[MOD] Fair Start - Add-on to ViSa Modpack

[Fujisan]

Mod Fair Start

Add-on to ViSa Mod
v. 1.2
Release date: 25/12/2006

Compatible with ViSa Version 2.10

--------------ANNOUNCEMENT--------------------

This is the final version for now. I probably won't do any updates until the next version of ViSa will be.

-------------ANNOUNCEMENT END-----------------

Download link:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3770

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What is it?
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Fair Start Mod changes the beginning of the game, making all civilizations in any starting position as equal as possible.

Plus several new improvements, AID promotions and a lot of other funny staff.

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The Details
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Fair Start changes

-- No STARTING bonuses for AI at all difficulty levels (no free units, no free techs, zero initial AI city production). Remember that this concerns only STARTING bonuses. All others are without change (free support, construction/growth/production bonuses for AI etc.).

-- No free starting techs for both AI and human.

-- No techs from Goody Huts for both AI and human.

-- No Scouts from Goody Huts for both AI and human.

-- AI Bonuses against Animals and Barbarians are set the same as for Human.

-- Flood Plains give 2 food (instead of 3), but you are able to build special improvement on it - a Flood Plain Farm (+2 food and +1 food with Biology). This was made to slow down the expansion of Civs started near Flood Plains.

-- Oasis - 3 food and 2 gold is too good for the beginning! Now it gives only 1 food and 1 gold, but you are able to build special improvement on it - an Oasis Hut (+2 food), which gives additionally +1 gold with Road and +1 gold/+1 hammer with Railroad. Note that Scouts can build an Oasis Hut.

-- Added Jungle Camp and Lodge improvements to help the Civilizations started in difficult terrain (Jungle or Tundra).

-- Free Happiness and Health decreased. If you play Noble or higher, you can have only three citizens in your capital (and only two in other cities) at the beginning (AI has the same). +1 happy added in Meditation and Polytheism. The purpose was to decrease the impact of religion at the early stages of the game. Additionaly, religion spread factor decreased to 30%.

-- Added Hut improvement (+1 gold) just as a small financial help at the beginning. It gives another +1 gold with the Road, but -1 gold near the river. It somehow makes equal civs started at a riverside and far from a river.


3-plot radius city changes

-- Increased city maintenance for the number of cities by 100%! Be careful, don't build too much cities at the beginning! If you don't play with the extended city radius, it would be wise to delete file ViSa\Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4WorldInfo.xml. This makes city maintenance as usual.

-- Manifest Destiny civic - maintenance for the number of cities -75% (was -100%).

-- Health influence of Forest, Jungle and Flood Plain decreased.


Incorporated Mods

-- Unit stack aid promotions (from Promotions & Perks by Zuul) -- However only the weak promotions are left (Aid 1). The Crowded promotion is also removed. To get a stack aid promotion for a unit you have to have another unit (or units) on the same plot and its (their) combat value should be more than a half of the aided unit. For example, to get Ranged Aid promotion for a Swordsman (combat 6) you need two or more Archers (combat 3) on the same plot.

-- Bonus Seeker mod. Now your Scouts are much more precious! See this link for the details: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=197152


Terrain and Improvements

-- Added a Resource Farm improvement. Can be built on Barley, Wheat, Rice, Corn and Potato. Available with Metal Carving. Note that an usual Farm does not provide you with these resources. A Resource Farm carry irrigation like an usual Farm.

-- Added a Mine on a Luxury Resource improvement. Can be built on Gold, Silver and Gems. Available with Bronze Working. Note that although you cannot access Gold, Silver and Gems with usual mines, there is still probability of discovering these resources. For example, if Gold was discovered in one of your mines, you have to build a Mine on a Luxury Resource instead of Mine on this place.

-- Pasture moved in Writing, Camp moved in Animal Husbandry.

-- Added Horse Pasture (+1 hammer). Available with Animal Husbandry, +1 hammer and +1 gold with Horseback Riding.

-- Pasture food yield decreased by 1. Instead, +1 food with Construction.

-- Build Road time doubled. Build Railroad time increased three times. Build roads only where you really need them!

-- Building improvements on Desert or Tundra tiles takes 50% more time (was 25%), on Snow tiles - +100% (was 50%).

-- Workshop gives -1 food and +2 hammers (was -1/+1).

-- +1 gold added to Lumbermill to be better than Workshop.

-- Decreased food from Fishing boats by 1. Instead, added +1 food with Refrigeration.

-- Bonus revealing redistributed a little bit. Important ones are: Ivory appears with Horseback Riding, Barley - with Alphabet.


Buildings

-- Lighthouse can be built in any city, not only in coastal cities. I understand that this is not realistic, but it resolves the problem of water tiles in the city radius, when a city is not placed on the coast. Especially, it is significant when you play with the extended city radius. Trading Post, Fishery, Phoenician Beacon buildings costs and properties changed.

-- Added +1 hammer from Palace, +3 gold from Great Palace, +5 gold from Versailles.

-- Barracks moved in Metal Carving.

-- Decreased cost of Monument (Obelisk, Stele, Gromlech). Removed +1 happy from Stele (actualy it gives +2 happy, because of Charismatic bonus - too good), added +1 experience point for land units instead.

