How to keep the game interesting in the later eras?

[majaczek]

Maybe you can bring back the faster gamespeeds?

 

[strategyonly]

Maybe you can bring back the faster gamespeeds?

No way .

 

[JosEPh_II]

Maybe you can bring back the faster gamespeeds?

Not without a Lot of tech trimming. Some players would like a 600 turn game. But the rest would scream bloody murder cause they have fits now over getting a tech every other turn. (Which I personally think is Very short sighted. Was inventors during the ages restricted to only 1 discovery every x number of years? No advancement usually came in waves and not the linear fashion we use in this game.)

And SO does not like the faster speeds either (see above post).

 

[olduser]

But the rest would scream bloody murder cause they have fits now over getting a tech every other turn.

For me it depends on the definition of what a Tech is. If techs unlocks lots of things i don't like getting a new tech every turn.

But if techs would be smaller steps and just unlock a few things i would be fine with it.

 

[Arakhor]

We already have plenty of micro-techs that serve little purpose but seem to please Thundrbird.

 

[majaczek]

sorry. I meant the game which advances faster in techtree, not to limit game time.
Do you ever got galactic era on normal? (I never ) it may be 800 or more turns but with more things ongoing. I just want to play with friends and don't have to play a week or more to get to industrial era. I love richness of content, I just want to gave like eons ago a gamespeed when you easily get 2-3 techs per turn in prehistory

 

[majaczek]

How gamespeed balancing works? I may do own gamespeed modmod theoretically, but I am sure it would be very unbalanced. Anyway the faster gamespeed the longer (in years) army goes.

so maybe an idea for new gameoption: to double speed of all units, and double all bonuses to movement? would it be easy to do? or not? I think it would be a few loops in DLL code

 

[pepper2000]

How gamespeed balancing works? I may do own gamespeed modmod theoretically, but I am sure it would be very unbalanced. Anyway the faster gamespeed the longer (in years) army goes.

If you really want a fast game, edit Assets/XML/GameInfo/CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml. I don't know how comfortable you are working with XML, but the file is pretty self-explanatory. Even Normal is too fast in my opinion, and Epic is pushing it, and normal is really only useful for testing, so don't expect anything faster to be supported.

 

[majaczek]

okay, I'm going to start game with my friend today, and it would be Normal gamespeed, and probably Normal mapsize. Sadly nobody but me checked new traits. I hope, once, they would be incorporated to trunk, here, there are

 

[dulkan]

Wow, this thread really exploded. Let me address some points made.

To start off, I'm not usually a Deity player, I play vanilla Civ 4 on emperor, I just play C2C on Deity with no flex difficulty, because it is so damn easy.

The thing with gold and expansion is, that in earlier versions (v33 or v34, can't remember), gold was the big bottleneck for expansion in the ancient era. This kept the player on a lower number of cities vs the AI and helped the AI to keep up at least until late classical/early medieval, when the players gold income started to explode. Now, I'm pretty much immediately happiness capped and as I can handle happiness better than the AI I can actually expand more than the AI is able to.
I earn several hundred gold per turn in the ancient era, it becomes completely meaningless, by the time I can actually do gold buyouts, I have nearly a million in the bank, earn several thousand per turn.

I agree with Noriad, trying to fix the game, by reducing the content and removing its' unique features is not the way to go. I know how limited you are by the Civ4 engine, but after all you have made the mod as big as it is, so making the AI and the balance work with it is better than trimming the mod down, so that it can work.
If Civ4 can't give what the mod needs (which is evident by the ungodly long turn timers anyway), maybe it's time to switch this project to another engine. But then's the question, whether there even is the motivation to start all this again with the Civ6 engine or whatever.

@tmv
Because the AI starts with additional techs on high difficulties, giving me tech diffusion right from the start to help me catch up, tech diffusion pretty much doubles my beakers for the rush to oral tradition.

@strategyonly
what? noble is harder than deity??

@Joseph
That's the problem, C2C to me means massive map and very long timescale, as well as using the mastery victory, playing on a large map with marathon gamespeed wouldn't feel like C2C to me. Considering the massive scale of this mod, I'd also expect it to be primarily balanced for giant maps and slow speeds. What is the point of those features, if they are not be used? They are defining features of the mod to me.

I always play without revolution, I never use play now nor do I play with old world. Flex difficulty is off.
I also don't pick civs, I play random. In the 4 games I played I got Frederick(Germany), Hiawatha(Iroquis), Selassie (Ethopia) and Suryavarman(Khmer).
AI civs between 20 and 30. As I said, I like massive games with C2C and I feel, if I played the mod on a setting more in norm with a vanilla game, it would lose it's unique charme.

 

[Arakhor]

That's the problem, C2C to me means massive map and very long timescale, as well as using the mastery victory, playing on a large map with marathon gamespeed wouldn't feel like C2C to me. Considering the massive scale of this mod, I'd also expect it to be primarily balanced for giant maps and slow speeds. What is the point of those features, if they are not be used? They are defining features of the mod to me.

