History Rewritten (Original Thread)

Azoth · Jul 11, 2011

I couldn't comment on everything or this post would never be finished:

Xyth said:
Hmm that's strange. I wonder if the game is interpreting it as requires a river OR coast? I'm not sure I can do much about that if that's true, it'll be a bug in the DLL.

I don't think it's a bug in the DLL. You can't build Levees in coastal cities but you can build Dikes. That leads me to believe the change was intentional.

Xyth said:
The Inuit would be fascinating to add. There is one well-made Inuit leader model available but sadly almost nothing else at all in terms of art. The Haida are probably the best choice for a Northwest American civilization. As mentioned previously though, I prefer to add the Anasazi/Hopi if it's possible to add another North American civ.

Simon_Jester said:
If there's only one, I'd advocate the Mississipians over the Anasazi/Hopi, as they seem to have been more on the road to the kind of riverine Neolithic/Bronze Age civilization that we recognize as a global pattern. But that's just me, and I am not an expert on the field.

Compared to the Inuit and Haida, The Anasazi and the Mississippians seem equally worthy of inclusion. The Inuit are still my first choice; they are a truly unique civilization. I might prefer the Mississippians to the Anasazi, not only for the reasons Simon cites, but also because they expanded farther and endured longer, so far as I can tell. (The Hopi, who claim the Anasazi as their ancestors, survive to the present day; but so do a number of American Indian nations that participate in broader Mississippian culture.) At the very least, it should be easier to compile a full list of Mississippian settlements.

Xyth said:
I'm not going to add any colonial civilizations*, to be honest I'm very tempted at times to remove America. It feels reasonable and fun to me to create 'what-if' Renaissance to Modern eras for civs that never made it that far. But creating 'what-if' Ancient - Medieval eras for colonial civs just feels ridiculous. These colonial countries already have such history - France and the various native American tribes.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss colonial civilizations. For one thing, some players prefer games that begin in the Renaissance or Industrial Eras. With the advanced starting era option, they don't need to construct what-if scenarios for America in the ancient age. More to the point, many "traditional" civilizations also trace their origins to settlers or conquerors; the difference being that their migration or annexation was complete by the sixteenth century. The way I see it, the Byzantines were basically Romans who conquered the eastern Mediterranean and eventually split from Western Rome. Rome is to Byzantium what England is to America and France is to Quebec; am I right?

Xyth said:
I'd rather leave colonialism to the game itself. What if the French colonized the Inca instead? What if the Aztecs colonized France? Adding something like Quebec just feels too deterministic for my liking. I'd rather add France's new world colonies to France itself.

*As already mentioned I'll make an exception for Brazil. Ethnic and cultural mixing happened very quickly and extensively there and allows a much more continuous history and identity compared to most other colonial regions.

I'm not sure I follow. How can you argue that French colonies should be included under France - and that America should be the first to be struck off the list of civilizations - yet make an exception for Brazil? The indigenous people of Brazil did not build cities or keep written records. They remained migrant hunter-gatherers; even today there are isolated tribes living in the Amazon. Any Brazilian civilization would be based exclusively on Portuguese colonial history, with Sao Paulo and Sao Vincente among its earliest cities. Without a doubt, Brazil is much much better represented as an extension of the Portuguese civilization. Unlike any other European colonial possession, Brazil actually became the seat of the Portuguese empire when the Portuguese royal family fled to Rio de Janiero; it was declared a sovereign kingdom, united with Portugal shortly thereafter. What more is there to say? I urge you to reconsider your decision on Brazil.

A Caribbean civilization, with a focus on the Taino people, might better represent mixed indigenous-colonial Latin America.

Xyth said:
Well I've added the Tamil and the Kushan (though I've focused on their Central Asian origins more) for that very reason. I'd like to see more South Asian civs, my picks would be the Bengali, Sinhalese or Burmese. Broadening the scope a bit I'd also love to include the Indus/Harrapan civilization or even Aratta/Jiroft culture. Unfortunately South Asia is also the region least represented by available art, severely limiting what we can do here.

Simon_Jester said:
Yes. To be fair, you can (should, perhaps) remove some of the existing civilizations- no obvious candidates suggest themselves, though. In the limiting case, when you have half a dozen civilizations that coexisted in medieval Europe but only one for all of India, maybe you should reexamine your allocation to reduce the Eurocentrism of the mod. In a number of places you can do this without changing the unit art.

I know you don't like having civilizations share art, apparently, but in this case I think it's well justified if you want to improve diversity within the mod.

The Tamils and Kushans are fine additions to HR but South Asia still lags behind other regions, including Southeast Asia and its four civilizations: Thai, Viet, Khmer, and Indonesian. On this point, I completely agree with Simon Jester. It is worth reusing art to improve diversity.

Xyth said:
Timur and his dynasty are very tricky to deal with. A case could reliably be made for including them in the Mongols, the Turks or even greater Persia/Iran. There's no perfect answer but I don't feel they are worthy of their own civilization in HR. All of those cities that you list already appear in the Kushan or Persian citylist.

Is it possible for a single leader to be linked to multiple civilizations? (I know at least one mod for Windows allows it.) If so, you could make Timur a leader of the Mongols, Turks, and Persians; that would be the best way to handle the Timurids, I think. While you're at it, you could make Karolus/Charlemagne available as a French or Roman leader, too. (Edit: No, not a Roman leader, I don't know what I was thinking.)

Xyth said:
Australian?!? I presume you mean Australasian... (My country, New Zealand, has a lot in common with Ireland and Canada: we all have big annoying neighbours that like to take credit for our accomplishments)

Despite being a Kiwi and indeed part Maori I do feel that the Maori are best represented by Polynesia. I would sorely love to add a quality Maori leader though; if I ever find the time or talent to try my hand at leaderhead creation I would make one. Indeed I am most probably going to leave the Tactical/Traditional trait combo in reserve just in case I or someone makes Te Rauparaha or Hongi Hika.

I just can't seem to get these things right: yes, I meant Australasian. (As a Canadian, I know exactly how it feels to be identified with that big annoying neighbour next door. :rolleyes:

) Civ Gold actually includes Hone Heke of the Maori among its 100+ leaders but the leaderhead is hardly top quality; Heke looks like a generic East Asian leader with some tattoos and a palette swap.

Xyth said:
Rice

I've given Potatoes the same food yield as Rice, one less than Corn and Wheat. Personally I think a little variation is a good thing so long as there are other good sources of food available in tropical areas to compensate (which I don't believe there are enough of yet). I don't really have any major qualms changing this if it's deemed better for balance though.

