Just gonna up and say it...

[Gazebo]

Where did you get this information?

Besides, the "this can be modded to your will" argument is kind of a bad one, imo. First, it's an obvious statement, and if we go by the "you can just mod what you want" then there is no point discussing anything. Second, it assumes the person you're talking to has knowledge of how to mod stuff in order to actually take matters in their own hands.

And third and most importantly, there's multiplayer. You can't have tons of variations if you want to find people to play this with, it's just confusing and time-consuming. That alone is enough to make me completely disregard any "you can just do this yourself" argument. I would rather discuss changes to the core project.

Not to blue shell your argument, but I've already said that I'm not going to add in boolean managers for 'good/bad' events. Lots of data to wield.

Events will balance once we have more events.

G

 

[PerryCaravello]

Where did you get this information?

Besides, the "this can be modded to your will" argument is kind of a bad one, imo. First, it's an obvious statement, and if we go by the "you can just mod what you want" then there is no point discussing anything. Second, it assumes the person you're talking to has knowledge of how to mod stuff in order to actually take matters in their own hands.

And third and most importantly, there's multiplayer. You can't have tons of variations if you want to find people to play this with, it's just confusing and time-consuming. That alone is enough to make me completely disregard any "you can just do this yourself" argument. I would rather discuss changes to the core project.

Ah, never mind. I did not remember it correctly. It only won't be enabled by default in the community patch. CPP will have it enabled by default but be easily disabled.

BUT, I still will argue the same thing. "this can be modded to your will", this is the whole point of the events system, I would say. Gazebo has made it easy to make events.

And it is quite clear. There is not a consensus on what people want from events. So the idea that we need to have one set of events for multiplayer maybe true on an ease of use level. But in practicality, we all want something different, and that is okay. And if anyone is having trouble changing their mods for multiplayer, I have to wonder if they have ever tried modding any other game. As modding ciV is incredibly easy.

 

[Wodhann]

Not to blue shell your argument, but I've already said that I'm not going to add in boolean managers for 'good/bad' events. Lots of data to wield.

Events will balance once we have more events.

I'm admittedly quite code ignorant, but aren't booleans about the smallest amount of data there is?

 

[PerryCaravello]

I'm admittedly quite code ignorant, but aren't booleans about the smallest amount of data there is?

Me too even though I'm currently taking multiple programming courses , but I believe the problem may be just lots of booleans

 

[Gazebo]

I'm admittedly quite code ignorant, but aren't booleans about the smallest amount of data there is?

You'd need:

• Booleans for every event
• Booleans for every event choice
• Booleans for every city event
• Booleans for every city event choice
• Boolean storage vectors for every player, for every event and every event choice in the game
• Boolean storage vectors for every city, for every event and every event choice in the game

 

[tu_79]

You'd need:

• Booleans for every event
• Booleans for every event choice
• Booleans for every city event
• Booleans for every city event choice
• Boolean storage vectors for every player, for every event and every event choice in the game
• Boolean storage vectors for every city, for every event and every event choice in the game

Nah, it could be really easier. Just put a single number for every event. 1 being this event really sucks and 8 being we all love this event. Even if some options inside the event are better than others, we score the event as a whole. Then, make this compute:
RNG(-2,2) + difficulty level - event score.
If this number is positive then let the event show.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Those of us who want only positive events can branch off a mod-mod and call it Good Events. I think that will really just solve everything. I think Difficulty Based events would be a good branch, too, but really, we should let an official version of Events come out before we dogpile on it.

 

[Natura]

Not that I disagree with your previous points, but let's just look on the flip side here.

Why shouldn't it?

If you've done everything right to achieve such a position, why be punished for it, exactly?

And I'm absolutely sure that the Roman Emperors thought something along the same lines when hordes of barbarians, plagues, economic collapse and military defeats were making their empire crumble.

If we were going to look at things from a strict historical perspective, then the largest and most successful empires were the most susceptible to negative events. It was a result of their success; size meant more interdependence between regions, more tempting targets to outsiders, longer borders to defend and greater strain on resources. A small empire could survive say, a 10% reduction in crops due to climate change, but for a major empire this would be utterly disastrous. Similarly, a disruption in trade routes to a small empire would certainly cause some hardship, but if trade breaks down in a large empire it's catastrophic, because regions are dependent on other regions for resources.

Every large empire in the pre-Industrial age hit a hard ceiling of development that they couldn't get past because they'd reached the limits of energy extraction from their environment. It put a hard ceiling on military strength, population, production etc. They hit the ceiling then fell victim a variety of factions; nomadic invasions, climate change, disease, economic collapse etc. It's what made the Industrial Revolution so revolutionary; it shattered that ceiling utterly by giving humans a massive boost in their ability to extract energy from their environment, one that wasn't constrained by food supply (muscle power) physical geography (water) or the way the winds were blowing (wind).

We're in a similar situation now though, because fossil fuels have boosted social development so high that the entire world is now connected into a global system. And just like ancient empires, the bigger they get, the more strain they place on their environment. Not just that, but we're in an age when a tiny European nation that is little more than an economic backwater can cause global financial markets to tremble.

So if we wanted to go for something truly historical, then the biggest empires really should have the nastiest events, or rather, be affected by them the most. Done correctly, this could be seen as a worthy challenge for greatness. However it runs a very major risk of being horribly unfun.

 

[PerryCaravello]

And I'm absolutely sure that the Roman Emperors thought something along the same lines when hordes of barbarians, plagues, economic collapse and military defeats were making their empire crumble.

