K-Mod: Far Beyond the Sword

[gps]

(The unhappiness thing is a bit so-so, but I like the mechanics for the cultural ownership of land.)

I like the mechanic too. For me it reflects ethnic groups moving and mixing across the land and if one side gains a significant advantage they gain supperiority. It's a bit of a strech to see this happen to a single city, but for a larger region over some centuries - in the big picture it makes a lot of sense as a game mechanic. It also always felt like a propaganda war...

 

[noto2]

I like the game mechanic as well. It's also not that far-fetched in the real world. Not all major changes are brought about by warfare. Think about the cold war, for example. It didn't end when one side conquered the other. It ended because one side abandoned its goals and values and adopted those of the other side. Also, some civilizations are defeated militarily and vanish from the face of the earth (Carthage, Troy, the Aztecs, for example) or go back to being marginal tribes (the Zulu, the Maya). Some civilizations, however, are conquered in a military sense, perhaps even multiple times, over the course of thousands of years and yet still exist and thrive today (the Greeks, the Jews, the Chinese, the Germans). A civilization needs its own culture and sense of identity to be considered a civilization.

 

[Elkad]

On your thoughts on cultural espionage for MP games, if the players are on the same team, they won't be able to conduct espionage missions against one another (if they're not on the same team, they've already shown a willingness to cheat as far as I'm concerned ).

Why is it cheating to have an ally? And how about vassals or permanent alliances? Games with trading and diplo are all about making deals with some neighbors so you can on others.

Not every MP game is an always-war quick-speed double-moving frenzy.

Incidentally, in one current game (unmodded BTS), I've used culture missions extensively to move borders. One was a stack of 22 spies in a key enemy city to kick off a war. A frenzy of culture missions and I suddenly had access to his defensive stack that was 3t deep in his territory. He logged in to find 75 units dead.

Re:spreading culture via trade route. Will that give me the key 0% needed to start running EP culture missions deep in enemy territory? (and stealing all his tiles away?). Currently I have to chain my culture into his land, and a bigger than normal gap in city spacing means I can't jump to the next city.

 

[noto2]

Ok so I used to win 40-50% of emperor games with unmodded BTS. With Kmod I just lost 5 monarch games in a row good job Karadoc

 

[karadoc]

Panzers/SEALS are terrible in ancient starts; literally worthless in value-over-base because of how late they are. Adding flanking to the panzer would do almost nothing to cure its weakness.

Maybe if you gave the panzer 37 strength or the SEAL 28+ strength you might have something strong enough to actually be game-changing in the era it shows up. And yes, that would STILL leave them weaker than war chariot, immortal, prat, etc even though it sounds ridiculous. It's a comparable net str increase on a much later/less likely to have an impact unit. That late in the game, missiles, air power, massed collateral, gunships, and nukes all would allow even a basic faction to easily beat panzers anyway.

But instead, the panzers in default game are a laughably terrible 28 base str and in the majority of cases have equal utility to tanks. Waiting the longest out of ANY UU to get a benefit that's rarely realized! Fun! Flanking I helps but it doesn't even come close to addressing the disparity of the bonus that early units get + the advantage of having them early. It is actually LESS of an absolute advantage than the early units...though I can certainly see wanting to implement balance changes slowly.

I'm aware that giving panzers a STR boost will make them destroy anti-tanks and (briefly, very briefly) have no counter. I don't see an issue with that; people will know the threat is approaching and have to prepare by getting flight earlier (for fighters to soften them) or stocking up on arty. Considering how long you have to wait to use the units, it's perfectly reasonable that there is a window (preferably a decent one) where said units are difficult to stop.

I agree that the free promotion won't make much difference, and that there would need to be a major buff (as you say) for panzers and SEALs to be as significant as some of the other unique units. I think a really big buff would be reasonable from a balance point of view. ... But I just don't want to make a big splash with these kinds of balance changes. I don't want to turn a weak UU into a strong UU in just a single version. I just want tweak it a little bit to give players something to look forward to when they are getting panzers. -- Maybe there will be more changes in the future. But I think this is enough for now. --

That's said, I've got a vague idea for an alternative buff for panzers... The idea is to remove the bonus vs tanks, and replace it with a attack bonus vs everything. The point would be to emphasise blitzkrieg-style strategies. -- Anyway, maybe another time.

