shrines: After I founded Zorostrianism, I felt relieved by the prospect of some easy money, but then I had to read through the never ending list of things, that were neccessary to get the shrine.
• Shouldn't Authoritarianism be rather in the political branch than in the legal? Or to put it differently, I'm missing a violent form of rule in the political branch, a sort of Tyrannis as opposed to Monarchy, for example.
• Conscription comes very early, a bit odd, at least the labeling.
• If there are no cottages, maybe the camps should give one more gold? There must be some early source of income.

Xyth, I have to postpone the rest, but I found, basically, many of the things, that Howard stated, true in my game, as well. I support your plan to get out patches more frequently; if a game loads in a minute and a half, what's the big deal to download a new version in seven minutes before starting the actual game?

 

[Xyth]

Shrines: After I founded Zorostrianism, I felt relieved by the prospect of some easy money, but then I had to read through the never ending list of things, that were neccessary to get the shrine.

Yeah I screwed up the founding of Shrines because I forgot that the building requirements scale with mapsize. I will make them much more reasonable to found in 0.9.1. There needs to be some requirement(s) as I don't want the initial Great Prophet to be able to found the Shrine immediately - that's just too powerful. Given the ancient era is currently starved for income anyway it's not going to hurt to have them sooner.

I haven't decided what an appropriate change will be yet, but I'll probably switch to just the Holy City requiring a certain building or two, rather than the system used for Great Temples. Any suggestions for which buildings should be present before a shrine could be constructed? I'm thinking a Temple for sure, maybe a Cemetery too.

Shouldn't Authoritarianism be rather in the political branch than in the legal? Or to put it differently, I'm missing a violent form of rule in the political branch, a sort of Tyrannis as opposed to Monarchy, for example.

Well theoretically what you are describing is a Despotism. I prefer Authoritarianism being in the Legal category because history has many examples of authoritarians who weren't despots/dictators. I think of the Government category as describing who is in charge and how they got there, while the Legal category is about how the power/rights balance between the ruler(s) and their people.

As Despotism brings no game benefits other than being cheap I can see how that creates a bit of gap in the Government category though. I'd like to address that at some point, either by giving the default civics some benefits or adding a 7th civic in each category.

Conscription comes very early, a bit odd, at least the labeling.

That was one of the last changes I made in 0.9 and I forgot to find a more suitable icon to represent it. Historically I felt it needed to be one of the first civics available as many ancient armies relied heavily on conscripts.

If there are no cottages, maybe the camps should give one more gold? There must be some early source of income.

Definitely. I've commerce-starved the ancient era far more than I ever meant to. Camps giving an extra commerce could be good idea, with the bonus side effect of making chopping a little less common. Fixing this (and research speed) are my biggest priorities atm.

I have a few reasons for shifting cottages later (reducing cottage spam, better historicity, making other improvements more desirable) but in the end I'm not against shifting them back if it's the most feasible way of maintaining balance.

I support your plan to get out patches more frequently; if a game loads in a minute and a half, what's the big deal to download a new version in seven minutes before starting the actual game?

It's the uploading process that's time consuming Hopefully I can manage an update every 2-3 of weeks though, with patches in between.

 

[Chronos I]

I was wondering if anyone had a similar problem, I load the mod and the menu changes but nothing else. The game is still normal BTS.

 

[Xyth]

I was wondering if anyone had a similar problem, I load the mod and the menu changes but nothing else. The game is still normal BTS.

That means the mod hasn't been installed properly, most likely due to the folder being placed in the wrong location, double nesting or renaming. The exact path is:

/Civilization IV/Beyond the Sword/Mods/

or for Steam:

~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/Common/Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/Mods/

This location will NOT work:

~/Library/Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/Mods/

Check that you don't have the folder double nested, i.e: History Rewritten/History Rewritten/. And make sure the folder is named "History Rewritten" with no version number.

