[MOD] FexFX--Bigger-&-Longer(v1.52.0) -=New and Improved=-

[ritterpa]

Great, those are the answers that I want to hear.

In my dream mod, build/train times would be even more reduced, and research costs would be adjusted to account for the faster build times (which isn't linear given the modifiers, so it would be a daunting task), so that cities would spend most of their time creating units or wealth/culture. That seems more realistic to me, instead of Rome being tied up for 500 years building a barracks...

Not sure if we'll ever have that, or if anyone else is even interested. But, that aside, this mod sure sounds closer to that than vanilla. I'll give it a go!

 

[FexFX]

Great, those are the answers that I want to hear.

In my dream mod, build/train times would be even more reduced, and research costs would be adjusted to account for the faster build times (which isn't linear given the modifiers, so it would be a daunting task), so that cities would spend most of their time creating units or wealth/culture. That seems more realistic to me, instead of Rome being tied up for 500 years building a barracks...

Not sure if we'll ever have that, or if anyone else is even interested. But, that aside, this mod sure sounds closer to that than vanilla. I'll give it a go!

I actually toyed with making the build times significantly faster, however the result was that way too often you were left with nothing for your city to do but produce unit after unit after unit...and because of upkeep costs this can bankrupt you pretty fast...the only way to avoid this is to leave building times fairly consistient with the timeline, or change the technology tree to allow for "Wealth" or "Culture", or "Science" much sooner...the result of making any of those sooner however is to throw off the balance of everything else before those would normally have been available... I put thought into this... Too many units is a huge problem. Too fast buildings leave you with nothing but units to build until you discover techs that allow for the production of non-unit non-building items...

 

[postscript]

Just finished a 27hour Mamooth Tera , Fx Grand (or 1000 turns).
Won by space victory by 1967 or so, with 2 of the 14 AI oponnents eliminated. It was a close game, excelent experience, thank you

Not much to report really, but here goes

1) Memalloc crashes after too many reloads.
Playing on high res 1280x1024 (dont know if that matters), could not reload a saved game, it crashes on the load with a memory allocation error: bad algorithm. Its a controled crash, the message is on a firaxis window , with a nice ok button, which closes the game. Its no biggy really as restarting the game and loading the saved from scrath works fine. It happens after a few reloads in the early stages of the game and it gets worse towards the end as i couldnt reload without restarting the game after turn 650 or so. Its ok i just had to be very carefull of my moves Not sure whats at fault here, the config im running is pretty strong, 3Ghz, 2gig ram, plenty of HD free space (ard 20gigs, although i should do my first defrag soon), ATI radeon x800 w/256MB ram. It didnt happen on unmodded, still maybe its not something you could have done differently. I'd be interested if anyone else has reported malloc crashes.

2) New world barbs
Oh well i kinda noticed that in the un-modded game as well, it seems they are quite powerfull to overcome. I managed to get through and establish a presence after moving 3-4 galleon full of grenadiers...and i was lucky since they kept coming, in one turn after capturing a city i must have killed about 20 barb horse archers.
Most of the barb cities grew to pop size 10, some as big as 14. Most other AI civs only managed to establish in the mainland of the new world after the next upgrade of units (cant remember, prolly, sam infantry or something).
I dunno really, maybe i was kinda accustomed to Imperialism II, where new world nations are somewhat weaker. I guess its ok. It should be crucial to winning the game to establish a footing in the new world but maybe not enough (i.e it should be more important, weaker barbs, more spread/diff of resources)
Maybe if you made barbs a tad weaker it would make it too easy. Not sure, i have to play a few more games. I'd rather keep as is.
As far as resources go, they were actually nicely spread differentiated, i.e the new world had quite a few resources that were rare or non-existent in the old world such as gems and spices.

3) I also combined it with the exotic foreign advisor mod, the special domestic advisor and the better civopedia. Nothing special was nedded for the advisors, i.e they loaded with your mod as well, the civopedia i had to copy into your mod.

Overall, thank you vm a great job indeed!

 

[Defectiv]

Yeah, i have this combined with a ton of different interface/gfx mods and none interfere with this. This is the only gameplay altering mod i'm running atm though, havent tried merging others just yet.

 

[FexFX]

Just finished a 27hour Mamooth Tera , Fx Grand (or 1000 turns).
Won by space victory by 1967 or so, with 2 of the 14 AI oponnents eliminated. It was a close game, excelent experience, thank you

Not much to report really, but here goes

1) Memalloc crashes after too many reloads.
Playing on high res 1280x1024 (dont know if that matters), could not reload a saved game, it crashes on the load with a memory allocation error: bad algorithm. Its a controled crash, the message is on a firaxis window , with a nice ok button, which closes the game. Its no biggy really as restarting the game and loading the saved from scrath works fine. It happens after a few reloads in the early stages of the game and it gets worse towards the end as i couldnt reload without restarting the game after turn 650 or so. Its ok i just had to be very carefull of my moves Not sure whats at fault here, the config im running is pretty strong, 3Ghz, 2gig ram, plenty of HD free space (ard 20gigs, although i should do my first defrag soon), ATI radeon x800 w/256MB ram. It didnt happen on unmodded, still maybe its not something you could have done differently. I'd be interested if anyone else has reported malloc crashes.

