[C3C] Mechanics Explorations

[Takhisis]

You have heard of deep-water ports, haven't you, Theov?

(pity that Civ3 doesn't allow terraforming water to simulate dredging)

 

[timerover51]

I really like the idea of speeding up modern ships and maybe slowing them down on the coast.

I do adjust the speed for the size of the map, as I play a lot on maps of 300 X 240 tiles and larger. Maps that big get a faster move rate. That goes from the curragh on up.

 

[Theov]

You have heard of deep-water ports, haven't you, Theov?

(pity that Civ3 doesn't allow terraforming water to simulate dredging)

Wasn't I Dutch?

 

[Theov]

One thing, which maybe is not a mechanic, but could be on the same wavelength, is vastly different kinds of culture groups / groups of civs with different branches of tech trees.

Imagine 3 groups.
Group 1 has cheap pop one settlers and expand easily, but they cant really build defensive units.

Group 2 can only build pop three settlers, but they easily build heavy defenses and culture.

Group 3 builds pop two settlers and strong attackers, but hardly any culture.

I am sure this has been tried before, but no mod immediaty comes to mind.

 

[Takhisis]

Wasn't I Dutch?

I mean the specific feature of using a special editor to place ocean or sea tiles directly next to land tiles so as to create favoured spots where you can launch deep-water ships.

 

[Civinator]

Takhisis, the option for deepwater harbors in the Quintillus editor is not working for random maps. It is only available for fixed maps.

 

[Takhisis]

I know.

 

[Plotinus]

One thing, which maybe is not a mechanic, but could be on the same wavelength, is vastly different kinds of culture groups / groups of civs with different branches of tech trees.

Imagine 3 groups.
Group 1 has cheap pop one settlers and expand easily, but they cant really build defensive units.

Group 2 can only build pop three settlers, but they easily build heavy defenses and culture.

Group 3 builds pop two settlers and strong attackers, but hardly any culture.

I am sure this has been tried before, but no mod immediaty comes to mind.

Well, that’s not a million miles away from The Desert and The Mountain!

 

[Theov]

Well, that’s not a million miles away from The Desert and The Mountain!

Awesome.

 

[timerover51]

Well, that’s not a million miles away from The Desert and The Mountain!

I cannot seem to get to the download of this.

 

[Civinator]

I cannot seem to get to the download of this.

timerover51, please try here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-desert-and-the-mountain.272/

 

[timerover51]

Thank you, Civinator. I am now downloading it, and will take a look at it. It does sound interesting.

 

[Theov]

Well, that’s not a million miles away from The Desert and The Mountain!

The art in this is really beautiful. Especially the advisors, units and some building art.
It's quite straight forward - which I like, too.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Haha I literally recommended that scenario in the very first reply to this thread.

 

[tjs282]

An idea I would like to implement (in my likely-never-to-be-completed-epic-game-mod-in-progress), as part of a general rearrangement of the various epic-game resources, is Culture-specific (Luxury) resources revealed by Era=None techs.

I have already made multiple changes to the various epic-game Cultural affiliations, including the Culture-group names themselves (e.g. "America" is now part of the "North European" group, Spain + Portugal have joined the "Classical/Mediterranean" group, and Egypt + India are now "Middle Eastern").

(Once I figure out how to do it as simply as possible) I would then like to to import some of the FiraxisConquest-specific resource-graphics (e.g. Stone, Olive Oil, Maize, Tropical Birds, Cocoa, Jade) into my mod*, to provide additional potential trade-options on Large/Huge maps with 16–24 Civs**. I was thinking, Northern Europeans (England, Netherlands, Russia, Vikings, Germany, America, Celts) could see Furs as "their" Lux, Mediterraneans would see Olive Oil, Middle Easterners would see Spices, Mesoamericans would see Cocoa, and Asians would see Jade.

