[MOD] The Authentic Colonization (TAC)

[endrsgm]

ive been playing quite a bit over the last few days trying to figure some things out.

i had one military unit "fortified" and another working. the natives were mercs that i bought. i appear to have 3 indian tribes on my map but no europeans. i chose 3 random AI to try to learn the basics before i get into a "real game" and all 3 AI appear to be native tribes that divide the continental landmass between them. i might have chosen poorly because choosing so few means that each tribe has MANY cities. montezuma has about 60 cities and an army that appears to be 600+ strong, maybe substantially larger, and controls roughly half of the continent. i started on an island and have maybe 10 cities on it. i tried expanding to the mainland, built 4 cities, fortified 10 veteran redcoats inside of stockades in each city, was swarmed by 100s of natives, won most of the battles, and still got wiped out. if i had chosen more random AI would it have made the given tribes weaker since they had to share the same amount of territory?

i have noticed that eventually the natives will get angry and that montezuma is always waiting to attack. i guess his "personality" is aggressive. sitting bull seems much calmer.

on a question about economy. is it better to have cities producing a few of whatever and shipping it to a common port to send to europe or is it better to have massive production centers where other cities send raw goods to production cities to refine it and then send it to a common port to ship to europe?
meaning ... two town near each other have ore. is it better to have smaller blacksmith shops in each or a massive one in one city doing most of the tool/gun making? ditto cotton/weavers/cloth, etc.
how many squares of woods are needed per town? i left one with a lumberjack on it and as the town grew i am finding that many of my cities are running low on wood constantly. should i have left two?

is there any advantage to building up massive empires when it comes to fighting the british or is it completely counterproductive because they just wind up that much smarter?

i have to say that the TAC is really cool. i am finding that i enjoy playing this quite a bit. civ 4 was fun but i actually find this to be much more complex. the vanilla game was ok, but TAC really made this game exciting, challenging, and quite multi-faceted.

 

[endrsgm]

another question:
what is the most effective use of indentured servants/criminals? often they scoot off before picking up a skill. school time would make them more useful but is really, really lengthy process. send them off to learn with native tribes (do they run off?)? use them as missionary units (are they as effective as a regular colonist)? or are they more problem than they are worth?

 

[Stoepsel]

i appear to have 3 indian tribes on my map but no europeans. i chose 3 random AI to try to learn the basics before i get into a "real game" and all 3 AI appear to be native tribes that divide the continental landmass between them. i might have chosen poorly because choosing so few means that each tribe has MANY cities.

if i had chosen more random AI would it have made the given tribes weaker since they had to share the same amount of territory?

You answered your question by yourself. Otherwise you should choose a smaller map.

montezuma has about 60 cities and an army that appears to be 600+ strong,

i have noticed that eventually the natives will get angry and that montezuma is always waiting to attack. i guess his "personality" is aggressive. sitting bull seems much calmer.

This is really a lot. And yes, the AIs got a different warlike character.

is it better to have cities producing a few of whatever and shipping it to a common port to send to europe or is it better to have massive production centers where other cities send raw goods to production cities to refine it and then send it to a common port to ship to europe?

I think a lot of people use a common port, because of the trade routes management or the use of a custom house.

is it better to have smaller blacksmith shops in each or a massive one in one city doing most of the tool/gun making? ditto cotton/weavers/cloth, etc.

Definitly central production. This highest upgrades of the production buildings will give the higest production boni.

how many squares of woods are needed per town? i left one with a lumberjack on it and as the town grew i am finding that many of my cities are running low on wood constantly. should i have left two?

There is no general answer for this question. It depends on the location. An expert lumberjack, a lodge, a special ressource and a river will increase the yields.

is there any advantage to building up massive empires when it comes to fighting the british or is it completely counterproductive because they just wind up that much smarter?

A high number of coastal cities might be more difficult to defend.

i have to say that the TAC is really cool. i am finding that i enjoy playing this quite a bit. civ 4 was fun but i actually find this to be much more complex. the vanilla game was ok, but TAC really made this game exciting, challenging, and quite multi-faceted.

Thank you, the TAC-Team is glad to read this.

 

[Stoepsel]

what is the most effective use of indentured servants/criminals? often they scoot off before picking up a skill. school time would make them more useful but is really, really lengthy process.