Re:spreading culture via trade route. Will that give me the key 0% needed to start running EP culture missions deep in enemy territory? (and stealing all his tiles away?). Currently I have to chain my culture into his land, and a bigger than normal gap in city spacing means I can't jump to the next city.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the "key 0%". The spread culture espionage mission does not require that you have any of your own culture in the city. The mission adds a percentage of the total culture in the city, summed over all players. The trade route culture doesn't count as "city culture", so it doesn't make any difference at all.

To gain ownership of a plot, the plot must be within the cultural range of one of your cities. In the unmodded game, you'd typically have 0% culture on any plot that was outside of your range, so maybe that's what you were thinking of. (?) In K-Mod, you'll typically have some non-zero percentage ownership beyond your cultural control range. (But you still won't own the plots if it gets above 50%!) The rules for plot ownership have not been changed.


--
All that said, I'll probably change the spread culture mission to be plot culture only in the next version. ie. no city culture. The main difference this will make is that when you finally manage to flip the city, it will start with 0 culture rather than starting with however much culture you got from your espionage missions. -- Another potentially important difference is that the culture from the espionage mission will no longer be counted in the total city culture calculation for any additional spread culture missions. This would only make a significant difference if you were doing lots and lots of spread culture missions in the same city. (For example, in the previous system if you did 10 spread culture missions, you'd get a total of 60% culture in the city (1.05^10 - 1). With the new changes you'd only get 50% (0.05*10) ) -- Apart from those two things, I can't think of any important differences. The percentage of cultural ownership gained by the missions will still be the same. If anyone can think of any other significant affect this change will have, please let me know.

 

[Elkad]

You do need culture in the plot under the city to run the mission. I'm using this mechanic heavily in a game right now. I can't run a Spread Culture mission in an enemy city until it says at least 0% MyCivCulture when I hover over the city tile(I'm guessing a minimum of a single point of culture).

This post covers the mission in detail.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7112930&postcount=1

Removing your own culture from consideration for followup missions weakens it significantly, especially where you really want it (on their border to control tiles). Removing the city culture effect also removes the discount for other future missions, again a significant nerf.

Granted, it's a powerful tool now in MP(and I have no idea how the AI copes with it, since I rarely play SP), but an EP economy has plenty of disadvantages in MP also. It works well with an ally who will let you steal from him in a no-tech-trading game, but otherwise it is pretty easy to defend against. 10EPs/turn in counter-missions, and a few defensive spies on the entrances to your land, and you can triple the cost for enemies stealing from you.

 

[Mattygerst]

I'm aware that giving panzers a STR boost will make them destroy anti-tanks and (briefly, very briefly) have no counter. I don't see an issue with that; people will know the threat is approaching and have to prepare by getting flight earlier (for fighters to soften them) or stocking up on arty. Considering how long you have to wait to use the units, it's perfectly reasonable that there is a window (preferably a decent one) where said units are difficult to stop.

I'm not sure if my post was seen on the previous page (which was regarding a disagreement with the Flanking boost), but, I have to fully agree with this post excerpt (you can see my post on the previous page for more on this).

At one point in time, German tanks HAD not equal. They were unstoppable for a very brief period and the only think that stopped their advance in real life was exactly what the above excerpt refers to being the new necessary: getting flight (the allied airforce effectively made the german tank offensive useless in the west), or loading up on artillery (the Russian army had more artillery than the axis/allied combined and used them very effectively to halt the German offensive in the East).

 

[Elkad]

Answered my own question, at least in the current version of K-Mod.

Played a random game. I'm Sumeria, bordering Khmer. His border city has my culture in it. so I can run spread culture there. His capital does not, can't run the mission. A city on the other side of his empire shows 2% Sumerian culture (I guess from trade routes), and I can run Spread Culture missions there as well.


First time I've played with this mod. It's missing a bunch of BetterBUG features I've come to expect. And some standard game things. Where is the relative EP spending at? It doesn't show when I hover over a name on the scoreboard (like stock BTS) or in the espionage screen (like BUG)

 

[karadoc]

Answered my own question, at least in the current version of K-Mod.

Played a random game. I'm Sumeria, bordering Khmer. His border city has my culture in it. so I can run spread culture there. His capital does not, can't run the mission. A city on the other side of his empire shows 2% Sumerian culture (I guess from trade routes), and I can run Spread Culture missions there as well.