-- Decreased maintenance modifier for Ikhanda, Babylon Code, Magyar Jurta, Nubian Stable.


Units

-- Support for Great Peoples set to -3. It doesn't mean that you will get money from Great Peoples, but just having them decreases gold that you spend for your units support.

-- Explorers upgrade to Infantry.

-- flanking promotions increased to +15%, +25%, +30% of withdrawal chance. I like the idea of some units to be almost immortal (maximum chance of withdraw is set to 98%).

-- Warmth, Cold and Field promotions is made stronger. (Have you ever used them?)

-- Woodsman3 promotion requires Hunting.

-- Added combat bonuses vs. Animals in all Woodsman promotions.

-- Increased the number of free units (both military and domestic).

-- Max XP from animals 15. Max XP from barbarians 30. XP from withdraw 2.

-- Changed combat, moves, cost etc. of Ayastigi, Moran, Vulture, and Peltast. Some of them were too strong, some were too weak.


Other changes

-- New process - The Taxes. Available with The Wheel. Converts 25% of Hammers to Gold. (In case you have nothing to build.)

-- Traits changed: Industrious - +1 hammer on plots with 4 hammers and 25% bonus for Wonders. Financial - +1 gold on plots with 3 gold (was 2). Charismatic - removed +1 happy in all cities (too good for the beginning). Added +1 happy from Theatre.

-- Hunting tech cost decreased.

-- Construction need knowledge of Horseback Riding.

-- Change in Slavery civic: Plantation +1 gold, Pasture +1 food, Winery +1 gold, Fishing Boats +1 food, Quarry +1 hammer.

-- Changed Inflation Offset and Barb Percent to correspond to much slower game speed at the beginning.


ViSa Bugs fixed

-- Fixed Attack and Defence promotions (these promotions didn't worked on Forest, Jungle, Flood Plain, and Oasis).

-- Turned off Culture leak through trade routes because of a bug (when nationality growths over 100%).

-- Turned off several lines from cannotHandleAction method of CvGreatStatesmanGameUtils.py, because a very strange bug that I cannot explain (when I added several new improvements, "Select a leader to improve diplomatic relations with" popup appears every event - even at a unit move).


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Version Info
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Spoiler :

Version 1.2 (saved games are NOT compatible with v 1.1)

-- Bonus Seeker mod incorporated. Now your Scouts are much more precious! See this link for the details: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=197152

-- Traits changed: Industrious - +1 hammer on plots with 4 hammers and 25% bonus for Wonders.

-- Change in Slavery civic: Plantation +1 gold, Pasture +1 food, Winery +1 gold, Fishing Boats +1 food, Quarry +1 hammer.

-- Religion spread factor decreased to 30%.

-- Bonus revealing redistributed a little bit. Important ones are: Ivory appears with Horseback Riding, Barley - with Alphabet.

-- Hut improvement gives another +1 gold with the Road, but -1 gold near the river. It somehow makes equal civs started at a riverside and far from a river.

-- Free happiness for Noble and higher increased to 2 (was 1).

-- Woodsman3 promotion requires Hunting.

-- Workboat requires Boating. Use it as an early recon unit (it has an ability to see all resources as Scouts).

-- Changed combat, moves, cost etc. of Ayastigi, Moran, Vulture, and Peltast. Some of them were too strong, some were too weak.

-- Decreased maintenance modifier for Ikhanda, Babylon Code, Magyar Jurta, Nubian Stable.

-- Changed Inflation Offset and Barb Percent to correspond to much slower game speed at the beginning.

-- Turned off Culture leak through trade routes because of a bug (when nationality overflows 100%).



Version 1.1 (saved games are compatible with v 1.0)

-- Pasture and Horse Pasture bug fixed.

-- Moran combat strength decresed to 2. Added +25% city defence.

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Installation
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You have to install ViSa Version 2.10 with all patches first. Then copy this archive to ViSa folder overwriting existing files.

Link for ViSa Mod:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=188624

 

[V. Soma]

Well, looks good gonna give it a test

 

[Kaiser Franz]

Hmmm -- you don't think this will slow the game to a crawl ?

I like a much faster paced game - rapid production - rapid expansion - money in the bank and lets get on with the war !!

 

[TAfirehawk]

Lotsa changes in here...we might have to consider some for full ViSa eventually

 

[Fujisan]

Hmmm -- you don't think this will slow the game to a crawl ?

I like a much faster paced game - rapid production - rapid expansion - money in the bank and lets get on with the war !!

You are right! This make the game slower at the beginning. But I like it. Frankly, I usually play at marathon speed

 

[V. Soma]

to build a farm is same on grass and flood, though flood gives more gold...
shouldn't be more time for flood to build it?

 

[Fujisan]

to build a farm is same on grass and flood, though flood gives more gold...
shouldn't be more time for flood to build it?

You can build both a farm and a flood plain farm on a flood plain tile. But a farm gives +1 food, and a flood plain farm gives +2 food. Therefore it is meaningless to build a farm on a flood plain. Unfortunately, it is impossible (by XML) to turn off "to build a farm" option for a flood plain. Just ignore it. AI never builds farms on flood plain tiles.