I agree that a little variation can do no harm. There are plenty of other food sources in the tropics: Pigs, Bananas, Sugar, floodplains, scattered Cows and Corn. The only food resources you won't find there are Sheep and Deer. I see no cause for concern.

Xyth said:
German Citylist

It actually begins with Aachen. I like citylists to be primarily chronological/regional with capitals and other key cities shifted up a bit but never outside their era. Civ4's standard citylists bug the hell out of me and I plan to remake all of them eventually.

The city lists annoy you too? And here I thought I was the only one.

Xyth said:
I want religions to have a chance to 'do their own thing' for a while before you get too much control over them. I think it creates for more interesting diplomacy in the middle ages and it seems more historical too.

However this reminds that I was considering swapping the tech requirements of Organized Religion (currently Priesthood) and Caste System (currently Divination). This would enable Organized Religion a bit earlier and thus missionaries too. Caste System is available a bit before its truly useful anyway so harm done shifting it later.

I was about to suggest this myself. If you are eager to spread a particular religion, you'll adopt Organized Religion. Otherwise, you'll wait for monasteries and hope for the best. If anything, I think monasteries come too early in BtS: the whole world turns Buddhist or Hindu before any of the later religions are founded.

Xyth · Jul 11, 2011

Keinpferd said:
The dialectics (sorry for the pompous wording) of balance-gameplay-"what-if" and amable immersive historical simulation is driving Civ and keeps us interested in this silly computer game. Until now, I would applaud, if a mod shoots for a perfect synthesis of both balance-gameplay-what-if and an amable immersive historical simulation. The more I think about it, the more I'd like to change my mind. Or I was always leaning a bit (not much off-centered but distinctly) to the simulation side. Here's why: The world is so full of contingency, nonsense and bunk (freshly learned from civ_king here), that every trace of non-arbitrariness, recognizability and historical truth is welcome! Fun meets solace. Because a video game is escapist by nature anyway, and if it's violently shifted in the sportive, competitive direction, it doesen't rise morally or culturally, or anything. Such a shift is just as restricting as others feel the confinements of historical simulations are. To cut it short: I want Huns to burn libraries, not to built any. What-if they can't burn anything, because they're stuck on an island on an archipelago map? I'm not interested.

I think there's room for both simulation and re-imagination but not always in the same same mod. Indeed I don't think I've ever seen a mod that perfectly balances the two. Mods like PAE, Realism Invictus and Rhye's strive to be closer to the simulation end of the spectrum and do so admirably. I made a conscious decision when I first released HR for it to somewhere more on the re-imagination side of the spectrum. It's not that I don't enjoy simulation (nor that I don't want to include many elements of simulation, because I do) but more that if I were to make a truly realistic mod I would probably be best to confine it to to a defined era or region. And I wanted to make a full game mod instead.

It's always good to have different points of view and preference of playstyle in feedback. Makes for much better modding

I understand that the Holy Roman Empire had to go to make room for other Civs, but if it wasn't merged with Germany, you wouldn't have the problem with Aachen, Vienna and Berlin.

Personally I don't view this as an issue as the game starts in ancient times and thus Aachen makes much more sense as the first German capital than Berlin does. It's Bismarck who is anachronistic, not his capital. That's the way I prefer to approach it anyway.

Otherwise, the German city list is atmospherically well chosen. Medieval cities like Goslar, that later lost their importance are included, for example. I don't know whether that's Xyth's merit or was part of the original HRE-citylist.

I made that list myself from scratch. Here it is in it's entirety, with some annotations:

Spoiler :

One funny cityname is "Wirten", though. What's Wirten, and where is it?

Wirten is the original name for Verdun, which is now in France but was originally an important part of Lotharingia.

Like in music, there can be Techs serving the purpose of transition, bridging, preparing and doing nothing spectacular, themselves. Not every Tech has to add an inventive new mechanic to gameplay. If a Tech unlocks a new Civ and nothing else, that's reason of existence enough. A Tech that adds two (uhh) can be splitted in two that give one each (oh). Why not?

I don't have a problem adding some bridging techs (good way to describe them) but I want to ensure that they don't negatively affect the pace of the game. It's about balancing tech progression with having enough stuff to build. It's not usually a problem for the warmongers but it can be for the builders.

The idea of the telecommunications building, that improves with certain Techs, is great. Improving building yields is yet another way of "justifying" Techs.

It's a bit of a challenge technically but hopefully I can pull it off. I was intending to use a similar mechanic for the Kiln but ran out of time.

Adding an extra column entails readjusting the particular Tech costs in the surrounding area, in order to avoid a section that takes too long to get through. (And before I forget, the Tech costs in the latter part of the Tech tree as in your current version meet perfectly well with my appetite for historically right feeling.)

Balancing tech costs was the biggest challenge of creating the new tech tree. I think I've managed to reach a fairly decent framework after a ridiculous amount of testing. This is actually the main reason why I'm generally hesitant to add new columns of techs too readily. Adjusting the costs appropriately is a hell of a lot of work and all too easy to screw up. Every time a new column is added the entire tree needs to be adjusted accordingly, its not enough to just adjust the surrounding techs.

Xyth · Jul 11, 2011

Azoth said:
I don't think it's a bug in the DLL. You can't build Levees in coastal cities but you can build Dikes. That leads me to believe the change was intentional.

I may be overlooking something. I'll make a note to look at it more thoroughly later.

Compared to the Inuit and Haida, The Anasazi and the Mississippians seem equally worthy of inclusion. The Inuit are still my first choice; they are a truly unique civilization. I might prefer the Mississippians to the Anasazi, not only for the reasons Simon cites, but also because they expanded farther and endured longer, so far as I can tell. (The Hopi, who claim the Anasazi as their ancestors, survive to the present day; but so do a number of American Indian nations that participate in broader Mississippian culture.) At the very least, it should be easier to compile a full list of Mississippian settlements

If/when I look at possibilities for reusing art it may well be plausible to add a Mississipian civ as well. I know that the art that I do have spare would probably suit the Anasazi better. And I have know of no unit art whatsoever that would suit the Inuit, they really wouldn't look right sharing art with the Sioux or Iroquois... chilly!

The way I see it, the Byzantines were basically Romans who conquered the eastern Mediterranean and eventually split from Western Rome. Rome is to Byzantium what England is to America and France is to Quebec; am I right?

Yep. I've at times thought about merging Rome and Byzantium to be honest, like I did with Phoenicia and Carthage (they were separate civs in HR for a short while).

I'm not sure I follow. How can you argue that French colonies should be included under France - and that America should be the first to be struck off the list of civilizations - yet make an exception for Brazil? The indigenous people of Brazil did not build cities or keep written records.