First time I've played with this mod. It's missing a bunch of BetterBUG features I've come to expect. And some standard game things. Where is the relative EP spending at? It doesn't show when I hover over a name on the scoreboard (like stock BTS) or in the espionage screen (like BUG)

You're right about the prerequisite culture for the spread culture mission. I didn't know about that, but it does exist, and I haven't changed it. -- and you're right that trade culture does more-or-less negate that requirement, because you're likely to get trade culture pretty much everywhere if you just have open borders with someone.

That change doesn't affect my playstyle or strategies at all. (I hadn't even noticed that such a rule existed!) Do you think it matters that the conditions for spread culture have effectively been relaxed?

Removing the city culture effect also removes the discount for other future missions, again a significant nerf.

That's true; and I didn't think of that when I was writing my previous message. -- ... ... This is a tricky decision for me; because on the one hand, I don't really want to change the strategies or balance related to the spread culture missions (regardless of whether or not they are currently well balanced; I don't want to change the balance right now) -- but on the other hand, I don't like that the spread cultural mission can be used to pop borders and stuff like that. Maybe I should just leave it alone for now. Or maybe I should change it, and consider the nerf to be an indirect rebalancing to counter the trade culture thing!

I'd like more input on this. I only rarely use a lot of espionage, so I'm not completely sure of the balance implications.

[edit]
I'm thinking now that perhaps the best way to handle this stuff would be as follows:

• No city culture from the spread-culture espionage mission. (plot culture only. quantity unchanged.)
• Espionage discount based on plot culture rather than on city culture. (!!)

That second dot-point might be a significant balance change, but I think it is a bit more intuitive and more dynamic. It would give trade culture a bit more importance, and it would increase the power of culture and espionage in general. Currently, city culture discount basically only applies to cities that have been flipped or captured in war. With the proposed change it would basically be a discount on any city which is under some culture pressure.

How did you think that would work out?
[/edit]


For the relative EP spending. I've deliberately (and recently) removed that information. ie. the exact number of espionage point against you is no longer public information.

There is a lot of information leakage related to espionage, and I've been gradually trying to tighten it up a bit. For example, it's still possible to use the numbers reported in the espionage screen to determine which enemy cities are currently constructing a world wonder, and how much progress they've made - even when you have 0 espionage points against them. In my view, this kind of information should not be available. You shouldn't be able to determine what they are building unless you actually have enough espionage points for the 'investigate city' mission. In my view, you shouldn't be able to learn anything from the numbers on the espionage screen unless you actually have enough espionage points to learn something - and to me it seems natural that the specific spending of espionage points should be private.

The BUG version of the espionage screen does look a bit nicer, but it kind of cements the public nature of some information which I think ought not be public. The BUG espionage screen is one of the few BUG features that I've deliberately removed (as opposed to BUG features which I simply haven't re-implemented yet.) My intention is to make my own version of the espionage screen; which will probably have less raw information, but the information it does have will be easier to access and understand. -- I just haven't gotten around to that yet.

I'm not sure if my post was seen on the previous page (which was regarding a disagreement with the Flanking boost) [...]

Just to clarify, the flanking promotion won't give the tanks any special bonus against artillery, or any defensive help at all. My (vague) reasoning behind the flanking idea is just that I imagine panzers to be a bit more manoeuvrable than stock-standard tanks, and I think the flanking promotion reflects that. Also, it is a promotion which only helps while attacking - which I think matches the blitz concept. -- That's basically it.

 

[rkade8583]

Just to let everyone know, Realism Invictus is fixin' to jack this mofo thus making their mod as awesome as yours... except with more stuff that is balanced for those of us who, like me, enjoy our civ with balanced portions of hamburger meat and onions (as opposed to something like Rise of Mankind which is nothing BUT meat and/or onions)

 

[noto2]

rkade - Kmod is very different from most of the other mods on this forum because it has basically just tweaked the current game to make it better. Most mods have drastically changed the game by adding new
-civs
-civics
-units
-religions
-buildings
-wonders

etc, etc. Some people like that kind of stuff and all the power to them, but I personally do not. I wouldn't mind perhaps a few new things in a mod, if it would really improve the game, but not just for flavour. Kmod is all about function and not flavour, whereas most mods are the opposite. But if you want to use Karadoc's AI and he's cool with that, I'd recommend it, wow the AI in this mod is lighyears beyond unmodded BTS

 

[karadoc]

The Realism Invictus does add heaps of new content, but as I understand it, it is done with a strong emphasis on balance and realism – As opposed to, say RoM, which seems to be more about just adding as much content as possible. I think that's what the hamburger analogy was getting at...