Comparing to a farm on a grass, it takes 50% more time to build a flood plain farm, because of desert.

 

[miserable09]

Hi,
Just installed. Seems pretty cool, just wondering, at marathon, with this mod, will I get through most of the techs/units available in the time allowed?

Right now I have 3 cities, all crawled to a halt with unhappiness, and the next advancement (currency) is like 80 turns away. Seems like things move VERY slowly...

 

[Fujisan]

Hi,
Just installed. Seems pretty cool, just wondering, at marathon, with this mod, will I get through most of the techs/units available in the time allowed?

Sure! No doubt!

Right now I have 3 cities, all crawled to a halt with unhappiness, and the next advancement (currency) is like 80 turns away. Seems like things move VERY slowly...

Right now I am playing at large map, marathon speed, immortal handicap, and researching currency as you. Have 6 cities, 70% on research and currency in 12 turns.

But I have a Holy city that gives 15 gpt, about 5 villages that are about to be towns, trade routes with almost all civilizations on my continent, one great priest in my capital (+5 gpt), Collossus in one of my coastal city, and most cities gold emhasized.

Only one recommendation - make more money. If you attach your saved game, I can say more definetely what the problem is.

 

[miserable09]

Sure! No doubt!

Only one recommendation - make more money. If you attach your saved game, I can say more definetely what the problem is.

Thanks for the info.

I didn't attach the game (I'm stuck at work), but the main issue seems that all my cities are complaining "it's too crowded" so the people have stopped working.

However, there's not really any improvements/advancements in site (that I can think of) that will improve the overcrowding...

If it helps, I'm playing on a random continent map, on Prince -level, as Victoria (England). I believe I have herbalism and maybe one other civic (can't remember right now)... I've explored the who continent and I seem to be without any neighbors.

Any tips are appreciated!

-j

 

[keldath]

wow!
nice work -
i never thought ill get to have a mod over visa..

 

[TAfirehawk]

Thanks for the info.

I didn't attach the game (I'm stuck at work), but the main issue seems that all my cities are complaining "it's too crowded" so the people have stopped working.

However, there's not really any improvements/advancements in site (that I can think of) that will improve the overcrowding...

If it helps, I'm playing on a random continent map, on Prince -level, as Victoria (England). I believe I have herbalism and maybe one other civic (can't remember right now)... I've explored the who continent and I seem to be without any neighbors.

Any tips are appreciated!

-j

As with any game of Civ or mod of Civ...control your city growth in the City Zoom....nothing unique to this Add-on or even ViSa itself....

Although any new mod takes some time to 'adjust' to the new game style

 

[miserable09]

As with any game of Civ or mod of Civ...control your city growth in the City Zoom....nothing unique to this Add-on or even ViSa itself....

Although any new mod takes some time to 'adjust' to the new game style

Once I got to monarchy, I was able to station troops in my cities and they've now grown fat and happy...

However, just a general civ question (since you don't think it unique of this mod), what do you do in that long phase between no goverment and monarchy when your people are all angry and the nearest innovation is like 300 turns away?

 

[TAfirehawk]

Once I got to monarchy, I was able to station troops in my cities and they've now grown fat and happy...

However, just a general civ question (since you don't think it unique of this mod), what do you do in that long phase between no goverment and monarchy when your people are all angry and the nearest innovation is like 300 turns away?

First, I never play longer speed than Normal and rarely games that long. Most games don't last 300 turns total

Second, just turn off growth, simple as that....longer game speeds that might be a very long time....don't know as I don't play marathon or endurance speeds EVER

 

[Fujisan]

New version is up!

Bonus Seeker mod incorporated and several other changes that make the game more balanced.

Have fun!

 

[Fujisan]

Second, just turn off growth, simple as that....longer game speeds that might be a very long time....don't know as I don't play marathon or endurance speeds EVER

At long game speeds smallest bonuses in food, gold or hammers save you several turns or even several tens of turns! That's why I'm so boring about the game balance

 

[alireza1354]

I asked this so many times but never got an answer, so in the hope that I will get one, I will ask it here, and sorry that its off-topic (maybe hanging on a thread within the topic, depends on how you see it):

First of all... I LOVE ur mod and play it most of the time! Keep up the very good work!

As for my question:

I would like to request a huge WORLD MAP for Visa, in which we can play with 24 civs.

Is that possible????


Thank u in advance!!

 

[TAfirehawk]

I asked this so many times but never got an answer, so in the hope that I will get one, I will ask it here, and sorry that its off-topic (maybe hanging on a thread within the topic, depends on how you see it):

First of all... I LOVE ur mod and play it most of the time! Keep up the very good work!

As for my question:

I would like to request a huge WORLD MAP for Visa, in which we can play with 24 civs.

Is that possible????


Thank u in advance!!

This thread isn't for ViSa, but I will answer here like I have all the other requests....

A map is available and linked on the first page, but more Civs has not been added but is part of the G Era merge actually. Although we don't plan to enable more than the default 18 because of the MAF....and a huge map should not be used with ViSa for the same reason.