There are actually some unexcavated cities in the Amazon. That's an aside though, and not relevant to the discussion at hand. The big difference with Brazil, as I see it, is that the Portuguese colonists were very few in number comparitively and there was a lot of interbreeding with the Tupi, other native peoples and African slaves. A 'Brazilian' ethnicity and culture emerged very quickly that was quite distinct from Portugal. The politics of colonial Brazil were very much European but remember that civilizations in HR are (mostly) cultural, not political entities. From Wikipedia:

Many indigenous peoples were important for the formation of the Brazilian people, but the main group was the Tupi. When the Portuguese explorers arrived in Brazil in the 16th century, the Tupi were the first Amerindian group to have contact with them. Soon, a process of miscegenation between Portuguese settlers and indigenous women started. The Portuguese colonists rarely brought women, making the Indian women the "breeding matrix of the Brazilian people".[2] When the first Europeans arrived, the phenomenon of "cunhadismo" (from Portuguese cunhado, "brother in law") began to spread by the colony. Cunhadismo was an old Indian tradition of incorporating strangers to their community. The Indians offered the Portuguese an Indian girl as wife. Once he agreed, he formed a bond of kinship with all the Indians of the tribe. Polygyny, a common practice among South American Indians, was quickly adopted by European settlers. This way, a single European man could have dozens of Indian wives (temericós).[2]

Cunhadismo was used as recruitment of labour. The Portuguese could have many temericós and thus a huge number of Indian relatives who were induced to work for him, especially to cut pau-brasil and take it to the ships on the coast. In the process, a large mixed-race (mameluco) population was formed, which in fact occupied Brazil. Without the practice of cunhadismo, the Portuguese colonization was impractical. The number of Portuguese men in Brazil was very small and Portuguese women were even fewer in number. The proliferation of mixed-race people in the wombs of Indian women provided for the occupation of the territory and the consolidation of the Portuguese presence in the region.[2]

I'm not imagining Brazil as a colonial civilization, I actually would like it to begin with the Tupi/Guarani etc and eventually become the Brazilians we know today. Portuguese colonialism is just one chapter of that.

Out of time, I'll respond to your other comments in the morning.

Simon_Jester · Jul 11, 2011

Xyth said:
Yeah I tried to use it as a bit of a 'catch-all' tech and it doesn't work so well. That section of the tree needs some refinement at some point anyway.

It's not so much that it doesn't work conceptually, in my opinion, as that it needs a better name.

Oh I'll keep them in, I was just explaining why they'd be the first to go if I needed to drop a civ. There's no reason to do so.

Given the sheer diversity with which the ancient world is represented, and how many of those civilizations have vanished or blended into others by the modern era, I would be opposed to dropping them first.

You've got 49 civilizations with a rich ancient/medieval history, many of which petered out in the past thousand years if not earlier. It doesn't seem unreasonable to have one civilization with a rich modern history, but not so much in earlier eras.

I want religions to have a chance to 'do their own thing' for a while before you get too much control over them. I think it creates for more interesting diplomacy in the middle ages and it seems more historical too.

However this reminds that I was considering swapping the tech requirements of Organized Religion (currently Priesthood) and Caste System (currently Divination). This would enable Organized Religion a bit earlier and thus missionaries too. Caste System is available a bit before its truly useful anyway so harm done shifting it later.

Sounds fair. After all, there were some religions that spread fairly rapidly in ancient times, at a pace which in-game isn't modeled unless you either drastically crank up the rate at which religion spreads naturally (you might want to do this) or deliberately cultivate the spread of religion via missionaries.

Actually, increasing the natural rate of religion spread might work well as an alternative- and it creates more incentive to build inquisitors if you're actively trying to get rid of non-state religions in the Middle Ages.

Keinpferd said:
This kind of statement is so commonly found around these forums, it reminds me of a beauty contest, when the contestants reliably wish for world peace. And now, that you are saying it, too, Simon…

The dialectics (sorry for the pompous wording) of balance-gameplay-"what-if" and amable immersive historical simulation is driving Civ and keeps us interested in this silly computer game. Until now, I would applaud, if a mod shoots for a perfect synthesis of both balance-gameplay-what-if and an amable immersive historical simulation. The more I think about it, the more I'd like to change my mind. Or I was always leaning a bit (not much off-centered but distinctly) to the simulation side. Here's why: The world is so full of contingency, nonsense and bunk (freshly learned from civ_king here), that every trace of non-arbitrariness, recognizability and historical truth is welcome! Fun meets solace. Because a video game is escapist by nature anyway, and if it's violently shifted in the sportive, competitive direction, it doesen't rise morally or culturally, or anything. Such a shift is just as restricting as others feel the confinements of historical simulations are. To cut it short: I want Huns to burn libraries, not to built any. What-if they can't burn anything, because they're stuck on an island on an archipelago map? I'm not interested.

I'm afraid I'm not really grasping your argument. I don't see what you're trying to say, or what you're trying to say it about. So... no comment.

Forget the abstract and look at the concrete year increments, that I added to the example. Concretely: submarines 30 years later than bombers or vice versa? Desirable? Bombers 30 years later than tanks? Airships a generation after bombers and tanks? I don't want to appear all units of an era at the same time in a player's arsenal. I said deliberately up to 4 or 5 Tech requirements. Not every unit should receive the same amount of downslowing. All I'm asking is, that they're orchestrated in a way, move closer to each other on the timeline, while you still have the full freedom of in what sequence the cards are played. – The same degree of differentiation as with Techs, Traits or Civics should go in a nice rhythmic structuring, of when your units come in. You still decide, which units appear in which order.

They are close to each other on the timeline if you research along a more or less historical path- you start seeing militarily useful submarines, tanks, bombers, and so on all within a span of 30-40 turns, yes?

If you rush to one thing and don't develop others, then yes, there's a bigger gap. You're not forced to invent submarines right around the same time you get tanks, not if you don't want to. I fail to see the problem with this. Any way to keep it from happening will necessarily weaken your ability to choose what happens in what order, because there's no way to hurry up and develop submarines before tanks or vice versa when the entire complex of "World War era" units all have several prerequisites that must be researched before any of them become available.

Simon_Jester said:
For ancient wonders, yeah, I think you should focus disproportionately on stuff outside of European and Greco-Roman civilization.

From my new point of view I have no understanding for this whatsoever…

Yeah, well from my old point of view I have no understanding of what you just said, so maybe we need to reach some kind of rapprochement.

Azoth said:
I'm not sure I follow. How can you argue that French colonies should be included under France - and that America should be the first to be struck off the list of civilizations - yet make an exception for Brazil? The indigenous people of Brazil did not build cities or keep written records. They remained migrant hunter-gatherers; even today there are isolated tribes living in the Amazon.