2) New world barbs
Oh well i kinda noticed that in the un-modded game as well, it seems they are quite powerfull to overcome. I managed to get through and establish a presence after moving 3-4 galleon full of grenadiers...and i was lucky since they kept coming, in one turn after capturing a city i must have killed about 20 barb horse archers.
Most of the barb cities grew to pop size 10, some as big as 14. Most other AI civs only managed to establish in the mainland of the new world after the next upgrade of units (cant remember, prolly, sam infantry or something).
I dunno really, maybe i was kinda accustomed to Imperialism II, where new world nations are somewhat weaker. I guess its ok. It should be crucial to winning the game to establish a footing in the new world but maybe not enough (i.e it should be more important, weaker barbs, more spread/diff of resources)
Maybe if you made barbs a tad weaker it would make it too easy. Not sure, i have to play a few more games. I'd rather keep as is.
As far as resources go, they were actually nicely spread differentiated, i.e the new world had quite a few resources that were rare or non-existent in the old world such as gems and spices.

3) I also combined it with the exotic foreign advisor mod, the special domestic advisor and the better civopedia. Nothing special was nedded for the advisors, i.e they loaded with your mod as well, the civopedia i had to copy into your mod.

Overall, thank you vm a great job indeed!

Thanks for the report!
I cant wait for the release of the SDK!
I have another mod in the wings waiting for it.
I could probably move ahead without the SDK but I'd rather wait (also this way I get to spend time on other things...heheh...)
The next mod will nearly double the tech tree and add a bunch of new units and buildings!

I am happy to hear that my mod is cross compatible...those mods obviously dont touch any of the files I used!

 

[FexFX]

Yeah, i have this combined with a ton of different interface/gfx mods and none interfere with this. This is the only gameplay altering mod i'm running atm though, havent tried merging others just yet.

I am glad I was able to be a part of your Civ IV experience!

 

[FexFX]

Over 600 downloads!
Yay!

 

[Stanque LeFeete]

Must comment on your latest mod. I B in luv with it. I try others but always default back to yours. Make the next one rather bigger-loonger-better, you know, stuff like that.

 

[Caradoc]

Thank you so much! This MOD gives a whole new flavor to Archipelagos.

 

[oldbone]

First of all - GREAT MOD!

I've started a bunch of games, and played one thru to 1600 or so. I'm on another game as well. I will post all my info to help you test/improve this mod once I'm done with this current game.

It seems the techs start coming a bit too fast starting around the middle ages.

I think a bit slower tech advancement may be in order (I still have to play fully to 2000 AD to be sure)... However, if tech is too slow, then the game is boring in the beginning...

There must be a way to balance it...

Anyway, I'll post my hard numbers soon!

 

[FexFX]

First of all - GREAT MOD!

I've started a bunch of games, and played one thru to 1600 or so. I'm on another game as well. I will post all my info to help you test/improve this mod once I'm done with this current game.

It seems the techs start coming a bit too fast starting around the middle ages.

I think a bit slower tech advancement may be in order (I still have to play fully to 2000 AD to be sure)... However, if tech is too slow, then the game is boring in the beginning...

There must be a way to balance it...

Anyway, I'll post my hard numbers soon!

Dont forget to tell me what difficulty, speed and map size you are playing on... Those make a huge difference...

 

[oldbone]

ok, my first game:

Large Map, Archiapalego, Noble, 12 total players (I played Catherine), Marathon speed (1200)

Notable dates (things *I* accomplished):
Notre Dame: 720 AD
Founded Islam: 920 AD
Gunpowder: 1200 AD
Steel: 1444 AD
Steam: 1564 AD

I was cranking out the reasearch, but not the hammers... Spain had just declared war and my navy was not up to snuff.

My current game should be a better test because I will play it longer... I'll post numbers soon...

 

[buey]

FexFX, I think you can solve your late-game issues by modifying the tech costs. Increasing the cost of techs by era offsets the science gains a civ gets from the relatively better build and growth rates.

Of course, this introduces the issue of scalability, and I have no solution for that. It's a shame there's no way to adjust the science rate by a hard percentage per era. I thought civ4erainfos would handle that, but it only applies those values to the era in which the game/scenario starts.

I use Vilu's tech cost editor for my adjustments (remember to revert back to the original civ4techinfos file every time you use it). Check the thread for my old mod if you want to see the values I used, but don't trust them. They seemed to work for me, but I had different civ4gamespeed values.

When the SDK comes out you should be able to increase tech costs by era, but in the mean time you could always split the mod even further, providing a different mod file for each game speed and including the appropriate tech cost values for each.

Normally I'd just do all that myself and publish my own mod, but I'm not interested in maintaining a speed mod. I just got into this to mod the game into the kind of (longer) game I like to play. So instead I'm offering you this advice since yours is the best speed mod I've seen so far and should therefore have the best chance of maturing into something even Firaxis would patch into the game.