 

[Keinpferd]

Well theoretically what you are describing is a Despotism. I prefer Authoritarianism being in the Legal category because history has many examples of authoritarians who weren't despots/dictators. I think of the Government category as describing who is in charge and how they got there, while the Legal category is about how the power/rights balance between the ruler(s) and their people.

As Despotism brings no game benefits other than being cheap I can see how that creates a bit of gap in the Government category though. I'd like to address that at some point, either by giving the default civics some benefits or adding a 7th civic in each category.

I see your point, although it's easy to argue both ways for either Authoritarianism in the Governmantal branch or in the Legal. Let's take Napoleon as an example for a leader who came to power by a coup d'etat, running an oppressive police state headed by the notorious Fouché – but who also introduced the very advanced Code Civil. In his case, a combination of an oppressive civic in the Governmantal branch with a liberal judicial civic would be desirable. Another example: Pre-1989 communist regimes would allow reeducation gulags while at the same time were running a legal system, which wasn't any less advanced than Western systems, except its lack of political independence. A murder trial in a "modern" Communist country wasn't very different from a similar trial in the "bourgeois" part of the world.

Did you take notice of Asafs C++-Unique-civics mod? I think, it's a good idea, and the way he finalized it, is impressing. In another thread, Baldyr claimed, he could do a similar thing in Python? What do you think?

 

[Chronos I]

That means the mod hasn't been installed properly, most likely due to the folder being placed in the wrong location, double nesting or renaming. The exact path is:

/Civilization IV/Beyond the Sword/Mods/

or for Steam:

~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/Common/Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/Mods/

This location will NOT work:

~/Library/Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/Mods/

Check that you don't have the folder double nested, i.e: History Rewritten/History Rewritten/. And make sure the folder is named "History Rewritten" with no version number.

I made the mistake of double nesting at first then I fixed it which is where I am now, everything is in the right place. I am gonna try deleting it and replacing it and see what happens.

 

[Xyth]

I see your point, although it's easy to argue both ways for either Authoritarianism in the Governmantal branch or in the Legal. Let's take Napoleon as an example for a leader who came to power by a coup d'etat, running an oppressive police state headed by the notorious Fouché – but who also introduced the very advanced Code Civil. In his case, a combination of an oppressive civic in the Governmantal branch with a liberal judicial civic would be desirable. Another example: Pre-1989 communist regimes would allow reeducation gulags while at the same time were running a legal system, which wasn't any less advanced than Western systems, except its lack of political independence. A murder trial in a "modern" Communist country wasn't very different from a similar trial in the "bourgeois" part of the world.

I see your point too. It's not something I want to change or addend at this time as but I've noted it down on my longer term to do list.

Did you take notice of Asafs C++-Unique-civics mod? I think, it's a good idea, and the way he finalized it, is impressing. In another thread, Baldyr claimed, he could do a similar thing in Python? What do you think?

I did see it, it's very cool. I can imagine a Python implementation where a leader's favourite civic is effectively swapped with a unique civic, though I'm sure Baldyr has something far cleverer in mind. Could you link to the thread where he was discussing it?

Also added to my long term todo list.

I made the mistake of double nesting at first then I fixed it which is where I am now, everything is in the right place. I am gonna try deleting it and replacing it and see what happens.

Okay, let me know.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I noticed that now Free Market requires Corporation.
This is not a good idea, since both give an extra trade route.
In BTS, these were separated by considerable time, which is better for game play.

By the way in the game I am playing I finally built a Shrine in 1612 AD.
(Germany attacked me, and after a very, very long war I wiped him out.
Then around 1550 I was contacted by other civilizations who had researched compass.
I researched compass myself soon after.
With overseas trade (I had been trading with Mongolia,)
my economy has really perked up!!

This illustrates a concern.
On Archipeligo maps you can find yourself playing a minigame with no or a few other Civs for a longer time than in BTS, since it is much longer and harder to get the caravel.
There were a group of about 6 Civs who could trade with each other prior to Compass, that got ahead technologically in my game.
I think it would be better for game play if the Caravel were somewhat earlier.