I've heard some evidence suggesting otherwise- that the earliest Spanish explorers along the Amazon encountered a lot more population and organization than people who came to the area in 1550 or later. This may be like what happened to the Mississippian cultures- they were so devastated by the epidemics that by the time large numbers of Europeans came into contact with them, any civilized Neolithic cultures they might once have had had collapsed into villagers dwelling amid the ruins of their ancestors' earthworks.

Also, there's at least a stronger degree of cultural and ethnic continuity between the native inhabitants of pre-Columbian Brazil and the modern inhabitants. Whereas America is totally dominated by populations who moved in and shoved aside the natives, and the native contributions into their culture and gene pool was pretty much swamped.

Is it possible for a single leader to be linked to multiple civilizations? (I know at least one mod for Windows allows it.) If so, you could make Timur a leader of the Mongols, Turks, and Persians; that would be the best way to handle the Timurids, I think. While you're at it, you could make Karolus/Charlemagne available as a French or Roman leader, too. (Edit: No, not a Roman leader, I don't know what I was thinking.)

Oooh. Interesting, and it might reduce the software burden too.

I was about to suggest this myself. If you are eager to spread a particular religion, you'll adopt Organized Religion. Otherwise, you'll wait for monasteries and hope for the best. If anything, I think monasteries come too early in BtS: the whole world turns Buddhist or Hindu before any of the later religions are founded.

Here that's less of a problem, because it's relatively easy to found half a dozen religions early in the game.

Xyth said:
Balancing tech costs was the biggest challenge of creating the new tech tree. I think I've managed to reach a fairly decent framework after a ridiculous amount of testing. This is actually the main reason why I'm generally hesitant to add new columns of techs too readily. Adjusting the costs appropriately is a hell of a lot of work and all too easy to screw up. Every time a new column is added the entire tree needs to be adjusted accordingly, its not enough to just adjust the surrounding techs.

You could quasi-balance the tree by, oh, adding bonuses that affect science. If everyone's making 5% or 10% more science on average over the course of the game, adding another 5% to the total cost of researching all the techs matters less. After all, it's the relative time different groups take to invent everything that determines balance, not the absolute number of turns required to do it- though you do want the tree to cap out so that you've researched everything after the 'right' number of turns, obviously.

Xyth said:
Yep. I've at times thought about merging Rome and Byzantium to be honest, like I did with Phoenicia and Carthage (they were separate civs in HR for a short while).

I'm not sure I like this- they were in many respects quite different. Rome spent much of its history as an aristocratic republic, and even as an empire had different institutions (and religious beliefs) from Byzantium. There are good arguments for giving them different unique buildings, units, and wonders. And on top of that, taken together the Romans and Byzantines represent so much of the history of the Western world (the Mediterranean and the Middle East as well as Europe) that to properly represent them you'd have to have something like five or six different leader heads.

Not worth it, if you ask me.

EDIT: Whereas Carthage was always, quite clearly, 'just another' Phoenician city-state. Culturally quite similar, same religion more or less, shared the thalassocratic impulses of historical Phoenician tradition.

If civilizations represent cultures, not nation-states, then the argument for making Byzantium separate from Rome is all the stronger- because while there's political continuity there, there's surprisingly little social continuity between the Roman Republic and the Greek Empire of the 800s AD.

Xyth · Jul 11, 2011

Azoth said:
The Tamils and Kushans are fine additions to HR but South Asia still lags behind other regions, including Southeast Asia and its four civilizations: Thai, Viet, Khmer, and Indonesian. On this point, I completely agree with Simon Jester. It is worth reusing art to improve diversity.

Yeah, though hopefully Bakuel will release his Indian unit set sometime soon. His units are always accurate and very well made.

Is it possible for a single leader to be linked to multiple civilizations? (I know at least one mod for Windows allows it.) If so, you could make Timur a leader of the Mongols, Turks, and Persians; that would be the best way to handle the Timurids, I think. While you're at it, you could make Karolus/Charlemagne available as a French or Roman leader, too. (Edit: No, not a Roman leader, I don't know what I was thinking.)

I've never tried but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible.

I just can't seem to get these things right: yes, I meant Australasian. (As a Canadian, I know exactly how it feels to be identified with that big annoying neighbour next door.) Civ Gold actually includes Hone Heke of the Maori among its 100+ leaders but the leaderhead is hardly top quality; Heke looks like a generic East Asian leader with some tattoos and a palette swap.

Yeah that Hone Heke leader is appalling, especially the moko (facial tattoos).

I agree that a little variation can do no harm. There are plenty of other food sources in the tropics: Pigs, Bananas, Sugar, floodplains, scattered Cows and Corn. The only food resources you won't find there are Sheep and Deer. I see no cause for concern

There's still a handful of new resources of new resources that I'd like to add so I won't make any changes here until that's done.

The city lists annoy you too? And here I thought I was the only one.

Oh yes. Rewriting citylists was what got me into modding into the first place. Some of the Firaxis ones are truly appalling, the same city listed multiple times under different names, cities in the wrong list, very important cities not in any list, and no sense of chronology or sensible grouping at all.

Simon, I'll respond to your comments later today.

Xyth · Jul 11, 2011

Simon_Jester said:
Given the sheer diversity with which the ancient world is represented, and how many of those civilizations have vanished or blended into others by the modern era, I would be opposed to dropping them first.

You've got 49 civilizations with a rich ancient/medieval history, many of which petered out in the past thousand years if not earlier. It doesn't seem unreasonable to have one civilization with a rich modern history, but not so much in earlier eras.

I'm biased towards Ancient, Classical and Medieval civilizations as that's my area of interest and expertise. I don't want which civs vanished and which went on to colonize the world to be artificially predetermined by civ selection. The Age of Sail/European colonization is a natural dividing line in history that I choose to use as a cut off point for inclusion in HR.

I realize that this may not be everyone's preference but it's the way I like to define the scope and flavor of the mod. I want to focus on diversity and historical continuity over strict accuracy and historical determinism. Given the technical limits that exist I'm not willing to diverge from this at this time.

Actually, increasing the natural rate of religion spread might work well as an alternative- and it creates more incentive to build inquisitors if you're actively trying to get rid of non-state religions in the Middle Ages.

We'll have to see what the early spread of religions is like in 0.9.4. In the current version it's a bit skewed for a number of reasons.

I've heard some evidence suggesting otherwise- that the earliest Spanish explorers along the Amazon encountered a lot more population and organization than people who came to the area in 1550 or later. This may be like what happened to the Mississippian cultures- they were so devastated by the epidemics that by the time large numbers of Europeans came into contact with them, any civilized Neolithic cultures they might once have had had collapsed into villagers dwelling amid the ruins of their ancestors' earthworks.