Yes, it takes more time to educate indentured servants and criminals. Higher education buildungs and some Founding Fathers make the education more effective.

send them off to learn with native tribes (do they run off?)?

That's a good decision, especially if there is the naitive trait "teacher".

use them as missionary units (are they as effective as a regular colonist)?

They are not as effective as experts (regular colonists I don't know), but their 'output' can be influenced massively by the traits of the European tribe, the traits of the native tribe and at least one special Founding Father.

Also indentured servants and criminals won't disappear if they take a military profession.

 

[ck07]

Another possibility:

If the quest was triggered and you can't fulfill it, simply the AI has been faster than you. In this case you should receive a message and the quest should be deleted from the quest-log.

Nope, checked that. At this point I am unable to replicate the problem.

Unrelated: a stack of 600 units!!!??? NEVER saw anything like that in Vanilla. Guess we'll see ...

 

[endrsgm]

its not a single stack. i had to go back to a previous save and try again. i started on an island with 4 native cities (all montezuma). eventually he attacked and i wiped him out. when i made a move to the continent i made peace. later i had 4 cities built, 1 new and ungarrisoned, 2 with stockades, and 1 with a fort. he attacked again. they wiped out my ungarrisoned and unforted city fast. the ones with the stockades were surrounded. maybe 200 native warriors in all around both, plus i had misc. units scattered around (treasures and scouts) that got wiped out by huge bands of troops each. i think he has about 600 troops in total, not one stack of doom. they just kept coming in waves. id wipe out huge numbers of natives (garrison of 8-10 soldiers in each, veterans all) but eventually they would wear me down and win. they took all 4 cities. now that ive restarted im moving much more slowly. two cities on the continental land mass, higher levels of fortifications, and more troops garrisoned in each city. hes pissed but hasnt declared war ... yet. is it possible huge fortifications deter him?

 

[ck07]

Are all of the following correct?

1. The TAC manual speaks of unique national traits, but this does not seem to be the case in 2.03. There is no European nation whose two leaders share even one of their traits, and no leader of nay nation has even one trait not also used by a leader of another nation.

2. It appears that there are only 10 distinct traits used by European leaders.

3. There are two traits (Cooperative and Citybuilder) that do not seem to be used either by Europeans or by natives.

4. Has anyone published more traits/more leaders for use with TAC 2.03?

Thanks in advance.

 

[raystuttgart]

Has anyone published more traits/more leaders for use with TAC 2.03?

Religion and Revolution is based on TAC 2.03.

It adds new Nations (with new Leaders) and has totally restructured the Traits (including new ones) to make Leaders and Nations unique again.

However, Religion and Revolution is quite different to TAC.
(The mod might be too big and too complex for some beginners of Civ4Col.)

Otherwise, there is a ModMod for TAC here, which adds Germany as new Nation.
But it does not change the traits of the existing leaders.

 

[ck07]

Religion and Revolution is based on TAC 2.03.

It adds new Nations (with new Leaders) and has totally restructured the Traits (including new ones) to make Leaders and Nations unique again.

However, Religion and Revolution is quite different to TAC.
(The mod might be too big and too complex for some beginners of Civ4Col.)

Otherwise, there is a ModMod for TAC here, which adds Germany as new Nation.
But it does not change the traits of the existing leaders.

Lots of experience with vanilla, have TAC and RaR but intend to try TAC first.

Just looked at RaR traits. Much improved IMO, would like to use some.

I assume that I can't simply load the RAR leaders file into TAC due to nonexistent countries. I guess I would mess up the FFs too.

What if I loaded the traits description file and then edited the leaders file to change some of the traits?

Or would that too cause problems because of traits that refer to non-existent concepts like valuable wood?

Also, not sure I have ever edited an XML file. Can I do that in Notepad or Wordpad?

 

[Commander Bello]

Also, not sure I have ever edited an XML file. Can I do that in Notepad or Wordpad?

You could do it with Notepad, but Notepad++ would be much better.

 

[raystuttgart]

Just looked at RaR traits. Much improved IMO, would like to use some.

That is why I changed it.

I assume that I can't simply load the RAR leaders file into TAC due to nonexistent countries.
...
What if I loaded the traits description file and then edited the leaders file to change some of the traits?

