[BTS] Let's Play Caveman 2 Cosmos: Shaka of Zulu empire on Nightmare ++

[caveman78]

Hello everyone,

I share my current Let's Play series for Caveman 2 Cosmos as Shaka the leader of the Zulu empire.
I am already at video 63, releasing new videos roughly every other day.

So join me in and have fun

Entire playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtBvAhBL7RO-uGQgz3thdnQbI8tzMS1uv

Game: Civilization IV
Mod: Caveman 2 Cosmos (version 41.2)
Difficulty: Nightmare ++
Speed: Ultra fast
Nation: Zulu (Shaka)
Time: Prehistoric till end
Scenario: Historically "accurate" earth map + space
Situation: Improving

I am looking forward to any kind of feedback and or suggestions

 

[caveman78]

------------------- !! PLEASE VOTE !! -------------------

I am already at video 61 (will be released in mid February following current schedule, see in next post)

Saladin separated from his Vassal-overlord Churchill. Without this protection, Gilgamesh (Sumerian empire) immediately declared war on Saladin and is marching with a big army towards Arabia. We know all this, because we have an undercover attack going on towards India and our units are passing right now through this territory. So shouldn't we rush attack/conquer Arabia, so no one else can do it? We think about all the oil there...

What do you think? Please let me know.

Your vote: Attack Saladin (yes/no) (thumbs up/down).

 

[caveman78]

Here some preview of upcoming uploads

 

[caveman78]

IN THIS VIDEO:
We are modernizing our army and slowly approaching Thebes.

 

[BlueTemplar]

It makes NO sense to vote for something when you're 2/3 of the game behind ??

(And you should probably either speed up your release schedule significantly and/or stop making new videos until the viewers have caught up ?)

P.S.: Also you can probably see spoilers in those descriptions ?

 

[tramwajg]

awesome! I'm going to watch a bit and maybe in the future will make some videos too

curious how you have 1 turns to cave dwelling at the beginning, and 1 turn to prime male, in my games takes about 7 turns for both

 

[raxo2222]

awesome! I'm going to watch a bit and maybe in the future will make some videos too

curious how you have 1 turns to cave dwelling at the beginning, and 1 turn to prime male, in my games takes about 7 turns for both

Play on Blitz not on Marathon lol

By the way if he plays on Ultrafast, then his game is broken because this gamespeed is for testing only.

 

[BlueTemplar]

He does. Broken how ? Like having barbarians with Composite Bowmen on first turn ?

 

[caveman78]

It makes NO sense to vote for something when you're 2/3 of the game behind ??

(And you should probably either speed up your release schedule significantly and/or stop making new videos until the viewers have caught up ?)

P.S.: Also you can probably see spoilers in those descriptions ?

Thanks for the answers,
You are right, however, for me it is difficult to have a regular recording schedule, so at least I tried a regular release schedule. right now I am not recording at all. True it is all a bit sub-optimal, but unfortunately I cannot really change it.

Also it is true that voting maybe is not yet very useful. But the viewer could already see now that Saladin would be something to deal with in the future. And now they still could have an influence on it. So at least I could get some interaction and attention for this great mod

 

[caveman78]

Thanks for the answers,
You are right, however, for me it is difficult to have a regular recording schedule, so at least I tried a regular release schedule. right now I am not recording at all. True it is all a bit sub-optimal, but unfortunately I cannot really change it.

Also it is true that voting maybe is not yet very useful. But the viewer could already see now that Saladin would be something to deal with in the future. And now they still could have an influence on it. So at least I could get some interaction and attention for this great mod

Oh, and for the spoilers, well, maybe that is not even a bad thing. But to be honest, I am not sure yet what the smartest way is yet. So I am learning while I go. And I feed of your feedback. So thanks

 

[caveman78]

awesome! I'm going to watch a bit and maybe in the future will make some videos too

curious how you have 1 turns to cave dwelling at the beginning, and 1 turn to prime male, in my games takes about 7 turns for both

Great, yes please do some recordings and let us know about
I am playing on ultra-fast game speed. I like it because it makes the game way more intense. And also it will probably allow me to play the game to the end . However, other players have different taste, others like rather a slow game speed. And that is what makes C2C great. You can play so many different ways. Cheers

 

[caveman78]

Play on Blitz not on Marathon lol

By the way if he plays on Ultrafast, then his game is broken because this gamespeed is for testing only.

Yes I play on ultra fast. Good to know that this is broken. Next time I shall use blitz.
However, in which sense it is broken? So far I did not feel anything. Everything seems to work fine so far.

 

[raxo2222]

He does. Broken how ? Like having barbarians with Composite Bowmen on first turn ?