 

[Innocence]

Research speed is definately picking up quickly now, and if this continues to accelerate I recon the endgame will indeed suffer from the same syndrome as you mentioned.

Update: A great war broke out around 1910 and another around 1930. Both wars were/are fought with Machine Guns, Infantry, early Tanks, Cannons, Destroyers and Battleships. No planes or Artillery yet, so it seems my world is now BEHIND schedule compared to real world dates, quite contrary to my prediction I recon the No Tech Trading option is largely to blame for this.

We're now in the 1950's, and I'll discover Flight in 3 years. Though Battleships and Destroyers rule the seas, both I and the AI still have Frigates and Galleons in service - some AI's even still use an occational Galley . If I ever get to make The Bomb, this will be the first game where I get a chance to acutally use it(!)

I really like the diversity of this game. Some nations are definately on par with me, while other areas are still stuck in the Middle Ages - much like our world really.

This is by far the most enjoyable game of Civ4 I have played yet - maybe even the most enjoyable Civ game I've played ever (and I've played them all - Civ1, CivNet, Civ2, Civ3, Civ3PTW+C)

I wish that a turn could be shorter than a year, like a season (4 turns to a year) or even months (12 to a year). This would make the end game even more epic, and WWII wouldn't be over in 6 turns Wonder if this might be moddable when the SDK comes out?

 

[FexFX]

Update: A great war broke out around 1910 and another around 1930. Both wars were/are fought with Machine Guns, Infantry, early Tanks, Cannons, Destroyers and Battleships. No planes or Artillery yet, so it seems my world is now BEHIND schedule compared to real world dates, quite contrary to my prediction I recon the No Tech Trading option is largely to blame for this.

We're now in the 1950's, and I'll discover Flight in 3 years. Though Battleships and Destroyers rule the seas, both I and the AI still have Frigates and Galleons in service - some AI's even still use an occational Galley . If I ever get to make The Bomb, this will be the first game where I get a chance to acutally use it(!)

I really like the diversity of this game. Some nations are definately on par with me, while other areas are still stuck in the Middle Ages - much like our world really.

This is by far the most enjoyable game of Civ4 I have played yet - maybe even the most enjoyable Civ game I've played ever (and I've played them all - Civ1, CivNet, Civ2, Civ3, Civ3PTW+C)

I wish that a turn could be shorter than a year, like a season (4 turns to a year) or even months (12 to a year). This would make the end game even more epic, and WWII wouldn't be over in 6 turns Wonder if this might be moddable when the SDK comes out?

Wow! Now that is an accolade!
I too hope that the SDK will allow me to change the callender by era! In truth I'd like to make the modern era last about 400 turns rather than 200 turns...but that's just not an option really!

 

[Innocence]

I'd like to make the modern era last about 400 turns rather than 200 turns...but that's just not an option really!

Hehe, no need to cry - you've done everything possible so far to improve the epic feel. Time will tell what possibilities the SDK will bring

Cheers!

 

[FexFX]

Hehe, no need to cry - you've done everything possible so far to improve the epic feel. Time will tell what possibilities the SDK will bring

Cheers!

Not tears of sadness, merely frustration!

 

[FexFX]

Woot! 800 Downloads!

 

[Brancaleone]

Im playing this mod right now. Im playing catherine, two continents, Huge, 1200 turns, Noble, Conquest only, no tech trading. Its 1300 AD or so now, no one has gunpownder yet, macemen and knights just appeared in the battlefield, there are many crossbows, pikes and elephants left. Im the 2° in score, but 5° or so in research. Alexander and Asoka attacked me in 1100, i survived and after 200 years i took 8 greek cities, 6 to go. Im confucian, and theres 3 judaism(sp!) and 3 budhist(sp) nations on my continent. Once i take all from the greeks, ill have three wars to fight. Im spamming soldiers, but still am only the 5° in number of troops! Egypth and german are close, they have way too many troops... Plus, theres the second continent, where everyone is hindu and lovers with eachother, and they just learnt how to send ships overseas... i expect an invasion soon... Im totally alone. Everyone hate me, i cant go over 70% research, the germans have 6 techs more than i do, no one need my resources, i failed to circunavegate the globe by few turns, i failed to get the extra techs from oracle and liberalism by few turns as well, darn! Im using the slaves civic, organized religion, mercantilism, and the two other starting civics. And my people hate me!

The hindu continent is round, and my continent is shaped like a bunch of bananas glued to eachother. A very ugly continent. My empire borders are shaped like a penis. Not something to be proud off.

Great mod BTW!

 

[Innocence]

Im confucian, and theres 3 judaism(sp!) and 3 budhist(sp) nations on my continent... theres the second continent, where everyone is hindu

Sounds like quite a challenge Seems to me you badly need some friends, so why don't you pick a side and convert to their religion - that will boost relations quite a bit, helping trade and perhaps even get a defensive pact.