Anyway, I don't know a lot about RI, but from what I do know I think it would work well with K-Mod. I don't know of any RI changes which would conflict with K-Mod changes; and so the end result should basically be the extra content and rebalancing from Realism Invictus, plus the AI and UI changes from K-Mod (and probably the new game mechanics from K-mod as well.) I'm sure a lot of people would like that.

 

[rkade8583]

Darn tootin' we will. The parts I like are the culture mechanic, the reduced turn times, the new and improved AI, and the reduced turn times. Four cores and stupid Civ 4 only uses one! Dang...

But yeah, let me link you... http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=411799&page=58 It's in there somewhere but kudos. Both mods are cool and awesome enough to have bits and bobs merged together.

Too bad Legends of Revolutions belly-upped... RI is better though so it worked out for me

 

[Archon_Wing]

Panzer eh? How about this?

-- Starts with Leadership and Drill I-III
-- Double GG points when attacking with them
-- Reduce bonus vs armored to 25% (honestly, I'd rather just remove it completely and give it something else)

It wouldn't make them good, but it'd be a pretty awesome novelty unit. It'd also go along with what those divisions were famous for-- high level of training, leadership, and organization rather than actual technical superiority. You'd also upgrade them into super modern armor units but since the game ends before that most likely, it's mainly to be cool. Which is better than its current incarnation, which is neither cool nor useful.

 

[Charles555nc]

Any ETA on the next patch?

 

[karadoc]

Probably around 1 week until the next version.

It isn't going to be hugely different from the current version. The main thing I've spent time on so far is an update to the group cycling system. The hope is that with the new system, the order that units cycle through will be more natural and less jarring. Also, it will only count has having "wrapped" when all units have been cycled through, as opposed to the current system which triggers the wrap condition at just some arbitrary point of the cycle which can sometimes be after just one unit has moved! (This is important, because the wrap is what triggers automoves.) Also, if you move the units out of order (by selecting them manually), the new system will remember which units you've cycled through already so that it doesn't go back to them until it has wrapped. (ie. until all other units have been cycled through.)

So.. there's that; and there's some improvements to the evaluation of plots and specialists. I think I've fixed the problem of the overused artists which we talked about. And there'll be a couple of balance changes that we've been discussing here. I'm currently working on the changes I described here. -- And that'll be about all.

 

[noto2]

Karadoc - I want to ask you about your religion removal mechanic. What was the motivation behind this? Before you added this feature one could stack religions in their cities and be able to build multiple temples/monastaries/cathedrals, making multiple religions useful. With the new mechanic it seems best to just focus on one religion - your state religion. I see this as having several effects:
- reducing the role of religion for happiness and culture (which I'm betting is the reason you implemented it and a fine balance change imo)
- makes theocracy more valuable to a player who is relying on their state religion for a bonus
- nerfs free religion
- makes it a little more beneficial to spread one's religion as you can decrease the number of cities practicing another religion

I'm fine with the first change but I'm not sure free religion deserved a nerf. I personally almost never use that civic, opting usually for organized, pacifism, or theocracy. Since this change nerfs free religion perhaps that civic could use a buff, maybe a 15% beaker bonus instead of 10%.

 

[Elkad]

You're right about the prerequisite culture for the spread culture mission. I didn't know about that, but it does exist, and I haven't changed it. -- and you're right that trade culture does more-or-less negate that requirement, because you're likely to get trade culture pretty much everywhere if you just have open borders with someone.

That change doesn't affect my playstyle or strategies at all. (I hadn't even noticed that such a rule existed!) Do you think it matters that the conditions for spread culture have effectively been relaxed?

You can steal a lot of land that way. Currently you can steal some border tiles, but if your opponent has spaced his cities far enough apart that it takes 5000culture (80% tier) to affect the next one, you are pretty well stuck. With trade route culture giving you a foothold, you can cause problems all over his empire at the same time.

I'd like more input on this. I only rarely use a lot of espionage, so I'm not completely sure of the balance implications.