And that is part of why it's "so damn easy". As for their point (other than tripping up the AI), that's an excellent question.

 

[JosEPh_II]

dulkan wrote:
@Joseph
That's the problem, C2C to me means massive map and very long timescale, as well as using the mastery victory, playing on a large map with marathon gamespeed wouldn't feel like C2C to me. Considering the massive scale of this mod, I'd also expect it to be primarily balanced for giant maps and slow speeds. What is the point of those features, if they are not be used? They are defining features of the mod to me.

I always play without revolution, I never use play now nor do I play with old world. Flex difficulty is off.
I also don't pick civs, I play random. In the 4 games I played I got Frederick(Germany), Hiawatha(Iroquis), Selassie (Ethopia) and Suryavarman(Khmer).
AI civs between 20 and 30. As I said, I like massive games with C2C and I feel, if I played the mod on a setting more in norm with a vanilla game, it would lose it's unique charm.

This is purely play style preference and I fully understand that. We all have our preferences.

It is also why we have so many Options. But when 1 preference begins to supercede all others problems occur. Add in the fact that some of our Options are now after 8+ years of development showing they can cause serious AI hinderance if used together. Now throw in the fact that players hate CTDs and Mafs, well guess what ceratain play style preferences can make these occur quicker in the game and more frequent. Hence the warning I gave.

You play how you want. Just be aware that some of your choices have potential Game stopping consequences. Or they cause the AI to appear to be "dumb".

Mastery Victory is one of those Options that splits the AI's focus (too many conditions in which an AI code to give AI direction may not be there) to the point it can not even be a real competitor. But for the Player Mastery may be fun or considered a challenge. But I reiterate the AI can not compete with a Deity level Player with That Option activated. You have already found this out by your statement, "I just play C2C on Deity with no flex difficulty, because it is so damn easy." Your Option Choices Do Matter on the AI being a Challenge.

A Mod this size will always have an AI that appears to be slow because the AI coders cannot code every Option to a better level. If you want better challenge then try different Option combos till you find the right set that gives you a better challenge. And if you do any reading in this forum it won't take you long to figure out which Options are sub optimal to use together.

But as I said you play the Mod how you want, you will any way. We all do.

JosEPh

 

[strategyonly]

You play how you want. Just be aware that some of your choices have potential Game stopping consequences. Or they cause the AI to appear to be "dumb".


But as I said you play the Mod how you want, you will any way. We all do.

JosEPh

Good sentences, i cant read them at at once, but nice anyways, keep it up Joe

btw u mentioned above that some are hindrances together, can u explain which one's for I dont use them together, thx . . .SO

Thats like some of these promotions, i dont understand all of them

 

[majaczek]

I think it's better to do scientific victory than mastery one (they seem similairly hard but I hope AI can focus) ... and how changed Space Victory from BTS? (sorry for a noob question)

 

[JosEPh_II]

@SO,
It might be easier to help you with these decisions if you would list your preferred Options.

That would give a starting place.

JosEPh

 

[JosEPh_II]

I think it's better to do scientific victory than mastery one (they seem similairly hard but I hope AI can focus) ... and how changed Space Victory from BTS? (sorry for a noob question)

Yes I agree.

I currently will only use 3 Victory conditions in any game. They may not be the same set of 3 all the time.

Example if I use Dominance (or whatever it's called) I will not add Conquest to the set of 3.

Another example if I use Religious I will generally not use Cultural with it and Conquest or Dominance.

And really if you select Conquest what is the point of adding any more Victory Conditions? Do you add another Victory Option so you the Player can have an "escape" route if your quest to destroy all the AI comes up against a wall?

And this Mod has been slanted over the years to Heavily Favor Conquest. Builder type Victory Conditions have been neglected in large measure because of this.

JosEPh

 

[majaczek]

and how changed Space Victory from BTS?

Please?

 

[JosEPh_II]

It changed when the TH and Galactic Era were added to this mod. I really do not know if it even works nay more.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

... and how changed Space Victory from BTS? (sorry for a noob question)

It changed when the TH and Galactic Era were added to this mod. I really do not know if it even works nay more.

JosEPh

It has basically been removed so the modders of that era could play past it. Personally I have no problems with it being back in the early Transhuman era as it was in BtS as it allows for a realistic end game while the later eras are being developed. Now there is an idea!

Why not have era specific victories. Ones you select at the start of play or not to end the game when you want. If you want to play later then you just turn those victories off before starting a game. They would be off by default. I could reinstate my idea of an Exploration Victory which requires you to discover all the Natural Wonders on the map.

 

[JosEPh_II]

AND2 has an Option to end the game at end of Modern Era with their No Future Era Option.

And if someone wanted to only play for example a Preh Era to Medieval Era Game that also could be a possibility.

JosEPh