As far as good vs bad events. No, in reality, big empires were not more susceptible to bad events than small ones. Everyone throughout history has had huge piles of bad events. You mention the nomadic hordes hitting Rome. Why do you think they were coming to Rome? Bad events bro.

As far as the energy economies stuff, I might agree with you there. But its a little off topic.

 

[tu_79]

As far as good vs bad events. No, in reality, big empires were not more susceptible to bad events than small ones. Everyone throughout history has had huge piles of bad events. You mention the nomadic hordes hitting Rome. Why do you think they were coming to Rome? Bad events bro.

As far as the energy economies stuff, I might agree with you there. But its a little off topic.

The question of larger vs smaller empires is more about being able to control. The more people you rule, the more delegates with power you need. And it's the relationships between the supreme ruler (or entity) and their middle leaders what shapes the size of the empire. Take a look at Crusader Kings, and you'll see what I'm talking about.
The happiness system do it already well.

 

[Kennan]

I also agree and there is a way to get around balancing frequently of bad/good events with score.

We could write events that could only happen under certain conditions. There could be quite powerful events that only occur if you are far behind. E.g. An event that can give you a great scientist or some other bonus if you are at least 8 techs behind the leader. Some of the worst events could have conditions so that they only hit those who are doing really well, e.g. one condition could be that you need a majority of the votes in the world council.

Good answer. I think I can ultimately agree with you here; just wanted to see both sides of the coin.

 

[janboruta]

I think that most of the bad events are too arbitrary and uninteresting, compared to some of the more creative positive ones. I don't mind negative events though, with one exception - volcanic eruptions. Happens often, out of the blue, no means of countermeasure (unlike hurricanes, which IRL are just as unavoidable as volcanoes, but in the in-game event you can throw money at it to mitigate the damage). I once had this event in a city that had one mountain in the 3rd ring of workable tiles, damaged 50% (or more) of improved tiles around that city and destroyed a few crucial buildings - all hundreds of hypothetical miles from the once-dormant volcano. Please tone it down, I'd be most obliged.

Also on a more rational thought - mountains like the Alps aren't really all dormant volcanoes, and the event system treats all of the mountains as possible volcanoes. While I understand that it's simpler to check for mountains around a city, it's not grounded in reality at all.

Otherwise the events system is nice and hope to see it expanded, so it reaches the diversity that the original E&D has.

 

[Gazebo]

Nah, it could be really easier. Just put a single number for every event. 1 being this event really sucks and 8 being we all love this event. Even if some options inside the event are better than others, we score the event as a whole. Then, make this compute:
RNG(-2,2) + difficulty level - event score.
If this number is positive then let the event show.

I appreciate the feedback, but please don't tell me that something is easy or not easy. Storing a vector of integers is just as heavy as storing boolean values, as you would still need the vectored value for events/eventchoices/cityevents/cityeventchoices/city-vector/city-choice-vector/player-vector/player-choice-vector. Not to mention the multiple checks for every event and event choice to see if an event can fire (thus you would need to track the duration and cooldown of good/bad events separately, adding an additional layer of memory storage).

We're not adding a set 'good/bad' value metric to things.

I think that most of the bad events are too arbitrary and uninteresting, compared to some of the more creative positive ones. I don't mind negative events though, with one exception - volcanic eruptions. Happens often, out of the blue, no means of countermeasure (unlike hurricanes, which IRL are just as unavoidable as volcanoes, but in the in-game event you can throw money at it to mitigate the damage). I once had this event in a city that had one mountain in the 3rd ring of workable tiles, damaged 50% (or more) of improved tiles around that city and destroyed a few crucial buildings - all hundreds of hypothetical miles from the once-dormant volcano. Please tone it down, I'd be most obliged.

It is because that's the only mountain-specific event right now, thus settling next to it increases the chance. I just need to remove the delta on some of the more egregious events, as they're supposed to be very rare.

G

 

[notque]

All of the events happen far too often. Build a harbor, get a harbor event. Build a monument, get a monument event.

Suggestion to fix it? Create more events!

 

[Gazebo]

All of the events happen far too often. Build a harbor, get a harbor event. Build a monument, get a monument event.

Suggestion to fix it? Create more events!

Yep! I think that, plus removing the delta on a few events (like volcanoes or buildings) will help with the frequency. I'm also planning on having many of the building events tied to a chain of events, so they're not quite as easily gained. Events take time to make, and I've been absurdly busy lately.

G

 

[Dunkah]

So you're saying we should add more events?

And changing the deltas will make it less frequent?

So why is it that every mountain is a volcano?

G. You should really create some type of method to test all this stuff before you release it to the public to be tested.

 

[Dunkah]

Seriously,

I remember Thal had a system where each event was always positive and fun.

However how positive and thus potentially how fun it was depended on what you were willing to pay. Give up this and you get that, however give up all this and you get all that! Don't have any cash to contribute and sorry you don't get anything. Aw, too bad guess you gotta wait till next time.

I liked that system.

 

[Gazebo]

So you're saying we should add more events?

And changing the deltas will make it less frequent?

So why is it that every mountain is a volcano?

G. You should really create some type of method to test all this stuff before you release it to the public to be tested.

(I realize is sarcasm, yes)

G

 

[whoward69]

G. You should really create some type of method to test all this stuff before you release it to the public to be tested

What do you think the C in "CP", "CBP" and "CPP" stands for

 

[Gazebo]

What do you think the C in "CP", "CBP" and "CPP" stands for

It stands for Criticism, of course.

G