Yep, recent archaeology in Brazil suggests much more complex and sophisticated societies than the history books suggest.

Also, there's at least a stronger degree of cultural and ethnic continuity between the native inhabitants of pre-Columbian Brazil and the modern inhabitants. Whereas America is totally dominated by populations who moved in and shoved aside the natives, and the native contributions into their culture and gene pool was pretty much swamped.

This is my reasoning. I need to do a lot more research still though, when the time comes.

You could quasi-balance the tree by, oh, adding bonuses that affect science. If everyone's making 5% or 10% more science on average over the course of the game, adding another 5% to the total cost of researching all the techs matters less.

That's another option yes but it still affects the relative balance of production and research/commerce, this time as yields. Not saying it shouldn't be done, just that such changes still need to be done carefully.

I'm not sure I like this- they were in many respects quite different. Rome spent much of its history as an aristocratic republic, and even as an empire had different institutions (and religious beliefs) from Byzantium. There are good arguments for giving them different unique buildings, units, and wonders.

I have no plans to merge them, I've thought about it a few times and each time decided it wasn't worthwhile.

davidtylr · Jul 11, 2011

The only european wonder that i would add would be the La Sagrada Família church in Barcelona. You could probably add a million churches. This one is special because the architect is fantastic. It is like no other church in the world. Construction have started in 1882 and it still haven't been finished yet. Estimation of completion 2017. You can build it in the modern era.

civ_king · Jul 11, 2011

davidtylr said:
The only european wonder that i would add would be the La Sagrada Família church in Barcelona. You could probably add a million churches. This one is special because the architect is fantastic. It is like no other church in the world. Construction have started in 1882 and it still haven't been finished yet. Estimation of completion 2017. You can build it in the modern era.

There is some other pretty cool stuff made that aren't wonders
Saint Michael's for example

and Duomo di Milano

Saint-Michel DAiguilhe is cool too

And those are just Christian buildings, there is bound to be other cool stuff.

PS Saint Michael's is Orthodox so maybe it could be a wonder for diversity?

HardRocker · Jul 12, 2011

Hey Xyth, I am dying to try out this mod. I am a windows user, and I downloaded the bugs fix patch that you uploaded and replaced the proper files, but I when I launch the mod, it comes up with an error with initializing file XML ReligionInfos. I am patched to BtS 3.19, so I don't think that's the issue. I do not know how to take a screenshot in windows 7, but i can try to provide more info if you need me too.

Xyth · Jul 12, 2011

Wonders more than anything else are reliant on quality art being available. I don't know if art for any of those suggestions exist but I haven't looked. At some point during the development of 0.9.5 I'll have a thorough search and let people know the possibilities.

HardRocker said:
Hey Xyth, I am dying to try out this mod. I am a windows user, and I downloaded the bugs fix patch that you uploaded and replaced the proper files, but I when I launch the mod, it comes up with an error with initializing file XML ReligionInfos. I am patched to BtS 3.19, so I don't think that's the issue. I do not know how to take a screenshot in windows 7, but i can try to provide more info if you need me too.

That error sounds familiar and if I remember correctly it was caused by the mod folder having the wrong name. It needs to be named 'History Rewritten' without a version number. Inside the mod folder there will be a file called 'History Rewritten.ini'. If there are any different .ini files in there, delete them (BTS automatically creates one to match a mod's folder).

Let me know if you still have any trouble after this.

Keinpferd · Jul 12, 2011

Simon_Jester said:
I don't see what you're trying to say, or what you're trying to say it about. So... no comment..

Am I responsible for that

?

Simon_Jester said:
Yeah, well from my old point of view I have no understanding of what you just said, so maybe we need to reach some kind of rapprochement.

Maybe

.

civ_king said:
There is some other pretty cool stuff made that aren't wonders

You mean made as building art? I think you're right about Saint-Michel DAiguilhe. I've seen this before and probably mistook it for Mont St.Michel.

In fact, I'm using a button depicting the Milanese duomo already in my personalized HR version. The according building, however, is a gothic cathedral, converted from EE II by Walter Hawkwood, who added the warning: very complex model, only use when needed. Well, I needed it. Serving as super cathedrals that require regular Christian cathedrals. I made it the same size like Notre Dame. Looks very convincing in a low roofed medieval city.

If there's good art for Saint Michael, that would be great, too.

La Sagrada Família would also be nice, because it doesn't perpetuate a European architectural canon. Despite standing in Barcelona, the unclassical look makes it a bit less Eurocentric and therefore fitting in Xyth's design book.

Byzantium-Rome: The Byzantine were called "Romans" by their enemies and called themselves Pωμαιοι. But good, that they weren't merged, because the Byzantine are very one of a kind and the opposite of a Civ candidate, where you have to research hard to get leader names, unique buildings, and such.

HardRocker · Jul 12, 2011

Xyth said:
Wonders more than anything else are reliant on quality art being available. I don't know if art for any of those suggestions exist but I haven't looked. At some point during the development of 0.9.5 I'll have a thorough search and let people know the possibilities.

That error sounds familiar and if I remember correctly it was caused by the mod folder having the wrong name. It needs to be named 'History Rewritten' without a version number. Inside the mod folder there will be a file called 'History Rewritten.ini'. If there are any different .ini files in there, delete them (BTS automatically creates one to match a mod's folder).

Let me know if you still have any trouble after this.

I checked the ini files, and there is only one, so that is not it. I checked the file name, and it is just "History Rewritten". I do not know what to do...

Xyth · Jul 12, 2011

HardRocker said:
I checked the ini files, and there is only one, so that is not it. I checked the file name, and it is just "History Rewritten". I do not know what to do...

Next thing to check is inside the History Rewritten.ini. Make sure that there is a line near the top that says 'ModularLoading = 1'. If that's set to 0, change it. Also, there is a file called CivilizationIV.ini that is usually in \MyDocuments (or MyGames)\Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\. Find that file and and look inside it for 'ModularLoading = 1' also.

If that doesn't work please let me know the exact path of where you've installed History Rewritten and a screenshot of the actual error message.

Azoth · Jul 12, 2011

Here, as promised, are my suggested tweaks to the existing civics. Their purpose is to create better balance within each civics column while retaining the flavour of each individual civic.
(Note: These changes are entirely separate from my proposals for the default starting civics.)