No you can not do that, Sorry.
The XML (leaderheads and traits) contains new XML values refering to XML-Schema and to logic in the DLL that does not exist in TAC.

You really need to understand CivCol Modding if you want to backport changes of Religion and Revolution to TAC.

 

[ck07]

....

You really need to understand CivCol Modding if you want to backport changes of Religion and Revolution to TAC.

Can you be more specific? Reading everything in the relevant forums would take weeks and would be 99% irrelevant. Here's what I understand so far:

-Cannot import the traits file because it refers to variables (defined in the schema file) that don't exist in TAC.
-How hard would it be to simply change a leader trait from one existing TAC trait to another? E.g., van der Donck has different traits in RaR, but the traits are ones that also exist in TAC. (Actually, RaR's VDD is closer to vanilla's than to TAC's.)

Can I simply replace, say, "Libertarian" with "Mercantile?"

 

[raystuttgart]

How hard would it be to simply change a leader trait from one existing TAC trait to another?

That would be a piece of cake.

Can I simply replace, say, "Libertarian" with "Mercantile?"

Yes, of course.

You simply cannot copy complete XML files from RaR to TAC.
And you also cannot copy new (functional) XML tags from RaR into XML from TAC.

I wish you a lot of fun with modding.

 

[endrsgm]

is there a way to multi stop a wagon train.
from A pick up good X go to B drop X pick up Y go to C drop Y pick up z?
or is it A to B only?

 

[Commander Bello]

is there a way to multi stop a wagon train.
from A pick up good X go to B drop X pick up Y go to C drop Y pick up z?
or is it A to B only?

No, this can quite easily be realized with the transport route manager.
Just define which yield (goods) from where to be transported to where.

 

[ck07]

That would be a piece of cake.



Yes, of course.

You simply cannot copy complete XML files from RaR to TAC.
And you also cannot copy new (functional) XML tags from RaR into XML from TAC.

I wish you a lot of fun with modding.

Thanks. I'll start simple and see what happens.

 

[ck07]

Another possibility:

If the quest was triggered and you can't fulfill it, simply the AI has been faster than you. In this case you should receive a message and the quest should be deleted from the quest-log.

It has happened again. TAC 2.03, Americas huge map 1.05 (the one it comes with). Quest available 1505. Reached a Pacific transit square 1533, went to Europe, arrived 1537. No joy. No message re AI. Quest is still in log.

Possibilities I can think of:
-Bug?
-Not all Pacific transit squares count? (But how to tell?)
-There is another condition? (A port actually on the Pacific?)

 

[raystuttgart]

-Bug?

A general bug (in the event definition) is unlikely.
It would have been noticed before.

-Not all Pacific transit squares count? (But how to tell?)

It is possible that the creator of the map made a mistake and placed "Europe East Travel Plots" instead of "Europe West Travel Plots".
(This has happened with other maps before.)

Try:

A) Worldbuilder with that map: Place ships all over the Pacific.
B) Worlbuilder with Random Map: Place ships all over the Pacific.

-There is another condition?

No.

 

[ck07]

A general bug (in the event definition) is unlikely.
It would have been noticed before.



It is possible that the creator of the map made a mistake and placed "Europe East Travel Plots" instead of "Europe West Travel Plots".
(This has happened with other maps before.)

Try:

A) Worldbuilder with that map: Place ships all over the Pacific.

Results:
-Many 'Europe West Travel Plots' in the Southern Pacific do NOT satisfy the quest.
-Some such plots quite far South and very far toward--or on--the Western edge do satisfy, but some on the Western edge do not.
-At the latitude of the point of Brasil, every plot tested provied good enough, including those closest to land.
-I did not test latitudes still further North.

-This is NOT because some plots are mismarked as 'East,' 'South,' or 'North.' In each case I did send the ship to Europe and it was identified as 'West route', four turns.
-In World Builder, the non-working plots were removed when I selected 'Europe West' territory and right-clicked.

Remaining possibilities:
-Bug in map, if not in code. But unclear what the map bug would be.
-Latitude (or other) restrictions. Where are the satisfaction conditions for quests? The spreadsheet (in German) gives triggering conditions and rewards, but not satisfaction conditions.

 

[Commander Bello]

From memory: look in ".../coloniziation folder/mods/TAC/assets/xml/Civ4EventInfos.xml"