[edit]
I'm thinking now that perhaps the best way to handle this stuff would be as follows:

• No city culture from the spread-culture espionage mission. (plot culture only. quantity unchanged.)
• Espionage discount based on plot culture rather than on city culture. (!!)

That second dot-point might be a significant balance change, but I think it is a bit more intuitive and more dynamic. It would give trade culture a bit more importance, and it would increase the power of culture and espionage in general. Currently, city culture discount basically only applies to cities that have been flipped or captured in war. With the proposed change it would basically be a discount on any city which is under some culture pressure.

How did you think that would work out?
[/edit]

I run spread culture missions for the purpose of getting discounts on tech stealing. Flipped/captured cities don't really play into that for me. Stealing tiles is usually just a bonus (and sometimes causes problems, especially vs humans). In a stealing game, you get the biggest discounts with your culture present. Among other things, that means you get the most effective use of your EPs by stealing from your neighbor, both because of culture, and the distance-to-capital adjustment. It's about twice as expensive to steal from someone across the map. Which, if the tech race isn't even and my neighbors are backwards, it puts a damper on my stealing. If I can spread culture to a distant civ and get a big discount, stealing will be even more effective. Since culture is basically permanent, he can't even counter it effectively.

It's possible to settle a size1 city on some tile next to your capital (generally at the minimum 3 tile distance), and then gift the city to an ally with more tech. You steal from that city, getting maximum discount for your culture flood and minimum range. It flips back to you fairly often, but you just re-gift it. However, I don't think your change would affect that any. I'm trying to work out a way to limit that, without affecting normal missions.

For the relative EP spending. I've deliberately (and recently) removed that information. ie. the exact number of espionage point against you is no longer public information.

I can see relative power vs other civs. There should be some method to see relative spending. Sure, the graphs show overall, but not directly at my civ. EPs should be sneaky, but you should have some idea if your enemy can see various stages of info. Graphs, research, visibility, investigate, etc..

There is a lot of information leakage related to espionage, and I've been gradually trying to tighten it up a bit. For example, it's still possible to use the numbers reported in the espionage screen to determine which enemy cities are currently constructing a world wonder, and how much progress they've made - even when you have 0 espionage points against them. In my view, this kind of information should not be available. You shouldn't be able to determine what they are building unless you actually have enough espionage points for the 'investigate city' mission. In my view, you shouldn't be able to learn anything from the numbers on the espionage screen unless you actually have enough espionage points to learn something - and to me it seems natural that the specific spending of espionage points should be private..

I don't like the deduction you can do from the EP mission cost screen either. The simplest solution (at least in the meta-game, no idea about the programming) would be to not show mission costs unless you had a spy in that city. You'd click the mission button and the list would come up, and you'd do math from there. If that was the method chosen though, I'd like to see "greyed out" choices for the missions you couldn't afford, instead of just hiding them. At least you would need to invest the hammers and time in moving spies around to have intel, instead of just doing some math from the EP screen.

 

[karadoc]

The primary motivation was to give the later religions some chance of becoming bigger, so that it isn't just Buddhism and Hinduism dominating in every game.

Before you get locked into thinking this is a nerf to free religion and so on, let me just point out that stacking multiple religions in one city is no harder than it was in the first place. Religions are only ever removed when a new religion spreads to the city, and the probably of removal is basically a chunk out of the "no spread" probability, rather than out of the "successful spread" probability (with some minor adjustments). Overall, you're likely to have just as many religions in your cities as in the unmodded game - they'll just be a bit more likely to be late game religions.

 

[karadoc]

You can steal a lot of land that way. Currently you can steal some border tiles, but if your opponent has spaced his cities far enough apart that it takes 5000culture (80% tier) to affect the next one, you are pretty well stuck. With trade route culture giving you a foothold, you can cause problems all over his empire at the same time.

As I said before, you can only steal land if the land is already in the cultural radius of one of your own cities. So I'm not sure what you mean here. If you're using spread-culture missions in some remote foreign city, even if you get all the way up to 80% cultural ownership, you still won't have the land.

(Thanks for the rest of your post too.. I can't reply right now though. I'm still leaning towards what I said in my other post: no compounding effect from the spread culture mission, but allow ordinary plot culture to create a discount rather than just city culture. I think that would be much more intuitive.)