Government
Confederation, High Upkeep
Current: no distance from palace costs, +25% EP
Suggested: no distance from palace costs, +1 gold/specialist

Legal
Authoritarianism, High Upkeep
Current: +1 happy/military unit
Suggested: +1 happy/military unit, +1 espionage/specialist

Codification, Medium Upkeep
Current: +100% cottage growth, +1 happy Library
Suggested: +5 happy/X largest cities, +2 culture/Courthouse

Jurisdiction, Medium Upkeep
Current: +1 specialist/city, +1 happy Courthouse
Suggested: +100% cottage growth, +1 happy Courthouse

Equal Rights, Medium Upkeep
Current: +5 happy/X largest cities, "We demand Equal Rights" happiness penalty
Suggested: +1 specialist/city, "+1 You uphold equal rights" diplomacy bonus

Labour
Industrialism, High Upkeep
Current: unlimited Engineer, -2 health/city, +1 science, gold/specialist
Suggested: unlimited Engineer, -2 health/city, +1 science/specialist

Emancipation, High Upkeep renamed Globalization
Current: can rush production with gold, "We demand Emancipation" happiness penalty
Suggested: unlimited Scientist, +1 trade route/city, can rush production with gold

Economy
Mercantilism, Medium Upkeep
Current: no foreign trade routes, +1 specialist/city, no foreign Corporations, +50% trade route commerce
Suggested: no foreign imports, +2 commerce Watermill, no foreign Corporations

Free Market, Medium Upkeep
Current: +1 trade route/city, -25% Corporation expenses
Suggested: +50% trade route commerce, -25% Corporation expenses

Military
Clan Warfare, Low Upkeep
Current: +25% city maintenance, +100% pillage gold, no war wariness
Suggested: +100% city capture gold, +100% pillage gold, no war wariness

Vassalage, Medium Upkeep
Current: extra unit upkeep, +100% XP gain within borders
Suggested: extra unit upkeep, +100% XP gain

Warrior Code, Medium Upkeep
Current: +100% Great General points, +2 XP/unit built, +25% culture
Suggested: +25% unit production, +2 happy Barracks, +25% culture

Professional Army, High Upkeep
Current: +25% unit production, +2 happy Barracks
Suggested: +2 XP/unit built, +100% Great General points, can rush production with gold

Religion
Rationalism, High Upkeep
Current: unlimited Scientist, +2 happy School
Suggested: +2 science/specialist, +2 happy School

Free Religion, Low Upkeep
Current: no state religion, +1 happy/religion, +2 science/specialist
Suggested: no state religion, +1 happy/religion, "We demand Free Religion" happiness penalty

Comments:
1. An espionage bonus isn't the best fit for Confederation. I redesigned it as +1 espionage/specialist and moved it to Authoritarianism. In its place, I transferred +1 gold/specialist from Industrialism, which is too strong a civic anyway. In real world terms, the gold bonus reflects reduced trade barriers and a stronger monetary union among members of a Confederation.

2. According to Xyth, the Legal civics are designed to get better over time, with each individual civic an improvement over its predecessors. In practice, +100% cottage growth (Codification) and +1 specialist/city (Jurisdiction) are always better than +5 happy/X largest cities (Equal Rights). As I've said before, a happiness bonus in specific cities pales in comparison to civilization-wide bonuses late in the game. So I reshuffled the civic bonuses. Codification, the rewriting of laws in formal language, gets +5 happy/X largest cities because at this early stage, the rule of law extends only to major cities. Jurisdiction, the spread of courts and state officials to all corners of the land, gets +100% cottage growth because consistent application of the rule of law facilitates economic development. Finally, Equal Rights gets +1 specialist/city, because the extension of civil rights to disenfranchised groups raises their profile in the economic (engineer, merchant, scientist) and cultural (artist, priest) spheres.

3. Unhappiness penalties for Equal Rights and Emancipation don't make much sense in History Rewritten because its redesigned Legal and Labour columns focus on gradual societal change. No one has ever agitated for Industrialism in place of Agrarianism, or post-industrial Emancipation (i.e.: freedom of contract with any employer, better termed Globalization) in place of Industrialism. On the contrary, these transitions are often painful, on account of the loss of traditional occupations and ways of life. I have thus removed the unhappiness penalties from these civics, and added new bonuses from other civics to compensate. An unhappiness penalty is reintroduced to Free Religion because religious intolerance has been a genuine and persistent grievance across all human societies.

4. "No foreign trade routes" implies autarky not Mercantilism. "No foreign imports" is much more interesting: you still have trade routes to foreign cities but they can't have any back to you. I feel this better represents mercantile theory, which aims to maximize foreign trade surplus. I hope you can code this change; it means the other crutches for the Mercantilism civic, +1 specialist/city (already used in the Legal column) and +50% trade routes, can be removed. +2 commerce Watermills is a purely flavour addition; Watermills are the only improvement without a civics bonus, and improving national infrastructure is another mercantile priority. Meanwhile, Free Markets picks up +50% trade routes, the same bonus that Diplomatic leaders start with. Once again, Free Markets do not always encourage more trade (they sometimes force existing businesses to close) but they do create more efficient trade.

5. I take it you were already planning to revise the Military civics, Xyth, to keep the new Tactical trait in line? I feel my suggestions improve both the balance and flavour of this civics column: Warrior Code is no longer the clear winner, and each individual civic is more strongly connected to the bonuses attached to it.

6. A big problem in the Religion category is that Free Religion is always superior to Rationalism. Consider: +2 science/specialist to unlimited scientists (+2 science is better with any specialist); +1 happy/religion to +2 happy School; and Low Upkeep to High Upkeep. Moving +2 science/specialist to Rationalism makes it the ideal science civic while adding a penalty to civilizations without Free Religion shifts its focus to happiness.

Xyth · Jul 12, 2011

Azoth said:
Confederation, High Upkeep
Current: no distance from palace costs, +25% EP
Suggested: no distance from palace costs, +1 gold/specialist

While I don't mind replacing the EP bonus I don't think adding +1gold/specialist is the best solution as then this civic becomes entirely about gold: gold lost via high upkeep, gold saved via no distance costs, and gold earned via specialists.

I feel espionage fits well here as a confederation generally has a huge amount of internal politics going on which tends to lead to well developed espionage. But I don't think it's essential to the civic and I'm open to better suggestions that are neither espionage or gold related.

Authoritarianism, High Upkeep
Current: +1 happy/military unit
Suggested: +1 happy/military unit, +1 espionage/specialist

+1 happy/military unit is pretty strong, I'm not sure it needs anything extra. +1 espionage/specialist isn't too bad though, it's certainly thematic. I'm willing to try it in 0.9.4 and see how the AI values it.