Ultrafast gamespeed is for testing only.
By broken I mean its unbalanced, and it may be bad for AI

 

[caveman78]

He does. Broken how ? Like having barbarians with Composite Bowmen on first turn ?

Oh, this has nothing to do with game speed.
I wanted the game to be more challenging.
So basically I have taken the default scenario for earth with space. And then I have added all those other players, and made their cities extra strong by giving them a lot of great people. Also I surrounded my self with Neanderthals and Barbarians with very strong armies. also the barbarians have super strong cities somewhere with lots of scientists and engineers, so they get crazy boosts to science. In my youtube channel description I have a link so you can download the save game and open it in worldbuilder.

TIME BOMBS:
I like the concept of time bombs, which is: when you are getting stronger and are dominating the map, then there is not much that can really happen to you, which makes it more boring to me. So I created super strong (great people boosted) Neanderthal cities, which just wait to be conquered by another nation. Since Neanderthals are pretty harmless with strong cities. But an advanced AI would have a better use for such a city. I have set it up such that e.g. America should conquer many of those cities soon, which suddenly would make them crazy strong.
I know this is pretty hands on.
HOWEVER,
If the developers fulfill my dream and add an option in the WORLDBUILDER, which allows to set the turn in which a barbarian city turns into a civilization, I would be a very very happy man. Then I could set up TIME BOMBS more naturally.

 

[caveman78]

Ultrafast gamespeed is for testing only.
By broken I mean its unbalanced, and it may be bad for AI

This could be. I feel the AI is not very strong. Even though I am probably not a very good player. So next time I will try to play at blitz

 

[caveman78]

IN THIS VIDEO: Our research is way to fast for us to keep up with. So we have to make painful decisions, to either invest into our war effort, or to invest into infrastructure and buildings. We choose poorly, which costs us the victory in the battle over the city of Thebes. The Barbarians are laughing at us from their high walls, knowing that we cannot do anything. We came unprepared, with way to little siege equipment. By now we are already happy if we won't loose all our elite troops in this attack.

 

[BlueTemplar]

"Timebombs", nice !
(Fingers crossed that in my game, Flexible Difficulty *for AI too*, will result in a game where the AI is able to fight back...)
Yeah, looks like that those Neanderthals don't even *try* to invade an easy target like you are ?

Ultrafast gamespeed is for testing only.
By broken I mean its unbalanced, and it may be bad for AI

Maybe it should be renamed to something like "Ultrafast (For Testing Only)" then ?

 

[caveman78]

"Timebombs", nice !
(Fingers crossed that in my game, Flexible Difficulty *for AI too*, will result in a game where the AI is able to fight back...)
Yeah, looks like that those Neanderthals don't even *try* to invade an easy target like you are ?


Maybe it should be renamed to something like "Ultrafast (For Testing Only)" then ?

That would be great, to have different difficulty level for AI!!
The thing is, what I want is a dynamic time line. E.g. you play the Neanderthals some where in Europe. At the beginning Egypt is very strong, then later the Greeks, then the Romans. Etc, so then it could follow a little bit the actual history?
But I think this will not happen soon, because I believe this would be lot of coding work. But I think to just be able to decide into which civilization a barbarian city turns + at what turn, this could be a blessing for scenario builders and would allow for unexpected things to happen.

I also agree it could be renamed to something like "ultrafast test speed"

 

[caveman78]

That would be great, to have different difficulty level for AI!!
The thing is, what I want is a dynamic time line. E.g. you play the Neanderthals some where in Europe. At the beginning Egypt is very strong, then later the Greeks, then the Romans. Etc, so then it could follow a little bit the actual history?
But I think this will not happen soon, because I believe this would be lot of coding work. But I think to just be able to decide into which civilization a barbarian city turns + at what turn, this could be a blessing for scenario builders and would allow for unexpected things to happen.

I also agree it could be renamed to something like "ultrafast test speed"

Yeah, I also think the AI is too passive. On the other hand, if they attack me and loose I win culture and at some point that gets so strong that I just could take over their cities with culture. Which is a good dynamic because "who wants to follow a leader that looses battles".

So I don't see the problem that the AI maybe doesn't attack enough, rather:
If it does attack it doesn't surround the enemy with (leveld up) trained dogs. and proper siege equipment. But I think this again is hard to code. So the AI in the meanwhile could rely on shear numbers. this is why I made them even stronger.

 

[caveman78]

1. Today we have 3 entrees (because I messed up my upload schedule at some pont), however, afterwards it will be again every other day...
   
   
2. IN THIS VIDEO: Awesome, we got Ballista Elephants, this together with achieving Medieval time period allows us to build insanely strong units. Also we do everything to be better prepared next time we try our luck invading Thebes. In the meanwhile we utilize our spies to steal tech from India. All in all, things are looking good.