The Culture-specific Luxes should only be tradeable among (or at least, sell-able by) the Civs who can see them, and the remaining generic Luxes (Wines, Incense, Silks, Dyes, Gems***) would remain generally tradeable among all Civs. A few current Bonus-resources — e.g. Sugar, Tobacco, Tropical Fruit and/or Tropical Birds — would therefore also need to be converted to generic Luxes, to keep at least 8 tradeable Luxes**** visible to any given Civ.

*I'd also like to import some of the FiraxisConquests buildings, Wonders and units to add a bit more flavour, via e.g. additional resource-dependencies, for Culture-specific buildings and/or units
**To reduce trade-route (re)calculations, I've removed the "Allows water-trade"-flag from Harbours (also made them cheaper, non-MIL, and available at Masonry}, and given it instead to the Palace (allowing Seafaring-Civs to conduct international trade somewhat earlier than other Civs), and a new "Shipyard" improvement (repurposed Coastal Fortress, requires "Shipbuilding" [ex. Mapmaking], a Harbour, and nearby freshwater to limit potential build-locations; it also "Builds veteran naval units"). In the late-game, an "International Terminal" SW will be the only building which "Allows air-trade" (cheap add-on to an Airport — which in turn now requires Adv.Flight and a Factory)
***Ivory/Elephants is already converted to a Strategic resource — and limited to Plains, Jungles and Floodplains to prevent them from spawning in Tundra-Forests, which always looked weird to me!
****I know that having >8 Luxes in the game means the Lux-trades list could potentially overspill on the standard-issue City-screen, but in my games to date, I have rarely if ever 'needed' more than 6-7 Luxes to maintain happiness anyway, so having 9–10 tradeable Luxes in total seems unlikely to be game-breaking — especially given the AI's tendency to make war and break deals at the drop of a hat...

 

[Theov]

An idea I would like to implement (in my likely-never-to-be-completed-epic-game-mod-in-progress), as part of a general rearrangement of the various epic-game resources, is Culture-specific (Luxury) resources revealed by Era=None techs.

have you ever published your likely-never-to-be-complete-epic-game-mod-in-progress? I don't think you have, but it is worth sharing.

I have already made multiple changes to the various epic-game Cultural affiliations, including the Culture-group names themselves (e.g. "America" is now part of the "North European" group, Spain + Portugal have joined the "Classical/Mediterranean" group, and Egypt + India are now "Middle Eastern").

I recognize some of your ideas. Maybe if you want to go that route, you can split them up in 'ancient' and 'modern' kind of culture groups. I understand you want to make America join France, England, Germany and the Vikings for obvious reasons, but then you can go the historical route of throwing Egypt, the Romans etc together.
I don't know where the Chinese end up then, because that culture started far before the Romans and is still going strong today.

(Once I figure out how to do it as simply as possible) I would then like to to import some of the FiraxisConquest-specific resource-graphics (e.g. Stone, Olive Oil, Maize, Tropical Birds, Cocoa, Jade) into my mod*, to provide additional potential trade-options on Large/Huge maps with 16–24 Civs**. I was thinking, Northern Europeans (England, Netherlands, Russia, Vikings, Germany, America, Celts) could see Furs as "their" Lux, Mediterraneans would see Olive Oil, Middle Easterners would see Spices, Mesoamericans would see Cocoa, and Asians would see Jade.

You can make luxuries appear with a certain tech. Can't you then give the Civs this tech (like many mods do - you give Euro civs the 'Euro' tech) and then link those resources with the tech? I don't know how that would happen for other Civs, but I think that works... It's too bad you can only make one the prerequisite - so the lux will be there from the start. Or you give them the Euro tech at the beginning, which is a prerequisite for the 'Stone' tech and then only the Euro civs can invent 'stone' later on in the tech tree.
I think it's possible.