Codification, Medium Upkeep
Current: +100% cottage growth, +1 happy Library
Suggested: +5 happy/X largest cities, +2 culture/Courthouse

Jurisdiction, Medium Upkeep
Current: +1 specialist/city, +1 happy Courthouse
Suggested: +100% cottage growth, +1 happy Courthouse

Equal Rights, Medium Upkeep
Current: +5 happy/X largest cities, "We demand Equal Rights" happiness penalty
Suggested: +1 specialist/city, "+1 You uphold equal rights" diplomacy bonus

I think shuffling the cottage growth, free specialist and large city bonuses around is sensible. Culture from Courthouse works too, the happiness from Library wouldn't make sense anymore with the shuffle. These changes are easy to make and I'll include them in 0.9.4.

EDIT: actually, +2 culture for Courthouse isn't easy to make at all. Will need something else here instead.

Changing the happiness penalty to a diplomacy bonus is not going to work though. Unlike with traits, it is essential that the AI can correctly evaluate each bonus of a civic, Coding such evaluation for civics is beyond my skill and might even be impossible without DLL changes.

Basically, while I can code 'new' bonus types to civics they need to be minor enough to not factor too much into AI decision making.

Industrialism, High Upkeep
Current: unlimited Engineer, -2 health/city, +1 science, gold/specialist
Suggested: unlimited Engineer, -2 health/city, +1 science/specialist

This change has already been included in 0.9.4.

Mercantilism, Medium Upkeep
Current: no foreign trade routes, +1 specialist/city, no foreign Corporations, +50% trade route commerce
Suggested: no foreign imports, +2 commerce Watermill, no foreign Corporations

While I agree that no foreign imports is a much better concept for the civic, it would require some massive AI changes, not just to evaluate the civic but in general economic strategy as well. Such a change would definitely require DLL changes and are thus impossible for HR.

Emancipation, High Upkeep renamed Globalization
Current: can rush production with gold, "We demand Emancipation" happiness penalty
Suggested: unlimited Scientist, +1 trade route/city, can rush production with gold

Free Market, Medium Upkeep
Current: +1 trade route/city, -25% Corporation expenses
Suggested: +50% trade route commerce, -25% Corporation expenses

I'm not opposed to these changes but they don't work without the change to Mercantilism, which isn't possible. See below for more on Emancipation though.

Military
Clan Warfare, Low Upkeep
Current: +25% city maintenance, +100% pillage gold, no war wariness
Suggested: +100% city capture gold, +100% pillage gold, no war wariness

This change has already been included in 0.9.4.

Vassalage, Medium Upkeep
Current: extra unit upkeep, +100% XP gain within borders
Suggested: extra unit upkeep, +100% XP gain

That change will require additional coding but I have an idea how to pull it off without confusing the AI. I probably won't attempt this in 0.9.4 though, it's already been delayed long enough.

Warrior Code, Medium Upkeep
Current: +100% Great General points, +2 XP/unit built, +25% culture
Suggested: +25% unit production, +2 happy Barracks, +25% culture

Professional Army, High Upkeep
Current: +25% unit production, +2 happy Barracks
Suggested: +2 XP/unit built, +100% Great General points, can rush production with gold

I think this would make Professional Army far too strong, plus I really don't want to add gold rushing to the Military category (or any category other than Labour). It undermines the Labour category and I want rushing to be done by population OR gold, I don't want both to be available at the same time.

I also disagree with the XP and military production bonus swap. In my testing the AI values the XP bonus a lot more than the production bonus and since Warrior Code isn't generally unlocked until a fair time after Professional Army (and Conscription and Theocracy) it's even less desirable.

I think the GG and barracks happiness swap makes good sense though and is probably enough to rebalance these two civics by itself. Though I may lower Warrior Code's culture bonus to 10% as well.

Religion
Rationalism, High Upkeep
Current: unlimited Scientist, +2 happy School
Suggested: +2 science/specialist, +2 happy School

Free Religion, Low Upkeep
Current: no state religion, +1 happy/religion, +2 science/specialist
Suggested: no state religion, +1 happy/religion, "We demand Free Religion" happiness penalty

I agree that these two are in sore need of rebalancing. To be honest though I think I'd prefer to scrap the +2 science/specialist altogether, especially since Industrialism has a similar bonus. I'd thus prefer to leave Rationalism as it is and rethink Free Religion's third aspect.

While shifting the happiness penalty here kind of works, I'd rather see a bonus that is neither happiness nor science related, to make the civic a bit more rounded.

3. Unhappiness penalties for Equal Rights and Emancipation don't make much sense in History Rewritten because its redesigned Legal and Labour columns focus on gradual societal change.

Actually I think the happiness penalty is perfect for the Legal Category as that's the one category that you most probably want to upgrade when the next civic becomes available - especially with your proposed changes. The Legal category is all about rights and freedoms and by the time Equal Rights becomes available citizens of other civilizations are well aware of the privileges and rights they're not getting that others are. Rulers that have been lax in making legal change or pursuing law-related techs will suffer the consequences. The Arab Spring taking place right now in the world is the perfect example of this.

No one has ever agitated for Industrialism in place of Agrarianism, or post-industrial Emancipation (i.e.: freedom of contract with any employer, better termed Globalization) in place of Industrialism. On the contrary, these transitions are often painful, on account of the loss of traditional occupations and ways of life.

This I agree with, Emancipation needs to be redesigned or preferably replaced. I don't think Globalization is the right concept to replace it with though, that's primarily an economic thing. I'd rather see a new civic that is a counterpoint and viable alternate to Industrialism, with a theme of better worker's rights/contracts/regulation/etc. Something that Labour Unions could unlock once that tech is shifted a lot later than it currently is.

KaneofEgypt · Jul 12, 2011

When I play any kind of game and meet Knut of the Vikings, his ...greeting speech?... seems to have an error. He will meet you and say something along the lines of "Hello, I am (insert your leader name) of the vikings." Is this simply my computer, or does this happen elsewhere?

Xyth · Jul 12, 2011

KaneofEgypt said:
When I play any kind of game and meet Knut of the Vikings, his ...greeting speech?... seems to have an error. He will meet you and say something along the lines of "Hello, I am (insert your leader name) of the vikings." Is this simply my computer, or does this happen elsewhere?

Oops, that's a bug. I've fixed it for 0.9.4. Thanks for the report!

cybrxkhan · Jul 12, 2011

Hello there!

I saw that you took a few things here and there from WoL, so I'll be stealing a few ideas of yours back.

Anyhow, I just wanted to ask a quick question about the traits, specifically the Enterprising and Tactical traits - just to be sure, those traits' bonuses were done using python, correct (i.e. the +1 trade route per city and the war weariness)? Or were they already included in the game XML but never used?

Thanks in advance.

Xyth · Jul 12, 2011

cybrxkhan said:
Hello there!

I saw that you took a few things here and there from WoL, so I'll be stealing a few ideas of yours back.

