About the project
The very base concept behind creation of this mod was to remove a linearity of the base game. The solution I choose was rather straight-forward, a randomly generated worlds with pre-defined cultures and scripted rules. Player is thrown into the middle of alive game and decides what to do with that.
I was inspired by some old classics like Heroes III and obviously older iterations of civilization, however the most influential to me was Mayesty with its indirect control. You will find a mechanics in which you have little to no control: cities create improvements and roads on their own, Trade-Routes automatically choose targets (and are completed once they reach their destination), civilian great people migrate between cities, units' morale and even technologies are discovered randomly. What is more, there is a great bunch of automation available to the player: you can appoint Master of Whispers to manage your Spies, make your Cities automatically build certain buildings without need of queue or even a Tax Collector who will bully gold from City-States whenever possible. Game values macro-scale over micro-decisions.
Splitting game into 5 separate parts has more perks. First of all, it is a great rubberband mechanic and reset of power, which helps keeping game interesting even after crushing your opponents once (there is an achievement for conquering other player's capital in all five consequent scenarios). Secondly, it allows you to sink within certain eras without the scientific rush the base game posseses.
Project leans towards roleplay, but the in-built scenario-like score system allows you to challenge yourself by earning
Victory Points for the Hall of Fame.
The first major difference you can notice is a
stacking system. In scenario generator each unit has a stacking type and is fully stackable with other types (this information is provided in production popup or unit panel). Some units like Scouts are fully stackable with any unit you are not at war with.
Promotions are earned by
unitclasses rather than by units (newly trained units of this class will start with those promotions). I believed that civ5 created a situation in which loosing an unit is too big deal (and obviously AI is the one punished more by this). Each unit still has own XP levels (each grants +3% combat bonus from veterancy).
There is so much to write about military, let's just say you will find out that each scenario has something unique in that aspect and the fact that loosing an unit is no longer so devastating event allowed me to introduce Critical Strikes.
Each scenario assigns each civilization to the certain
culture type (ancient era has: Empire, City-State, Tribe), which has impact on starting number of cities, units, available buildings, tech trees and more. What is more, some cultures have subcultures that make civilization even more distinctive (City-States are further classified as Militaristic, Religious and so on).
There are no starting
uniques or leader traits. I personally believe that this is an obsolete mechanic and unique abilities should be obtained through the gameplay. Therefore in scenarios in which I managed to create significant amount of unique units, you can choose unique replacement upon reaching specialization treshold (each unitclass earns progress when trained or with XP). In other scenarios unique units are tied to your culture unfortunately. Buildings can be uniquely enhanced with Inspirations (basic yield bonus of your choose). Game offers a decent variety of unique traits (Social Developments, Innovations, Wonders, Ideological tenets) to make your civilization truely unique.
Designing a game into pre-defined 100 turns long
duration frame forced a common use of cyclical events and systems. Social Developments are being chosen at turns 17,34,51,68; Stock Exchange sessions took place each 14 turns, Wonders are assigned each 10th turn... you should quickly adapt to this rhythm. Oh, fishes and whales migrate every spring (...let's just say that my approach on workboats was taken from old RTSs and I am not completely proud of it even though it adds some depth to sea control).
The key concept I believed should be a future for civ series is
interaction. Most systems are designed in a way to interact with other players rather than work in the void. For example, wonders are now assigned through an annual Wonder project (something similar to World Fair from league) in which the player with the greatest contribution is awarded with an ability to construct random World Wonder. In previously mentioned unit specialization system, tresholds are increased whenever any player chooses unique unit. In some scenarios innovations are locked after the first player develop them. Social Developments are being voted over by a cultural group rather than being chosen by inviduals (even though you can change them later for an extra cost of culture). Authority provides most rewards if you have more of it than any other player rather than on actual amount of Authority. City-States' quests are redesigned into annual Politics' in which major players compete for influence. Stock Exchange is based on actual events in game.
Therefore all mechanics added to game are designed with what I called a general
fairness of turn in mind. Projects and competitions are solved at the game turn end (barbarian turn), and many values are cached then as well. All to remove any advantage players have from being early in turn queue.
The game is not too punishing on bad decisions, this total conversion was designed to be a roleplay sandbox. AI handicaps are now limited to four basic elements: Gold maintenance, Production cost, Food growth treshold and Unit Supply. What is more, those values can be changed mid-game to adjust difficulty based on your current situation.
Top Panel is greatly enhanced with new yields and indicators, but it is now scrollable (therefore even on smaller monitors you have access to all information) and can be rearranged by right-clicking certain elements.
Scenario Generator includes
modded DLL and even though mod leans toward roleplay, you should notice major improvements in AI and fixes in comparision to the base game.
Further Development
Project reached the state I am content with. I plan to regularly expand it, more information about what am I currently working or focusing on can be find in
Changelogs.
Infographics
