How to limit number of cities and units per nation

[Lanzelot]

Moderator Action: As this is not really a "quick" or "newbie" question, I'm moving this topic now into its own thread in the Creation & Customization forum.

Lanzelot

 

[tjs282]

Thanks for setting up this new thread, @Lanzelot!

(Oops, was that PDMA?)

I don't want to sound like asking to much, but setting a limit for military units is not possible right ?

No.

As @Takhisis already suggested, you could make every unit unbuildable but autoproduced by generic buildings (and/or created by Elite-victories, or Enslavement), but even then you're only slowing down production, not limiting the total numbers. And such a mod would get quite complex, quite quickly.

There is a hardcoded limit of 8192 total units on the map, but that's 1024 units per tribe for 8 Civs — or 512 units per tribe for 16 Civs — so usually only DG–Sid AICivs, and/or games on Large/Huge maps, hit that limit on anything approaching a regular basis.

 

[r16]

ı would certainly be willing to do some .biq file to downloaded here , but can surf only with a tablet and that is no help . ln case it gets done , ı would say granary could be a small wonder to produce settlers . Al most probably fail to do anything worthwhile with an "average" 5 cities per , so there should be small wonders to act as great libraries , costly and easy to go obsolute . Great Library a great wonder , one small wonder for the 2nd , one for the 3rd eras , so that not many civs will fall behind . Warsawa said he wasn't for micromanaging cities , he should be able to survive with his 5 towns until the end , by merely defending himself . Maybe defensive units too strong ?

 

[tjs282]

Well, it took me most of the evening (including some quick tests), but I think I did everything right. This is my first-ever publicly released Mod, though, so I don't promise!

The .rar was packed using WinRAR, and is not self-extracting (but I can create a self-extracting version if needed/preferred). It contains a modfolder "Waarzawas5CC" and 2 .biqs (the DEBUG-version is there for testing, just in case you/anyone runs into a crash).

On a PC, modfolder and .biqs would all go into ..Civilization3/Conquests/Scenarios/. Not sure whether Macs do something different(?)

The modfolder contains only a ../Text subfolder, because I included slightly modified civilopedia.txt and pediaicons.txt files, and also a labels STEAM.txt file (all made for my own education/amusement as much as anything). I checked the modified/added 'pedia entries (for Settlers and Unobtanium) in-game, and they seem to be working as intended.

Would appreciate knowing how you get on with it (feedback/ screenshots welcome!)...

 

[waarzawa]

First, thank you so much for the time spent on creating the mod, that's awesome
I played few games and had a lot of fun


For those interested, here are some thoughts (bear with some awkward english, I'm not native speaker) :

- I tried on tiny / small / regular maps, pangean types with AI civs only.
The max number of players recommended in the description is a good indication.
I enjoyed most 8 players on small and 12 players on regular. That way there are still some unsettled lands to explore without stepping in AI territories and being kicked out.

- The start is obviously overwhelming (!). Decide quickly otherwise other civs might claim the spots.
Hope for the best because as the game progress, you don't always have the ressources you wish inside your territory.

- The AI civs progress super fast at first, you're 4-5 techs behind after few turns.

- It feels messy at first to settle in lands you're not really sure about the real strategic value. But that's also where the fun is : more than one time I had to send a few units to create a colony (the 1x1 square built by a worker). And defend it.

- Having 1 city captured is a blow that could be hard to recover from. On the other hand reaching 7 cities feels like a decisive advantage.
It's tempting to rush and attack early to capture an extra city. But then the fun is kind of over.​

I guess that's my first impressions... This mod makes the twist I was looking for and it's good the way it is.
To make it even better, I feel the regular expansion phase (from 1 settler, still limited to 5 cities) would make more interesting games.
And military units limit ; )

NB : On mac, I put the files in conquest/conquest and play via "Conquest !" in the menu... unlike other mods I always play by clicking on "Civ-content"

 

[tjs282]

- I tried on tiny / small / regular maps, pangean types with AI civs only.
The max number of players recommended in the description is a good indication.

Yeah, that seemed to give much better results.

I actually set those Civ-numbers in the 'World Sizes' tab, but unfortunately those settings appear to get overridden when 'Custom Player data' is activated (which I had to do here, in order to give Player 1 -- the human -- their 5 Settlers). Turning off the excess tribes in the "Choose your rivals" section is admittedly tedious, but necessary for this Mod to work as intended.

My tests all used the full 31 Civs, on a Tiny 80%-water Archi-map, but I found that even though I'd also set "Distance between Civs" to be 3 tiles, Civs who were placed directly after me in the spawn-order tended to each get their own island; whereas almost inevitably "my" starting location ended up stupidly crowded, 20-25 tribes in the immediately visible 5x5 square. This is I think due to the way that spawn-points are calculated: the game places Players by sequential number, but once all 'good' spots are taken, it cycles back round to where it started, and then doesn't look any further.

In one test (I got the Sumerians), 9-10 of those Civs ended up utterly paralysed, because once I and my 8 nearest neighbours who could 'legally' do so had all Settled in 4000 BC, there was nowhere left for the others to go. They eventually disbanded all but one of their starting Settlers, which I know because around Turn 40, I sent out my Enkidus to put them out of their misery, but 'only' captured 3 Slaves from each stack. I guess that was because (without any cities) the Workers/Scouts were costing them maintenance that they couldn't afford, so all their starting gold was spent within the first 5-10 turns.

 

[Civinator]

whereas almost inevitably "my" starting location ended up stupidly crowded, 20-25 tribes in the immediately visible 5x5 square. This is I think due to the way that spawn-points are calculated: the game places Players by sequential number, but once all 'good' spots are taken, it cycles back round to where it started, and then doesn't look any further.

Yes, some modders (including me) have the same opinion. In cases of an 'overcrowded' start it could be helpful to reduce the distance between civs in the editor.

 

[r16]

modding is far beyond me in so many points but in the interests of history and stuff there is this map of Hyperboria of Conan's times and it is a gem , if it doesn't come up bundled with the game , ı should look for it .