Sure did and you are more than welcome to take anything you like from HR

Anyhow, I just wanted to ask a quick question about the traits, specifically the Enterprising and Tactical traits - just to be sure, those traits' bonuses were done using python, correct (i.e. the +1 trade route per city and the war weariness)? Or were they already included in the game XML but never used?

The trade route was added via Python, take a look in onCityBuilt and onCityAcquired in CvEventManager.py. War weariness was done via fake buildings, placed via Python. The code for that is in the same places in the same file.

Incidentally the traits in HR are currently undergoing a huge overhaul with a lot of new bonus varieties being added via Python and fake buildings. I'd be happy to share any of those with you too if they're of interest, the most recent list is here.

Azoth · Jul 13, 2011

Xyth said:
While I don't mind replacing the EP bonus I don't think adding +1gold/specialist is the best solution as then this civic becomes entirely about gold: gold lost via high upkeep, gold saved via no distance costs, and gold earned via specialists.

I feel espionage fits well here as a confederation generally has a huge amount of internal politics going on which tends to lead to well developed espionage. But I don't think it's essential to the civic and I'm open to better suggestions that are neither espionage or gold related.

I thought about that, then decided that all the attention devoted to internal politics probably makes a Confederation more susceptible to espionage from rival nations: every member city has its own agenda and the Confederation can rarely present a united front. I take your point about the all-gold focus, so I'll try to come up with something else.

Xyth said:
+1 happy/military unit is pretty strong, I'm not sure it needs anything extra. +1 espionage/specialist isn't too bad though, it's certainly thematic. I'm willing to try it in 0.9.4 and see how the AI values it.

+1 happy/military unit is strong, but limited. If your units are garrisoned in cities, they can't be advancing your interests on the field. And if you want to make the most of this civic, you'll be paying unit support costs over and above the High civic upkeep. So I don't think it'll be too strong; I guess we'll find out in 0.9.4.

Xyth said:
I think shuffling the cottage growth, free specialist and large city bonuses around is sensible. Culture from Courthouse works too, the happiness from Library wouldn't make sense anymore with the shuffle. These changes are easy to make and I'll include them in 0.9.4.

EDIT: actually, +2 culture for Courthouse isn't easy to make at all. Will need something else here instead.

I'm glad you could shuffle the major bonuses, but it's back to the drawing board for +2 culture/Courthouse.

Xyth said:
Changing the happiness penalty to a diplomacy bonus is not going to work though. [...] Actually I think the happiness penalty is perfect for the Legal Category as that's the one category that you most probably want to upgrade when the next civic becomes available - especially with your proposed changes. The Legal category is all about rights and freedoms and by the time Equal Rights becomes available citizens of other civilizations are well aware of the privileges and rights they're not getting that others are. Rulers that have been lax in making legal change or pursuing law-related techs will suffer the consequences. The Arab Spring taking place right now in the world is the perfect example of this.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. I'm happy with keeping the unhappiness penalty at Equal Rights.

Xyth said:
While I agree that no foreign imports is a much better concept for the civic, it would require some massive AI changes, not just to evaluate the civic but in general economic strategy as well. Such a change would definitely require DLL changes and are thus impossible for HR.

I was afraid of that. I still think Mercantilism needs a serious redesign because "no foreign trade routes" is a major penalty (that affects you more than other nations, because they can usually trade with someone else) and the rest of the civic is inevitably geared towards softening the blow somewhat. In particular, I dislike "no foreign trade routes" with "+50% trade routes" because the two basically cancel each other out. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Xyth said:
I think this would make Professional Army far too strong, plus I really don't want to add gold rushing to the Military category (or any category other than Labour). It undermines the Labour category and I want rushing to be done by population OR gold, I don't want both to be available at the same time.

I also disagree with the XP and military production bonus swap. In my testing the AI values the XP bonus a lot more than the production bonus and since Warrior Code isn't generally unlocked until a fair time after Professional Army (and Conscription and Theocracy) it's even less desirable.

I think the GG and barracks happiness swap makes good sense though and is probably enough to rebalance these two civics by itself. Though I may lower Warrior Code's culture bonus to 10% as well.

Hmm. A Professional Army is better trained (hence the XP bonus) while a Warrior Code glorifies military service and creates a bigger pool of potential recruits (hence the production bonus.) If you remove the "can rush production with gold" bonus, then I think the two civics will be reasonably well balanced. As for the AI, maybe it would be better to delay the Professional Army civic? As far as I know, professional armies were not nearly as common as conscript, mercenary, peasant-militia, or aristocratic-chivalrous armies in the Ancient to Renaissance Eras. You could even rename "Professional Army" to "Standing Army" for that unmistakable modern feel. I would keep the +25% culture bonus, though, if only because it stacks neatly with +25% culture from Tradition and +50% culture from Great Temples and Broadcast Towers.

Xyth said:
I agree that these two are in sore need of rebalancing. To be honest though I think I'd prefer to scrap the +2 science/specialist altogether, especially since Industrialism has a similar bonus. I'd thus prefer to leave Rationalism as it is and rethink Free Religion's third aspect.

While shifting the happiness penalty here kind of works, I'd rather see a bonus that is neither happiness nor science related, to make the civic a bit more rounded.

I'm not sure unlimited Scientists would be worth the High Upkeep costs. It might be better to change Industrialism to +1 gold/specialist (the savings from industrial mass production) and retain +2 science (or even +3 science)/specialist for Rationalism. The civic makes much more sense that way: during the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, science was still a niche hobby for the idle rich, but many of the most important contributions came from amateurs - abbots, economists, inventors - that is to say, non-scientists.

Xyth said:
This I agree with, Emancipation needs to be redesigned or preferably replaced. I don't think Globalization is the right concept to replace it with though, that's primarily an economic thing. I'd rather see a new civic that is a counterpoint and viable alternate to Industrialism, with a theme of better worker's rights/contracts/regulation/etc. Something that Labour Unions could unlock once that tech is shifted a lot later than it currently is.

Globalization has at least as much to do with labour (what with outsourcing, the waning influence of unions, the creation of new highly-specialized jobs) as the economy. That said, if you're looking for something related to worker's rights and regulation, how about Civic Solidarity or Welfare State? Alternatively, you could move (a slightly tweaked) Environmentalism into the Labour column, making for an natural counterpoint to Industrialism, and replace its spot in the Economy column with either Consumption/Consumerism, Mechanization/Digitization, or good ol' Globalization. There really are a lot of options here. Let me know what you like best and I'll take it from there.

Edit: My current suggestion for Free Religion is free Mobility promotions on Missionaries, the theory being that as soon as freedom of religion is declared, most major religions will spread to every city in the world. I doubt Free Religion needs a particularly powerful third bonus anyway. Wait, even better: unlimited missionaries!

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