**To reduce trade-route (re)calculations, I've removed the "Allows water-trade"-flag from Harbours (also made them cheaper, non-MIL, and available at Masonry}, and given it instead to the Palace (allowing Seafaring-Civs to conduct international trade somewhat earlier than other Civs), and a new "Shipyard" improvement (repurposed Coastal Fortress, requires "Shipbuilding" [ex. Mapmaking], a Harbour, and nearby freshwater to limit potential build-locations;

This sounds like a good idea.
And have you given the harbors age-specific art?

 

[Alekseyev_]

I recognize some of your ideas. Maybe if you want to go that route, you can split them up in 'ancient' and 'modern' kind of culture groups. I understand you want to make America join France, England, Germany and the Vikings for obvious reasons, but then you can go the historical route of throwing Egypt, the Romans etc together.
I don't know where the Chinese end up then, because that culture started far before the Romans and is still going strong today.

I believe that you could take inspiration from Rhye's of Civilization here: Have two culture groups for each civ, one ancient and one later (like Medieval). It is possible to have later techs unlocked by an era-none tech, you could have flavour wonders and luxuries there as well.

 

[ThesaurusRex]

I wonder.

Barbarian cities can be made with the save game editor, right?

As @Civinator found out, these don't produce culture, but could barbarian culture can be hex-edited into the game?

If that works, then perhaps in a scenario where city expansion is built on capturing "barbarian" cities and cultural conversion is enabled, it could simulate a "revolution" mechanic for an unstable empire.

Also, been experimenting with worker units without the complete worker repertoire (and thus don't have the Terraform flag). Quintillus' editor lets you enable the flag anyway, but Civinator has noted problems with the AI doing all actions anyway. My experience with it, however, has been that the AI doesn't use the workers at all. Maybe manually hex editing will have a better result.

Some experiments I've done instead were just making units with other flags do worker actions. So far, the AI only seems to do worker actions with units that have the Offense/Defense flags, with the Offense flag seemingly more functional (just preliminary results). However, the player's automated units will only do work if their cities are well defended, otherwise Automate will have the "combat workers" fortifying in them. I haven't yet seen what happens if you set attack/defense to 0 and force-check the Offense/Defense flags in the Quintillus editor, though.

 

[timerover51]

I wonder.

Barbarian cities can be made with the save game editor, right?

As @Civinator found out, these don't produce culture, but could barbarian culture can be hex-edited into the game?

If that works, then perhaps in a scenario where city expansion is built on capturing "barbarian" cities and cultural conversion is enabled, it could simulate a "revolution" mechanic for an unstable empire.

Also, been experimenting with worker units without the complete worker repertoire (and thus don't have the Terraform flag). Quintillus' editor lets you enable the flag anyway, but Civinator has noted problems with the AI doing all actions anyway. My experience with it, however, has been that the AI doesn't use the workers at all. Maybe manually hex editing will have a better result.

Some experiments I've done instead were just making units with other flags do worker actions. So far, the AI only seems to do worker actions with units that have the Offense/Defense flags, with the Offense flag seemingly more functional (just preliminary results). However, the player's automated units will only do work if their cities are well defended, otherwise Automate will have the "combat workers" fortifying in them. I haven't yet seen what happens if you set attack/defense to 0 and force-check the Offense/Defense flags in the Quintillus editor, though.

I am not sure what you mean by this. I continually see AI workers building roads, digging mines, and putting in irrigation. Every one in a while, they will build a fortress. If I am at war, and bombard improvements from the sea, destroying them, the AI workers are back out there, clearing the damage and putting the improvements back in. They will also clear jungle and forest, and periodically clear a marsh tile. As for defending cities, when I get close to an enemy city, the workers are scurry inside, and I suspect are many times converted into defending units.

 

[tjs282]

@timerover51 I think T.Rex was talking about "Terraform"-flagged units which have only a limited selection of the total Worker-jobs enabled (e.g. a hypothetical "Lumberjack" who can only clear Forests + Jungles, and plant Forests).

The AI will not build or use such a limited Worker-unit.